#osr

Hanging out in “progressive” spaces mostly, and talking to an audience who would mostly consider themselves “progressive” and mostly hang out in “progressive” spaces, I’m going to talk about this as it is framed from the “progressive” side, but rest assured, everything I’m about to talk about is stupid as hell from both sides.

There are two sides in this war, not all people even know they’re fighting in it. There’s the “Progressive” side and the “Conservative” side. Now, one would think that the points over which these battles are fought would be matters of, like, racism, sexism, etc., and to some degree they are, but it gets much stupider than that. There is a perception that these factions’ holdings go beyond political ideology, which is how and where this war is actually being fought.

Each of these factions has holdings associated with them which essentially “dogwhistle” you as being one side or the other.

“Progressives”

Powered by the Apocalypse

Belonging Outside Belonging

“Narrative”

Diceless

“Story focused”

One page games

Solo journaling games

D&D5e

“Conservatives”

OSR

Trad (as in the structure of TTRPG, not like virgin tradwife trad.)

Combat

Rules

D&D3.5e

AD&D

Wargaming

Warhammer

D&D5e

(If any of the placements above seem like nonsense to you, it’s because they are, especially since I have argued many times “combat” and “rules” and “narrative” aren’t actually opposites, but those are the holdings on which you will be judged. I’ve personally been called an “OSR guy” several times as an insult for implying that TTRPG rules are something you’re not supposed to ignore, and I don’t even care that much for OSR games.)

Spending time in “progressive” spaces mostly I mostly bear the shots and venom from the “progressive” side who often ID me as a “conservative” from the stink of OSR and trad-TTRPGs and rules and Warhammer on me.

and however fucking dumb this is, it is incredibly pervasive, and I think everyone should be on the lookout for it so as to not perpetuate it, and to call it dumb whenever possible. Do not get swept up in this. Even if any of those holdings were based on reality, playing TTRPGs is not activism. Media consumption is not activism.

Because really all this is is jacked up bullying and rejection of media literacy. It’s just “roleplaying vs rollplaying” fart-sniffing pseudo-intellectual elitism from the 90s but dressed up in today's langage.

Worst of all for me and those like me, it is assigning moral failing to the notion that TTRPG rules matter, even (and perhaps especially) for “story” and that combat isn’t automatically bad and stupid gameplay. This is assigning moral failing to TTRPG design itself.

10,000 SWORDS AGAINST HEAVEN is a brutal occult martial arts ttrpg. you are a wanderer. martial artist, mystic, outcast the world is the corpse of a corpse, slaughtered by Heavenly Bourgeoisie's nuclear javelins

CHANGE THE WORLD DIE TRYING HEMOCLYSM AGAINST THE RULING CLASS

KILL GOD LOSE EVERYTHING LOSE EVERYTHING KILL GOD

as a wanderer, you must organize under one of the six Left Hand Sects that dominate the Martial Underworld, situated outside of the Pacified World Order of the Five-Armed Demiurge Array, where everyone is stolen from their capacity to Cultivate their inner Sidhi.

you will need to organize. you will need to return to the masses. you, laborer, lumpen, scum, subaltern wretch of the earth. the five-armed demiurge array is a last-ditch attempt by the ruling class to push down the material conditions for relentlessly violent revolution

the world is a tropical gothic occult-materialist world inspired by post-cold war southeast asia and east asia. you play as maggots upon the divine corpse what will you do with the world? or will you even survive long enough to think about a reason? UNTIL ALL BEINGS ARE FREE

FREE

PATREON