Kingofpain89 wrote:Mark Knopfler would be rolling in his grave if he were dead.  

It's quite possible this would kill him if he ever read it!

I think the popularity of the retro clones is a "chicken or the egg" thing. "Are the original rulebooks getting harder to find because people are interested in 1E and this is also leading them to buying retro clones?" vs "Is the current interest in retro clones making people more interested in the original game and thus 1E rulebooks are getting harder to find?"

I just can't see the Simulacrum/Retroclone movement as anything but great for old school games and the infant self publishing industry for old school products.

If I can sort of paraphrase Jason (and he can correct me if I've gotten the wrong impression) his point seems to be "Why play the retroclone games when a perfectly good game of 1E AD&D is sitting right there waiting for converts?"  Whereas I would say "Anything that acts as a gateway into the old school movement is good, be it the original game or a gussied up version".  The great thing about the mash-up that is OD&D/Basic D&D/1E AD&D on one side and Swords & Wizardry/Labyrinth Lord/OSRIC/BFRPG/Spellcraft & Sorcery on the other (with Hackmaster and Castles and Crusades maintaining a middle ground) is that it's ALL good stuff focused on people like us, rather than the kids.  

There are enough ludicrous edition wars out there for us to be engaging in more fruitless turf wars over what game is more authentic, more viable, sells more, or why aren't we just playing the real thing?

More often than not when reading testimonials on blogs and forums I seem to fnd that the retroclone movement tends to bring people back to the fold....vis a vis they get sucked into playing a few games of Labyrinth Lord and decide to dig out their old Holmes box set, or reading over the OSRIC pdf gets them interested in the 1E PHB again.  

To top it off most if not all of the retroclone publishers view their contributions as a labor of love....no one (yet) is getting rich here.
Instead of wondering why they exist, or if they sell better than the original material they are based on, we should instead be brainstorming on ways to get the rulebooks (both old and newer) into youngster's hands to assist the OSR anyway we can. Infighting is silly and counterproductive.

I know one of the reasons the North Texas RPG Con was formed was to not only cater to the old school gamer but to hopefully entice new blood into the hobby. Doug and I decided if that means running a 3.5 game to expose newbies to the hobby, then so be it.  If a retroclone session piques someones interest enough to dig out the old books, then it has succeeded in it's mission.  

I don't think at this point our hobby (which anyonre would concur hasa shrinkng core) wouldn't benefit from renewed interest, whatever the source.  Simply put, we can't afford to be asshats instead of ambassadors.

Mike B.

Why wouldn't Castles and Crusades be considered a retro clone?

FormCritic wrote:Why wouldn't Castles and Crusades be considered a retro clone?

The retro clones are something very, very close to copies of a specific single game. Some examples:

OSRIC is AD&D 1e
Labyrinth Lord is Basic/Expert D&D
Swords & Wizardry White Box is 0e 3 LBB
GORE is Chaosium's Basic Role Playing

By contrast, a game like Basic Fantasy RPG (BFRPG), while similar to Basic/Expert D&D also brings in some significant elements of AD&D, d20, and the author's original house rules. It's not a clone, per se.

Similarly Swords & Wizardry Core Rules, though similar to 0e 3 LBB + Greyhawk + some other bits, also brings in a number of house rules and arbitrary & substantial changes. It's not a clone, per se. (Though many refer to it as a clone.)

Castles & Crusades is something of a mix of AD&D, d20, and a bunch of original stuff (SIEGE engine, for example), and so it's also not a clone.

JasonZavoda wrote:
Why read Robert E. Howard when you can read someone else writing about Conan.  

Point them to the works that Howard wrote. When they experience a masterpiece they will know the difference.

Personally I could never stand this egalitarian crap. Some people are stronger, some people are faster, some are smarter, and some things, including AD&D, are just better.

  Touche! A touch!  A touch!  I do confess it!  

That's playing dirty bringing up REH!  

My first thought at your first line was, "Or, really punish yourself by trying to read a Conan story by Robert Jordan!"

I'm not arguing in favor of the retro clones, but I don't see them as a betrayal of the old game.

To the guys on Dragonfoot:

Surely my Satan thou art but a dunce
And cannot tell the garment from the man.
Every harlot was a virgin once
Nor cans't thou ever change  Kate into  Nan.

To me the greatest thing about the retro-clones is that they allow for the relatively safe -- legally -- publication of new modules compatible with both Basic D&D and 1st Edition AD&D. For those of us who already own all of original modules produced by TSR for said games and clamor for more 1970s/early 1980s gaming goodness, the retro-clone movement is fantastic. I have even gotten a few of my old AD&D module designs into gaming stores by updating them to OSRIC, something I tried to do back when 1st Edition was still being officially supported by TSR. Way back when, I hadn't access to a reliable correctable typewriter and barely knew how to type. My dungeons were all handwritten on spiral notebooks, which were not then and aren't now suitable for submission to a major gaming company -- LOL! That being said, I still play good old 1st Edition AD&D using the original rulebooks, even when running modules produced by the various retro-clone companies. I feel that 1st Edition AD&D is the greatest RPG ever designed, and will most likely remain so.

JasonZavoda wrote:
Why read Robert E. Howard when you can read someone else writing about Conan. Obviously after all these years people must be able to write better stories about Conan than Howard since they can see what he did wrong and add their own improvements.

Gygax was a master. The people who screwed around with the game system were not in his league. It is possible to come back to his system after 30 years and find in it what magic existed 30 years ago. It is possible to use his system for 30 years and find the same magic each time you open one of his books.

These new improved systems of D&D burn players out in six months to a year. They are cheap thrills more easily satisfied with a computer game, and that is where the new players go and do not return for the most part. That is why RPGs are a niche, and also for the most part that is not a bad thing. Creativity and imagination are not for everyone. That might sound terrible but it is simply the truth. Many people prefer to be entertained with as little effort as possible, while creativity and imagination take effort.

These other systems are no more than pale immitations or strange mutations of the work that Gygax and Arneson and those helping them created, tested and improved upon for many years. What Gygax said over and over again was simply that he knew what he was doing, that he had seen what happens with alternate systems, and these systems fizzled and took players with them.

The reason the rule system matters is that AD&D was carefully designed by someone with a genius for it who wanted to build a system that would last. Not everything is equal in this world and while some people are going to enjoy a game system like C&C, more people have enjoyed, do enjoy and will enjoy AD&D.

So before pointing the new and unwary to imitations of a masterpiece, point them to the original, if the desire is to increase the number of gamers for fantasy RPGs.

Point them to the works that Howard wrote. When they experience a masterpiece they will know the difference.

Personally I could never stand this egalitarian crap. Some people are stronger, some people are faster, some are smarter, and some things, including AD&D, are just better.

Gary himself didn't worship blindly at his own altar....genius doesn't stay static, it grows, it evolves, it mutates. I have no idea however different EGG's version of 2E would have been, but indications are it would have taken directions that the most staunch of 1E followers wouldn't have followed.

No one will ever convince me that D&D is only a system...it's bigger than that.

Mike B.

JasonZavoda wrote:I don't see the retros as a betrayal. I just think they aren't as good as the real thing.

Nobody will argue with you on that. But when it comes to issues like availability and what you can publish for then using the real thing has problems.

robertsconley wrote:
Nobody will argue with you on that. But when it comes to issues like availability and what you can publish for then using the real thing has problems.

Actually, I don't see much of a probem. So long as you avoid using: TSR, D&D, AD&D, Dungeons & Dragons or other TM language.