TRVSR

The OSR is sliding into an age of darkness. The titans of old, who have snatched away the embers of the Promethean flame from the hoary clutches of Hasbro and kindled it until it is become a roaring bonfire, have perished or are reduced to shadows of their former glory. Few of the olden guard remain, and they are shunned and villified or merely forgotten, forced to dwell in caverns and ancient tombs while mummers and thieves mumble and posture in the limelight. All that is good is made obscure, and all that is evil is dressed in robes of carmine and sable.

The Great King who took the Sacred Fire, and with it kernelled his own dream, is also but a shadow. His kingdom grew and grew and fell, and half of his retainers were beholden to the Evil One, and left him to rot, and from his fallen kingdom started other petty kingdoms. They rule now, the Artpunkmen, purveyors of the DnD that is not DnD, the very greatest of these never having played a character beyond the 6th level. Garish preening, endless effeminate slapfights, cancellations, and trash, trash that is promoted as worthwhile. Newcomers enter and say unto themselves ‘The OSR? It was invented by [REDACTED] and it is about making garishly colored modules and selling them on itch.io!’ There is no link with the past. M.A. Barker is verboten. Bob Bledsaw is verboten. Soon Gary Gygax will be verboten. A broken machine made in imitation of older machines that is slowly winding down. A million classes for Troika each costing 0,5 dollars, zero effort for zero value.

No.

The Sacred Fire must be rekindled once more, and the mounds of ashes must be sloughed off, lest they smother the rebirth of the Phoenix and leave us in this Dark Age.

Seek you to be a bearer of this sacred fire? Then heed ye well what must be done.

Let us remember once more that the OSR is a pasttime first and foremost. Let material be made primarily not for the tinkling of coppers, but for the sheer ebullient joy of it. Let the spirit of competition and chastely love of the game inspire you to make work that is WORTHY. Let games be run with ecstatic glee. The griftsr, the petty merchant who grinds out his vulgar pulp to ensnare the credulous youth without ever having laid hands on dice and GMscreen, the copywriter and layout man who xerox your ancient games, let him starve. Let us decimate the merchant caste, the twitter parasites, the bandwagoneer, the revisionist, let us savor their death throes and leave only the fittest, the chosen few, to peddle their wares in the ashes of rebirth.

The OSR is about oldschool games and their continuation. And what could be more self-evident? There are some who peddle the fraudulent and diseased notion that the OSR is about making new games, but this is obviously false. There are too many games in the OSR, and in no other category of merchandise do you find lower yields! There is not one in twenty of the new games that is worthy of more then contemptuous scorn, a disgusted, disappointed, tired sigh. It takes immense craft and years of fine-tuning to make something, a whole game, that can stand shoulder to shoulder with its predecessors, yet novelty and fickleness make them common as lice on a mangy dog. What few worthies exist: ACKS, DCC, Lotfp and some choice others, retain a spiritual connection with the old material, or are sustained by a unique creative vision, and are honed, and played over the long years. Spare me your micro-games, your rules-lites, your B/X clones. Take your idiot rules and burn them! Put your house-rules on a blog, and take solace men enjoy your game, and bother us no more.

Thou wouldst achieve excellence in module cobbling? Is it seemly to vomit color all over an electronic sheet, or to obsess over layout like a neurotic, or to inject the adventure with all the buried memories of the time Uncle Gerald wandered drunkenly into one’s bedroom? Must entire pages of text be devoted to the exact manner in which various statt blocks mischannel and contort their sexual drives? Nay. Nay sir.
Would knowing something of space make one more adept at running science-fictional space operatic games? Would knowing something of police work allow one to inject a game of pretend-police officers with a degree of liveliness and fealty that would otherwise go missing? Then why do ye run DnD, not understanding its inspirations also? Why do ye forsake ye Appendix N not even knowing why ye forsake it?
Once a distinct style has been found, and the groundwork has been laid, THEN it is time to see what has been done before ye. You must utilize all the guile of those who came before, and with them forge mighty things. Things have been written in 1978 that are not eclipsed today, not because it is tried and the attempt falters, but because the midwit, the charlatan, the deceiver, has performed his ludological sleight-of-hand, and claims that layout and silly ideas is what made DnD great, and thereby eclipsed the older forms with recent iterations that are but pale shadows, and knowledge of the old ways has been made a rare secret. But there are some who burn with the hidden knowledge, and who will grow to do mighty deeds.

