This, at least, I got right

I've been the rounds of the old school discussions lately, and it has put me out of sorts. It's first particularly clear that I am behind the times, once again. The hubris of ever thinking I did have my finger on the pulse of the old school revival is laughable to say the least. But like the gaming world in general it has, by and large, passed me by. 

The OSR has become a boutique industry with pop-up shops and kiosks strewn throughout the gaming-verse. The product quality ranges from punk-esque fanzine to corporate quality mass production. The unique confluence of individualized publication tools and the open gaming environ has allowed for an explosion of talent and creativity centered around old school gaming. The Etsy-like quality available today makes for an almost endless supply of new old school imaginings almost unique in their experiential potential. 

And that's about all I can say about it. The industry is now so huge, interesting in itself for such a niche market, that it would almost take a professional to cover it all. I simply am not that person. I don't think I ever was, nor was my blog. My blog was, at its best, one man's exploration of where he fits in with the  phenomena that is Dungeons & Dragons. 

I can lay claim to a valid personal prediction: that what I so longed for at the start of the OSR and covered on much of my blog, was not to be. I sounded a siren call for a return to the glory days of TSR, as naively as that wish might have been. I won't wax superfluous about it here, previous entries have done that. However, the responses I did get on various online fora and in a few responses to my rants, was that it was or would happen in the OSR. That OSRIC has been written and people were producing 1e material again--Dragonsfoot, First Edition Fantasy, Advanced Adventures and today even more. There advice was that I just needed to join in with the rest of the crowd playing 1e AD&D, for there was the community for which I longed. 

It wasn't. I knew at the time it wasn't. And a return of the golden age was not to be. I also feared that all my rantings were but the empty desperations of a hopeless nostalgic. The possibility that there was no substance to my arguments was what I feared the most. For if this was true, there truly was no hope. Moreover, I had begun to doubt that the very memories of this time long ago were even real. Were they  idealized falsehoods? A mirage of glowing positivity that didn't reflect historical actuality? 

Whatever the case was, the current state of old school play simply didn't manifest in the way I was hoping. I'm not sure it ever could. This, at least, I got right.