Shooting fish in an OSR barrel - Some Guidelines In the Table Top Hobby & the OSR

One of the things that I really miss about the world without the internet was the scale of TSR back in the classic days. If you were lucky enough to find a Dragon magazine at the local street level then it was a gateway to world that someone in small town New England America at eight or nine didn't know anything about. Gary Gygax is someone that I knew only in passing  & having talked with at a GenCon back in the early Nineties & 00's. Man each & every time I went to GenCon it was an odyssey the likes of which they don't talk about today. I discovered the OSR in '08 when I was puttering around on the internet. I was almost down to my last dime, fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons was gonna be the newest thing to take the world by storm, & I had ultimately had it with the local hobby & table top scene. Hobby shops, comic shops, etc. were going out left & right. Time & again I got called to help clean out my old haunts. Then I discovered the site  Dragon's foot  & the various OSR blogs such as the Savage Afterworld,  From the Sorcerer's Skull, etc. even to a certain extent the RPG Pundit.  It would take me until 2011 to start this blog after a friend & other folks had said that no one would want to read anything that I had to say about table top rpg's or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons or original  Dungeons & Dragons. But it was Planet Algol that really got me going. 

Thank you for helping to prove each & everyone of those folks wrong.  I would discover in '08 the retroclone systems that I've come to love around the same time. Why I love retroclones systems is sheer variety & scope of them. Yeah I know that their supposedly someone's campaign notes & systems but I don't & didn't care. Retroclones have been a corner stone of the OSR. They don't appear to be going anywhere regardless of Wizards of the Coast finally releasing P.O.D. of both Advanced Dungeons & Dragons or original  Dungeons & Dragons adventures & supplements. I'm good with this on many levels because of what its done with the table top hobby. There are twenty rules that I've developed in the old school & OSR hobby since '08;

1. The players are the single most important thing at the table let them play & they will give you yards & yards of material to help create your dream campaign. 
2. Remain positive & keep at this hobby no matter the OSR or internet kerfuffles that go on. Read & keep reading books to keep yourself sharp. Even those books outside your comfort zone. 
3. Play the games & designers that you want to play as long as the players want this as well. The players are the most important people at the table. 
4. Be open to writing as long as it doesn't interfere with your day job. You need to eat & pay bills. 
5. Its only a game & a campaign don't take it personally. 
6. You are not responsible for a Kickstarter gone wrong let the chips fall where they may. 
7. Work at your day job, the hobby is just that even writing and yes you can do both. 
8. Family & marriage is more important then any game. Friends are what make and break this hobby. But its family that get's you through 
9. Don't let apathy win or it will break out from this hobby. 
10. Trust yourself, your opinions, and your gut but be open to other opinions, new ideas, etc. 
11. Write and keep writing no matter what happens it will get you through everything. 
12. Second guess yourself when you need to but have faith in your design & writing. 
13. Keep playing Dungeons & Dragons 
14. Don't burn out pace yourself as needed. 
15. Politics is crap & you need to work past it regardless of others opinion if they drop you then move on. 
16. Get paid where & when you can. Don't work for free ever unless it suits you. 
17. Develop your instincts for clown shows & B.S. let that stuff bypass you 
18. People are going to have problems with you so take the high road when you can. 
19. Never assume who your talking to is who they say they are. Talk as if you were always talking with a boss. 
20. Keep writing, designing,playing, & most of all enjoy yourself. 

Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, wearing Chancellor's Robes
 and the Garter Ribbon.
By 

Anthony van Dyck  (1599–1641)