And do ye not, if you would run another mans adventure or another mans game, tinker with it without first understanding why ye should tinker. To tinker and experiment is natural, that ye may gain a feel for various things and secrets. But to move beyond you must understand why things are, and be humble in your ways, and you will change only those things that must be changed.

And to ye older ones, ye much villified Grognards, some of whom opened the gates to these sickle-smiled usurpers with their pink hairs and rubbing hands and shifty eyes and paid a hefty price thereby. I say to you: Ye have failed. For the torch must be passed on, and the young minds must be shown, that they may carry on your legacy, and fetch logs for your fires. Do you now leave them to be groomed on the OSR discord by perverts and malcontents? I say unto you, go out into the wild where the newcomers congregate and mingle with them. Keep ye your fortress impregnable and sancrosanct, but tread beyond it and mingle with these younger men. Be ye not afraid. Be ye patient but stern. Be ye forgiving of their ignorance, for they know not what they do. It is time you become teachers, as well as game players.

What is then, the highest source? It is the long home campaign, which grows over time, and is nurtured lovingly, and is tinkered with, and becomes a thing in and of itself, which can sustain multiple groups. If this is not mastered, then there is yet work to be done, and one may not call oneself a dungeon master. Do ye not look longingly at the gleaming game system in the parlors of drive-thru, thinking it will bring you success where other systems have failed. Do ye not flit from game to game and group to group like a nervous sparrow. I say ye must be diligent in your efforts, and pick your system well, and refine it over months and years and in that manner gather great craft.

And those who speak with nothing but evil of the place in which they pretend congregation, those who do nothing but point fingers and say: ‘Ye shall not work, nor be allowed egress, for your ways are not those of the great gleaming screen that tells us what to think’ and say also ‘Verily he should be outcast, for I have labelled him with one of the Sacred Curse Words, whose exact meaning is mutable like the river, but whose import is Dire’ I say unto them: Woe!

Woe! For your time in the sun and the grace of your Dark Lord is not eternal. And we know well the wickedness that lies behind your seeming virtue and soft potato face. And I say it will be made difficult for you to work your evil ways among honest men. And I say you will be driven back, behind your fortress walls of lies, and fear to walk abroad by day. And I say we have kept record of your evil ways, and you will be confronted with the proof and the fruits of it at every turn until such a time as you forsake them wholly. And in this there must be determination, and in this there must be no relenting. For ye love not DnD and have become a burden unto it.

And of those of you who wish for another No Artpunk contest, I say rejoice! For a contest is in the making. And also a module is in the making. I have been busy moving and am slowly settling in. It is time that I apply my craft once more, and by doing so, prove that there is yet greatness and goodness in this hobby of ours. And let us apply true craftsmanship, and see if we cannot elevate the craft of adventure writing yet further.

I say these coming years will be years of Winter. With few things coming out, and even less that are good. And I say unto you, cherish that cleansing Winter. Are there not a million worthy deeds that are already done? Savor the death throes and the die-offs of the unworthy and remember with fondness the worthy who fall by the wayside. And keep fed, those chosen few, those keepers of the flame, who yet make things that are worth making. And do ye congregate, and participate, and gain great mirth therefrom.

And to ye Once Great King, I say fondly: Your dream will live yet. You must slough off the trappings of the old, the Artpunk ways, and become what you were always meant to be; A grim and perilous lord, for there are no equals and no rivals in that field, and much can be gained from it. And I say this is already done. And by grace of the old gods, you will prosper.

The OSR is dying. Long live the TrvSR.