I’ve been running a weekly OSR D&D game for three years now. It’s morphed into a sandbox-y science fantasy thing with dinosaurs (as you do), with five regular players. We’re wrapping up the current campaign (and one of my players is off to Scotland), so I’ve already started planning the next game. I’ll try to publish a record of the new campaign here (yeah, right!).
I’m thinking I want to run something from the British old-school next. I’ll probably use Dragon Warriors as the basic system (because it’s so close to B/X, meaning I can port in OSR content relatively easily), hacking in bits of Advanced Fighting Fantasy, Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play 1e, Maelstrom, and even the old 1979 game Heroes.
So, what exactly IS the British old-school? A few attempts have been made at a definition down the years, including by the Fighting Fantasist, Trollish Delver, and some bloke on Reddit. The Grognard Files podcast gives an excellent sense of what it was like gaming in Thatcher’s Britain.
I’m going to call it the British Old-School Revival, or “B-OSR”. I think the B-OSR is adjacent to, but distinct from, the American Old-School Revival (A-OSR). And, if you haven’t guessed, my tongue is firmly in cheek when I talk about “A-OSR” and “B-OSR” (I realise old-school tabletop gaming is already a niche within a niche within a niche).
Nevertheless, there is something to the idea of a B-OSR. I think the most important influences on it would be:
– Early White Dwarf magazine (issues 1-100)
– Games Workshop (and Citadel Miniatures)
– Fighting Fantasy gamebooks (and, to a lesser extent, Lone Wolf)
– British comics (principally 2000 A.D., but also older fare such as Action)
– British fantasy art (e.g. Russ Nicholson, John Blanche, Iain McCaig, etc.)
– British comedy (e.g. Monty Python, Blackadder, The Young Ones, etc.)
– J.R.R. Tolkien (of course)
– Michael Moorcock (e.g. Elric, Hawkmoon, Corum, etc.)
– British heavy metal (Iron Maiden being very influential, though I much prefer the doom-y sound of early Sabbath)
There would certainly be other influences, including the books of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, British horror films (e.g. Hammer Horror, The Wicker Man, etc.), and British television (e.g. Dr Who, Blake’s 7, etc.).
The principle principal [Whoops. Well spotted, SJB! – Ed.] games involved in the B-OSR would be the ones I’ve already listed above:
– Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play (1986)
– Dragon Warriors (1985)
– Advanced Fighting Fantasy (1989)
– Maelstrom (1984)
– Heroes (1979)
All of these games have new editions currently in print, or are available legally online. Of these, I feel Dragon Warriors fits the idea of a B-OSR best, not least because the PDF is available as Pay What You Want. Plus, as I said, it’s clearly influenced by B/X D&D, meaning it should play nicely with all the great OSR content out there.
In terms of what makes the B-OSR distinct from the A-OSR (and bear in mind I’m generalising here), I think it’s a couple of things:
– Historicity / Urbanism. The A-OSR has Hommlet and the Keep on the Borderlands. The B-OSR has Middenheim and Port Blacksand. Put crudely, the American OSR is a free market frontier fantasy (i.e. the Wild West with elves), whereas the B-OSR is coloured by the historical European urban experience. All of the B-OSR games above include details about things like crime and punishment, legal matters, guilds, taxes, bureaucracy, etc., whereas a game like B/X D&D is more likely to include rules on wilderness survival, hunting, foraging, etc. Of course, the A-OSR does include urban adventures (e.g. “City-State of the Invincible Overlord”), but they tend to be weirder and more fantastical, and less grounded in historical reality. Exceptions exist, and this isn’t a hard and fast rule.
– Class. All the suggested B-OSR games listed above include some kind of social class mechanic. British old-school games tend to be embedded in the historical feudal system, with more rigid class structures, more obvious inequality, and less social mobility.
– Grimdark. Blood, guts, disease, corruption, insanity, mud, shit, and piss. Critical wounds, mutilations, and fumble tables. Of course, B-OSR games don’t have to be played like this (and plenty of A-OSR games include such elements), but British fantasy gaming tends towards a darker, grittier feel.
– Comedy / Satire. Critics might rather call it “cynicism”, but there is a goodly-sized dollop of black humour in many early British tabletop RPGs. Bad puns abound, and Pythonesque grotesqueries lie round every corner. Moreover, the humour is often satirical in nature; the rich and powerful are invariably buffoonish or venal, the church is craven and corrupt, and the establishment exists to keep the working man (or woman) down.
