When did the OSR begin? 2008.

I was looking through a box of some of my old gaming stuff and I ran across a bunch of old OSR zines and DIY supplements from 15+ years ago. I thought, wow, this stuff is pretty old now. And some of it's probably pretty rare too. I wonder if there's any collector interest in early OSR material?

Then I started to wonder... when did the OSR actually began? As a popular renaissance?

I'm honestly surprised the term "OSR" continues to resonate with so many people. The OSR has become synonymous with a major, thriving niche of the roleplaying ecosystem. Kickstarters for clearly OSR-inspired games like Shadowdark bring in over a million bucks. Many creators of new OSR material look pretty young to me - they were probably kids back when all this began. Amazing. Back in the early days I thought the OSR would never amount to more than a current discussion topic that would fade out after a while. I never predicted it would evolve into a long-lived, influential subculture of tabletop gaming.

Like a lot of people, I first became exposed to OSR concepts from reading James Maliszewski's Grognardia blog. The year for me was 2008 - the year Grognardia first appeared. I would argue that one of Grognardia's opening posts, "What's a Grognard", was one of the key events in the history of the OSR. Why? Because it provided a label for old school gamers to self-identify.

Of course, before Grognardia there had always been a community of gamers that resisted new editions of D&D. Especially 3rd and 4th edition D&D. This community was centered around online forums like the Knights and Knaves Alehouse and Dragonsfoot. So while the seeds of the OSR existed in venues like this, I don't think they really marked the beginning of an actual popular renaissance - they were fairly insular communities of true old timers. Not new recruits. Grognardia and similar blogging outlets like Jeff's Gameblog and ChicagoWiz's RPG Blog reached a far wider audience, I think. An audience that included lapsed gamers like myself. I stopped playing D&D when 2nd edition was released and Magic: The Gathering shook up the scene. I then got back into RPGs with the OSR. I saw in the OSR blogosphere others like me that missed playing the original TSR flavors of D&D and related games. I did not find this community by stumbling on Knights and Knaves Alehouse - I found it by browsing blog lists. And the blog explosion started in 2008. The year I started this blog too, haha.

Another important thing that happened in 2008 was that Matt Finch released a document: "Quick Primer for Old School Gaming", which I feel was an important manifesto that concisely described the appeal of the OSR flavor of gaming. I'm not sure how widely read this document is now, because the concepts are taken for granted (which is good), but at the time it was widely shared and discussed. This document coincided with Finch's 2008 release of his excellent OD&D retro-clone Swords & Wizardry. Dan Proctor's B/X retro-clone Labyrinth Lord was also released around 2007 or 2008. I scooped up both these games and played the heck out of them, especially Labyrinth Lord. The first OSR zine Fight On! was published in 2008 as well. Looking back, it's amazing to think how much important stuff happened in that one year: 2008. I didn't really realize the creative density of that year until writing this post.

So, yeah... 2008. 

The OSR began in 2008.

By the way, I'm starting a new Cyclopeatron Instagram feed. Check it out here: https://www.instagram.com/cyclopeatron/

Witchlight Snail Race with Custom Miniatures

I'm running Wild Beyond the Witchlight for the neighborhood kids. If you're not familiar with the campaign, it opens with the PCs visiting the Witchlight Carnival, where they stumble through a funhouse mirror and end up in a region of the Feywild controlled by three sister hags. The typical narrative is that they then defeat the hags, free the original ruler of the land, and find a way home.

The carnival episode itself is fun, and consists of the PCs visiting booths and playing carnival games. One of the games is a snail race. For this session I sculpted a bunch of snail miniatures beforehand, and when the kids came over we had a painting session so each kid could paint racing colors on their snails. I modified the racing rules slightly to to play out the game along an oval using measuring tape. It was a big success, especially with various cheating and surprises happening (random table in book). The kids got to keep their snails after the game, of course.

On your marks! Get set!

Go!

Pre-race snail painting

The campaign is going well. We're about halfway through it at this point. I've needed to make it a little more gritty and fighting-oriented for this bunch, though. Tone down the whimsy a bit. But not too much.

