Thursday, April 2, 2009

Clean Up on Aisle 5

I consider OD&D, Holmes, Mentzer, and AD&D 1E and 2e (the core rules at least) to be cross-compatible, at least to the point of merely requiring some eyeballing of certain stats. If you pick up an adventure written for any one of them, you're good to go using it for any of the others.

Can we agree on that much?

So now, the simulacra. I consider Labyrinth Lord and OSRIC faithful to their sources, and I consider Castles & Crusades, Basic Fantasy RPG, Swords & Wizardry, and Spellcraft & Swordplay to be interpretational - certainly based in the spirit, but not in the form, of their source material.

That approach has led to some difficulties. I'm interested in publishing, but I'm not interested in doing so for any particular simulacrum. Everything I do is for the overall D&D (70s and 80s incarnations, anyway) umbrella, using the simulacra as my vehicle. In researching how to best do that, I've come across this.

Something's gone wrong. This was inevitable, because any sort of Greater Gaming Council to establish what is or is not a faithful and orthodox restatement of the rules would be mocked and have no authority anyway. Trusting that the individuals creating these things would come to a consensus in presentation would be foolish, since a belief in older D&D is itself a sign that an individual isn't concerned with a greater consensus in the first place. These are ground-up, individual (or small conclave) efforts. But these scattershot results absolutely kill what I want out of the "Old School Renaissance" and I fear will kill overall unity within the scene as it grows and inevitably fragments in the future.

You see, I don't care about the OSR or what you're doing when I sit down and play with my group, just like you don't care about my way of doing things when you sit down to play with your group. We have our individual styles and in a lot of ways that's
the whole point. But when I say, "I play Dungeons and Dragons," that used to mean something. Yes, there was variation, sometimes a lot of it, even when it was just a different guy from the group running that week, but the baseline was there and it was understood. Even with the "Basic" versions and AD&D, it was understood.


TSR took that away (Spelljammer and Dark Sun and Planescape, as cool as each may or may not have been, eroded the baseline D&D assumptions in ways that Greyhawk and the Realms and even Dragonlance never did), and WOTC crushed it dead. Now when I say "I play Dungeons and Dragons," all bets are off as to what the listener will interpret that to mean.


But with the differences between the different clones, and the efforts of some to not just use them to play or share ideas, but to publish and attempt to regain some of the actual standing that these games once had as living games (the original purpose of OSRIC, remember), and how some conflict between being faithful and being interpretational, is going to cause problems, and hardly creates a clear definition of anything. I fear it's an internecine edition war waiting to happen (it's already happened a bit, if you remember C&C vs OSRIC a couple years back, but for some reason C&C doesn't get counted as part of this movement), and all that's going to take is one of these things getting popular out there in the real world. This whole "OSR" or traditional gaming scene, or what have you, is a long-term failure if it doesn't get people interested and playing who are independent of the community as it stands (as in, not caring who wrote what, not reading the blogs, not buying a single one of our supplements, not joining the boards, etc).

I'm not so sure this thing has been positioned to be self-sustainable outside of creator contact, and I think that's a problem.
T
hose "TSR Gary" editorials were a bit heavy-handed in speaking about how people played at home (and exaggerating minor edition differences), but I just now re-read those editorials and find myself in agreement with the underlying point of having that base "official" line. Not as a mandate declaring how the game should be played or influencing how things are done at any individual table, but providing a common vernacular, a common point between the people and their wild house rules. It is one reason why I respect OSRIC as a body of work: the focus always seemed to be on preserving the 1e game (as it was and is played, not so much how it was originally presented), not in the individual writer's ideas or servicing a community. They really didn't monkey around with 1e when making OSRIC, did they?

If people are interested in creating compatibility solutions (and obviously they are, or that thread I linked above wouldn't exist and wouldn't have publishers participating in it), the answer is not in an after-the-fact publishing Rosetta Stone (that seems likely to deface publications with excessive and confusing statistical notations or bog down in legal footnotes that nobody but the original rules-writers will care about), but a summit of the creators to sit down and work out some mechanical standards to be applied within their own rules.
For a movement that's adopted "rulings, not rules" as something of a mantra, you sure do have to pay awfully close attention to each specific simulacrum's rules if you want to put something non-partisan out there.


At this point it's probably easier to just eschew the OGL and publish for Dungeons and Dragons by name than it is to actually publish something that would be compatible with the Dungeons and Dragons OGL-enabled restatements, if you're not interested in throwing your hat in with any particular version.

