Quote from: VengerSatanis on August 24, 2024, 04:58:20 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 24, 2024, 09:46:11 AM

Quote from: Suarachán on August 23, 2024, 03:46:27 PMThat's a crying shame. I think there's been a sudden shift in the zeitgeist of the OSR.

Yeah, the OSR does appear to me to be (for lack of a better phrase) losing its edge. Not just Venger's stuff. I seem to be seeing a less of the weird heavy metal aesthetic that used to be kind of a major subscene in the OSR. Meanwhile, recent successes like Shadowdark are pretty edge-free. Even Pundit's stuff is safe in a way. Historical roleplaying is always its own little niche, and historical authenticity is still an accepted justification for political correctness in most gaming circles. I have no data here, but I've been stewing on this for a couple of days, and a theory is starting to come together.

I think the chief reason for this is a change in who the new people coming into the OSR are. I suspect that as a commercial proposition, the OSR relies heavily on new adherents. It appears to me that people do the lion's share of their purchasing in the first few years after they get interested in the OSR, particularly for more out-there products. Once people have been in it for a while, they tend to drift back towards middle-of-the-road dungeon fantasy and you hear more of the "I have all the books I'll ever need" sentiment. So if you sell weirder products, you need to reach newcomers.

Previously, people coming to the OSR were usually pretty hardcore RPG gamers, as they were the only people who would find it, and they were people dissatisfied not just with the rules of current D&D, but with the tone and play culture. Then the OSR got a notoriety bump due to YouTube and the RPG boom during COVID, and a bunch of new converts after the OGL situation. I think the new audience is more composed of people who might have gotten disillusioned with the D&D rules, or with WOTC as a company, but were perfectly happy with the tone and culture of modern D&D. Add to that the fact that the generation entering prime RPG-buying age right now grew up in a generally edge-less culture, and it could explain why edge-less creators are seeing a lot of success and companies like Necrotic Gnome appear to be moving in that direction.

Again, I have no data here. It's just how things look from my outsider's perspective.

Yes, I think that has a lot to do with it.  Also, have you seen that statistic, testosterone in men has gone down something like 20% over the last 20 years?  Edge is an aspect of masculinity, and with beta-cuck male feminist gamers filling up all the seats, there's not much left for us real men. 

And we may as well blame Millennials because... well, fuck them!  Lol, mostly kidding.

There's way more based milennials out there than you old-timers tend to think. We were the primary consumers and creators of the 2000s 4-chan era of edgy internet humor after all. I don't think those intrusive thoughts ever went away, but we're also acutely aware of the social controls in place these days and the potential costs of anyone finding out what's actually going on behind our eyes. IME dissident-minded millennials are extremely careful about letting our thoughtcrimes show. That poses problems for an inherently public activity like tabletop gaming.

Also, I don't think many of the dissident millennials are in the RPG space. One thing you can fairly blame my generation for is the shift in RPGs from being a thing for stoners, heavy metal kids and army vets, to being a thing for theater kids and bloggers. The former group seems to have exclusively gone over to videogames. That's for a lot of reasons, but the changing tone of the RPG space might be one of them.

If I had to guess, the drop in average testosterone levels is probably mostly due to a general decline in public health. If memory serves, T-levels in men are strongly correlated with a bunch of nutritional and body-composition metrics.

Quote from: Ruprecht on August 24, 2024, 09:39:58 PMMight I suggest you hold off on anything permanent. When 6E hits there will probably be a wave of abandoned table top players looking for something beyond Wizards products.

I also think you might consider bundling some of your previous products such as the sword and sorcery stuff like Toth and the Purple Islands or the F'ing boss books. Minimal effort since it's already written.

Quote from: Opaopajr on August 25, 2024, 12:43:47 AM
My sympathies Venger. It is always sad to close the book on a story.


Thank you for the magic you made and shared with the world. May you come back and write a new one.

Quote from: SHARK on August 25, 2024, 05:35:28 AMGreetings!

