Tuesday, June 9, 2009

The Importance of New


Its easy to forget, sometimes, the value of "New!" in a hobby like ours. We place a lot of value on products that were yellowing with age 20 years ago. This is rooted, I would humbly propose, in the fact that the company(s) responsible for D&D slowly stopped producing the kind of stuff the osr appreciates: streamlined rules, site-based non-railroady adventures, sword&sorcery influenced settings and monsters, etc. Over time, a strong mistrust of anything "new" or "post-1981-or-so" tends to develop.

Only natural, of course: you get burned enough, and any semi-intelligent hominid will stop putting their hands into the fire.

But along the way, it becomes harder to remember the feeling you had when you picked up your first Moldvay Basic Boxed Set or 1E Monster Manual. These were new, baby, with something unexpected and exciting around every corner. 25 or 30 years later, nostalgia has brought us back to these books, and what a pleasant surprise to find out that this stuff really works good! As many have noted, no rose-colored-glasses necessary - it really is just as fun as you remembered.

Not as much enthusiasm for new books or product lines though. That feeling of "wow, check out this new book!" doesn't seem to be as highly touted in the osr community. More a cautious mistrust, a sort of "yeah, this is pretty cool, but I hope we don't get too many more...".

Again, understandable, plenty of us remember the swollen, nonsense-packed shelves of the 2E and 3E eras.

Hopefully, as the osr continues to build momentum and popularity, it will also be able to walk bravely, blinking perhaps, into the sunlight again with an appreciation for new stuff. It is ok, I would contend, to favor something like Swords & Wizardry over its original source material: the Little Brown Books. Its not heretical to admit that we may know a bit more about self-publishing today than Gygax and Co. did 35 years ago. Layout, organization, coherence, and 35 years of playtesting all contribute towards a more streamlined product. Not to mention personal computers.

There's also that feeling of "wow" when you hold something new in your hands, such as an issue of Knockspell or Green Devil Face. For the time being at least, the osr is in the hands of the folks who actually play it - they are the ones producing new material, not a faceless corporation with profit margins and stock-holder conference calls. As long as that continues to be the case, I say bring on the new stuff. More adventures, more monsters, more magazines.

I trust you, and I'm not afraid anymore.;-)

4 comments:

  1. Rock, rock on, Al! I totally agree. Personally, my spending on musty old stuff has all but dried up because so much good stuff is being produced right now by so many talented people.

    ReplyDelete
  2. >>25 or 30 years later, nostalgia has brought us back to these books

    Careful about the N-word there. That's got the potential to cause more flare-ups than "old school." ;)

    Thanks for the mention. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Couldn't agree more. Over the last several months I've really taken a shine to the osr, and the widening range of interesting materials available in print & PDF, let alone the blogosphere. I haven't even had the compulsion to get anything "new" (system-wise, whether 4e, 3e, or blah blah d20) in months, which is unique for me. I've always bought-in to the new D&D (in particular, but other games too) stuff being published. And I think this change is a good thing -- for me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. As usual, I am on the same wavelength as you Al (and Prismatic). I'm all for more OSR. Today I got a copy of an OSR product that just may be the "D&D" I've really been looking to find, for many years. I've purchased some great magazines and adventures.

    While opinions vary, the OSR really cannot be "overloaded" with product unless it becomes so monetarily viable that we return to the days of MEGACORP producing 35 Suppplements per month written by 50 different writes given free reign with the only guidelines being "wee need a X themed supplement for Campaaign Setting Y, with plenty of house rules that contradict core book Z.

    The OSR has given us the chance to experience again a wealth of "written by the hobbyist, for the hobbyist" style products- something that has been lost to us for a good 25 years or more.

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...