And we don't even have the Holmes, Mentzer, straight-0e, or (gulp) 2e simulacra out there yet. How messy is this going to get?

31 comments:

  1. For a movement that's adopted "rulings, not rules" as something of a mantra, you sure do have to pay awfully close attention to each specific simulacrum's rules if you want to put something non-partisan out there.

    That's the irony of it all isn't it?

    I think that you are getting the right idea about rpgs. In the end it's all just fun and games.

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  2. I have a visceral revulsion toward things smacking of legalese. This is one reason why I did not publish CARCOSA under the OGL.

    I think Guy Fullerton of Chaotic Henchmen Productions did an end-run around the whole retro-clone thing when he published his F1: The Fane of Poisoned Prophecies module. This module is not published under the OGL. Right on the cover it boldly states that it is for 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

    It almost pains me to point that out, since the retro-clone authors have obviously devoted a great deal of time and love to their retro-clones. But has Guy Fullerton shown the whole retro-clone endeavour to be unnecessary?

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  4. I think the retro-clone authors are just trying to increase sales or strength of this type of hobby.

    If modules can be used with all the individual systems, they will sell better than just beign usable with one or two. More people will play them.

    I know, they ARE usable, the differences are very minimal, but this will make it even easier for "new old-school players".

    I don't see anything wrong with that, and I don't see they are trying to oblige us to use their retro-clone games. They are just agreeing some point for a better coordination and camaraderie.

    If you say old-school is all about your individual self, why rant about what others are doing, and that have contributed to a reinessance that has given us Figh On! good forums and blogs and brought in new people and more notoriety?
    You can hobby all by yourself and ignore all what is happening. It won't affect you in the slightest way.

    - Zulgyan

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  5. >>If you say old-school is all about your individual self, why rant about what others are doing

    It's all about the individual group, not my individual self.

    As for ranting (and of anything I've ever written on this blog, I don't think this post counts as a rant), first, participation is more rewarding, especially in a social hobby, and there are things in the community that are inspiring and/or useful for individual games.

    Commenting, especially with dissenting opinions, helps keep the creative juices flowing and helps break up the clots of groupthink.

    I believe an atmosphere of honest and pointed criticism, where close skeptical inspection is the norm, is more helpful to the creative process than an atmosphere of "Yay us! Good job, dude!" as the default response to any action.

    >>You can hobby all by yourself and ignore all what is happening. It won't affect you in the slightest way.

    True, but being some sort of gaming John Galt (or a gaming ostrich) won't help anybody. I do think I have things to contribute.

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  6. >>But has Guy Fullerton shown the whole retro-clone endeavour to be unnecessary?

    I haven't seen it, so this is just a general statement rather than a critique of how he did it:

    If one did totally disregard copyright and trademark concerns and just published what they liked as they liked, how long before that gets shut down? Would the details ever be publicized so others could learn from their mistakes?

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  7. I am not particularly clear on the problem being addressed here. You can publish stuff without the OGL, you can publish stuff using the OGL, you can publish stuff using the OGL and claim compatibility with various simulacrum games. The only thing you cannot do is publish using the OGL and claim compatibility with Dungeons & Dragons.

    Kenzer & Company showed the OGL and simulacrum games to be unnecessary back in the 90s when they published Kalamar and a string of adventures advertised as being compatible with AD&D, Role Master, and Hack Master (non-existent at that time).

    All the simulacrums present is a way to more safely publish stuff compatible with their source material. If you want an SRD that is in fact a universal language, then you will not find one. So what, though? What exactly is the problem? Bits that don't quite fit together?

    Just publish, and let the game master convert for his own milieu, he's going to anyway.

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  9. Jim:
    I sometimes think your posts, while maybe not wrong in content, are many times very wrong in form. I'm not looking for people to say "Yay us! Good job, dude!", but to do their legitimate criticism in a way that is less insulting and pedantic.

    But I'll quit now, I'm not anybodies daddy.

    - Zulgyan

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  10. Today is just a great day for blogs. Lord of the Green Dragons and now your blog, it's just too good to be true.
    I would like to add that you could add 3rd and 3.5 to that list of compatable material. One could covert something from ODnD to 3.5 and vice versa with little to no pain.
    I'm just shocked that such a thing would come up though. I do know that it's a labor of love to work on such material but to place such restrictions on clones/simulacra, it's like saying that "we spit in your face, Gary". They have taken his material, broke it down, and rebuilt it from the ground up, placing there label on it at the end. All of this was allowed, thanks to the OGL. I don't know if they are trying to follow in another companies footsteps when they came up with this discussion, but Paizo too has come up with it's own OGL, but their's is far more lenient. I will probably read more of that forum post tomorrow and see what is said, but at this point, I just can't believe it.

