Fuck the OSR

 In my experience, the OSR is kind of two parts. One part is about nostalgia and how it was in the old days, and that part tends to attract a lot of reactionary bigots and creeps. It isn't all bad, and for the most part I've found it easy to ignore the jerks, but then again, I'm also not that interested in recapturing the 70s.

The other part of the OSR is the progressive, weird, and generally more inclusive scene that wants to take the old rules and make something radically new with them. The problem with this part of the OSR is that it also decided to support one dude's massive campaign of harassment. It might be a little reductive to say that everyone in that part of the OSR either a) supported harassment guy, b) stayed friends with people who supported him, or c) left, but it sure felt like that sometimes.

Granted, there were plenty of people who got fed up with his harassment and stopped supporting him before 2019. Those people showed me they don't support harassment. And that's great. I'm still on good terms with some of those people, as individuals.

But there were also plenty of prominent people in the OSR (as well as prominent rpg companies outside the OSR) who continued to support him in spite of everything he did, all the way up until the rape allegations happened. And then they apologized for getting caught supporting a rapist and walked away like that was the end of it. Those people told me, loud and clear, that they will support a guy harassing me out of this hobby, as long as he's not a rapist.

And what I haven't seen in the two years since then is a whole lot of accountability for that. If someone supported harassment before, I have to assume they would do so again, unless I see proof that they have changed and they know better now (and are committed to doing better now). For the most part, that hasn't happened, or at least not where I've seen it. Instead, every contact I have with the OSR includes someone who refused to stop supporting a harasser. Every OSR forums space. Every list of OSR recommendations. Every OSR person's friends list. Every photo I see of my own book if it's not alone.

And that is why I'm not all that interested in the OSR as a scene, or a community, anymore.

And it's not like these and other problems don't exist elsewhere in rpg communities, but trying to be part of the online OSR scene was the most miserable for me. At least in the indie/storygames scene, public bad behaviour seems to lead to serious consequences a lot quicker, even if some fairly serious issues stay private.

Anyway, I'm not looking to start any fights over this. I prefer to deal with this stuff by just leaving, or putting as much distance as I can between myself and people who are a problem for me. That includes pulling away from people who stay close to problem people, whether they know about the problems or not.

This is just an explanation of why you might not see me getting involved in things with other people.