Wednesday, April 15, 2015

OSR Gamers: A True Community

My previous post was about supporting OSR publishers because they're doing what they love and that's awesome. I wanted to take a minute to give a shout out to the OSR gamers - some of whom are publishers and some of whom are not.

Never in my life have I seen a subculture or community that is as generous as the OSR. It's not always sunshine and rainbows all the time - but it's damn good. As mentioned in a previous post, I own a lot of retro-clones. But, I'm always in the market for more. Maybe it's a Holy Grail quest to find the "perfect" OSR game (even though there's no such thing), or maybe its because I like to see what other publishers are doing in the OSR to help me understand their design process. Either way, I'm always in the market for another retroclone or OSR supplement. I reluctantly admit it: I'm a collector.

This week, through the generosity of other gamers I've managed to acquire copies of both Adventures in the Eastmark and Lamentations of the Flame Princes: Grindhouse Edition. Both trades were ridiculously reasonable and both traders were very, very generous. This got me thinking about how many other folks in the OSR community have been so very giving, over and over again.

Not just with stuff, but with their time and ability. I've had friends in the community provide advice on projects as I work on them, offer their skills to help me create great products, and spend hours and hours of their time to help me be the best creator I can be. And they've never asked for compensation when it's offered. I swear, it makes me feel guilty how giving this community is.

Yeah, it's kinda like this.

Then, a bit over a month ago, I had a plagiarism incident and the vast, vast majority of the OSR community was more supportive than I imagined. Folks I knew in passing or not at all were ridiculously supportive. I was, and still am genuinely moved.

The OSR is a genuine community and I try to pay it forward - but with the way I've been treated, I think that's a beautiful, impossible task.

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