East Coast OSR Roleplaying Games Meetup

This meetup is for people who are interested in "tabletop roleplaying games" (TTRPGs), both complete beginners looking to start with an easy-to-learn ruleset and for experienced players who have become a bit bored with the most common games like D&D 5th edition and Pathfinder (an off-shoot of D&D 3rd edition). Instead, we'll be playing indie games associated with the "Old-School Renaissance/Revival" (OSR) that try to recapture the looser play-style from the first generation of RPGs in the 1970s-80s while streamlining and altering the rules a bit (or a lot) to make the game easier to play & more fun.

FYI, fans of these old-school RPGs are called "grognards", so that's the official term for our group's members. The term comes from the wargaming world, which in turn borrowed it from the real-world term Napoleon used for his veteran troops - grognard means "grumbler" in French.

For a quick overview of what the "Old-School Renaissance/Revival" (OSR) games are like, check out this 11-minute video from Ben Milton's Questing Beast Youtube channel. If you want to learn a bit more, read Matthew Finch's "Quick Primer for Old-School Gaming" or Ben Milton, Steve Pumpkin & David Perry's more in-depth discussion of OSR game design principles in the "Principia Apocrypha" .

There's several core principals that set the OSR games apart from more modern TTRPGs:

1. Rulings not Rules: OSR games tend to be "rules light" as opposed to "crunchy", i.e. they have simple rules that don't require much math to determine the success or failure of an action rather than complex rules that require lots of number crunching. This makes them easier to learn for beginners and quicker to run for experienced players. Character's explicit skills & abilities are also simpler and this is why OSR gamers often say "the answer isn't on your character sheet" and instead promote the idea of "tactical infinity", i.e. characters can attempt any tactic to solve a problem, subject to the adjudication of the GM. Since there's not an exhaustive list of your character's skills & abilities, on-the-spot rulings from the Game Master (GM) based on his/her intuitive understanding of how the game world works are favored for resolving situations not specifically covered in the rule books. (The GM's conception of the fantasy world & its implicit rules above & beyond the explicit rules of a particular RPG - often informed by their real-world experiences, fantasy books they've read, other RPGs they've played - is what game designer S. John Ross calls the "invisible rulebook".) Players are encouraged to try creative tactics and let the GM rule on their plausibility, but GMs must try to prevent anything that seems to them like a game-breaking abuse of the rules. The focus on GM rulings requires a higher level of trust from players, and requires they see the GM as a neutral referee rather than as a "fan of the players" (as in some modern story games) or as the chief adversary that controls all their enemies (as was common in some versions of early D&D). Being a neutral GM means never fudging hidden dice rolls to make things easier or harder on the players, and players shouldn't expect the GM to use a "deus ex machina" to save them nor worry about "giving the GM ideas" which could later be used against them. Over time, GMs in OSR games will almost inevitably have to develop their own "house rules" (or borrow them from other games) to cover things not covered explicitly in the rule books or fix official rules that seem broken. The GM's goal for house rules is to remember them and to apply them consistently going forward, although they may need to be adjusted or dropped after significant play testing. OSR gamers who understand the inherent difficulties that GMs face while running a rules-light game tend to discourage player attempts at "rules lawyering" and refer back to "Rule Zero" - i.e. the GM can override published game rules for any reason.
