Saturday 14 January 2012

40K OSR? (14)

More 40K OSR?, and just a week from the last.

I'm aiming to post smaller updates more often, with more wild cards, for non-40K gamers too.

Some possible definitions of 'OSR' are here and Colonel Kane's logo is to the right. If you use it, consider giving him credit and adding Tales from the Maelstrom to your roll as a fine exemplar.

On to the action then, with the wild cards mixed in, just because it really is hard to draw the line.

  • Sad news first: Tobias Reinold passed away; he may have been relatively unknown, but he gave us a lot and shows how much we can each achieve.

              As ever, feel free to add links to anything at all you think I've missed in the comments.
              _

              6 comments:

              Dangerous Brian said...

              Thanks for the shout out Porky. Much obliged.

              SinSynn said...

              Too...much...stuffs!

              Albert R. said...

              Thanks for the linkage. Too bad that I lost all of my interest in this game. Even worse that I have no room to make new conversions and/or terrains :D

              Porky said...

              No trouble at all. It is a bit too much maybe, but the thing always just grows, and there does seem to be more real creation going on again now, after what felt like a lull over the past few months. A renaissance in a renaissance.

              That ties in with the point on interest. Interest in the official game as it is now does seem to be falling, but it could take longer for many of us to lose interest in the wider game and its potential. I think we're only just starting to see that potential.

              The Lord of Excess said...

              I've been lamenting/hoping/ranting about why the hell can't we have an OSR with mini gaming for a long time so damn good post here. I think with what looks to be a gradual march (at least in some quarters) towards more skirmish based stuff in mini gaming, as well as other scales, more/better historicals offerings, etc. There are some moves afoot that perhaps have already started the ball rolling in that direction. Clearly one could ague that mini gaming OSR started years ago. Perhaps that is the case but I don't see a community rallying around that concept *fingers crossed* that it happens soon :)

              Porky said...

              It surprises me too. It could be that wargaming rulesets place less emphasis on improvisation than old school roleplaying rulesets, and that we're just not encouraged to think in such expansive ways by playing them.

              I think you're right about skirmish gaming. The investment of time and energy is less on all sides and that supports experimentation, exploration.

              And I'd say you're right that it started years ago, assuming it hasn't always been there. In 40K terms, third edition was a big change, as rational as it might have been, and the situation was likely helped along later by the realisation that GW dominated the market to such an extent there wasn't necessarily space for another producer to build a critical mass, that the player base had trapped itself and that it needed to break out.

              Given that, I think we can expect much more experimentation in future, as a response to the growing interest in skirmishers and the willingness of GW players to look around, but also because of the increasing confidence of the player-writers themselves that there is space opening up for their work.