In 2022, I noticed more and more gamers who had only played “new school” versions of D&D showing a genuine interest OSR games and asking questions about it on social media. The Battle for the OGL accelerated this trend.

While I’m wary of a large migration of new people into our niche scene, guiding adventurers lost in the wilderness safely into the keep is what I’m all about.

The reoccurring issue.

The newcomers in these question threads think about old school games in terms of their new school experience. That doesn’t work.

A referee who doesn’t understand the first principles of OSR games is likely to run an unfun campaign that will quickly fizzle.

A group of gamers who have a bad experience are not going to join the cult.

If you are one of my people, I want to help you find the things that have been made for you.

A referee who only knows 5E carries their assumptions and experiences into their attempts to run a retro-clone. That’s a disaster.

I want to help Dungeon Masters understand how to run old school games and how they are different from new school games. Here’s why.

They are coming.

There are 5E D&D players and GMs trying OSR games. I see more and more of them on social media sites every week.

I recommend gamers new to OSR games start with a retro-clone. Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Old School Essentials, and Basic Fantasy Role-Playing provide a baseline understanding of what it means to play an “old school” version of D&D.

There is a problem. The retro-clones were not written for 5E gamers.

Who are retro-clones for?

In the early aughts, fans of old school D&D conversed about whether an OSR game should include “What is a role-playing game?” or “How to play this game.”

Most of us believed that gamers born after 1985 would have little interest in the old games.

If gamers who grew up playing B/X and AD&D are the bulk of your customers, then why bother going to the effort to detail the the assumptions underlying the game?

If there are new players, they will be introduced by those older players and be taught how to play in an old school manner. That’s how we learned the game.

Who is it for, now?

I’m getting comments on my YouTube videos and emails from readers from gamers in their teens and early 20s. People who speak up and ask questions are like mice in your house. If you see one there are more lurking in the shadows.

We are starting to see a significant number of young gamers who were not introduced to OSR games by a friend but by reading about it or watching an actual play on YouTube.

YouTube is one of the main reasons 5E got so big so fast.

Gamers looking for something different are trying OSR games. This creates an interesting opportunity but it comes with a challenge.

It would be good to bring a new generation of gamers into the hobby and show them the way. The OSR has a great deal to offer these youngsters and I’d like for them to have a positive experience. For publishers of OSR games, here is a chance to sell a more books and keep the back catalog viable.

The challenge is to help the “new school” gamers understand the old school games and play style in a patient and welcoming way. The OSR has an undeserved reputation of being full of jerks. We have a small number of assholes in the scene yelling at anyone who disagrees with them with their megaphones turned all the way up. Most of the people in the OSR are positive and welcoming.

We’ve assumed that new game masters would learn the same way we did. We expected that they would learn by playing with existing gamers and go one to run their own games.. Not true anymore.

They are learning on YouTube and other forms of online media and they need our help.

Call to action

If you publish a game, adventures, have a blog, podcast, or YouTube channel, I am challenging you to make some of your content for total newbs and make it in a friendly and welcoming tone.

Gamers with no experience outside of 5E don’t get XP for GP, why character death is beneficial to cooperative and collaborative play, or how to focus on playing the world.

Make stuff for the new folks. Meet them where they are at.

If you are a publisher, consider putting an investment into helping new game masters learn how to run an old school game properly.

Here is an example. To help referees who have only played 5E but want to run an OSR game, I wrote a series of posts about how to get started in the OSR for 5E Dungeon Masters.

Hat Tip to my buddy Robert who got me thinking about this topic a while back.