Why OSR At All?

Someone asked the above question at theRPGSite.

I don't usually visit the the various gaming forums (as examples, the above, along with the Knights & Knaves Alehouse and Dragonsfoot) as i'm not really looking to debate the merits of various game systems: I started my blog to write about what interests me, and i'm thrilled (and consider it a bonus) when visitors share their comments. My visit to theRPGSite was prompted by a post on RPG Blog II, responding to criticisms of old-school gaming, old-school bloggers, and the explosion of old-school blog-sites in general. I have certain theories about the real motivation behind those criticisms, which I may end up sharing if it seems worthwhile.

In answering the above question, one of the commenters, Kyle Aaron, provided the following response, which I thought sufficiently succinct to warrant repeating here.

I dunno about being a member of any [Old School] movement, that's a bit pretentious.

All I know is, what I like and dislike. I like simple systems, short cheap books with black and white art, rules and setting descriptions, and useful example characters. And charts.

I like simple systems because most players are too lazy to learn complex systems, and it gets tedious when I as GM have to explain it to them during a game session. I like simple systems because when there aren't rules for everything you get to use your imagination, I hate it when you're in a game session and you say, "I do X," and the GM says, "ah, there's a rule for that... your skill... that's -3, and..." and half an hour later you roll and fail.

I like short cheap books with black and white art, I don't like big expensive chunky glossy magazine-style books.

I like rules and setting descriptions, I don't like flavour fic.

I like example characters the players could have in their first session, not example characters that can't be built within the rules and are just Mary Sues for one of the game writers.

I like charts which give us things to inspire character creation or setting events, so the dice can help our creativity.

And I like snacks. Snacks are important. Some call this Old School. I call it "what I like."