Venger, I wish you all the best, my friend! I wrote you a message on your primary video announcing this development.

I appreciate everything that you have done, and stood for, Venger. You have been a fearless and strong voice in our hobby!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I appreciate all the support, well-wishing, and positive vibes!  If I'm ahead of my time, hopefully that means my little area of the hobby will catch up.  Or the Communists will take over, and we won't need money - only sweet, sweet escapism. 

The KS is almost funded.  Tell everyone you can that this is the most important crowdfunding event of the century... https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vengersatanis/primordial-chaos-gonzo-like-a-fucking-boss

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 25, 2024, 10:48:29 AM

Quote from: VengerSatanis on August 24, 2024, 04:58:20 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 24, 2024, 09:46:11 AM

Quote from: Suarachán on August 23, 2024, 03:46:27 PMThat's a crying shame. I think there's been a sudden shift in the zeitgeist of the OSR.

Yeah, the OSR does appear to me to be (for lack of a better phrase) losing its edge. Not just Venger's stuff. I seem to be seeing a less of the weird heavy metal aesthetic that used to be kind of a major subscene in the OSR. Meanwhile, recent successes like Shadowdark are pretty edge-free. Even Pundit's stuff is safe in a way. Historical roleplaying is always its own little niche, and historical authenticity is still an accepted justification for political correctness in most gaming circles. I have no data here, but I've been stewing on this for a couple of days, and a theory is starting to come together.

I think the chief reason for this is a change in who the new people coming into the OSR are. I suspect that as a commercial proposition, the OSR relies heavily on new adherents. It appears to me that people do the lion's share of their purchasing in the first few years after they get interested in the OSR, particularly for more out-there products. Once people have been in it for a while, they tend to drift back towards middle-of-the-road dungeon fantasy and you hear more of the "I have all the books I'll ever need" sentiment. So if you sell weirder products, you need to reach newcomers.

Previously, people coming to the OSR were usually pretty hardcore RPG gamers, as they were the only people who would find it, and they were people dissatisfied not just with the rules of current D&D, but with the tone and play culture. Then the OSR got a notoriety bump due to YouTube and the RPG boom during COVID, and a bunch of new converts after the OGL situation. I think the new audience is more composed of people who might have gotten disillusioned with the D&D rules, or with WOTC as a company, but were perfectly happy with the tone and culture of modern D&D. Add to that the fact that the generation entering prime RPG-buying age right now grew up in a generally edge-less culture, and it could explain why edge-less creators are seeing a lot of success and companies like Necrotic Gnome appear to be moving in that direction.

Again, I have no data here. It's just how things look from my outsider's perspective.

Yes, I think that has a lot to do with it.  Also, have you seen that statistic, testosterone in men has gone down something like 20% over the last 20 years?  Edge is an aspect of masculinity, and with beta-cuck male feminist gamers filling up all the seats, there's not much left for us real men. 

And we may as well blame Millennials because... well, fuck them!  Lol, mostly kidding.

There's way more based milennials out there than you old-timers tend to think. We were the primary consumers and creators of the 2000s 4-chan era of edgy internet humor after all. I don't think those intrusive thoughts ever went away, but we're also acutely aware of the social controls in place these days and the potential costs of anyone finding out what's actually going on behind our eyes. IME dissident-minded millennials are extremely careful about letting our thoughtcrimes show. That poses problems for an inherently public activity like tabletop gaming.

Also, I don't think many of the dissident millennials are in the RPG space. One thing you can fairly blame my generation for is the shift in RPGs from being a thing for stoners, heavy metal kids and army vets, to being a thing for theater kids and bloggers. The former group seems to have exclusively gone over to videogames. That's for a lot of reasons, but the changing tone of the RPG space might be one of them.

If I had to guess, the drop in average testosterone levels is probably mostly due to a general decline in public health. If memory serves, T-levels in men are strongly correlated with a bunch of nutritional and body-composition metrics.

I hope that's true.  We need all the based, masculine, traditionalist folks we can get.  Even if you're silent in the crowd, support independent creators you love, so they know they're not alone. 

