Here's some more!
I've read with great interest three recent blog posts about old school gaming and blogging. Two from ckutalik at Hill Cantons and one from Mythmere. The theme that connects them, if I read them right, is that the OSR blogsphere has reached something of a turning point, moving away from the production (or reproduction) of old school content and to something else. What that "else" is is still vague, but it could be more about the practice of gaming itself rather than producing content for gaming.
To perhaps put it another way: the blogsphere has produced a lot of content, but it's also produced a community, and that community is now pretty busy playing games. Google + facilitates games across the miles, and the ties built via the internet has also resulted in a fair amount of face to face gaming via mini-cons and the like.
I'll freely admit to being both a tiny speck of the community and fairly late to the OSR party. I'll also admit to frequent navel-gazing about my blog, my own gaming, and what they mean to my overall life and work. I've been anxious about my own lack of, well, creative output (particularly physical creative output). I've gone for long stretches without posting and felt bad about it.
But at one level -- the level, I think my blog sits at most of the time, it's pretty simple:
1. I like to talk about gaming.
2. I like to make things related to gaming.
3. I like to game.
I admit I am not so great at #2 (random cupcake table aside), but would like to get better. I'd certainly like to do a lot more of #3, but job and family and the like keep me from doing much more than the every other week thing with the local folks. That leaves #1. I don't get to do as much of that as I'd like, but the blog lets me do more of it than I would otherwise.
Fundamentally, I think all three of those things are important for the creation and maintenance of a community.
(To be all philosophical about it for a minute, you could call them criticism, production, and practice).
To perhaps put it another way: the blogsphere has produced a lot of content, but it's also produced a community, and that community is now pretty busy playing games. Google + facilitates games across the miles, and the ties built via the internet has also resulted in a fair amount of face to face gaming via mini-cons and the like.
I'll freely admit to being both a tiny speck of the community and fairly late to the OSR party. I'll also admit to frequent navel-gazing about my blog, my own gaming, and what they mean to my overall life and work. I've been anxious about my own lack of, well, creative output (particularly physical creative output). I've gone for long stretches without posting and felt bad about it.
But at one level -- the level, I think my blog sits at most of the time, it's pretty simple:
1. I like to talk about gaming.
2. I like to make things related to gaming.
3. I like to game.
I admit I am not so great at #2 (random cupcake table aside), but would like to get better. I'd certainly like to do a lot more of #3, but job and family and the like keep me from doing much more than the every other week thing with the local folks. That leaves #1. I don't get to do as much of that as I'd like, but the blog lets me do more of it than I would otherwise.
Fundamentally, I think all three of those things are important for the creation and maintenance of a community.
(To be all philosophical about it for a minute, you could call them criticism, production, and practice).
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