Hi there, OSR people. I haven't really ever talked to any of y'all despite watching this community and loosely participating in it for years. So, this is print "hello, world!"
I like this community. I want to be a part of it. However, my interests differ, and for a long time that has held me back from producing content.
OSR, at least to me, seems to be a reductionist style of gaming. It's not about telling a story through rules, it's about telling a story with rules to adjucate conflict and/or decide outcome to continue a narrative, to build tension, and to do lots of other things.
[going somewhere/disclaimer]
My major influences, as a relatively new arrival, have been: D&D Next/5e (my first D&D game), Goblin Punch, and Middle Finger of Vecna. These influences are selected out of many (basically everyone I follow on G+ and more) by how much they've posted and how much I like their stuff.
These above occupy the same sphere of D&Dish RPG but very different content/tone subspheres. I'll briefly summarize my perspective on these influences after years of following them.
D&D 5e: At it's core, high fantasy. More rules lite than the previous editions, but the flavor and tone (especially for Forgotten Realms) remains unchanged. The system I play in. Have all the core books, know how to construct homebrews for every class. Read all the Unearthed Arcana. Etc, etc. Hoping that Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford + crew avoid system bloat in the long run.
Goblin Punch: My biggest influence/hook into the OSR. I have bookmarked 58 blog posts and I know I've lost some bookmarks over time. For me, this blog and the dude behind it will always be the "what is cool in OSR" standard. I don't mean the specific setting, or the specific rules, but the sense of wow I get from reading a kickass Arnold post. 7 Myths Everyone Believes About Druids, Synthexia, Eldritch Americana, the Awakened, Non-Euclidean geometry, and his starship setting. I can go on and on. First post I read was about Guilder, the City of Green Brass. Basically the only reason I write (share) online.
Middle Finger of Vecna: 5e homebrews. Updates Mon/Wed/Fri on a good week. Odds are, these gentlemen have a 5e archetype for your character idea. I'm using the Shugenja in my current campaign because a player asked for a "sort of Chinese feeling wizard". Heh, heh. I really can't understate how much their breakdown of 5e homebrew creation has encouraged me to write my own stuff. Also kudos to them for building up from 2 dudes making stuff on GitP forums to a fully fledged Patreon with multiple writers that just successfully finished its first Kickstarter.
So, what you're supposed to get from all this is a general sense of where my gaming style/content is heading. 2 D&D 5e influences, and I like Goblin Punch for the creativity, not necessarily the system. My dream game is a D&D 5e game that feels like an OSR, so basically D&D 5e's lethality at the first few levels continued. Yes, you're squishier, and you earned it. That means my game will have that much less give the next time.
Which means I'm probably just going to write for 5e. Other systems are cool, but I don't really have the headspace to innovate consistently in other RPG systems. I guess that means I can stop adapting my content to what I felt like the community was responding to and drop the feeling that I have to prove myself.
Anyhoo, now you know more about me and nothing really at the same time, which is good. I live in Texas. Now you know something else.
Everything from here on out, as specific archetypes or monsters, will be 5e, because it's easy for me to balance content inside 5e. This will probably change, like all good rules do.
Also, now that G+ is officially being shut down, I need pointers as to where people are moving so I can follow the pulse of the OSR. Thanks.
Also, y'all have been very friendly and respectful in general. There are exceptions but there always will be. Thanks for playing nice.
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