Quote from: VengerSatanis on August 27, 2024, 04:13:21 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 25, 2024, 10:48:29 AM

Quote from: VengerSatanis on August 24, 2024, 04:58:20 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 24, 2024, 09:46:11 AM

Quote from: Suarachán on August 23, 2024, 03:46:27 PMThat's a crying shame. I think there's been a sudden shift in the zeitgeist of the OSR.

Yeah, the OSR does appear to me to be (for lack of a better phrase) losing its edge. Not just Venger's stuff. I seem to be seeing a less of the weird heavy metal aesthetic that used to be kind of a major subscene in the OSR. Meanwhile, recent successes like Shadowdark are pretty edge-free. Even Pundit's stuff is safe in a way. Historical roleplaying is always its own little niche, and historical authenticity is still an accepted justification for political correctness in most gaming circles. I have no data here, but I've been stewing on this for a couple of days, and a theory is starting to come together.

I think the chief reason for this is a change in who the new people coming into the OSR are. I suspect that as a commercial proposition, the OSR relies heavily on new adherents. It appears to me that people do the lion's share of their purchasing in the first few years after they get interested in the OSR, particularly for more out-there products. Once people have been in it for a while, they tend to drift back towards middle-of-the-road dungeon fantasy and you hear more of the "I have all the books I'll ever need" sentiment. So if you sell weirder products, you need to reach newcomers.

Previously, people coming to the OSR were usually pretty hardcore RPG gamers, as they were the only people who would find it, and they were people dissatisfied not just with the rules of current D&D, but with the tone and play culture. Then the OSR got a notoriety bump due to YouTube and the RPG boom during COVID, and a bunch of new converts after the OGL situation. I think the new audience is more composed of people who might have gotten disillusioned with the D&D rules, or with WOTC as a company, but were perfectly happy with the tone and culture of modern D&D. Add to that the fact that the generation entering prime RPG-buying age right now grew up in a generally edge-less culture, and it could explain why edge-less creators are seeing a lot of success and companies like Necrotic Gnome appear to be moving in that direction.

Again, I have no data here. It's just how things look from my outsider's perspective.

Yes, I think that has a lot to do with it.  Also, have you seen that statistic, testosterone in men has gone down something like 20% over the last 20 years?  Edge is an aspect of masculinity, and with beta-cuck male feminist gamers filling up all the seats, there's not much left for us real men. 

And we may as well blame Millennials because... well, fuck them!  Lol, mostly kidding.

There's way more based milennials out there than you old-timers tend to think. We were the primary consumers and creators of the 2000s 4-chan era of edgy internet humor after all. I don't think those intrusive thoughts ever went away, but we're also acutely aware of the social controls in place these days and the potential costs of anyone finding out what's actually going on behind our eyes. IME dissident-minded millennials are extremely careful about letting our thoughtcrimes show. That poses problems for an inherently public activity like tabletop gaming.

Also, I don't think many of the dissident millennials are in the RPG space. One thing you can fairly blame my generation for is the shift in RPGs from being a thing for stoners, heavy metal kids and army vets, to being a thing for theater kids and bloggers. The former group seems to have exclusively gone over to videogames. That's for a lot of reasons, but the changing tone of the RPG space might be one of them.

If I had to guess, the drop in average testosterone levels is probably mostly due to a general decline in public health. If memory serves, T-levels in men are strongly correlated with a bunch of nutritional and body-composition metrics.

I hope that's true.  We need all the based, masculine, traditionalist folks we can get.  Even if you're silent in the crowd, support independent creators you love, so they know they're not alone. 

Well, I try to carry the flag for my generation, but I can't promise much. Now that I've been thinking about it, the generational+political shift is real. Just as an example, I'm still in contact with most of the people I played D&D with in middle and high school (I grew up in one of those towns where no one ever leaves). Of the ones that grew up to be anti-woke or even just traditionally oriented, I am the only one that still plays.

