Monday, July 24, 2017

OSR Commentary - Beer,The State of the Campaign, The Gaming Scence In Ct, & The OSR

So Sunday was a really interesting day in many ways, it was another Ninety something degree day & it was one of those sort of lazy Sundays we seem to have here in Connecticut. Except it wasn't in one two ways. First I ran into a very good  friend of mine who I had not seem in some years. He works in a brick & mortar hobby shop about fifty or so miles away. We were B.S.ing about this and that in the table top hobby as friends are prone to do. Games Workshop came out with a new edition of 40K and so forth. 
 But what struck me is the sheer disconnect that there is between the retail side of the hobby and the internet side of the community. He had no idea what the OSR was or the paradigm shift towards older editions & retroclones. We compared notes on friends X & Y as well as a number of events that I didn't know about in the state. We exchanged phone numbers & I went home to pizza, movie with my folks, etc.


Later that night I got together with some friends to discuss gaming related stuff with the upcoming fall campaign. We're still tossing around science fantasy & sword & sorcery elements, its leaning more towards a Thundarr/ Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea game using the current incarnation of Tegel Manor to bridge the two game settings. More on that in another blog post in the near future.


What stuck me is the sheer discontent from the local scene of table top that I've got in my home town of Torrington Ct. Like so many other gamers in my home state you cultivate a certain group of friends & players that you as a dungeon master stick with. These are friends that you know love, and trust to play with for years. This is one of the ways that the table top rpg  hobby works. I've heard some folks compare D&D & AD&D 1st edition as 'Satan's game and all of the rest of the 'Satanic Panic' clap trap. Sure table top role playing games attract big & often very strong personalities but on the whole its made a huge difference by bringing life long friends to the table. 


One of the events that really galvanized me back in '08 was the death of Gary Gygax, sorry if I'm bringing up a painful memory folks. But this death really up ticked and up ended the table top rpg hobby as a whole. Suddenly it brought home the fact again that we've only got so much time on this Earth. So write, design, map, and most of all play! Get together with friends and get a game going today!
So life moves on and another Fall is coming up fast. Make the most of your gaming my friends and we'll see you around the table. I've got more OSR content coming up friends and fellow gamers! Play on!

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