OSR Gatekeepers and A Contrary Opinion

Matt Finch has created a sort of new face to his Youtube channel, or at least the channel he's now calling Uncle Matt's D&D Studio. He recently released a video about Old School Gamer Radio and how some in the community are concerned the station will create a "Gatekeeper" for the OSR. How this would even be possible I have no idea. For, as Matt himself points out in the video, the OSR is so massively amorphous that to try and set oneself up as a Gatekeeper is a herculean if not unattainable task. I mean I suppose someone could set themselves up as a gatekeeper, but whether they achieve it or not is something else.

Way back in the day of explosively erupting OSR blogs and fora, there were a few who tried to become "hubs" of OSR activity and some went quite far in this direction. There were even more of us, yours truly, who thought about trying to do so. But the fact is noone could really pull it off, and the rest of us who think far too much before beginning projects became overwhelmed just thinking about it. There was simply too much stuff.

Nowadays, the OSR has shrunk some. at least the media presence has. What has increased was alluded to in my last post--the sheer volume of material being self published, indie published, and small press published (not sure myself what distinguishes those three venues) is larger even than the old media presence of OSR startups were.

But my question here is would a gatekeeper be such a bad idea? Given the comments in my last post you might be surprised to hear me say, it depends. Since I decried the flood of material that is being poured out upon the gaming public is so massive we are not swimming in endless product, we are drowning in effluvic confusion. If your purpose was to give some coherence and cataloging to the OSR I would be all in favor of that.

However, if your purpose is to somehow bottleneck the OSR, or cork it even, then I might not be quite so quick to jump on board. A Gatekeeper in the sense of you shall not pass--which is unfortunately the usual connotation of gatekeeper--is something I don't think would be a good thing. I mean, I have written before about the reasons for creating your own game or your own product. I'm all for that as long as you are clear about your reasons and control your product (I can explain this more in another post). Shutting down the freedom for people to create is never a good idea.

Which brings me to the contrary opinion portion of this post. First allow me to say, I hate Facebook. I use Facebook, rather frequently in fact, and I hate it. It is the most user inimical piece of commercial trash I have ever seen become so popular. I suppose it's like a lot of other things around the world that we hate, but that dominate culturally and have become the accepted medium of use for whatever it is targeting. In this case social media is dominated by Facebook. But Facebook is a mess. They've fixed some issues, but generally FB crams what it thinks you want to see down your throat and what it wants you to see right along with it. Searching through facebook is like trying to pick a popcorn kernel out of the gumline of a great white shark. I can't see what I want to see, I see tons of crap I'm not interested in, and I can't find anything ten minutes after I saw it. Maybe I'm a FB ignoramus, but I hate the thing. And I just used it barely fifteen minutes ago.

I mention this for two reasons. First, I recently saw a post on an AD&D page (there are several) that opined how the good old days were great because of all the different companies that were starting up putting out stuff illicitly compatible with D&D. You could walk into a hobby shop and see the walls lined with minis from different companies and products from adventures to play aides to GM aides from all sorts of different small presses seeking to get in on the market. Though I can't recall everything he said, he made a passing comment about how today we are all channeled into one direction by the mega-companies, and that all products coming out today have to show some obeisance to the almighty Wiz-Paiz-bros and thus narrow our defining choices to a few of the same things.

Does the irony escape you? I mean, yes, there were lots of startups back in the day that, when they could fight off the lawsuits from the TSR conglomerate, were producing material that found its way into hobby shops. But we were all technically channeled into the direction of TSR anyway. Everything was trying to ride TSR's coattails and an easy way to do it was put out product that could somehow be used with the D&D productline. I too recall those days fondly, but for different reasons. I actually liked it when TSR ruled the roost, but I've written about that elsewhere too. What I can't recall is if this poster, that shall remain beyond my grasp of search and recall skills, mentioned that things are so great nowadays because of OSR product proliferation.

This, I agree with. Yes, I know I just lamented by ibuprofen requiring exhaustion with this same OSR proliferation. But the whole gatekeeper thing got me to thinking that an OSR gatekeeper, or at least an OSR librarian would not be a bad thing. We need somebody in charge to index all this crap. Which brings me to the next reason I mention I hate Facebook. One Book Shelf. Now, I'm hesitating myself on this one. Becuase I really, really, really love One Book Shelf. Primarily for DriveThruRPG and RPGNow, but just love the whole concept. What I do hate about it is the general lack of organization it entails. I mean the search features work quite well, and you can usually find what you're looking for if you know what the title is. If they have it, you'll find it. But the browse features suck ogre rocks. I always end up frustrated and giving up after scrolling through two or three pages. Sometimes I find a tasty treat, but usually I end up coming away spending no money and less than enthused about the OSR generally.

Now, please don't misunderstand me, One Book Shelf is a great thing and the world and the internet is a better place because of it. And it is in large part, a product of the community that created and supports is via content. But I lament the fact that it seems like a huge pile of papers that have been sort of stacked into rough approximations of piles by category.

Now, I know the inherent difficulty in doing any sort of cataloging of the type I am suggesting here. I mean let's say Bob puts out his homebrewed adventure for Setting X written with rule-set Clone Y in fantasy Genre Z. One Book Shelf catalogs that under setting material, rule-set material and genre material. It also cross indexes it for rule-set A, B, and C which are compatible with Clone Y and with other material in settings similar to Setting Y as well as by genre and ... well, you get the picture. It's a big, hairy Gordian Knot type of sorting job that data managers and library scientists absolutely love. But done badly can actually go about hurting the end user and the creator.

This kind of "gatekeeper" would be a godsend to the OSR. The one thing I will put out there, is that we could go back to the day of sorting by creator. DTRPG & RPGN does allow you to do this, and it is the best feature of the site. The only problem with it is that you really get no feel for the creator/publisher/creator/designer herself. This does not replace a good website or face page or catalog for the publisher in question. That is still very much needed.

When I want DCC RPG stuff I go to Goodman games first. If I'm looking for C&C stuff I head to the Troll Lords site. Frog God stuff? FG site. These sites do more than just showcase or sell product. They connect you to the experience of what you are buying. This is basic economics, but you don;t create and make customers through product. You have to create an experience. Now, I know, in this day of increasingly cheaper product price, cost can trump experience. But in out hobby experience has always been paramount. I mean we are one industry that goes out of its way to try and support actual brick and mortar stores, because we love our FLGS. We want an experience.

This is the reason I am beginning to hate Amazon. I mean I used to love Amazon. Why? Cheap prices? I mean sure that was great, but really I loved it because: Books! Books was what Amazon was about. Now, I feel like I am stepping into WalMart every time I of to the Amazon site. All the shaming I felt for shopping there was overridden by the fact that, one we have no local bookstore or game shop, and two it was all about books! Now, I fin myself less an less on Amazon, because they have lost that experience.

What we need for the OSR is a site or hub or something that connects you to the actual presence of the creator and what she represents and is offering to let me in on. So much more powerful than what DTRPG or RPGN is now doing. Now, that is a gatekeeper I could get behind.