2. Roleplaying not Roll-playing: The OSR's focus on roleplaying over dice rolling is meant to preserve the players' sense of immersion by forcing them to interact with aspects of the game's simulated world directly rather than through the abstraction of special abilities defined by the rules of a specific RPG. (Since "roleplaying" often conjures the image of speaking in character with a funny accent, some OSR gamers will refer to this concept as "system-agnostic player skill" or Zak Smith's term "tactical transparency".) In this context, "roleplaying" means instead of merely saying "I check for traps" or "I try to bluff my way past the guard" and then rolling dice to see if your Find/Remove Traps or Bluff ability succeeds, the player must describe HOW they check for traps or WHAT they say to the guard. This is why OSR gamers often say "play the world not the rules", and story game RPGs have a similar principle called "fiction first". This means players should avoid a videogame-like approach that's often derided as "pushing buttons on your character sheet", and OSR game designers should avoid what blogger Justin Alexander calls "disassociated mechanics" (i.e. character abilities without any in-world explanation of how/why they work). This also explains why many OSR gamers will talk about the importance of "player skill over character skill", i.e. with enough ingenuity on the player's part (e.g. taking your time, using your equipment judiciously, getting into an advantageous position, combining the efforts of several PCs), you may be able to boost your character's base chance of success or even get an automatic success. (For example, when there's little or no time pressure and a few failures wouldn't be disastrous, you can figure an automatic success at a skill check with something like Pathfinder's "Take 10" and "Take 20" rules.) It's important to note that while OSR games may give characters a "background" that gives them advantage on skill checks related to their former profession, they tend to lack detailed skill systems and just assume PCs have general competence in a wide range of adventuring-related activities. Thus, most OSR games allow any PC to attempt many mundane activities related to combat, dungeon crawling, wilderness exploration, and social interactions with NPCs in town, even if it requires certain equipment, lots of time & effort, and/or their chance of success or level of success is lower than a skilled specialist. Here's a series of examples of the ways in which a GM might balance "tactical infinity" (you can try anything) against the innate advantage a specialist will have over a non-specialist when attempting similar actions:
   - Only a fighter can gain bonuses from weapon mastery in a specific weapon and use any other weapons without penalty, but anyone can pick up any weapon and swing it (provided they can lift it), but they incur an attack penalty if they're not proficient in it.
   - Only a fighter can use any shields and heavy armor without penalty, but anyone can pick up a large shield & don heavy armor (e.g. as part of a disguise) - they just incur a penalties on movement, skill checks & attacks due to their lack of proficiency (and can't cast spells).
   - Only a fighter using their specialized weapon can use it to inflict double damage from a charging mount, but anyone can attack from horseback with a melee weapon and gain a bonus due to having the high ground.
   - Only a fighter specialized in cavalry longbow can shoot from the back of a trotting horse without penalty (and only a mild penalty for a charging horse), but anyone can shoot a shortbow or light crossbow from the back of a standing horse without penalty (mild penalty for trotting, stiff penalty for charging).
   - Only a fighter specialized in a bow/crossbow can shoot opponents at "point blank range" (adjacent square) without penalty, but anyone can shoot a bow/crossbow at adjacent enemies (but incurs disadvantage).
   - Only a fighter specialized in polearms can inflict "attacks of opportunity" against any opponent who approaches within 2 spaces and can use a braced polearm to inflict double damage against a charging opponent, but anyone can use a polearm to get extra reach (2 spaces) on their attacks.
   - Only fighters are trained enough in "holding the line" that they can prevent an opponent from moving through *their* space and inflict an "attack of opportunity" with their specialized weapon against any opponent who tries to move past them in an *adjacent* space, but anyone can make an "attack of opportunity" and slow an opponent down who tries to move through *their* space (i.e. treat their space as "difficult terrain" which costs double movement) and inflict an "attack of opportunity" against a fleeing opponent.
   - Only 2 fighters are so adept at fighting in tight formations to share the same space and fight without a penalty (using their specialized weapons) & give their comrade a +1 AC bonus if they have a large shield, but anyone can share the same space as an ally & fight alongside them (but they suffer a penalty on their attacks).
   - Only a fighters specialized in polearms can attack an enemy from the space behind an ally with a polearm without a penalty, but anyone can use a polearm to attack an enemy in the space past their ally (but they suffer a penalty on their attacks).
   - Only a thief can hide/sneak so well they stand a chance of becoming practically invisible/silent even to attentive guards, but anyone can try to hide in a dark/cluttered environment or move silently when there's some background noise and escape the notice of inattentive guards - although attentive guards may still spot them.
   - Only a thief can get their specific attack & damage bonuses from "backstabbing" an unsuspecting opponent from behind, but anyone can launch a "surprise attack" against a "flat-footed" opponent (bypass opponent's DEX bonus to their AC on the first attack roll), can "flank" an aware or unaware opponent (bypass opponent's shield bonus if attacking from behind), and use a "coup de grace" (no roll required to hit, automatic critical hit damage) to dispatch an opponent who is sleeping, unconscious, held, or paralyzed.
