OSR: My roleplaying love affair

Let's talk about the OSR. For those not in the know, OSR stands for Old School Renaissance and refers to movement in the RPG community to continue and expand upon the basis of 1st edition D&D. There are now numerous retro clones of the rulesets that have been published to date, my favorites are >> Labyrinth Lord, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Swords and Wizardry, and Dungeon Crawl Classics. The best part is that you can find most of these games for free through DriveThruRPG or their individual web pages.

What I love about the OSR is that it harkens back to my upbringing in the hobby. Gone are the min-maxing superhero characters, you play normal persons in abnormal situations. You are not able to plow your way through difficult encounters with character violence and abilities, you will need to think as a player...often encounters in the OSR are deadly, if you're fighting, you will soon be dying. This is true fantasy roleplaying, monsters seem scarier and deadlier, the world is more fantastic.

Everyone is looking for something different in their roleplaying games, but this is what I started in and this type of gaming is more what I'm drawn to. Credit to D&D 5th edition for bringing me back into the hobby, but the OSR is what has fueled me since and taken most of my hard earned loot in real life. Which brings me to another point, the amount and quality of content from numerous creators is amazing. Look at some of the LotFP products, their layout and craftsmanship is second to none. Books such as Maze of the Blue Medusa and the recently released Dark of Hot Springs Islands are both inventive and just stunning tomes to hold in your hands.

I've been slowing moving the groups I referee to the OSR through our play and adventures. Once our current campaign wraps up, I'll make the permanent switch over to the Labyrinth Lord rule set on something new and likely gonzo given my current taste. If you're interested, I've a few links listed at the top of the blog to get you started.