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  11. >>it's like saying that "we spit in your face, Gary"

    I don't believe anybody intended to, or has, insulted Gary's memory with their simulacrum work.

    I just think that due to a lack of coordination, several people pursuing similar goals have created an unnecessarily complicated situation.

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  12. At this point it's probably easier to just eschew the OGL and publish for Dungeons and Dragons by name than it is to actually publish something that would be compatible with the Dungeons and Dragons OGL-enabled restatements, if you're not interested in throwing your hat in with any particular version.

    It certainly is. Or, at least, "compatible with TSR-era D&D" or something.

    I've said somewhere in my blog a while ago that the retro-clones are mostly a shibboleth: if somebody says the magic words (Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry) it's like a key to some special club. Suddenly people of a similar mind can say - "Aha! This guy likes what I like." A badge of belonging that all the initiated can see, but the outsiders can't.

    This is both good and bad. Good because it helps you find people who might share your particular gaming interest (if you say "D&D" you might end up with 4e-lovers - argh!), but on the other hand it's stifling and prevents growth. This is why if I ever release anything into the world, I'll probably just stick "compatible with older editions of D&D and its retro-clones" on the cover and be damned.

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  13. >>I sometimes think your posts, while maybe not wrong in content, are many times very wrong in form.

    You're right. Sometimes.

    I have presentation issues. Anyone who's read both printings of the Creature Generator can tell you that (I consider the Goodman Games intro far superior to the one in my printing, even I completely understand why the original version looks the way it does).

    But if I don't get excited, then this whole writing gig doesn't work for me. Role-playing and other hobbies are pure personal choice and enrichment, and stifling myself in ways I have to in 'necessary' serious situations (job, school, family, friends) would kill the thrill of participating. It's pure creative freedom to succeed/fail without outside barriers. Sometimes I just enjoy stirring shit up. And sometimes I go too far.

    And sometimes I just seriously misjudge. I've posted some wild rants here that I was hoping would be a fist-pumping rallying cry "YEAH!!!!" that rather turned into clusterfucks. Yet this post here, I wrote it last week and held it back and wondered if I should just scrap it because I thought it was perhaps excessively incendiary and sometimes even I get tired of all the sniping back and forth.

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  14. Why does this 'the retro-clones are useless' bullshit keep coming up? I don't even care about the OSR, outside of the fact some of its members have blogs I enjoy reading, but it drives me batty anyway.

    OK, get this, people: there are thousands of gamers out there who started playing this millenium. That is, after AD&D went 3.0. This is indisputable. And I think this lot should be your target audience for expansion (see below), not people like me who have already played old editions and generally prefer different games for whatever reason.
    Indisputable point #2: there are X amount of AD&D, BD&D and OD&D books, as printed by TSR, out there. Many of these are not in circulation, as they are in the hands of fusty old collectors (like me) who may not even play with them. Many others are mouldering away in some basement, forgotten. Nevertheless, number X is only going to shrink as time wears on.
    Indisputable point #2A: You, yes, you, the reader, are not the most important person in the universe (I am, as a point of fact). Nobody cares that you have ten pristine copies of every book Gygax ever wrote.
    Indisputable point #3: Many of those people mentioned in the first point will not have played any edition of D&D prior to 3e. Many will, likewise, not want to buy a new set of books, which may or may not be pricey and/or in particularly good condition, from an unreliable source like EBay - or other similar auction sites. There are a variety of reasons why this would be so, including cost, preconceptions, satisfaction with what they have, etc. etc.

    Do you see where I'm going with this yet? No, the clones aren't redundant. They are probably the most powerful tool for conversion you lot have - free, nicely produced PDFs that anyone can get their hands on without expending much time, effort, or money on.
    Basically, these things aren't just for the preexisting members of the OSR. They're there for everyone, free, legal (side point: the pirated scans of the old TSR stuff floating around on the net are the shittest PDFs I've ever seen!) and lacking in that, admittedly quite charming, baroque prose that frequently obfuscates what the hell is supposed to happen. I remember a forum post I read in passing which described how the writer would GM from the original 1e books but would provide OSRIC as a reference for the players, so they'd know what's what without borrowing the books constantly. Beats buying everyone a PHB.

    I agree with Jim that in order to be a healthy movement, you need more dissenting voices, and that means more people. And new people need resources equivalent to those the old hands had when they were still wet behind the ears. The fact that the pool of existing books is only going to shrink means, you guessed it, their best bet are the retro clones.