Daniel says
Looking forward to this new project of yours. It’s what I’ve been trying to do with my game. A more historically accurate, european tone (not specifically british, though). And obviously lots of Black Sabbath, Mercyful Fate and Witchfinder General references.
Ynas Midgard says
Recently I’ve been reading and making notes for a number of non-D&D-esque old-school games (such as WFRP 1st edition, Advanced Fighting Fantasy/Troika, RuneQuest/Magic World, and Mazes & Minotaurs), so I’m looking forward to read what you’re cooking here.
Vagabundork says
One thing. These:
– Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play (1986)
– Dragon Warriors (1985)
– Advanced Fighting Fantasy (1989)
– Maelstrom (1984)
– Heroes (1979)
Are not OSR games. Neither B/X D&D is.
OSR doesn’t mean old games, but new games that emulate old games’ style.
Old-school games? Sure, they are. But the R in OSR means revival or renaissance, that is, something that has disappeared and then has returned or rediscovered. In the case of OSR it’s not a re-discovery of D&D, because D&D never disappeared, but it was a re-discovery of a style of play, which was abandoned during Drangonlance and 3e.
Chris Wilson says
B-OSR sounds like what I shoot for when I run campaigns–and I’m from Texas! Never heard of Dragon Warrior until today and I’m going to check it out.
Uncaring Cosmos says
@Daniel Cheers! British old-school RPGs, it seems to me, tended to be more “grounded” in history and folklore, less in high fantasy and mythology (though I’m obviously generalising, and there were exceptions; the Fighting Fantasy world, Titan, was a more traditional swords & sorcery setting, for example).
Also, I’m definitely looking forward to digging into British bands from the 70s and 80s as part of this blog, particularly old-school metal and prog rock. I know bands like Sabbath and Witchfinder General, but there’s so much stuff from the period that it’s overwhelming.
@Ynas Midgard Ta! I loved reading about all those old games on Grognardia, and there’s plentoy of newer games (such as Troika!) that I can’t wait to check out.
@Vagabundork I’m going to have to disagree with you. The OSR is more than just retroclones (and even if it weren’t, there are retroclones of a couple of the games listed above, such as Zweihander and Troika!).
The OSR relied on retroclones, but that was almost an accident of copyright law. I have a lot of fondness for Labyrinth Lord, but people relied on it because B/X wasn’t readily available at the time, not because the OSR was defined as Labyrinth Lord and the retroclone movement (though of course the two are linked).
All of the games listed above faded into obscurity in the 1990s and 2000s for one reason or another, and then had new editions brought out in the 2010s in the wake of the American OSR scene, so they are not just “old games”, they’re living and breathing. They’re very much OSR.
@Chris Indeed, it’s a bit of a conceit to call it “British Old-School”, because there’s been so much cross-polination and parralel development over the years. This style of gaming is definitely not unique to the UK. Anyway, back in the day Brits played American games and US gamers played British games. Still, as a generalisation, I think the B-OSR is a worthwhile concept.
Also, Dragon Warriors is definitely worth checking out, and I’m going to post my own memories of it soon!
Joshua Goodlink says
Sweet
Eduardo Soares says
You can’t go wrong with Advanced Fighting Fantasy! The second edition solves all the problems the original one had.
If only I could bring AFF 2e officialy to Brazil…
Cheers.
Vagabundork says
Not to start a discussion, but then, if Warhammer Fantasy is OSR, then Pathfinder is OSR, and clearly that’s not the case.
Uncaring Cosmos says
@Vagabundork Hmm… I’m not sure I’m convinced. Few people would call Pathfinder an “old-school” game, whereas WFRP definitely fits the bill.
The development of D&D and WFRP is actually quite similar.
D&D:
1) After four editions, some people feel D&D has strayed too far from the game it originally was. They argue it feels more like a boardgame than a roleplaying game.
2) Some enterprising fans create a “retroclone” of an earlier edition of the game (OSRIC) in order to play an out-of-print edition of the game legally.
3) The official publisher of the game releases a new edition (5e) that abandons the “boardgame” approach and instead harkens back to earlier versions of the game.
WFRP:
1) After three editions, some people feel WFRP has strayed too far from the game it originally was. They argue it feels more like a boardgame than a roleplaying game.
2) Some enterprising fans create a “retroclone” of an earlier edition of the game (Zweihander) in order to play an out-of-print edition of the game legally.
