Blog Book Club #51: OSR Dogma Recency

[Barnum]

July 31 2026

Welcome to this week’s blog book club. This week we will be discussing “OSR Dogma Recency” by Brendan S of Necropraxis.

Next week we’re back to Gus L’s blog Dungeon of Signs for “Thoughts Regarding Character Mortality and Old School Dungeons and Dragons”.

You can see a list of previous blog club posts here.

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Confession: I almost skipped this post as it’s brief and the ideas within have been discussed a lot before, maybe even in this blog club. One reason is I’m feeling lazy today and short posts can be a nice break. So this is a warning that I got kind of stupid with my weekly Friday rant.

I suppose another reason is I think this topic addresses an important stage in the lifecycle of a particular kind of idealized OSR player, especially now that new recruits are less likely to be people rediscovering and reinterpreting the game of their 80s childhood. The account may not be your experience (or anyone’s) but I will pass on the story as it was told to me with my own embellishments.

The Myth: They say that something magical is missing in modern versions of the world’s most popular role playing game. But they say if you happen across just the right table in the corner of the convention hall that some dork will offer to run the game for you exactly as it was meant to be played. Converts to the OSR scene start fresh and (hopefully) create a character by rolling 3d6 down the line and that character is killed doing something embarrassing in a funnel. The players are annoyed and then eventually excited by the prospect of drawing their maps on graph paper. With luck, these neophytes find the right people and have fun playing old games that feel new.

Stranger Things Season 3

Eventually, those destined to Referee find their way to the blogosphere where they greedily absorb the lessons of the sacred texts. The OSR Musings, Zen examples and Maxisms become part of the way our club expresses what makes our thing different from the Wizards of the Coast thing. We run our campaigns and write our blogs until some jerk online says “that’s not even what we did back in the 80s, the manual says so”. A needle scratch stops the soundtrack. Now a crisis of faith, is what we do built on a rockbed of lies? How will we be cool kids of the RPG scene if our practices only date back to a series of 2007 blog posts. Where’s the legitimacy in that!?

Concept art for Star Wars: the last jedi

Here I’ll dispense with the metaphors, exaggerations and historical inaccuracies, and put the myth down. My corner of the OSR is made up of intelligent, creative, and thoughtful group of people. Despite what some RPG cliques might think, we aren’t cult members. Our truth is the ‘OSR Dogma’ is a teaching tool which is not necessarily representative of historic play. It’s helpful in some situations, less consulted as you gain confidence, and eventually disregarded until it serves our purposes again. While the topic of how the game was played is of no doubt interesting to historians among us, I care only in the most casual sense. My participation in this framework of play is not dependent on the past, even if it may be inspired by it.

While my take away from this post was an interrogation of the OSR myth, if you all want to discuss game play balance or something else feel free.

[pladohsghost]

I hang out in OSR fora despite not being an OSR guy. I hang out there because the OSR is an approach that’s closest to the classic playstyle I prefer, being a somewhat structured approach drawing on old school playstyles. I see the OSR as more aspirational than prescriptive, actually, though – again – I’m not an OSR guy. I think the best aspect of the OSR is that it has the Principia Apocrypha and other writings that describe a coherent approach to play and thus provides a basis for more standardized play between tables that adhere to it. (Not that many seem to do so. ) I’d like to think that it makes for a good multi-round convention competition, if nothing else. The competition isn’t even necessary because having a great deal of consistency between tables for a multi-round experience or even just multiple tables offering a consistent approach would be good.

And, yeah, it makes teaching noobs a bit easier, for those that play close in style. There are principles they can refer to that explain why some things play out as they do.

I think those of us who played in the Long Ago understand that the OSR principles certainly weren’t standard and that they’re a collection pulled from many sources to create a curated approach.

As for the adjusting of encounters described in TSR materials, I keep firmly in mind that a party of PCs and associates could number a handful or well into double digits. Adjusting the adventure to a party of 26 instead of a party of 6 (and vice versa) is quite reasonable. Then consider that the adventure designer has no idea how many magic items the party has and directives to adjust numbers seems essential. It’s another one of those many things where understanding accrues with experience.

[d100-red-balloons]

I came to the OSR having only played D&D 5e. What drew me in was the emphasis on player agency and problem solving which I wasn’t getting from my 5e games.

I have never played any of the older editions or retroclones. I’ve read a few of them but they don’t inspire me the way other systems that came out of the OSR do. I don’t care about the exact rules some wargamers in the US were using in the 70s and 80s, I’ve no nostalgia for it. The one thing I will take from them is the Appendix N, reading through that material has done so much more for me and my games than any of the rules.

I trust people who were playing those older editions to mine them of their worth and create new stuff (systems/adventures/supplements) that is focused on the style of play I like, rather than retroactively apply this style to older modules and systems. The “R” in my “OSR” is renaissance, not revival.

[martin]

On the question of balancing/scaling encounters (as in the advice in N1) vs letting the party encounter whatever:

It comes down to player choice. If you are running a one-shot where you’ve told the players “we’re doing N1 today, roll your characters” but you only have 3 players when the module is designed for 12: yes you should adjust the numbers appearing.

If you are running a sandbox where the players have freedom to engage with a number of different dungeons you’ve scattered around, and they’re currently at low strength (due to scheduling, in-game level drain, whatever) it’s up to them to tackle appropriate challenges and you shouldn’t scale the world for them.

There are points on this spectrum in between.

In the comments on the blog post they discuss skipping an encounter on the way back from the dungeon. They point out this is due to the real world concern of running out play time. I would just like to note this is another situation where player choice is constrained by real world concerns and so they can no longer decide optimally/fictionally, so it’s an acceptable place for the GM’s finger on the scales.

I don’t think anything I’m saying is new to the OSR. If anyone has a more eloquent place to link to that explains this, go for it.

[martin]

To more explicitly link this to whether the OSR is a reinvention or a rediscovery: yes, definitely it is a reinvention, not the “true” classic way. But I do want to note that even if it wasn’t expressed clearly in TSR’s rules, I think both the approaches I describe above were canonical for different D&D designers at different times.

[Barnum]

Regarding N1, I know the adventure has its strengths but its also is one of the earliest examples of a final boss reliant on a DM PC inserted into the conclusion to avoid a slaughter. I think for me that just makes me hesitant to use it as a reliable source for how to balance my OSR style games. It was reportedly written in 4 weeks by new designer. I just can’t help but feel like the adventure might be better if it was geared at more experienced players or a higher level PCs. As is it reminds me more of the 5e adventures I used to play that desire a heroic conclusion with a high level foe without really putting in the work or trusting the players.

My point here is I think issues with balance are just symptoms of more serious design flaws. DMs can try and salvage things either with prep or some last minute stat block surgery. The alternative is just try and make the best of it and embrace the flaws.

As a teaser for the upcoming blog post this week, part of what we discuss is what can be gained from NEVER balancing the encounter if the group has the right mind set. I think that’s an interesting contrast to what is being mulled over here.