   - Only a thief can open locks with his thief's tools, but anyone can use a crowbar or hammer try to pry/bash open a locked door or chest (although it's louder & takes longer).
   - Only a thief can pick pockets, but anyone can simply snatch someone's coin purse & run (although it's liable to attract attention & risk an "attack of opportunity" if they're armed).
   - Only a thief can passively detect faint noises, but anyone can stop & actively listen or try to eavesdrop by pressing their ear against a door.
   - Only a thief can free climb a sheer wall, but anyone can try to climb a wall with a rope & grappling hook (although thieves who use a rope & grappling hook get even more of an advantage).
   - Only a thief can quickly walk a tightrope (gaining advantage with a balancing rod), but anyone can try to slowly traverse a horizontal rope by hanging beneath it & pulling themselves along.
   - Only a thief can use a spear or staff to pole vault over a wall (adding its length to the distance of their jump), but anyone can typically try to make a running long jump equal to their STR score in feet or make a running high jump equal to 3 + their STR modifier in feet.
   - Only a thief can intuit where to find a trap & then try to disarm it, but anyone can try to find/trigger some common kinds of traps by poking around ahead of them with a ten-foot pole or throwing their rope & grappling hook out in front of them and reeling it in like a fishing line.
   - Only a ranger can track & navigate by instinct, but anyone can try to use a trained bloodhound to track and try to navigate with a map & compass.
   - Only a ranger can immediately distinguish edible plants from poisonous ones in the wild, but anyone can try to feed themselves by hunting wild game with their bow or sling.
   - Only a ranger can train a wild animal to become a pet, but anyone can try to placate a wild animal by throwing it some food or try to calm their horse if it spooks.
   - Only a bard can fascinate or inspire audiences with their music, but anyone can try to distract or persuade an NPC through conversation.
   - Only a bard can juggle so well he can try to catch an enemy's thrown knife or handaxe, but anyone can try to catch an object thrown to them by an ally.
   - Only a bard can reliably taunts enemies in combat (giving the enemy a penalty to hit & AC, but bonus to damage), but anyone can try to intimidate enemies into surrendering (forcing a morale check) if they've already been significantly injured.
   - Only a bard can act & disguise himself well enough to impersonate a specific person, but anyone can throw on a cultist's robe or the armor of a dead guard and try to blend in while infiltrating an enemy stronghold.
   - Only a bard has a chance to read an unknown language, but anyone with above average INT (say 13 or higher) can read & write in their primary language.
   - Only a bard can spontaneously remember lore & identify magic items, but anyone can buy drinks for some NPCs to try to hear rumors or sip a strange potion to see what happens (or play it safe and take it to an alchemist or sage).
   - Only wizards can spontaneously shoot a fireball or a spiderweb from their hands with a spell, but anyone can try to set their opponents on fire by hurling a pot of burning pitch at them or try to entangle their opponent with a net.
   - Only wizards can instantly alarm or hold a door with a spell, but anyone can try to rig up a makeshift alarm with a string & bell or block a door by driving a spike into the ground in front of it.
   - Only clerics can spontaneously turn the undead or cure wounds with the power of their faith alone, but anyone can try to repel a vampire with garlic or bandage the wounds of an injured comrade.
   - Only wizards can instantly charm a person with a spell, and only clerics can instantly command someone with a spell, but anyone can try to charm or intimidate someone into obedience through normal social interaction.
