Edition Wars: The Next Generation

Ah, the simple days of yesteryear, when the OSR gleefully heaped scorn and derision on the 4Er’s and Pathfinders while Grognards bitterly complained that they’d done it that way since the time of Gygax...

Of late there has been a new crop of skirmishes about whether chess is a roleplaying game, what the OSR really is and who gets to say so, whether anyone is trying to crown themselves pope, if OSR is really just a marketing term, somewhere someone is raging against The Pundit, Raggi, and/or Zak S. for doing something outrageous…

The list goes ever on, and recently it's been really distracting for me. It's too much noise!

None of this is new.

But here’s the thing I really want to want to say about it all… Pay close attention, this is vitally important!

It’s all BULLSHIT.

Seriously, all of it. No one I game with, either in person (3 different groups) or online has heard of any of it, and if I told them, they wouldn’t care. Do you know why?

Because it’s BULLSHIT.

It makes not one bit of difference to them that some people think that some of the creative consultants for 5e are assholes. Know what matters to them? Getting that critical hit on the 8th level cleric to take her down before she could get her spells off. Killing the fart demons that poisoned half the party. Finding the children who have gone missing. Finding out what happened to the last group that dared venture the depths of Stonehell. Getting to sit around a table, and roll some dice together.

The games we’re playing, the stories we’re telling, the experiences we’re sharing, that’s what matters. Whether it’s FATE or Star Wars or DCC doesn’t matter. If it’s some FORGE based experimental game, or the granddaddy of all RPGs, as long as you’re enjoying yourself, you’re doing it right. As far as I’m concerned the only bad-wrong-fun is playing something you don’t enjoy, with people you don’t like.

So stop listening to the BULLSHIT, and go have some fun!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take my own advice and write something much more interesting for tomorrow!