Robert Conquest's Three Laws of Politics:

1. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.

2. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.

3. The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.



Despite the reference to "wings" and explicitly about "politics", the ideas pertain more in the classical sense, "politics" is a thing that the polity engages in with each other.  That is, where you have people formed into groups, you get it.  And the three laws apply.  Could be a volunteer baking society or an independent umbrella for movement in gaming.  Ask, say, bass fishermen or teams of BBQ grilling enthusiasts about changes in their "organizations" over the last couple of decades. 

Me, I think Groucho Marx was more profound than I knew earlier, about being a member of a club and who would have him.   It is precisely to the degree that the OSR does become a "club" that I lose interest.  Because I'm only interested in the old school gaming part of the equation.

Quote from: rytrasmi on September 16, 2022, 09:30:39 AM
I think we're having like 3 separate but overlapping conversations in this thread depending on one's definition of OSR.

This is why any conversation about OSR is ultimately a waste of time.  Nobody agrees on terms.

Or you could not cave to the false dichotomy, ignore the "clubs" and "cliques" and whatever, and just play what you want.

Quote from: The Spaniard on September 16, 2022, 08:58:48 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 16, 2022, 06:33:34 AM

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 15, 2022, 03:53:02 PM
In regard to WOTC, and by association Paizo as well; it is worth the effort to point out that in all matters both future and present, new players will always be given priority over the old guard.  At best, the old guard will be offered a token nod of the head or perhaps a passing wink of the eye; as the industry leadership marches quickly toward rainbows, glitter, and unicorns.

Remember: it's a big club, and you're not in it.

The OSR is the home of the Old Guard, in gaming.

The OSR is definitely not the home of the Old Guard in gaming. The OSR can be just as stupidly exclusionary as WotC and Paizo, and will suffer the same fate as those clowns by being so.

I'm happy to just go my own way while pointing out their hypocrisy.

In your opinion, who is the Old Guard?  Old TSR guys like Kask, Mentzer, etc? 

I would argue that if being exclusionary meant keeping SJW's out, I'm all for it.  They're the touch of death.  Let them in and the whole thing becomes infected.  It always becomes political, they can't help themselves.  They're somehow compelled to find a victim or play the victim.

The Old Guard are the people who wrote and played RPGs during the first decade of their existence. There were a lot more games than just D&D back then, but the term OSR has morphed into something meaning "only derived from D&D" which is pretty myopic IMHO.

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 16, 2022, 10:41:37 AM
The Old Guard are the people who wrote and played RPGs during the first decade of their existence.

Playing maybe, but children typically don't write good material cos they lack discipline imho.

Quote from: rytrasmi on September 16, 2022, 10:54:47 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 16, 2022, 10:41:37 AM
The Old Guard are the people who wrote and played RPGs during the first decade of their existence.

Playing maybe, but children typically don't write good material cos they lack discipline imho.

I dunno, Classic Traveller is pretty solid for something written by "children".

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 16, 2022, 11:05:07 AM

Quote from: rytrasmi on September 16, 2022, 10:54:47 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 16, 2022, 10:41:37 AM
The Old Guard are the people who wrote and played RPGs during the first decade of their existence.

Playing maybe, but children typically don't write good material cos they lack discipline imho.

I dunno, Classic Traveller is pretty solid for something written by "children".

Next time I'll add a  to my joke 

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 16, 2022, 10:41:37 AM

Quote from: The Spaniard on September 16, 2022, 08:58:48 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 16, 2022, 06:33:34 AM

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 15, 2022, 03:53:02 PM
In regard to WOTC, and by association Paizo as well; it is worth the effort to point out that in all matters both future and present, new players will always be given priority over the old guard.  At best, the old guard will be offered a token nod of the head or perhaps a passing wink of the eye; as the industry leadership marches quickly toward rainbows, glitter, and unicorns.

Remember: it's a big club, and you're not in it.

The OSR is the home of the Old Guard, in gaming.

The OSR is definitely not the home of the Old Guard in gaming. The OSR can be just as stupidly exclusionary as WotC and Paizo, and will suffer the same fate as those clowns by being so.

I'm happy to just go my own way while pointing out their hypocrisy.

In your opinion, who is the Old Guard?  Old TSR guys like Kask, Mentzer, etc? 

I would argue that if being exclusionary meant keeping SJW's out, I'm all for it.  They're the touch of death.  Let them in and the whole thing becomes infected.  It always becomes political, they can't help themselves.  They're somehow compelled to find a victim or play the victim.

The Old Guard are the people who wrote and played RPGs during the first decade of their existence. There were a lot more games than just D&D back then, but the term OSR has morphed into something meaning "only derived from D&D" which is pretty myopic IMHO.

Thanks for the clarification.  The "OSR" term gets thrown around so much it's hard nail down what it actually means.  I guess since I started with the Moldvay boxed set just after it came out, and quickly moved to AD&D I was at the end of that first decade.

Quote from: rytrasmi on September 16, 2022, 11:23:08 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 16, 2022, 11:05:07 AM

Quote from: rytrasmi on September 16, 2022, 10:54:47 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 16, 2022, 10:41:37 AM
The Old Guard are the people who wrote and played RPGs during the first decade of their existence.

Playing maybe, but children typically don't write good material cos they lack discipline imho.

I dunno, Classic Traveller is pretty solid for something written by "children".

Next time I'll add a  to my joke 

Mea Culpa

Quote from: rytrasmi on September 15, 2022, 04:31:38 PM
Tourists gravitate to what's popular. Look at the throngs who stand in line at The Louvre to catch a glimpse of the Mona Lisa when the place bursting at the seams with amazing art.

The strength of the OSR is also its weakness: independent cells of systems and gamers with no central authority. A constellation like that has no marketing department. Goodman's Road Crew concept would work for the OSR as a whole, but who's going to organize that?

Something that one person can do to help chip away at the monopoly is to run public OSR games. Get the word out by directly introducing people to these games.

"Tourists gravitate.." That´s brilliant, I´m gonna steal that, thanks!

Politics aside, one of the ongoing problems with the ttrpg scene is that it is very insular and stagnant. This effect gets worse as you move away from more popular genres like fantasy. Don't like the popular game dominating so and so genre because of creative disagreements with pretentious poorly conceived decades old setting baggage? Sorry, fuck you. You're not going to attract anyone to your homebrew games. Unless you've already made a name for yourself, you're not going to penetrate the market.

You're better off going into any other creative market. Getting into prose fiction is easy as pie now because of the self-published Kindle Unlimited ecosystem. Video games too. If you're on a tight budget (and if you're reading this then you probably are), you can use some newfangled AI to generate low quality placeholder art, music, and even text. With any luck, you might get picked up for a streaming series.

It's interesting.  It was thrown out there as a club that we're not in and then the conversation fractured into our different takes on what OSR, Old Guard, etc. meant.  There's probably a lesson in there but I'm not smart enough to define it.

I just look for like-minded folks and play.  Granted, it can take a while to find players that "fit" with the rest of us but I've been pretty blessed with the players I've had.  I will say that all my spending lately has been on ebay buying old 1st and 2nd edition sourcebooks as I clearly yearn to get back to how it all started for me.  Not sure if that's the idle navel-gazing of an aging nostalgic or something else.

If by club you mean target demographic I agree, I'm not part of the target demographic they (WotC/Baizuo/Etc) are chasing.

That's okay, I'm not interested in their products either, so they get to chase their preferred market segment and I get to spend my money elsewhere. Win/Win IMHO.

As for the OSR... I'm not getting into THAT argument again.