The Old School Renaissance (OSR) movement has used the Open Gaming License (OGL) to create several games that are very close to the older roleplaying games in feel and play style. I am not a lawyer and the legal stuff is beyond my understanding, but what this means to me is that there are new games being printed that are close enough to my beloved White Box that any supplemental material created for the new games can easily be used with my older White Box. Now I know (from experience) it's possible to convert just about anything from one system to another with a little work, but it's also nice to have new products written specifically for my out-of-print favorite.
Delving Deeper is one such new game written to provide play that is very close to White Box. There are not a lot of new products that I have found specifically written for Delving Deeper, but that may come. Swords & Wizardry (S&W) is another popular game and has a white box version that I have found several new products written for. Labyrinth Lord is yet another popular OSR game that has a good following with several modules and other publications written specifically for it, but generally usable with any of the "old school" games. Labyrinth Lord more closely resembles the B/X version of the game, but there is an Original Edition Characters supplement that supports play very similar to white box.
I suppose no discussion of the OSR games would be complete without mentioning the Old School Reference and Index Compilation (OSRIC). OSRIC was one of the first, maybe the very first, of the older style roleplaying games written under the OGL and my understanding is that OSRIC pretty much pioneered this area of the hobby. There are a lot of publications for the OSRIC system and although OSRIC is closer to the Advanced game in style, all the older games have a lot in common and product for one is easily converted for use with another. Back in the day we did this all the time, mostly on-the-fly. (Some of us still do.)
This post is not meant to bring the reader up-to-speed on the OSR, there are way better blogs out there for that than this one. I just want to point to a couple OSR games that seem most like white box and express my appreciation to all those authors producing support materials for the white box game, whatever title they fall under. I am sure it is all a labor of love as publishing for the hobby is not the way to riches (or so I've heard). Add my voice to the chorus of appreciative roleplaying gamers who are thankful that there are those out there producing so that we can enjoy their creations and continue to have fun with the game we all seem to love. If that makes me a fanboy, I can live with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment