I've read some more OSR theory discussions, and it seems that most people who pay attention to this kind of thing have all come to similar conclusions, although the labels differ somewhat. That is, that there are effectively three groups (at least, but three sufficiently prominent ones, at least) that are all somewhat associated with the OSR, and a least sometimes take on that label. The labels that I used to prefer are OSR, OSR adjacent, and NSR. However, given that the OSR adjacent and NSR believe themselves to be part of the OSR too, and identify as such, I haven't found that those are as likely to stick. I've seen a clever way of differentiating between the three main camps by utilizing three different interpretations of what the R in OSR stands for, which maybe would work a little better. I've mentioned them briefly before, but there they are again:
Old School Revival: the "original" OSR, focused on getting the retroclones out so that the original rules could still b used (albeit in rewritten "cloned" form) and new modules utilizing those rules could be published by referring to these clones. Although initially focused on 1e AD&D stuff, i.e. OSRIC, Sword & Wizardry (OD&D) and later Basic Fantasy and Labyrinth Lord (B/X) were developments here too, bringing the full gamut of retroclines, more or less, into prominence. There are other retroclones than these, of course, and there are more that clone more esoteric slight differences of old D&D, but once these four were out, the retroclone "need" was largely filled, and this original branch of what the OSR was gradually faded from prominence. Subsequently, two things happened: 1) WotC, recognizing the demand, made older materials available for sale as relatively reasonably priced pdfs or PODs, and 2) OSE (and to a lesser extent the Hyperborea AD&D clone) swept in and seems to have largely sucked the wind out of the sails of every other retroclone. By 2012, this movement within the OSR largely got everything that it wanted, and therefore is not a major movement anymore in the community. No doubt many people who associate more with this idea still play in the OSR space, and buy OSR products, especially new modules and adventures, but there is little talk of exciting new retroclones, and little effort that I'm aware of in pursuing the goals of the Revival portion of the OSR. Many online commentators speaking ~2012, called the OSR "dead" meaning that the community, having gotten what it wanted, went quiet and had no more need to discuss already achieved goals anymore.
Old School Renaissance. As the OSR got more and more into things beyond just the retroclones, or the availability of older editions, it started to coalesce into a number of "this is how you play OSR style" philosophies. As many have pointed out, this is not a faithful recreation of how everyone played in the 70s and early 80s, but it is perhaps a romanticized recreation of at least one playstyle that had been underserved since, oh, probably the early to mid-80s, in many ways. Ironically, the "OSR play philosophy" was antithetical to the whole AD&D playstyle, given that OSRIC recreating AD&D was what started the OSR in the first place. Gary Gygax, in numerous writings, described something very different than what the OSR put forward as a platonic ideal of how to play, although the pre-AD&D OD&D and B/X games, especially with a heavy DIY expectation is maybe not terribly far off, in at least some respects. The OSR community started focusing in on the simpler, older games, deliberately cultivated contempt for game balance, mechanical vs diagetic solutions, and a number of other things that would have been pretty seriously at odds with how most people played in 1980 or so, and then also started diverging in tone and theme (if not necessarily in mechanics) from D&D of the past. Products like Carcosa, Lamentations of the Flame Princess and the work of controversial figure Zac S. (who has now been pretty thoroughly canceled, whether fairly or not, by the RPG community.) Curiously, in at least one commentary blog post on the Zac S. situation, it made an offhand comment about "the Renaissance formerly called the OSR." But with the collapse of the OSR blogosphere (largely) around where the OSR was going, the pulling of the plug on Google+ where a lot of this activity was, and the collapse and cancellation of at least one of the most prominent purveyors of this version of the OSR, a lot of people considered this to be yet another "death of the OSR" or rather, that this briefly faddish phase of the OSR became much more quiet and no longer dominates the headlines, such as they are, in the OSR community.
Old School Revolution. One perhaps inevitable side effect of changing the OSR from a discussion on the mechanics, i.e., the old rules and retroclones which replicated them, to a playstyle and philosophy on how to game, is that eventually, OSR started to become--ironically--divorced from the very rules and mechanics that it was created to champion and bring back. While I like the idea of calling this the NSR, the label has had limited currency, and most OSR communities continue to talk about OSR products of this category as if they were actually the OSR. I kind of disagree, but since I don't identify as any kind of OSRian, just a sympathetic para-OSRian who's more old-fashioned than old skool, maybe it's a little cheeky of me to play gatekeeper to the label. I'm not sure exactly at what point this launched, but there are a lot of games, most of them very niche, and very... "why bother" quite honestly, alongside a handful of games that have become tentpoles, if you will, of this subcommunity within the OSR. All of these are defined by their adherence to the OSR philosophy, to the extent that that's really a well codified and accepted philosophy, while simultaneously deviating significantly from the mechanics and rules of older D&D and the retroclones. Many of them, ironically, bring in a great number of "storygame" affectations, like player-facing rules, meta-currencies to allow players to influence the emerging narrative, etc. Some of the tentpole properties include Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland, it's expansion, or Morg Borg and its various spin-offs into other genres, like pirates, space horror, etc. Cairn and maybe Knave. There's many others, but I'm putting forward just a handful of the more prominent ones. It's also possible that OSR-themed games that hew closer to 5e (deliberately) like ShadowDark or Five Torches Deep also fit here, although I think many OSRians would be more comfortable suggesting that they like a lot about those games, but don't really consider them OSR. But that gets to the final group, for which I have no label.
This group is games that may not have any connection to the OSR at all other than that OSR fans may also like them, or that their creators hope that OSR fans like them and hope to sell to them. While the former is fine; maybe games like Dragonbane fit here, the latter is just a cheap marketing gimmick, and definitely cause for more than usual caveat emptor on the part of the OSR fans looking at such a product.
Maybe its a good thing if the OSR "dies". As a community, it doesn't seem particularly innovative anymore; even the NSR or OSRevolution's innovations are mostly overstated. And that community is particularly toxic too. Then again, most online communities are.
Not sure what I'm going to do with that yet, if anything at all, but the idea really fascinated me, and why not use it? In the meantime, I certainly encourage everyone and anyone to look it up and read about it. It's a cool story, even if it is mostly likely complete nonsense.
The story of Portlock Alaska will also play a role. The creepiness involved is pretty cool, and it allows for a slightly different feel than the more up front "Bigfoot War" thing. Mysterious disease and creepiness foreshadow what will come.
UPDATE: I never really gave my conclusion/summary of the OSR situation. As I've said many times before, I'm not old school, but I am old-fashioned. None of the OSR communities are really doing what I'd want them to do, in theory, but I am sympathetic and somewhat adjacent to what they're doing. I've never really loved the old rules, and I do have a number of quibbles about them; I'd want them to be significantly modified, so I'm not really on the Revival camp. However, the Renaissance camp goes a lot into gaming philosophies that I disagree with, and as Revolution builds on those principles that I disagree with.
However, if you ditch the principles, then you can potentially end up with systems that I kind of like. So I guess my preferred system, which I've designed (really kitbashed; I created very little myself) is in parallel to all of the OSRs. But in terms of community, I find that the revival folks are the ones I'm most likely to get a long with, and the renaissance guys have some interesting ideas. The revolution might be more interesting, but I find that community pretty intolerable, even when I might find some of their ideas for mechanics interesting, here and there.
The OSR themed games that I have the most interest in are the para-OSR stuff, like Knave 2e, ShadowDark or Five Torches Deep. Although they're not exactly what I'd want either, they're the closest thing within the OSR to games that I'd really enjoy. As long, of course, as they avoided the dungeon, which is my biggest disconnect with anything OSR. But, I've seen some stuff recently that "debunks" the idea that these games, specifically ShadowDark, are optimized dungeoncrawlers. Although they do do that well, of course, they also work just fine for overland exploration, or anything else.
Moot point for me; I have a system already, but I'm still interested in these systems and what's going on somewhat in these communities, at bit, here and there.
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