Now... I gotta get my Gen Con schedule worked out before the May 19 event deadline... Any tips on good sessions to sign up for?

My Weekly Game

My weekly game with the neighborhood kids. They just completed the good old Sunless Citadel. They limped out into the sunlight with their pockets full of rare fungi and the ultimate prize - the cyst-like "apple" of the Gulthias Tree. One of the little dudes jumped up on the table on started dancing! Super solid group, here!

This old blog keeps getting lots of traffic. Over a million views now. Maybe I'll try to post some more. And/or do something gaming related over on Instagram.

Gen Con 2019 - Pictures and Brief Recap

Last August me and my local gaming pals, Steve Ellis and Matt Ryan, made a road trip to Gen Con. Steve is an artist who does the excellent Only Living Boy comic, and also illustrates for many of the major gaming companies like Fantasy Flight, Wizards, etc. If you've ever played any of the Fantasy Flight Cthulhu games, you've almost certainly seen some of Steve's art. Matt does maps for Chaosium, among other things, and was a writer for Ars Magica (5th ed). So yeah, nerd party!

I used to go to a fair number of gaming cons, but that was my first Gen Con experience. Steve goes every year for professional reasons - he almost always has a booth on artists alley. I'd always wanted to go since seeing the ads in the back of my Dragon mags back in the 80s, so going with Steve, who has the connects to get a hotel room nearby, was a no brainer. Obviously Gen Con is a totally different thing now than it was then. Well, maybe not totally different...

Here's me and Lou Zocchi, the original master of randomization. His booth is probably the single best direct link to the classic spirit of Gen Con. If you go to Gen Con you MUST stop by to see him and buy some dice. Check this insane original Range 1 digital randomizer he had:

Gen Con was especially sweet for me this year because I got to meet up with my niece, Celeste Conowitch, who was there DMing a live Twitch feed for Wizards. Long time readers might remember this old post, from when Celeste was 16 and running an all-girls D&D game. Now she hosts a popular D&D actual play podcast called Venture Maidens, is a frequent guest on many other podcasts, and is publishing 5e material with Onyx Path and Kobold Press. Here's Steve, Celeste, and myself hanging out Steve's booth (Steve did the cover for Celeste's Blood Sea book from Onyx Path):

By the way, I ran into GWAR in the hallway near the Chaosium rooms:

Paizo is a huge thang at Gen Con. I was curious to try out Starfinder, so I played in one of their "adventure path" games, which was ridiculous and pretty much sucked. Not because the system was bad, necessarily, but the tired, unengaged gamemaster was basically reading each step of the adventure off of a laminated card and we just did a scripted series of easy combats and guided dice roll games. Lame. I think a lot of people spend most of their Gen Con time grinding through these "path" games to build up their characters. The size of the Paizo gaming hall is difficult to imagine unless you've been there. It was pretty impressive:

I did play a lot of excellent games, especially hanging around the Chaosium rooms with Matt, including Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, and Pendragon. So maybe I'll talk more about those games later. But probably the best surprise of Gen Con for me was all the artists showing off their work. I spent a long time checking out the work and chstting with artists. I ended up buying a piece from Jon Sideriadis, who ended up winning the Jury Prize for Best Artist. I will definitely write more about Jon's art in a future post.

There ya go... some good memories. I'll be going back in 2020, so we can talk more about that too.

12 Years of Cyclopeatron

I started this blog in 2008. That’s a long time ago. The blog peaked in 2010/2011. Then I had kids, two boys, and had to keep focus on my day job (professor) to get tenure. I ended up getting tenure, and even better, I was recruited to join the faculty at Cornell University. The move to NY shook up my gaming life, and most other aspects of my life, and I had to find a new gaming crew. I also had to raise little kids and run a growing genetics lab. So, yeah, the blog slipped away. That’s why I haven’t posted for 6 years.

I have been gaming though. I gamed with several of local groups. Dungeon World, Castles & Crusades, D&D, Call of Cthulhu, board games, miniature games. There are a ton of cool gamers, artists, and developers around Ithaca, and there's no shortage of opportunities to play. Around 2013 I ran a ~10 session white box campaign in the cloud mines of Catheign which was awesome, but I couldn’t keep it going with adult schedules and family pressures. Some of the players traveled in from pretty far.

