Broken by 2014

So anyway, 2014 broke me.

Between the PhD deadlines (which I failed and now have till May to pass), the four hour daily commute to a job I desperately tried to get out of (and failed - here's looking at you year two at Peach Pit U), and the black hole of mutual loathing that my marriage has become, I don't know how I am still breathing, let alone sane.

The first causality of this real life implosion was, of course, the gaming and blogging that is my escape hatch and release valve.

2015 has been much kinder. I've had a relaxing trip to an onsen spa, my little boy is the love and light that keeps me going, the wife is treating me human again, the job wraps up in ten days so I can concentrate on getting the degree done, and I played a game of the new Star Wars miniature rules.

I have a backlog of posts that will have to wait until the degree is done and I am off the academic hazing hamster wheel. This is first priority. Expect regular blogging to resume after that, along with gaming, hopefully.

Hope you all are having as much good fortune in the new year as I have enjoyed thus far.

PS* I tried to read 5E but the prose is pretty languid and pedantic. Days like these I miss High Gygaxian or Mumbly Mearls.

Obligatory 5e Thoughts

Downloaded it, haven’t read it. May never considering my lifestyle, or may get to it when degree ends/new job is found/child goes to college/7e comes out. It joins the untouched treasures on  my hard drive. This post is merely for traffic and contains little news, just some late night mumblings followed by futon crash for a few hours before 6am Japanese train rush hour.

Lots of internet stink about this thing. Goes both ways:

HOORAH!!

The big corporate gaming monster listened to the OSR and dialed back from 4e, then gave it out free!

BOO!!

The big corporate gaming monster has mesmerized the OSR with its own tricks, and the ‘game’ is incomplete. (I know about the updates, just stating current events)

HOORAH!!

WotC put in an ohmyglob actual reference to LGBT gamers and ushered in an era of explicit gender issue acceptance in gaming. Having seen LGBT friends go through the shitty wringer our society puts them through, this makes me more interested in 5e than I would have been otherwise.

BOO!!

Homophobe trolls are beating collective chest about ‘gayed up’ game (see response to AiCN’s review for typical example), which essentially amounts to a choice that gaming groups have been making for 40 years. Anonymous douchenozzle bigots are getting far more attention than they deserve.

BOO!!

Some internet meanies have taken the opportunity to beat up on Zak S, who consulted on 5e, and has the very LA habit of speaking his mind in the most confrontational/condescending way possible.

HOORAH!!

Half the OSR has rushed to his defense, ironic for a pundit who doesn’t particularly need it.

HOORAH!!

Hopefully the impending success of 5e will breathe life into some other old games the deserve a major revival.

BOO!

Fat chance.

Oyasumi nasai.

OSR Planet replacement

I found it!

This site scratches my itch. Nice work Jaap!

http://nirdday.blogspot.jp/

Mystery Solved

It seems Alex took down the OSR Planet due to some complaints about copyright mumbo jumbo.

I guess some may have valid gripes, but it just seems to me another case of some folks peeing in the water and poisoning the well for everyone.

Oh well, thank you for the hard work Alex. First Eternal Keep, next Old School RPG Planet - looks like anything nearing a community forum gets destroyed. Is this some natural OSR cycle of creation and destruction I wonder?

OSR Planet Takeover?

Is it just me or has the Old School RPG Planet website been taken over by RPG Bloggers?
I suppose it is a free site so no cause or right to gripe, but a head's up would have been nice.

Oh well, the layout is a bit commercial, but is also clear and has categories that may steer traffic a bit more.

Wonder what happened?

SURVIVING OSR BUTTHURT & TWO TROLL QUESTIONS

So I am in ‘OSR Lurker’ mode as a few Real Life deadlines and challenges have jumped up on me, and the other day I dropped two innocuous questions on the blog of one of the OSR leading lights, “What do you get out of D&D?” and “Are all the different books & editions just grist for the mill?” To the first query I got the snide-sounding “Some of your questions make no sense.” I resisted the urge to reply in a snarky way “What word are you having problems with? Maybe a remedial reading course would help.” To the second question I got “I keep the good and drop the bad.” A blindingly obvious answer, to be sure, and also obviously impossible for us humans, as the plethora of heartbreakers, Synnibars, WTF D&D and failed Kickstarters attest.