    So, yeah, the clones have a point. The fact that, (a) any number of old fogies don't need new versions of books they already have and (b) that the publishing aims of the clones are no longer relevant, just doesn't mean that much at this point in the OSR's 'life' - you've already laid the groundwork.
    One last thing. OGL material also provides a jumping-off point for new old games like Mutant Future, which is fantastic. More stuff like that and less fantasy megadungeons, thanks guys.

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  15. I think folks are over thinking or over-worrying when things like the Rosetta agreement come-up.

    The various simulacra work together with a bit of hand waving.

    My group played B2, Wilderlands (necromancer box), Temple of Elemental Evil, Rappan Athuak and Book of Ruins (judgesguilg)all using BFRPG as our rules and we didn't need a conversion guide or any indications of cross-compatibility.

    The old-school market is small, you know about one odds are you know about another. As long as old-schoolers cross promote each other fairly (Blah has cool adventures over at blahblah using his game rules that are easily played using these rules) that's all the fan-base needs.

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  16. Yet this post here, I wrote it last week and held it back and wondered if I should just scrap it because I thought it was perhaps excessively incendiary and sometimes even I get tired of all the sniping back and forth.

    nah, this post is on point. things like the rosetta clone whatever... it's not just unnecessary it can be damaging. why try to standardize the different retro-clones and simulacra? It's going to end up sparking another fucking endless debate(it gives me a headache to think about it) amongst the 'old schoolers'.

    It's not difficult to pick up something made from labyrinth lord and use it in swords & wizardry. I mean, holy shit. I use stuff from all the different "old school" rules sets, modules, and blogs all the time and I play 4e. Why the fuck must there be a standardized one true way? Fucking mental politics....

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  17. I've said somewhere in my blog a while ago that the retro-clones are mostly a shibboleth...if somebody says the magic words (Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry) it's like a key to some special club...it's stifling and prevents growth

    @noisms - In my experience I've found it to be completely the opposite. The amount of creativity and growth that has resulted from the clones has been breath-taking. Having read your above comment and your blog entry on the subject, sadly I think you've missed the whole point of the retro-clone movement and what is happening in and through it.

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  18. While it may be easier to ditch the OGL it also involve assume more risk of getting a cease and desist letter from Wizards.

    Some people are just going to do take that risk and opt for the safe harbor of the OGL.I posted a fuller comment on my blog Bat in the Attic.

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  19. For a movement that's adopted "rulings, not rules" as something of a mantra, you sure do have to pay awfully close attention to each specific simulacrum's rules if you want to put something non-partisan out there.

    You yourself stated that you consider "OD&D, Holmes, Mentzer, and AD&D 1E and 2e (the core rules at least) to be cross-compatible, at least to the point of merely requiring some eyeballing of certain stats." If that's so, you don't need to worry too much about the specific rules of any given clone/simulacrum, do you? And if you do, doesn't that mean the game in question has wandered off the reservation, so to speak?

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  20. I have great love for all the retro-clones and the people publishing them, but I gotta say that taking the differences between LL and OSRIC seriously is missing the big picture. You might as well start printing "Compatible with 5 card draw, 7 card stud, and Texas Hold-Em" on packs of playing cards.

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  21. James, you rock and you suck, all in one post. I definitely want to go out drinking with you someday.

    Rules are tools. This is like arguing over Craftsman vs. Mac vs. Snapon, or 350 vs. 351 (OK, that's more of a religious debate, but you're talking to an old stock car racer so anyway...)

    A lot of people are going to do a whole lot of things specific to their interests and their work. I asked a question "Why is this an issue" (about compatibility) and I was told it's more about publishing than anything else. So I guess that 1) I don't worry about it so much, as it sounds like stuff that some people might want to put energy into, but in the long run it's not going to really make a difference in the "creative explosion" going on and 2) it's a screwdriver. Use it. Build stuff. Rinse. Repeat. If someone else wants to goldplate theirs, it's not going to affect me using it, or recommending it for others, or even making a cool screwdriver widget to plug into it.

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  22. >>Rules are tools.

    On the publishing side of things, they're also marketing. The specific names are important.

    >>I gotta say that taking the differences between LL and OSRIC seriously is missing the big picture.

    As the faithful ones, I don't consider them the problem. The OSRIC/LL difference is the same as the old "Basic"/Advanced D&D difference.

    >>you don't need to worry too much about the specific rules of any given clone/simulacrum, do you?