Things are very different for me now, though. I have an amazing group of local RPG friends, both my kids are D&D players, I run a weekly D&D game for kids that I have a lot to say about, and I was promoted to Full Professor, so I have a bit less pressure than before. And, importantly, the new edition of D&D arrived over the period of blog dormancy. This new edition is really good, in my opinion. And, more generally, over the last few years it seems like the entire cultural institution of fantasy role playing has changed in North America–not only because of the new D&D, but because of various cultural, technological, and generational forces as well. Twitch, Instagram, Stranger Things, DM's Guild, more and bigger conventions, actual play shows like Critical Role, generational transmission of the game, entertainment industry movers and shakers talking up D&D, etc. It's been fun for me in this world. Gaming, creating, and navigating the expanding landscape. I predict, or at least hope, that we will see interesting things happening within the next few years when this newer generation of players (including returning adult players) burns out on the Forgotten Realms and Ravnica pastiches served up by Wizards, and starts branching out to find their own voices.

And there is amazing new art to look at too.

So maybe we can talk about all this a little bit...

Should I revive this blog?

So, I'm thinking about signing up to run a game at GenCon this year (2020). Probably a 5e overhaul of the CACODAEMON TRANSLUCENT PLANETOID scenario I ran at SoCal Minicon in 2011 (see review of session by Telecanter here). Cosmic horror Spelljammer essentially.

I'd love to talk about this, and other material, some more. Share art. etc.

Also, I'm thinking about starting this blog again after... um... 6 years...?

Is anyone still out there?

Are blogs still even a thing anymore?

;)

Menoth Avatar Conversion with Scourge of Heresy Sword

I've been working on improving the Avatar of Menoth to make it look a little more threatening, as it should. I want to get this thing on the table, though, so I'm trying not to get too bogged down in a major conversion project. Here are my selected efforts:

1. To get the old boy out of squatty potty stance, I sawed off the legs just below the knees, and lengthened and repositioned them with thick pins. After this I sculpted new calves with green stuff and gave everything a good sanding to blend it all together.

2. To give the Avatar a scarier looking sword that's more suggestive of his Reach ability I bought a Scourge of Heresy sword from the PP web site. I snipped the old sword off the hand and replaced it with the new weapon using some green stuff for touch up. Looks good, I think!

Original "butter knife" sword (LEFT) compared to Scourge of Heresy sword (RIGHT)

3. To make the model a bit more animated I clipped the sword arm above the elbow and re-pinned it at a slightly rotated angle. I also angled the sword hand forward a bit.

4. I assembled the model in a running position, with sword held high, and right foot held behind. The whole model is attached to the base by a large pin in the left foot. I hope that's good enough! It seems pretty solid...

Good cartoon

Jesse Moynihan's MANLY. So good.





P.S. I'm still alive. Playing miniatures. Current X-wing champ of Tompkins Co., NY playing Whisper and mini-swarm. Still working on getting my Warmachine army painted... Maybe I'll post some pics...

Best animation for today

Cyclope from marine duchet on Vimeo.

Half million hits (!) and a hiatus for miniature gaming

Wow. I noticed this blog has now exceeded 500,000 hits and 600 followers (counting Blogger and G+). It's a mystery to me why this is the case since I haven't been adding much content for the last year or two. Old posts still get a ton of hits from Google searches though...

Real life has gotten intense lately with serious time pressures from my job and family life. It's all wonderful stuff, but it's hard to handle late nights of gaming when the spawn awaken at 6am every morning.

So yeah, without actual play inspiration the blog has slowed to almost nothing - especially since the second born arrived. I'm pretty much on RPG hiatus at the moment because I can't handle long games and this Spring semester I'm going to be super busy. I need way more sleep than the normal person to function properly.

My gaming lately has focused more on stuff I can do in bite-sized chunks of time. Skirmish-scale miniatures mostly. In particular X-Wing Miniatures, which is totally fun and looks really cool on the table. I am also painting up a Warmachine faction (Menoth) for imminent deployment. I can play these skirmish games in ~1 hour, which fits my life right now. I can also paint minis in the evening, which is something that I find supremely calming.

