Reddit OSR community is full of bots?

[Exploderwizard]

I'm not sure how this relates to Reddit or bots, but it's been a long time since I first followed this thread, so I guess I'll pipe up.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that folks would argue about what we mean when we use the term OSR.

"Old School" is a pretty generic term. I think most folks can agree with the number one Merriam-Webster definition: adhering to traditional policies or practices. I think as gamers we can agree that we mean something along the lines of "how things were back in the early days of our hobby."

Isn't that enough?

Does that somehow not use the term in any useful way?

Because other groups can manage to use the term "Old School" to refer to their own interests.

It really should be. But the basic premise of humanity, which is get enough people together and they become capable of ruining anything, applies here. So originally, as I understand and remember it, was that the Old School (Revival, Renaissance,what have you)really burst on the scene around 2008, when WOTC launched 4th edition D&D. There were certainly old school games being played well before that but clone mania, as I call it, started booming around 2008. This is when publishers really started creating and marketing products aimed those who favored old school gaming. Finally, for those that prefered old school games there was once again a thriving market to provide them the kinds of products that they were interested in. The old school marketplace is still chugging right along and I believe it may be getting a huge boost as early reactions to the new One D&D are not terribly favorable to many players who actively played and liked 5E. So that is what it means to me, people publishing and preserving styles of games that were played in the earlier days of the hobby.

[Opaopajr]

We've discussed here on this site ages ago that old school renaissance (osr) is definitely encompassing the wide range of first generation RPGs (roughly mid-70s to mid-80s). However we also lamented that in outward market perception only D&D is comprising this space, with other voices being silent to all our detriment. And thus over time new people will not understand the breadth of the term, seeing all they know is their perception of the market from their slice of time, and become needlessly hostile and tribalist against accepted history from those who were there. In fact, as a point of disambiguation we tried capitalized "OSR" for market perception and lower-case "osr" for cultural retro reflection (a larger movement in system breadth and archival effort)... which only lasted for a few months before people got lazy and gave up creating separate jargon here.

It is an age old dilemma about the transmission of data and the necessary openness one needs to trace threads & patterns backwards without getting defensive and insular. So congratulations GeekyBugle, you've proven the foretold prophecy!  You are the result we warned about!  We have failed you in our upbringing and now leave you distraght. But take heart, you are learning about this now and can change -- you can expand your heart three-times its size, just like the "Grinch Who Stole Christmas"!

Also I have spare crayons if you need them.

"When everyone's Super...
No one will be!"

Congratulations you included stuff to the point where you can't use the term in any useful way.

It is cute that you quote The Incredibles movie, but within my post that you quoted you will see there is a very understandable and agreed upon cut-off definition. I bolded it in case you missed it. It was my first sentence. 

So even by employing your pithy rejoinder you are still wrong, because everything is not considered within the two "Super" conditions: a) first generation RPGs, b) during that first decade time frame (mid 1970s-1980s). Those conditions while broadening what it means to be old school, excludes a lot. It means not even your clap back agrees with you, because it is not what is going on here.

What is going on is in that explanatory paragraph you quoted. And that you are resisting the mind expanding awareness that causes. It's OK, we knew this would happen many years ago when we talked about this happening. And we wholly expected frustration, denial, and hurt at being shown the truth.

Take your time to heal, but know it's just part of the process of life to have lazy, ill-defined, and deeply intertwined mix things up.  That's why being open and relaxed helps us get through this challenge called aging on a large planet. Pushing everyone away and tightening up will not get you back to a "safe & simple" understanding of the world; we don't get to return to innocence like that.