3. Heroic not Superheroic: Success in OSR games typically means surviving and gradually becoming more skilled, so OSR games consciously avoid the "power creep" and optimized "character builds" that's plagued later editions of D&D - although you can find complaints about GMs acting as "Monty Haul", as well as "power gamers" and "munchkins" who wanted to "win the game" even back in the 1st edition days. While OSR characters are "heroic" in the sense of being able to perform a wide variety of adventuring-related tasks (as noted in Point #2 above), they aren't invulnerable since heroism requires taking real risks. Stats are often generated by rolling 3d6 down the line which often results in a mediocre character with only one above average ability and at least one stat that's pitifully low, rather than rolling 4d6 drop the lowest number to get higher-than-average stats and then switching stats around to minimize their weaknesses & maximize their strengths (a.k.a. "min-maxing"), or using a point-buy system for stats which allows for optimization. Hit points in OSR games are often lower (and sometimes capped), resting only slowly restores hit points, magic healing potions are often rare or non-existent, and there's no "healing surges" like in later editions of D&D that make characters almost regenerate like Wolverine. Also, characters in OSR games typically die when they hit zero hit points rather than merely falling unconscious as in later editions of D&D. (Note: In some OSR games, a character at 0 HP must roll on a "death & dismemberment table" and may "merely" lose an eye, hand, or leg instead of dying.) Lastly, OSR games often emphasize the importance of mundane equipment (e.g. torches, rations, rope & grappling hook, ten foot pole, crowbar, etc.) as well as mundane but high-quality weapons & armor, and "encumberance" rules only allow PCs to carry a fixed amount of gear which forces tradeoffs & resource management. These limitations are unlike later editions of D&D where characters often gained so many magic items that they were almost decorated with them (a.k.a. the "Christmas tree effect"), and magic items like a "bag of holding" allowed a virtually unlimited amount of gear. The tendency to have more average stats, lower hit points, and limited equipment means OSR characters tend to be "everyman heroes" who gradually rise from obscurity rather than "chosen one" heroes who were destined for greatness - which is good, because the latter often come off as an annoyingly perfect "Mary Sue" if you're not careful. Instead, the underpowered, resource-strapped characters in an OSR game tend to be more similar to the protagonists in a "survival horror" video game, which also ties into the next principle about "Lethality".
4. Lethality not Game Balance:  Unlike later editions of D&D, in old-school play the random encounter tables aren't adjusted so that the "Challenge Rating" (CR) of monsters the PCs encounter are what they have a decent shot at beating. At best, in OSR games, some GMs will have encounters get more dangerous the further you go from a settlement or the deeper you go in a dungeon, or they will telegraph the level of danger in an area by allowing players to hear rumors or encounter tracks or kills of a powerful monster in an area so they can try to avoid it. This is what OSR gamers mean when they talk about "combat as war" vs "combat as sport" and it's why they often say "combat is a fail state" - i.e. the party may often need to hide, negotiate, or run away instead of fighting. The higher lethality makes OSR games more challenging than D&D 5E and more like a computer RPG where it's understood that several tough fights will result in a "total party kill" (TPK) the first time and this will require reloading from your last save point - although in a tabletop game, this means rolling up new characters to continue the quest. (If/when your character dies, you'll be expected to laugh it off and create a new character or take over an NPC nearby.) The higher lethality of OSR games also helps avert "main character syndrome" (pretending the story revolves around your character & hogging the spotlight), and it also means players don't typically make as much upfront investment in their character's backstory, since it's viewed as a waste of time if they die in their 1st or 2nd adventure.
5. Sandboxes not Railroads: There is less emphasis on character arcs & predefined endings, and a greater emphasis on generating "emergent narratives" from a mix of interesting maps, setting guides filled with lore, random encounter tables, treasure tables, rumor tables, random dungeon & town generators, as well as player choices & suggestions. (Story Games have a similar principle: "Play to find out what happens".) Blogger Justin Alexander has summarized the advice for GMs running sandbox adventures as "Don't prep plots, prep situations" by seeding rumors in town that can lead to quests and having goal-directed villains who act on their own schedule regardless of the players. (OSR players have found that once you get proficient enough at using random tables and other "oracles" like tarot cards to generate the seeds of an impromptu adventure, you can even run solo games without a GM.) The lack of a pre-existing adventure plot in OSR games is a reversal of the trend that began with 2nd edition AD&D where boxed adventures were designed to fit player actions into an exciting narrative that required railroading. (This is why OSR gamers sometimes say "Dragonlance ruined everything" since it was the success of the original Dragonlance adventures and tie-in novels that changed the direction of D&D away from the earlier DIY ethic.) It's worth noting that D&D's early designers hit upon the idea of underground "dungeons" as a way to provide environments where the PC's option were more limited & manageable for GMs than wilderness exploration which allows movement in any direction. However, to avoid turning dungeons into "railroaded" adventures, most OSR gamers favor non-linear dungeons with multiple entrances/exits, looping/branching paths, secret passages, trapdoors, and different levels like those of legendary game designer Jennell Jacquays. For wilderness & city adventures, one way to limit player choices in a way that makes the GM's task easier without completely abandoning the sandbox approach are "quantum ogres", i.e. pre-planned encounters that players will have no matter which direction they choose to go. "Quantum ogres" are an example of "illusionism" which is where a GM covertly exerts more control over the adventure narrative than players realize, and it's somewhat controversial among OSR gamers who feel it robs players of their agency, even if they don't realize it.