Han Solo versus Boba Fett. Fun stuff.

My Perception vs. Player Perception

In our last session the party climbed into a hole in a cloud. At the bottom - deep inside the cloud - they found a small river leading to a dark lake, the extent of which they could not make out in the dim light. Gemma the dwarf and Dvin the gnome eased out to the end of a rickety boardwalk extending out over the water. Just below the surface of the water, at the edge of the light, bones were emerging from the water. They clicked and they clacked and the water bubbled, and the bones self-assembled into a bridge extending from the darkness towards the party. Fingerous phalanges eventually wiggled out of the water near the adventurers, as the terminus of the bridge pulled itself up onto the boardwalk. At the edge of the light, ghouls with scabbed, cracked faces shambled across the bridge towards the party, and animated skeletons emerged, self-assembling, from the body of the bridge itself. A tough fight! The party won! The adventurers then walked across the skeletal bridge to a small island, where they found a prize in the ghoul refuse: a small golden orb bearing microscopic engravings - a map of an unknown world.

...so the whole session was basically a single encounter. I thought it was a good, fun encounter and I had a blast as the DM. I felt a little disappointed afterwards, however, because there wasn't much in the way of exploration, narrative advancement, or NPC interaction in the game. I try to have every session present a good splash of each of these elements because it's the kind of stuff I like when I play. Also, there was a lot more chit-chat than usual that night (which is cool, the players are friends, some of whom I haven't seen in a while), music was playing the background, and there were plenty of miniatures and gratuitous Dwarven Forge settings - all in violation of immersion dogma! I had fun, but I wasn't sure how "well" I did as a DM...

Within the fews days after the session, however, three of the players separately mentioned to me how much they liked the session - especially the skeleton bridge. Ok, cool!

Dear Princess Celestia: Although this truth should always be self evident, it's important for me to always remember that sometimes it's okay to have a simple night of beer, metal, monster killing, and treasure fondling. As a Dungeon Master I shouldn't fret too much about packing every single session with mapping, dialogue, and weird characters. The simple, perennial pleasures of death dealing and leveling-up will never disappoint anyone who plays the game of Dungeons & Dragons.

Session 7 ghoul smashing music:

ACKS Minimal Edition for OD&D Fans

If I were going to start a new campaign I would almost certainly go with the Adventurer Conqueror King System for a ruleset. For me this game hits closer to the sweet spot between crunch, flexibility, and user friendliness than perhaps any of the other retro D&D-inspired systems out there. I was aware of ACKS when I started my current campaign, but decided not to adopt it because the core rulebook is still a bit too long and fluffy for my tastes. It contains a lot of material that is of extremely high quality, but is largely extraneous for my own campaign.

Damn. If I had only known about THIS:

The ACKS Character Codex. This book is a beautiful thing. It is the core of ACKS system condensed into a small digest-sized booklet. It's essentially a Men & Magic or Player's Handbook for ACKS. And it's only $4.45 on Lulu! (This isn't an advertisement, by the way - I have no connection to the creators of this item.) This means if a referee wants to adopt the system, they could afford to buy a stack of copies to hand out to players. The referee could then use the more voluminous core book as a reference.

This book looks great. Here you can see it compared to the Grey Co. Spellbook supplement and the original Men & Magic:

Here's the title page:

Tavis Allison tipped me off on this thing. Apparently the Codex is not considered an official Autarch publication, however Tavis tells me that an official version of the Codex is on Autarch's lengthy to-do list. Let Autarch know if you want more stuff like this. I do!

Best Superhero Flick?

Mr. Gorgonmilk was wondering about trends in the quality of superhero movies. I'm not a big movie guy - actually I hate almost all movies - so I admit that I couldn't think of many superhero movies that transcended being merely watchable. I did, however, recall this scene from 1978...



Cinema doesn't get much better than this... At least in the opinion of Cyclopeatron...

