Month: June 2023

“OSR is dead” is nonsense gatekeeping

I think if you need any proof that the OSR is living is to see how much naysayers continually feel the need to tell you that it is in fact, dead. Now you might provide obvious examples to all their arguments – there are still new and changing ideas coming out of it, and there are more people playing the “style” (by which I mean old school games and games inspired by such, I am referring to a much larger player base than just people who quote the Principia Apocrypha) than ever.

One of the most important points about the OSR is that it was not a recreation of some mythologized past. When you play an OSR game, you are most likely not playing how they did in the 70s. Granted, the styles of play were so diverse that maybe you are playing something in the ballpark similar to one particular campaign back then, but most likely that’s not the case. And there was certainly not one particular style, probably from the point that Dave ran a game for Gary & co., and then Gary started running for his players.

This “OSR is dead” as a whatever scene is doing similar mythologizing – it’s pointing to a hyped subsection of one OSR scene as the scene. It’s usually saying either the scene you participated in, or the scene your friends talked about was the real OSR, and since current OSRs are different, they’re obviously artistically or stylistically or thematically or whateverically “dead.”

It’s straight-up saying “the past I remembered was the one true way, and anything that existed contemporaneously to that wasn’t really part of the OSR, and anything after it is dead/undead/unliving.”

Go grab three random adventures or games or supplements prior to 2019. Go jump on a blog, a forum, and a chat room at that period. Grab Assault on Blacktooth Ridge and The God that Crawls and tell me that those two are part of a single, centralized artistic movement. Try to tell me that the K&KA OSRIC folk were part of some central discussion with the GLOG kids.

One of the killer features of “the” OSR was that it was decentralized, so I don’t see how saying “well there are more people now so it’s even MORE decentralized” is any further indication that this concept is dead, if anything it’s proof that its growing.

I have yet to see any argument that the OSR is dead is anything more than “the past that I remembered has more positive qualities than the past I didn’t participate in, or the present that is different from what I remember or was told about.”

Doomed Reach Session 4

Characters

  • Amon Amarth, the Dwarf Cleric of Holy Law
  • Kalos, the recently masterless Magic-User
  • Maur Stern, Cleric of Holy Law
  • Cirrel, Elven Herald
  • Florby, Elven Alchemist
  • Brother Murray, Cleric of the Light Above
  • Ki-Mun, the Dwarven dandy
  • Torin, the sneaky axe-wielder

Downtime

Our characters begin by recounting prior adventurers and shoring up an additional hireling to account for previous losses.

Florby convinces his hireling, who owned a Saint’s head, to put the head in a pot of water for a week. They then paid a street urchin to drink some of the water and found it to have a mild numbing effect.

Brother Murray continued teaching his pigeon and goat more adventuring tricks.

Cirrel was granted an audience with Lady Mecit, a new-to-the-Reach noble looking to reclaim her uncle’s manor after he went mad. He retrieved more information on the manor and promised expedition funding should the party agree to it.

Adventure

Our group returned to the very chaotic caves, witnessing a floating geode on the way that radiated a freezing field, wilting the plants it came across.

As they climbed the peak above the caves, they witnessed that the cultists had rigged up some noise instruments attached to decapitated zombie heads in their wooden watchtower overlooking the gully, seemingly to drone noise when noticing nearby living. Torin snuck up to the tower and quickly dispatched the grotesque sentries.

Succeeded in preventing alarm, they went to the caves and saw a new trap rigged, a mechanism to shut a portcullis behind invaders, and opening one in the hallway to unleash zombies. Having been cautious, the party downed the zombies with ranged implements, but not before the foul undead could cause much noise.

Traversing to the south, they entered the circular chamber that held a vat of writhing, living gore. Florby begged that they determine if this monstrous flesh creature was sentient and evil. Amon Amarth interrogated the mass but determined its gasping and wailing to be that of a chaotic being.

Seeing bloody tracks on the ground leading out of the room and checking its direction revealed two giant spider beings wearing cloaks, medallions, and weapons. The adventurers engaged them in combat, casting light into one’s many eyes, blinding it, and dumping holy water and fire onto the flesh creature, which rose to strike the party.

After a short battle and only a few wounds, they chased the blind spider to a dead end. The cursed being told them it had recently been recruited by the cult with its brother and that only six other cultists remained, hurriedly trying to bolster their numbers. It also revealed to them a secret door to the outside, but this was not enough to save it, as the party imparted fatal justice to the creature.

They wandered the complex some more – finding the ruby skull room from the previous week reset, they also found a room full of bones and shattered skulls, and Cleric Stern was able to locate a small emerald within. They also retrieved some silver and a pendant from the pit of burned gore.

Progressing north, they found an altar room with black marble pillars depicting humans in agony and bronzed ritual implements, as well as a fine tapestry depicting the Sanguine Skull’s dominance. Continuing to delve, they ambushed four cultists in the middle of a ritual to empower a glowing red skull and smote these acolytes and the skull.

They finally stumbled upon a massive ritual room, with the undead head priest and his ghoulish assistants getting ready to call forth something from the dark. Amon Amarth stepped up and repelled the ghouls with his faith just before they could ring some hideous bell, while the rest of the party engaged the high priest and came out victorious, although slightly shaken by a fear spell.

The ghouls ran from the priest into a room full of skeletal statues similar to those in the ruby skull throne room. Deciding not to enter, they doused the room in oil and ignited the ghouls.

The party then went about stripping this floor of the dungeon bare of goods – tearing tapestries from the walls, plunging priests’ quarters for magical items, and returning to town with many artifacts to trade for silver, as well as the reward and praise from the Bishop.