6. Dynamic not Static Worlds: OSR games tend to put a heavy emphasis on resource management, and one of the most important resources is time. Thus, OSR games tend to emphasize the importance of GM timekeeping for the PC's actions both while they're adventuring and while they're engaged in various downtime activities. During an adventure, the GM must keep track of the number of turns that have passed because certain items like torches, water & rations only last so long, active spells like "light" and "hold portal" have limited durations, and checks for wandering monsters must be periodically made. These factors put time pressure on every action the PCs make and create a tradeoff between moving quickly and being careful (e.g. being stealthy, checking for traps, looking for secret doors). Resting in the dungeon is usually a risky decision due to random encounters, but going back to town to rest costs more time and poses its own problems. While lenient GMs may handwave the process of PCs leaving the dungeon & returning to town, some strict GMs will rule that players must budget enough time to leave the dungeon before the end of the game session, otherwise their PCs are stuck there until the next session - often with bad results. And while the PCs are gone from the dungeon, enemies can repopulate rooms that were cleared, reinforce their defenses & set new traps. Outside of an adventure, when some PCs are taking downtime (usually at a safe location like a town or stronghold), they can heal, train a new mount, research a spell, craft an item, carouse at the taverns, etc, but all of this takes a certain amount of time. If they're not done by the next game session, the player will have to use another PC for that session's adventure. (In the sort of "open table" or "West Marches" campaign with multiple groups of PCs described in Point #7 below, some GMs use "1:1 timekeeping" where real time and game time pass at the same rate to ease the GM's timekeeping burden, although this has its own issues.) If a PC spends too much time in town, another group of rival adventurers may have looted the dungeon in their absence, but if a PC spends too much time away from town, enemies may have attacked the town and stolen any treasure & items they left there. Most quests are time-sensitive, since villains are enacting whatever plans they have if the PCs don't stop them, and thus quest-giving NPCs will eventually find someone else to complete their quests if the PCs are too busy with something else. The passage of time is also important for higher-level PCs with strongholds, since they face periodic upkeep costs, as well as wages for their servants & retainers. And the world itself is changing, with the day/night cycle affecting the chance of random encounters (esp. undead), and the shifting of the seasons affecting the weather and presenting different environmental challenges for overland travel and war plans. Some settings may even have magical effects (e.g. lycanthropy) tied to moon phases, "moon gates" that open & close depending on moon phases (e.g. Ultima), or the strength of magic spells tied to moon phases (Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms). Tracking all of these temporal factors would be cumbersome, but including some of them gives a fictional setting the feeling of a real place where lots of things are happening at different times, and it's the reason that Gary Gygax famously proclaimed in all caps in the 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide that "YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT.”
