Everybody OSR - An Unwanted Analogy

from godard's alphaville - just LOOK at that stark lighting

Preface: I've always believed more art is better. Art is how we communicate. Art is how we reflect. Through art we find peace. In art we may find not just ourselves but each other. Games, their design, their layout, their writing, their adventures, all of that IS art. To say "we have enough systems" sounds the same to my ears as "we have enough people" - it's a callous knee-jerk reaction to a separate problem of commercialization that makes people see the wild valley of art as a "market" that can be "saturated." Yuck. So let no one think this is me saying "make less art," it's more a reflection of the ways we approach art!

Behind closed doors (and not the ones I've been let behind by a certain hand man's alter-ego), there's a lot of talk about how lots of designers who don't necessarily mull in the space of OSR end up wanting to take a crack at it. I for my part put forth an analogy that works pretty well, that felt worth sharing here!

It may not be apparent but I'm actually a huge cinephile. I've taken graduate classes on film studies, have a film certificate, have dabbled in my own light productions, and yes I've watched my fair share of films. Instead of me inappropriately comparing and framing my roleplaying escapades to theater, my brain worms think of them in terms of film. So when I see everyone taking their own stab at the OSR, this to me feels quite intuitive - It's similar (in many ways) to working in black and white for film.

Any film enthusiast worth their salt has seen some old-school black and white films, whether it's Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or  Duck and Cover. In the eye of the zeitgeist in has an immediate association with a kind of faux nostalgia, a retro appeal, the way things used to be, the tools of the people who first pioneered the art form. 

As a result the temptation to make a black and white film is two fold: Most practically it's cheaper and easier to make. Color film once cost more, and even if you're all-digital you don't have to worry about color grading and the like. (There's even some neat cheap tricks you can only do in black and white, like putting a stocking over the lens to give it that iconic soft look without obviously compromising color) - Secondly you get to engage with the history and roots of the medium with your own hands, challenge yourself and say "how would I approach making something in the limits of black and white as the greats once did." - Likewise the OSR prides itself on sparse layout (looking at the eye bleedingly blandly laid out masterpiece that is Wolves Upon the Coast) and a connection to the old-school, and further more "light" rules that favor GM rulings over excessive rules text (which uhhh may be more of a modern invention but I won't address that here - We'll say for now the actual Old School is more ~Ruleslite, Procedure Heavy~).

And (much like with the OSR) sometimes this exploration produces incredible results (just pick out any work from Jean-Luc Godard, or one of my all-time favorite films Barrier) - Other times... It's just kind of a film that's in black and white, neither taking advantage of the unique limitations (stark contrasts, intimate pore filled close-ups, etc) nor being all that good a film to begin with at times. What often makes the difference is how much you really engage with the challenge at hand, how much you've studied the ways the classics approached things, and how creative you decide to get with your own solutions. There's a reason ground-up approach to OSR of Mausritter hits a homerun. There's a reason Songbirds inexplicably feels like it's in the black-and-white revivalist spirit of minimalism while adding its own flair that gets it. There's a reason I keep describing Kal-Arath as "Nothing special in a truly special way." Meanwhile any multitude of other itch games from people who only faintly understand OSR as a buzz-word come off as blind swings that never quite nail replication nor its own voice. The way the "classics" often explore the texture of the Old School is as important and interesting as trying to define the genre of revisitation, renaissance and revival itself.

I'm not saying not to make an OSR game. Everyone should make an OSR game. I'm just asking you put a lot of thought into it. Go read the Rulescylopedia. Flip through Empire of the Petal Throne. Read 40k Rogue Trader (eg the first edition of 40k) and gawk at all the hairstyles in the behind the scenes. Read the forward to Boot Hill and feel your stomach flip as you realize the kind of person this writer very clearly is. Hell eat some cheap pizza and read a 70s Namor comic to get in the headspace. Challenge yourself, and do some exploring of your source. That's how you'll come to a revival that is truly your own.