Classic Rant: A Glaring Omission Indeed

So if you were to write a history of the RPG hobby from 2008 to the present, do you think you'd dedicate a bit of time to the OSR?

Apparently not, if you're the boss over at OSR-hostile RPG.net. Shannon Appelcline, who runs the forum most famous for its non-RPG 'tangency' political forum, decided that it just wasn't important to bring up the single most influential movement of these last seven years, except for one tiny reference where apparently the only thing worth mentioning to him about the OSR is that it "may be over-saturated" by "multiple retroclones of D&D". That's it. That's all the OSR means to him, it seems.

It shouldn't come as a tremendous surprise, given that most of the moderation staff at RPG.net is manned by people fairly famous for despising the OSR, including Paul Ettin (who is also a moderator at Something Awful and one of the guiding lights behind their old-school-bashing "grognards.txt" megathread, which is largely dedicated to insulting and planning acts of sabotage on OSR games and writers). You'd still think that this, being an alleged work of historical research, would at least attempt to put on a facade of objectivity; but maybe you couldn't really hope that given that it was published by Fred Hicks, noted Pseudo-activist, supporter of various attempts at censorship and blacklisting in the hobby, and a guy who has a personal commercial interest in downplaying the OSR while trying to hype up the much less significant works of him and his clique of friends.

I especially love how when someone fairly brave decided to call him on it in his own backyard (the wonder being how the guy who did it hasn't been banned there yet, but I guess Appelcline is sufficiently cognizant of appearances that he'll at least wait a while before contriving some reason), the argument he gave in response amounted to "who knows, its hard to tell what kind of influence they might really have??"... as if it's crucially important to talk about some shit game by Vince Baker that three people have played, because its place in History is undoubtedly assured, but who the fuck knows if the OSR - the defining movement of this decade that already directly influenced the latest edition of D&D - will actually end up having an impact?! How could he possibly tell? Better to ignore the OSR almost entirely except for a single disparaging remark and focus attention on the vitally needed exposition of the work of obscure games no one likes by alumni of the failed Forge project!

But there you are. This is so par for the course from anyone associated with the trifecta of shit that is rpg.net/something-awful/Fred Hicks & friends, that it almost wouldn't be newsworthy. Still, I thought I should bring it up just to give fair warning: if you're considering buying the Platinum Appendix for Designers and Dragons under the impression that it is a solid and accurate work of unbiased research, think again.

RPGPundit

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(Originally Posted July 16, 2015)