Basically, someone just tried to OSR butthurt me. Who? That’s not important, I won’t call out anybody, but I am sure Google will help you if you want to now. Prepare to be unsurprised. The more interesting question is why, and by answering this we can also uncover some rules to help us survive the inevitable OSR Butthurt when it happens to us.

REASON ONE – None of us are friends, all of us are strangers

Responding to blogs is a funny type of interaction in two ways. First, we have no qualms starting an online conversation with a person we’d never talk to on the street, or one whose house we’d never think of entering. Commenting online disarms us against strangers, we let our guard down thinking they will be courteous and kind when we may have just inadvertently challenged a major tenet of their belief system and set them into attack mode in their own territory. Add to that the fact that the emotionless & contextless nature of leaving online comments is like trying to teach the lyrics of a song with a kazoo in your mouth, then the possibility of misunderstanding and conflict is obvious.

Remember, none of us are friends, all of are strangers, and the chances we will misunderstand or argue are greater than those that we will get along.

REASON TWO – All of us are trolls at one time or another

I dimly remember making a positive comment about a blogger a few years back to which my butthurter objected. The details elude me now, but I remember not saying anything abrasive, and quite oppositely trying to calm down or show support for someone who had been riled up. Although this incident was unimportant to me, the OSR leading light seems to have remembered and decided to shoulder a chip and exercise a grudge against me.

Which, if you think about it, is pretty sad. Holding a grudge about an insignificant comment about roleplaying games for years is a terrible waste of a person’s energy and emotion, and brings me to my next point:

REASON THREE – The Smallest Thing In Real Life Is Bigger Than The OSR

Right now, I blog to let off steam and have a quasi-creative hobby while I finish a PhD on US economic discourse (don’t ask), look for a new uni to work at for the next 4 to 5 years, and simultaneously raise my beautiful 4 month old son.

The OSR and my blog is pretty far down my list of priorities. I enjoy the boundless creativity of many fine blogs out there, the amusing personalities and insightful comments, and even the scandals and flamewar of the week. But I never take any of it seriously. Sadly, over the years the OSR has lost some great biggies (ChogWiz and James M to name a few), and doubtless an uncounted number of unknowns to its frequent waves of drama. Me, I’ll take the good and leave the bad, just as my butthurter advised me.

REASON FOUR – Don’t Monetize Unless You Can Deliver the Prize

This last one has nothing to do with the incident that inspired this post, but as I have resolved not to charge for any material I produce, I thought I’d say a word about the OSR as business. I admire the heck out of people who do great work and deservedly make a living off the OSR in particular and RPGs in general. But there are far too many out there who think game design is a quick, fun job. A quick glance at Tenkar’s list of failed Kickstarters sadly reinforces this reality, and I for one both admire Tenkar for holding people’s feet to the fire while at the same time feeling what a great waste of his time and talents it is to keep the list updated.

Ask James Raggi – he may personally be having fun producing LoFP, but he’s also working his arse off. The two aren’t incompatible, but like any creative endeavor you can’t succeed in games without hard work.

TWO TROLL QUESTIONS

Finally, in a non-sarcastic way I’d like to ask you dear readers the same two questions that set off the OSR bigwig: “What do you get out of D&D?” and “Are all the different books & editions just grist for the mill?”

For me, D&D is both pleasant nostalgia for the games of my youth, as well as a great mental exercise that takes my mind of the depressing things I find in my thesis. Economics is starting to look like the greatest scam ever perpetrated to me, so the idea of bashing down doors and braving monsters and traps for gold is refreshingly pure and simple.

I’d have to say that with the exception of the Midnight campaign setting, which I L-O-V-E, I enjoy the mishmash of anything pre-3e. I have tried 3e and 4e, and maybe if they hadn’t been sold as D&D I would have liked them more, but playing them after years of 1^st and 2^nd edition was like switching to new Coke or Crystal Pepsi. Might have been fine if I hadn’t known better, but once you taste that classic stuff, new is not always better.