7. Pick-Up Games not Epic Campaigns: Rather than expecting a small group of regular players to commit to multiple sessions that are part of an overarching campaign, tabletop RPGs in the 1970s often assumed a large group of irregular players and several DMs (often in college gaming clubs) who'd drop in whenever they had some free time. The 1st edition D&D rulebook famously said that "four to fifty players can be handled in any single campaign", but this assumed all the players wouldn't show up on the same day. As OSR game designer Ben Milton has explained, interlinked groups of players explored the same world in different sessions in a way that resembled a tabletop version of MMOs (massively multiplayer online games) like "World of Warcraft" that would come several decades later. To facilitate this style of play, old-school D&D often used an "open table" format where anyone who wanted to play was welcome. You didn't have to commit to a campaign that would span several sessions and required regular attendance. Instead, each session was a self-contained adventure (usually a dungeon crawl) with the players starting & ending the session at a nearby "safe" town where they could rest, heal & resupply. However, over multiple sessions, a rotating cast of characters could gradually explore the same "mega-dungeon", returning again & again to progress through different rooms & levels, evading traps, battling monsters & collecting treasure. This play method faded by the late 1980s but was revived in 2007 by the game designer Ben Robbins who touted his open-ended "West Marches" adventures on his blog, which focused on exploring the wilderness around a frontier town instead of a dungeon crawl. As Robbins explained, when all adventures begin & end at a home base location, this makes it easier to accomodate irregular players by explaining how/why new characters are joining the party (i.e. they met the other characters in town) and what happened to the characters whose player didn't show up (i.e. they stayed in town).

Keep in mind that not all OSR games adhere to all 7 principles, aside from the first one (i.e. rules-light), but as long as they adhere to most of these principles most of the time, they're still reasonably classified as OSR games.

Although it's not usually listed among the OSR game design principles, OSR games tend to have more focus on "dungeon crawls" (i.e. exploring maze-like ruins, tombs, caves, etc.), which was deemphasized in adventures from D&D's 2nd & later editions. They also tend to draw more of their inspiration from the pulp fantasy authors listed in "Appendix N" of the 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide (e.g. Lord Dunsany, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber, Lin Carter, L. Sprague de Camp, Jack Vance, Poul Anderson, Michael Moorcock) and less on Tolkienesque "high fantasy" which now feels a bit too much like "generic fantasy".

There's a variety of other aspects of old-school D&D that faded from prominence over time that have been featured in many OSR games, for example: lightly-sketched settings, rules for wilderness survival & exploration, the use of hex maps & miniatures, a focus on mundane adventuring gear, encumbrance rules & resource tracking, various combat tactics from wargaming (e.g. shield walls, flanking maneuvers, cavalry charges & footmen setting spears vs a charge, cover/concealment vs archers, siege engines, sappers, etc.), the use of hirelings & henchmen, player strongholds & domain play, mass combat rules, XP for treasure, different XP requirements for leveling based on class, training to level up, racial classes & level caps for demi-humans, greater importance of PC alignment & its link to lawful & chaotic factions in a cosmic struggle, more focus on learning languages to communicate with NPCs, and reaction rolls & morale rolls that determined NPC behavior. OSR games have also popularized things like "carousing rules" and "0-level funnel sessions" that existed in early D&D as interesting house rules.

Note that rather than sticking with one particular OSR ruleset, we'll play-test several of them so our members can get a sense of their advantages and shortcomings. OSR-related games can be loosely categorized into 5 categories:

• (1) "Classic" OSR Games (a.k.a. "Retro-clones" or "First-Wave OSR") repackage & streamline the rules of early editions of D&D like the White Box, Holmes' Basic, Moldvay & Cook's B/X, Mentzer's BECMI, the Rules Cyclopedia, or 1st Edition Advanced D&D without changing much (e.g. OSRIC, Old School Essentials, Basic Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, Dark Dungeons).
  (2) "OSR-Adjacent" Games (a.k.a. "Near-Clones" or "Second-Wave OSR") mix original D&D rules with some modern game mechanics you wouldn't see in old-school D&D like universal d20 mechanics, ascending armor classes & difficulty classes, simplified saving throws, rules for spell failure, slot-based inventory, advantage/ disadvantage on die rolls, usage die for resource tracking, feats that can be used 1-3 times a day, and action/ luck points that can modify die rolls (e.g. Castles & Crusades, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Whitehack, The Black Hack, GLOG, Macchiato Monsters, Adventurer Conqueror King System, Beyond the Wall). Newer games that combine OSR principles with innovations from D&D 5th Edition (e.g. Shadowdark, Five Torches Deep, Low Fantasy Gaming, Into the Unknown, Deathbringer) are sometimes referred to as "O5R". While most of these near-clones emulate either standard "high fantasy" or grittier "swords & sorcery" fantasy, Lamentations of the Flame Princess stands out as a near-clone based on B/X D&D with a 17th-century Earth setting, and adventures that combine weird fantasy & cosmic horror adventures, and gory artwork that presaged the NSR/Artpunk games that came later.
