Home » Ancient Posts » Innovation in the OSR? Who Cares?    
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JD Neal

Those who create will continue to create. Even if they're creating nothing but the same thing everyone else has and what anyone else can…

JD Neal

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Anonymous

I have seen a lot of rule systems come and go. The ones that endure were the simple ones that did not get in the way of the actual game. Then there were the ones with so much "crunch" you spent more of your time fighting the rules not the monsters.

Harn, Living steel, Role Master, Tekumel all had wonderfully innovative worlds and settings…but the actual mechanics – painful to work through. Combat? usually too lethal to even attempt it. Other games went the other way Sky realms of Jorune, – nicely detailed world but with nothing to do in it and the combat system was an after thought. Nephilim – used the tried and trusted BRP system – had a novel idea but what could you do with it? I remember a whole slew of systems that came out around the late 90s where the worlds narrative and the rule system became so blurred it was impossible to figure out what the hell any of it was about. We went through decades of folk trying to reinvent the wheel so they could do dungeons and dragons. What won in the end? D20. One dice for skills and combat – extra dice for damage and the like. It worked and left everyone else to do world building.

I guess this is a long round-a-bout way of saying I agree with the authors last statement.

Venger Satanis

If innovation is a shield against same old, same old, then I think it's necessary. If it's merely "what if" masturbation, then, obviously, it's less useful.

ravencrowking

Innovation for the sake of innovation is pointless.