Come to think of it, that might be one of the more insidious ways WOTC/Paizo and all the big publishers are damaging the hobby. If the public face of roleplaying is woke, the non-woke are going to look at it and assume the hobby's not for them. Most people, if they didn't play D&D in the 80s, are going only going to find the OSR if they first pass through the gateway of official D&D/Pathfinder. That acts as a kind of filtration system, in that a person has to be dissatisfied with contemporary roleplaying, but love it enough to stay in the hobby and seek out alternatives. The situation is getting better with information about the OSR being more available online (though of course that sphere is dominated by a small subset of OSR games), but if the OSR as a whole could bypass the WOTC/Paizo gateway and appeal  direct to newcomers, that'd probably be huge for it's long-term success.

EDIT: Of course, it also doesn't help that the more traditionalist millennials are all at the age where they have young children now, so they're at their lowest point when it comes to free time and money. The childless, forever-teenager crowd is always going to exercise out of proportion buying power in the hobby world.

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 24, 2024, 09:46:11 AM

Quote from: Suarachán on August 23, 2024, 03:46:27 PMThat's a crying shame. I think there's been a sudden shift in the zeitgeist of the OSR.

Yeah, the OSR does appear to me to be (for lack of a better phrase) losing its edge. Not just Venger's stuff. I seem to be seeing a less of the weird heavy metal aesthetic that used to be kind of a major subscene in the OSR. Meanwhile, recent successes like Shadowdark are pretty edge-free. Even Pundit's stuff is safe in a way. Historical roleplaying is always its own little niche, and historical authenticity is still an accepted justification for political correctness in most gaming circles. I have no data here, but I've been stewing on this for a couple of days, and a theory is starting to come together.

Well, its fair to say that historical authentic isn't exactly punk rock or heavy metal, but Baptism of Fire is in some ways more heavy metal than most of my other historical games. Plus it has the edginess of Christians vs Pagans.

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 27, 2024, 11:24:18 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 24, 2024, 09:46:11 AM

Quote from: Suarachán on August 23, 2024, 03:46:27 PMThat's a crying shame. I think there's been a sudden shift in the zeitgeist of the OSR.

Yeah, the OSR does appear to me to be (for lack of a better phrase) losing its edge. Not just Venger's stuff. I seem to be seeing a less of the weird heavy metal aesthetic that used to be kind of a major subscene in the OSR. Meanwhile, recent successes like Shadowdark are pretty edge-free. Even Pundit's stuff is safe in a way. Historical roleplaying is always its own little niche, and historical authenticity is still an accepted justification for political correctness in most gaming circles. I have no data here, but I've been stewing on this for a couple of days, and a theory is starting to come together.

Well, its fair to say that historical authentic isn't exactly punk rock or heavy metal, but Baptism of Fire is in some ways more heavy metal than most of my other historical games. Plus it has the edginess of Christians vs Pagans.

Do not conflate edgy and weird with gratuitous lewdness.

CWN is Cyberpunk, I think you can call that edgy without risking being wrong.

Venger's stuff (and I like the guy so much I made him the logo for vengercon for free[he latter modified it]) is lewd, which has it's market, it's just a reduced market.

He also cornered himself by doing ONLY Chaalt stuff.

So we're talking about a niche, within a niche, within a niche...

His internet persona doesn't help

He also made the mistake (a huge no-no IMHO) of injecting his politics into at least one product TIKO.

So you're appealing to a sub-set of a sub-set of a sub-set, with TWO major to medium turn offs added on top of it.

(Sorry my dude, I like you but I'm just giving my honest analysis of your stuff/situation as I see it).

Add to that the economy and you have a recipe for disaster.

Pundit on the other hand has diversified his offerings, publishes TWO periodicals with cheap prices and useful stuff on them.

Cities Without Number's CF was a big success, BECAUSE we all know he delivers the goods.

I'm betting on a more Pulp style for my stuff (most of it anyway), which means sexy women but will not include the spicy Pulps into the mix.