  (3) "New School Revolution" (NSR/NuSR), a.k.a. Third-Wave OSR, "Artpunk", or "Old School Baroque" (OSB) games often combine rules-light OSR design principles with some unique game mechanics that are fairly different from original D&D. Some of them stick with a fantasy setting (e.g. Cairn, Knave, Errant), while other NSR games include elements of gothic horror, steampunk, sword & planet, space opera, post-apocalyptic survival, etc, in a way that alters or abandons the standard fantasy tropes familiar from D&D (e.g. Into the Odd, Troika, Mork Borg, Stars Without Number,Worlds Without Number, Ultraviolet Grasslands, Mothership). The tendency for some NSR game books to use unique fonts & layouts and surreal artwork to help convey the game's mood has led to the moniker "Artpunk".
• (4) Rules-Light Story Games: Story Games, a.k.a. Storytelling or Narrative-Driven RPGs, have very different game mechanics than D&D and are often considered an RPG genre distinct from OSR/D&D "adventure games" because of several conflicts in their design principles. Notable examples of story games include "Ars Magica", "World of Darkness", "FATE", "Apocalypse World", "Burning Wheel" and "Blades in the Dark". However, some newer "rules-light" story games now incorporate enough elements from the OSR they could be considered a subtype or offshoot of the NSR games (e.g. Barbarians of Lemuria, World of Dungeons, Torchbearer, Vagabonds of Dyfed, Beyond the Wall, Nightmares Underneath, Vampyre Hack, Freebooters on the Frontier, Into the Dark).
• (5) "Ultralight"/"Free Kriegsspiel Revival" (FKR): Ultralight games take the OSR minimalist principles of "rulings not rules" and "roleplaying not roll-playing" to the extreme and keep the mechanics very simple (e.g. Tiny Dungeon, Flexspiel, Risus, Freeform Universal, FUDGE Lite, Mydwandr). FKR games go a step further and typically dispense with die rolls & rely entirely on GM fiat to adjudicate the outcome of player actions (e.g. Barons of Braunstein, Any Planet Is Earth, Old Freestyle Revival). The FKR method got some interest recently due to the 2019 documentary film "Secrets of Blackmoor", although a few RPGs like the Amber Diceless RPG existed in the 1990s.
• OSR Settings: In addition to these different OSR game systems, there's a variety of OSR settings, most of which are system-agnostic while others are system-specific but fairly easy to convert. Some people play in older fantasy settings like Lewis Carrol's Wonderland, Edward Rice Burroughs' Barsoom, Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age, or Fritz Leiber's Nehwon. Those nostalgic for B/X & 1st Edition AD&D often use settings from early D&D adventures like Blackmoor, Greyhawk, Mystara, and The Wilderlands of High Fantasy. NSR fans sometimes play in some of the weird 2nd edition AD&D settings like Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, and Planescape which are easy to convert to most OSR systems. Some newer settings created specifically for OSR-style games include notable examples like Dolmenwood, The Midderlands, Wulfwald, The Lastlands, Dwimmermount, B'reshit, Yoon-Suin, Qelong, Carcosa, Deep Carbon Observatory, and Vornheim/Red & Pleasant Land. For a longer list of settings, see the blog posts at Uncanny Ramblings and Blessings of the Dice Gods.
• => After checking out several of these game systems & settings, we can figure out how to combine the best parts with our own house rules. Luckily, unlike many TTRPGs, the OSR-ish games tend to have a small set of core rules that can fit on a one-page "cheat sheet", so it's easy to learn a different system and start playing 5-10 minutes later. Many games offer a "quick-start" version of their core rulebook for free online, so startup cost isn't a barrier. (Note: Click on the name of the OSR games above and you can download their rules for free.)

Since OSR games are a niche hobby and it's often hard to find players, we'll be playing online via Zoom which enables us to tap into a much larger pool of potential players. I'm opening this group up to interested people anywhere & everywhere!