Recently, I hastily posted about the drawing power of 5th Edition D&D in the context of trying to attract players to my monthly OSR game. Happily, I admit that the post was not exactly well-researched, as I am neither gaming guru nor blessed with oodles of time. Still, it served as a precursor to more detailed ruminations on gaming culture – more specifically inspired by a reply to my previous post on Mastodon, advocating that I should read an essay called Six Cultures of Play, where the author names six distinct historical gaming cultures in RPGs: Classic, Trad, Nordic LARP, Story Games, OSR, and OC / Neo Trad.

Taxonomies are great at creating order from the chaos of human reality, but it is wise to bear in mind that history is not neatly divided into such periods of time and local culture. Still, there is merit in looking at RPG gaming culture through this lens, because it allows us to clarify our positions as players in a hobby that has now been around long enough that newcomers finding their way in through an online phenomenon like Critical Role are often ignorant of the game’s beginnings.

But is it really necessary for a player to know, like the back of their hands, the history of the earliest days of RPGs? It certainly doesn’t matter at all to having fun at the table, but it does matter a great deal to many people who have been in the hobby for a long time. This usually finds voice in endless posts about old-school play versus 5th edition. Allow me to call that out for what it most often is: the derision of newcomers by people who used to be part of the in-group, but who now find themselves older and out of touch. I should know, as I’m part of that old group!

In the Six Cultures essay, there’s an interesting quote about the OSR: “…OSR is not “classic” play. It’s a romantic reinvention, not an unbroken chain of tradition.”

There have long been ruminations on the origins of the OSR, what it really means, and whether certain games fit the mold or not. Again, we’re back to taxonomies! In reality, we’re just building our own tribes here: The 5th edition tribe, the OSR tribe, the Classic tribe, and so on. These tribes provide us with meaning. They allow us to feel like we’re part of something bigger than ourselves, in much the same way that religion does. And like religion, the narratives we spin around these local gaming cultures become flashpoints for arguments and bad behaviour. This is simply nothing more than people strongly identifying with something that is hugely important to them and trying to convince others that their way is the only right way.

In reality, the OSR can only ever be a view of the past through a specific lens from the present because the past has vanished and history is a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces that beckons curious minds. My bet is that many people who play Old School Essentials and other OSR products have never read Principia Apocrypha or Matt Finch’s Old School Primer. These texts purport to lay out the foundations for playing in the “old-school” style, much associated with D&D rules from the 70s and early 80s. In this sense, they are akin to religious texts outlining the correct way to play these games, as opposed to modern games.

Rulings, not Rules

One way that many people define OSR games is through the idea of rulings over rules. Finch lays this out through some lucid examples concerning a party of adventurers trying to detect and disarm a trap. Using this example, he extols the apparent virtues of “old-school” gaming because the DM prioritises rulings over rules and creates a more liberating style of play as opposed to the roll-heavy play of certain modern games.

The problem with this example is that it would have you believe that players in the past rarely made rolls during these situations, and that’s simply untrue. It may be that Matt Finch and his buddies played in this way, but one cannot apply it to every group. It’s as contrived as dividing RPG history into neat periods of time and play styles. I was playing Tunnels & Trolls – a product of 1975 – in 1988 with my game group. And the 80s were a period of time during which TSR moved firmly into telling stories and emphasizing epic campaigns through products like Dragonlance and Ravenloft while we were still cleaving Goblins in dungeons!

Marketing & Culture

D&D has always been at the weird intersection of marketing and cultural phenomenon, and it’s wise to consider the role of market research and profit-making in the creation of game mechanics. Having characters bite the dust because they rolled 1d4 for starting Hit Points at Level 1 is probably not great for players who just want to get into their character’s backstory. Better to recast characters as local heroes who start out strong and robust! In such cases, Wizards of the Coast has a lengthy history making their games appeal to the widest possible audience.

Personally, I’ve never subscribed to buying gaming products from a single company. As much as I love D&D, I moved away from the game quickly in the mid-80s, often because I had very little money for buying the torrent of products the game spawned. The story-arc obsessed TSR of the 1980s was only a small part of my local gaming culture because none of us had disposable income or parents who would seek out expensive rule books for us. I have no doubt that my dislocation from the marketing power of a single company affected the gaming culture I and my friends experienced, and led to me playing Tunnels & Trolls – which was a single inexpensive paperback.

Thus, the dividing cultural line between older games based on tactical play and newer games emphasising epic campaigns was of no interest to me because I was too busy playing the few games I could afford as a teenager. It’s very easy to extrapolate this situation and apply it to local gaming cultures around the world too. Gaming historians and rules archaeologists might obsess over detail and taxonomies, but local gaming cultures often don’t fall into those neat boxes.