Brief Log of Catheign Sessions

Friday night was Session 7 of our Cloud Mines of Catheign OD&D game. Below is a brief log of sessions, localities, and loot for the campaign, primarily for the benefit of those involved in the game. Hopefully I'll get to post some better descriptions and illustrations related to the game, but unfortunately it's been hard for me to find much time for blogging these days...

Primary PCs:

Bas – human thief (played by Reese of Kingdom's in Trevail)

Dvinsfeldfar – gnome MU

Broom - human cleric (played by Nathan of Secrets of the Shadowend)

Gemma - fighting dwarf

Kale - fighting man

Occasional PCs (currently residing at Inn in Tilman’s Grove):

Skuldge - human MU (played by Greg of Gorgonmilk)

Rufus – Fighting ½ giant

PCs gone or dead:

Sillus – fighting lizard man of Peis

Nix – cleric, left Catheign

Flurd – MU, left Catheign

Hu – fighting man, RIP

Session 1

            Arrival at Tilman’s Grove, Catheign

            Triangulation of cloud mine, initial foray up to first level

            Janis and Filby hired to join party

            RIP Hu and Filby

            Items recovered:

                        Goggles of Seeing Through Dense Mist

                        Some minimal goblin coinage

Session 2

Meia and Janis join party

            Thorough exploration of first level of cloud mine

            Goblin fights

            Ghoul falls from sky onto roof of first level

            Items recovered:

                        6 gold ingots

                        Scroll: ESP

                        Mic. Jewelry worn my vain goblins

                        Silver dagger with ancient script

Session 3

            Discovery and initial exploration of High Star Garden

            Zymos moondial, Gadeaxe stardial, Orchid of the cloud fountain

            Confrontation with ghouls seeking Dvin’s snuffbox

            Borgus the goblin, and his basket of black mushrooms

            Items recovered:

                        4 gold bracelets

Session 4

            Initial exploration of Low Pyramid of High Star Garden

            Room of animated mosaics

            Gol stonecutter Frammus

            Battle with Mielle’s Guard

            Death of Meia

            Items recovered:

                        Unidentified fungus

                        2 ancient, inscribed short swords

                        gold bracelet

                        90 gp

                        ring of feather fall

                        MU scroll: magic missle, invisibility

                        Dagger (unremarkable)

                        Meia’s Gem

                       

Session 5

            Exploration of low pyramid

Note from Mielle and encounter with Mielle’s projection

            (stopped session in burnt library)

            Items recovered:

                        Small silver effigy of fine workmanship

                        124 platinum pieces

Session 6

            Continued exploration of low pyramid         

Chased Mielle to shanties as base of observatory tower

            Crash of wasp-covered wooden orb into the star garden

            Discovery of excavation at base of observatory tower and undercloud river

    

Session 7

            Spiked down excavation wall to undercloud river

            Encounter with self assembling skeletal bridge

Ghoul encounter

            Broom paralyzed by ghoul, almost drowns

            Small island with old statue

            Items recovered:

Finely engraved orb map of unknown planet

Alternate XP Systems

I've always used the original method of calculating XP by counting up gold pieces and kills. Over the last few years I've also started awarding XP for magic items using the charts in the AD&D DM's Guide. A lot has been written about the pros and cons of this traditional approach, so I won't go into it here.

I have to admit, though, that I am certainly not alone in finding it frustrating when mid-level characters have to acquire swimming pools of gold pieces, impossibly huge gemstones, or Satan's Pitchfork itself to advance at a reasonable rate (at least given my gaming frequency, which is only two or three sessions per month). I don't have a specific objection to massive wealth accumulation - it worked for Conan, right? - but sometimes it doesn't jibe well with the flavor I want to go for in my games. I mean, goblins wearing jewelry is pretty weird and cool and I'm definitely down for that, but it gets progressively more difficult to keep monster stashes fresh and in line with a gygaxian naturalist universe. Also, the arnesonian approach of squandering gold for experience doesn't work in my games since characters are almost always traveling through some manner of proverbial Night Land, not hanging out in taverns.

