Quote from: jrients;369581There are legitimate criticisms to be made, but the group is big enough, diverse enough, nonlocalized enough that these sweeping generalizations, even if accurate, won't do much to help the situation.

I don't think generalizations are made to "help the situation" - certainly not the situation of the people posting the generalization, much less the situation of those generalized about.

What I learned the hard way since dedicating a certain amount of my spare time to online RPG boards is that they are simply too vast in terms of the number of the people on the boards to allow for careful discrimination sc. treating people on individual merit. It's easier here than on tBG (which I've never written anything on) or on Enworld, but still, the number of people to keep track of, especially new ones with a low post count, is hard. So people tend to approach discussions in terms of either broad sweeps and camps or personal vendettas (an odd dichotomy, but there you have it). As someone who's not part of the OSR myself, e.g., I find it exceedingly hard to even name names and differentiate individuals among people I - mostly unthinkingly - lump into the OSR crowd. I mean, you know I've been clicking away on a couple of occasions to actually see what the TARGA stuff was all about, and by the third or fourth time when the hyperlinks transport me to yet another blog, I already forget the name of the guy whose blog I just visited.

If, beyond this rambling, I'm to name concrete people... I'd say this. I'm reading both your blog and grognardia only very infrequently nowadays, whereas 2 to 1.5 years ago they were a daily feature of my life. Heck, I find myself linking your old blog entries when making new posts on Enworld much more than actively reading your new stuff. I don't know why that happened - perhaps a Shatner pic too many? With grognardia it's different. There I really went into a period of being massively turned off by its  self-importance so aptly caricatured by Joe_the_lawyer above - we're at a stage where a blog writer announces to his "faithful" readers that he won't be writing a new entry for 2 days, and that he "apologizes" for not updating Dwimmermount or whatsit campaign news knowing full well how disappointed the people who LOVE these blog entries are. Beyond self-importance there's also an enormous proprietary right that's written right into his take on the 1E material, coupled with reminders to the readers of the contrary. I also agree he's trying too hard to write well, as in: throw in "quixotic" words (yeah, that's one), and that Joe may well be right that these are the ambitions of a project wanting to see print.

That said, I've loved those very same elements in James Raggi's posting, because the guy just oozes over with self-irony and humour. But same as with you, I find myself linking to old blogs (the immortal "I hate Fun" e.g.) rather than reading new stuff. In some sense, as an outsider, the excitement to me has worn off.

Windjammer, you make some good points.  However I must note that I was specifically asking the original poster to name names since he took the time to scribe an open letter to a group so diffuse he labels it in scare quotes.  Also, are you playing any of the games discussed in OSR sites?  If not, I can see how it could get boring after a while.  I stopped following several completely awesome blogs a while back because they got to talking about 4e more than I could stand.

Its pretty pointless for anyone to try to gain the title of the single Authoritative Voice in the Wilderness, since that job has already been taken in the RPG world, by me.

The most anyone else can hope for is to be pretty good within their niche.

For the record, the only blog that could be called "OSR"-esque that I read semi-regularly is Jrients'.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;369685For the record, the only blog that could be called "OSR"-esque that I read semi-regularly is Jrients'.

How come? Just curious about the reasons why.

Quote from: Koltar;369407I don't even visit those blogs, go to "OSR" sites, and I haven't heard anyone say if TRAVELLER is "Old School" or not.
 Is Traveller disqualified because its science fiction and space traveling?

In other words : What the fuck is the big deal about "OSR" ?

(and why should I care? Or why should gamers who do stuff besides "D&D" care?)

- Ed C.

I do stuff besides D&D.

Anyway, I consider Traveller old school personally, Classic Traveller anyway.  I don't consider Gurps Traveller old school, that doesn't make it a bad game of course.  

As for why you should care, well, if you hear about a game and it sounds fun and you want to check it out, you may find out later it's an old school game and then there's a reason to care.  Otherwise, you shouldn't really, why would you?

I care about the old school thing because old school games are among the games I play.  If they weren't, I wouldn't care.  It really is that simple.  You're a Gurps guy, I don't see it offering anything for you, why not just rock out with Gurps?

Quote from: estar;369691How come? Just curious about the reasons why.

Habit, and a sense of fraternal good wishes.

Plus his blog seems less blinkered, more variety than most gaming blogs. In other words, more like my own.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Koltar;369407I don't even visit those blogs, go to "OSR" sites, and I haven't heard anyone say if TRAVELLER is "Old School" or not.
 Is Traveller disqualified because its science fiction and space traveling?

In other words : What the fuck is the big deal about "OSR" ?

(and why should I care? Or why should gamers who do stuff besides "D&D" care?)

- Ed C.

I guess if you HAD visited any of the OSR sites and blogs, you would have noticed that Traveller seems to get posted about quite a bit.  The dreaded James M. seems to go on about it all the time(http://grognardia.blogspot.com/search/label/traveller), for instance.  

And the big deal about the OSR is that some of those guys have interesting things to say about older editions of D&D, and some of them have made some cool games and adventures. That's it.  

I don't know why you should care.

Quote from: Bohemian;369862I don't know why you should care.

It's an odd question, why should I care.  The answer obviously is there's no reason anyone particularly should, it is what it is.  If it interests you, cool, if not, cool.

I could care less whether others care or not.  What matters to me is whether I care, which I do.

For whatever it's worth, I enjoy a lot of stuff James posts on Grognardia.

The Grand Douche has as much smart things to say about Traveller, as Mike Mearls.