    Well, yeah, if I want to do an adventure and want the stats to be both succinct, and the marketing broad (as in, not any specific clone since every system I listed at the start of the post is essentially enabling the same thing).

    I would hope the end goal is to widen our base and not just sell to the same 137 people over... and expecting Joe Gamer to know what's what is stretching is considering a lot of plugged-in, RPG forum dwellers think that red box Mentzer is the original D&D.

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  23. I would hope the end goal is to widen our base and not just sell to the same 137 people over...

    Sure, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it if we don't. I long ago realized that the old school community is a lot more interesting to outsiders if we just do our thing and not worry about trying to find ways to make our stuff more accessible. I get way more than 137 people reading my blog everyday and many of them are 4e players and gamers who know nothing of D&D before WotC. They're interested in what we do and some of them will eventually make the leap to join us. We're already marketing to a broad base of the hobby and it's showing results (how else could Fight On! have sold as many copies as it has?) without any concerted plan.

    I think we're doing just fine.

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  24. >Rules are tools.

    On the publishing side of things, they're also marketing. The specific names are important.


    Only if we have a specific marketing agenda. As you've pointed out yourself, there's no one body or publisher - we're a bunch of guys all bumping heads and arms trying to express what we love and do something with it.

    It's like auto body - it's never pretty in the middle, but the end product is something of beauty. I think we're blessed to have so much creative activity, and I think it's a good thing. It's never going to be perfect.

    I also think that the "name" is less important than it is when you're the only kid on the block wanting to be bigger. Me, personally, I'm not looking for S/W to supplant anything - I do want to make it as accessible as possible for other people to be aware of and enjoy it. I'm not looking at marketing from a typical "take no prisoners" standpoint, but rather a loud, creative 'HERE WE ARE'. Same thing for OSRIC.

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  25. @David Macauley: Eh, that remark just tells me that you've completely missed the point of both my comment and the blog entry. But hey, that's just the nature of the beast I suppose.

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  26. Some folks -- well, me -- believe it's bad form to use someone else's trademark without permission just because you can. The OGL appears to provide a method by which fans of old games can put out relevant products without hijacking the D&D trademark from its (for better or worse) rightful current owners.

    There are all kinds of things you can do without getting in trouble, but that doesn't mean you should. Some things you don't do simply because they're wrong, even if the potential negative consequences are non-existent.

    I know reasonable people differ on this topic, but "will we get a C&D letter?" isn't the only consideration.

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  27. "TSR took that away (Spelljammer and Dark Sun and Planescape, as cool as each may or may not have been, eroded the baseline D&D assumptions in ways that Greyhawk and the Realms and even Dragonlance never did)"

    I'm not a particular fan of these products as such, but aren't OD&D boosters always gushing about how the original books had aliens and robots on the encounter tables and how the game is so much more than just the pseudo-medieval and so on? Yet TSR breaks that mold and gets demonized for it.

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  28. Good post. I don't understand why anyone would take exception at what you've said - you raise valid points. I'll admit that I generally miss some of the finer points that you (often) raise.

    I think the 'rosetta stone' effort is understandable,
    but over-complicated. A page (a few paragraphs really?) for the referee could cover conversion issues. I'd rather have that - it's potentially much more interesting than another frigging licence!
    Then the agreement would cover a common statement (the facts of which already known and agreed upon) instead of being a way to present the details in the body of the material.
    (this probably belongs in the forum...)

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  29. >>Some folks -- well, me -- believe it's bad form to use someone else's trademark without permission just because you can.

    Using the OGL to create a euphemism would seem to me to be the same kind of thing, with an added layer of *wink wink* dishonesty. I really can't say this triggers my moral alarms.

    I'd only get worked up over such a thing if a product claims to be from the trademark holder or hides its third-party, independent status.

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  30. On the publishing side of things, they're also marketing. The specific names are important.

    Correct. The law calls it trade dress. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_dress for a fuller explanation. This is exactly what make "Games rules can't be copyrighted" issue still a gray area.

    I'd only get worked up over such a thing if a product claims to be from the trademark holder or hides its third-party, independent status.

    From what I understand this is the main concern of US Law. That you don't pretend to be an official or endorsed product. Mainly this because of the intangible "goodwill" that a company builds to sell their product.

    If anybody remembers Firestone that is a classic example of the value of Goodwill and what happens when you lose it.

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  31. I don't understand why any author of a retro-clone would want object to someone putting eg "Compatible with Swords & Wizardry" on their OD&D-based adventure. Seems really dumb to me.

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