There are a huge number of XP tweaks and alternate systems out there. My head starts spinning when I think of trying out new house rulings. There's a tricky trade off spanning multiple parameters including complexity and ease-of use, transparency, rigor and consistency, and meta-gaming effects (i.e. players change their character's actions in order to game the XP system). I see three common approaches to houseruling advancement:

XP-free leveling systems:

Here leveling is based on the accumulation of game sessions or encounters.

This probably works fine, but I have never tried it. This approach would completely nullify traditional class-specific advancement. Advancement tables are such a fundamental aspect of Dungeons & Dragons, I find it difficult to walk away from them. I don't give a crap about game balance, but class-specific advancement rate is an important stylistic component of D&D that underlies much of the flavor of the game.

Ad hoc XP systems:

ad hoc or abstract XP systems assign experience on a purely subjective basis at the end of each session. This approach is nicely described thus at the Paper & Pencils blog:

"Almost every game I’ve run as a GM has used a kind of ad hoc experience distribution system. I look up how many experience points are needed for the characters to reach the next level, and I give them whatever percentage of that number which I feel like they’ve earned. Most of the time I base that percentage on what speed of progression is optimal to keep the players in-step with events in my game world, rather than basing it off of challenges they have overcome."

In my opinion this opaque system is not very fair to the players. If a player chooses to be driven by character advancement, they should have some objective handle on what will work for them. I think effective refereeing requires some degree of objectivity, even if it's partially an illusion.

Category tweaks:

Going back to the very beginning of the hobby individual referees have tweaked the specific categories of experiences that can result in XP awards. Gygax's personal choice was to keep it simple - treasure and kills - but David Hargarve's Arduin, for instance, had a different, expanded set of categories that included interestingly sensible things like XP for being cursed, resurrected, or serving rear guard. Tweaking XP categories to fit one's campaign is time honored, old school tradition. It forces some important considerations, though:

Individual vs. Party XP: Moldvay was very specific that XP should be given to the party, and then divided equally among characters. This is what I have always done. It's so fast and simple. I also think it discourages tedious treasure grubbing conversations among players during or after a session. Individual XP is attractive because you can reward specific characters for noteworthy experiences or achievements, however routine implementation can result in serious bookkeeping overhead and arguments about referee fairness.

Slippery slope of categories: The obvious danger that Gygax worked to avoid by sticking to the original XP system is the increased complexity associated with adding categories. It's easy to write down dozens of things characters should get XP for, but what's the tradeoff in terms of bookkeeping, "realism", and enjoyment? I don't know...

Motivation: Your selection of XP categories could drastically influence your player's decisions. XP for gold encourages tomb raiding. XP for completed quests encourages railroading. XP for being cursed encourages self destruction (kind of cool, actually). None of this is necessarily good or bad, but it's real.

So... IF I decide to start houseruling XP to some degree, here's what I would probably do:

- Keep treasure and kill XP categories in place

- Add a few more categories to reward exploration, NPC interaction, and discovery

- Stick with party XP

- Possibly have a very small list of individual hargravian rewards, like for resurrection and curse

- Make a simple checklist to track party XP for each session

Hopefully I'll get a chance to think and post more on this topic. It's something I want to resolve in my mind. I'd be interested to hear about other ideas or approaches, especially if they've been playtested.

Relative Popularities of OSR Games

If G+ community size is any indicator...

634 - Swords & Wizardry
551 - Original D&D
549 - Dungeon Crawl Classics
512 - Advanced D&D
329 - Lamentations of the Flame Princes
236 - Adventurer Conqueror King
222 - Labyrinth Lord
209 - Castles and Crusades
208 - Basic Fantasy
143 - Talislanta
124 - Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea
119 - Adventures Dark and Deep
115 - Holmes Basic
110 - Basic / Expert D&D
97   - AD&D 2e
70   - Delving Deeper

For Reference:

2142 - Pathfinder
1465 - OSR Group
1430 - Dungeon World
1195 - Savage Worlds
733   - D&D Next
653   - D&D (4e)
437   - GURPS
365   - Shadowrun 

An Incredible Map by Luka Rejec

A petrified purple worm makes for an excellent tower, as shown in this fine map by Luka Rejec. Take a look at his other maps HERE, his game blog HERE, and his art blog HERE.