3) The official publisher of the game releases a new edition (WFRP 4th edition) that abandons the “boardgame” approach and instead harkens back to earlier versions of the game.
Uncaring Cosmos says
@Eduardo I keep hearing good things about the second edition! That’s very encouraging, and definitely makes me want to give it a look.
Ynas Midgard says
@Uncaring Cosmos
I’d add that OSRIC was mostly devised to make it possible to publish 1E material, so it was originally but a reference document, and as such, a true “clone”, whereas Zweihänder is closer to ACKS, AS&SH, or Crypts & Things in analogy – not a true clone of any edition in particular, but something definitely influenced by older editions and mixing mechanics from both old and new games, replacing entire subsystems that have no antecedents in the original editions of the game. So… not really a clone, but definitely of the same lineage.
Uncaring Cosmos says
@Ynas Midgard True, I’m being a bit fast and loose there. The reason to pick OSRIC was that it was the first example of someone “remaking” an old edition (as was Zweihander for WFRP, albeit with less fidelity to the source), not because they were otherwise comparable in terms of design philosophy.
Still, I think the basic point remains: these are old-school games that were, at some point (albeit by different methods), “revived” by fans.
I do agree there’s a good argument that the “OSR” only really applies to D&D retroclones and related varients (at least in part because you can then advertise things as “OSR compatible” and have it all work together with minimal conversion). However, I wonder if Dragon Warriors might be close enough to B/X that it can also be considered “OSR compatible” (unlike, for example, RuneQuest).
Plus, Dragon Warriors, just as with early editions of D&D and WFRP, was an old-school game that fell out of print and was later “revived” (partly, I believe, by fans).
Uncaring Cosmos says
I guess I would put it like this:
Pathfinder is certainly a “revived” game (it was a clear attempt to “revive” 3.5 after WotC moved to 4e), but it’s not old-school.
Warhammer is certainly an old-school game, and it has indeed been “revived” (both by Zweihander, and by the re-release of WFRP 1st ed. in PDF and, though I’m not sure it’s still available, POD, and by the release of WFRP 4th ed.)
However, I can see an argument that WFRP is still not OSR because it’s not immediately compatible with all the content being produced on OSR blogs, etc.
Even if we accept that, though… I’m still interested to see if Dragon Warriors (which definitely shares heritage with Basic D&D in terms of rules) might qualify. I’m going to be digging into the DW rules in future posts…
SJB says
Fantastic. Any blog that feature Heroes has my full attention. One of the features that Oliver Dickinson once defined for ‘British’ gaming was pedantry: principal not principle!
Uncaring Cosmos says
@SJB I have a PDF copy of Heroes and am absolutely thrilled with it. It reminds me a great deal of the original 1974 edition of D&D. So evocative but, as a game, bewildering in the extreme. Wonderful stuff.
P.S. Bah! Can’t believe I missed that (principal / principle). Corrected, with a note added to encourage me to do better in future. I have now secured the services of a pedantic gnome as Editor [Oy! – Ed.].
Jerry Nuckolls says
Great post. Question: where does Golden Heroes fit in? It’s definitely “old school.” But it isn’t “grimdark” at all.
Uncaring Cosmos says
@Jerry Excellent question! I was reading up on Golden Heroes just the other day, alongside a couple of other old-school British RPGs I want to blog about: Fantasy Wargaming (1981) and Bifrost (1977-1982).
The thing is, I can’t really talk about Golden Heroes without talking about British comics. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, Britain had a thriving comic industry. However, with a couple of notable exceptions (e.g. 2000 A.D., Viz, the Beano, etc.) the entire industry was basically wiped out by the late 1990s, unlike Franco-Belgian comics (“Bandes Dessinées”, or BDs) which were considered the “ninth art” and received government support.
Now, British comics didn’t really do superheroes. I’m exaggerating (see Marvelman or Captain Britain, for example), but not by much. Many of the superhero comics in the UK in the 1970s / 80s were stuff published for the British market by American companies. There certainly were homegrown British superhero comics that had a more “grimdark” edge (see V for Vendetta, originally published in Warrior in 1982, for example).
Still, I guess my point is that Golden Heroes is arguably emulating American comics and superheroes. If you want to see an RPG from the period that more faithfully emulated British comics, then Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game (1985) is a better bet (and is definitely grim and gritty).
And, of course, there will be plenty of exceptions to the idea that British old-school games are “grimmer” than their US counterparts. It could also just be that Golden Heroes is an exception to the trend.