Sunday, December 1, 2013

Is the BlogOSRsphere dying off?

Is the BlogOSRsphere dying off? 

It seems to be waning a bit.  Oh there are people who post quite a few times a week but not like it was just a few years ago. It is kinda nice to be able to keep up with the blog post though.

It is very much alive though! 

Some of the main players have stopped posting or have slowed down to a mere trickle. Some have fallen to scandals or have made scandals.

Still every day there is at least something interestingly posted for the love of the game. 

I know that I am here for the long haul whatever that is even though my blog is one of the least of the OSR blogs. 

It seems that the OSR has not really moved forward at all if you compare the post of Chicago Wiz way back in 2011.

Does something needs to happen publishing wise to get the OSR ball rolling again? I don't think that is ever going to happen (save the release of Adventures Dark and Deep but that's just me getting excited about a product that I have yet to buy) again. 

People are still going to publish Retro Clones (Neo-Clone, Simulacrums, Fantasy Heartbreakers, etc.)  but the chance for glory has passed. 

I hope to be proven wrong on that statement but we shall see...

People seem to be very happy with the RPGs they are playing.


What needs to happen that would re-excite (Like it was a few years ago!) the BlogOSRsphere? I think people getting out there and playing and posting about it. 

Some sort of organized play starting on a local level and then possibly becoming state, regional, and then possibly national and posting about it.

TARGA needs to come back. 

Some really good ground breaking home made modules and house rules! 

New race and class options! 

Wait, that still is going on !  

In my area, RPG Gaming seems dead though rumors of groups existing in secretive insular little clans. Old School Gaming locally has a few small sparks but they never seem to ignite. If there is an OLD campaign that has existed since the late 70s and early 80s in my area I don't know about it.  

What to do? What to do?

10 comments:

  1. Start one! Get a game running!

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  2. I think some stuff has moved to G+ communities and facebook groups, that and they made blogger harder to deal with also

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  3. A Lot of the discussion has moved to G+.

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  4. Dying off, I hope not. We are old, but not that old. hehe

    I know I'm not looking for the next 'new game'. I like the ones that are around. It's not a system for me just the opportunity to play. I like to see what others are doing at their table and for me, the OSR is more about that than finding the next big thing.

    The old joke about the difference between sex for a woman and a man. Women need a reason. A guy just needs a place. I'm also the guy in gaming.

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  5. I agree with James a lot has moved to G+, and blogger is not as user friendly as it used to be. For me real life things like Job issues have forced me to put gaming/blogging on the back burner.

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  6. G+ seems to be pretty active currently. I know there's quite a bit of Swords & Wizardry and Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG discussion in their respective communities. I don't think the OSR blog scene is dying but I think the location for some of the discussions has changed; from blogs to G+ communities.

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  7. Blog chatter seemed to slow down after Grognardia stopped getting updated. I think that blog really drove a lot of the discussion.

    But if the old school RPG movement is comprised mostly of middle aged gamers, then the hobby is dead. Sure, the corpse might still be kicking, but the extinction of "back to basics" RPG is inevitable. And this is the problem, more people talk about gaming than actually game, like myself. I'm not in a position to get back in the hobby (might change later), but I still enjoy discussing the subject.

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  8. Don't worry 5th edition D&D is coming. I'm sure that will ratchet up the chatter (on and off G+)

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  9. I don't have time/energy to blog much cause I'm running and playing in games.

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  10. I kind of think that it is the so called "navel gazer" blogs that are running dry. Many of the content rich blogs, like Dyson's Dodecahedron or Ancient Vaults, are going strong. Some others, like my own, go through spurts of posts followed by inexcusably long silences.

    There's one factor that is being overlooked, perhaps intentionally. I won't name names or pick any fights, but at least a couple of the "big names" in OSR blogging came directly from the D20 craze. Could it be that some people just jump from trend to trend and contribute what they can, then move on? There's nothing inherently wrong with that, and even the couple bloggers I had in mind did contribute a lion's share to the OSR blogosphere, but it is something to take into account.

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