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jay@vanishingtowerpress.com

Thursday, June 25

I love the OSR

If it wasn't for the Old School Renaissance I don't know if I would have ever found my way back to the most creative exercise I've ever had the privilege to participate in.

Somewhere between eleven and twenty seven I had always been made to feel that playing a table top rpg was something to be ashamed of. But I kept the important books on my book shelves, in the trunk of my car, in my back pocket hitchhiking. Lined paper in rain soaked bus stops scribbled full of fantastic world, villains, connections.


And pissed off because this medium I loved so much had garbage directions for how to play the game. I didn't know this at the time. I felt there must be something wrong with me. If so many people are into this game, fuck it was a cultural phenomenon as big as skateboarding, and I can't get it... What am I doing wrong?

So I gave it up. In 1998 on Lower Hurrican Gulch at an off the grid cabin where I live in the
Elk Mountain range I torched the whole collection. I was getting "real".

I've made many foolish mistakes in my life, and I'm not done yet, but that was by far the worst. I would have limped through life three times less the person I am if I did not resent this act.  Not that my creative endeavors lapsed because I remove rpg's from my daily scribbling, reading life, just that they kept swirling around undirected.

Fast forward to Gary Gygax's death and I'm googling D&D and I stumble upon an essay about some guy traveling across country and showing up at Gary's house and playing. I haven't been able to trace this article down again, but yeah, the author of the essay was saying it was amazing to just drive up to Gary'ss house and there were people hanging out and you could just start playing D&D at the picnic table with the guy who created this game. I am so stupid. Instead of laying carpet in Daytona Beach I could have gamed at Gary Gygax's picnic table. Instead of surfing and doing drugs in Tijuana I could have gamed at Gary Gygax's picnic table. Instead of climbing fourteeners and big mountain skiing down into potential avalanche chutes I could have gamed at Gary Gygax's picnic table. Instead of .... Yada yada yada.

Long story short, the OSR has given back what I thought I lost, and I love you all for it, roll d10 tell me what you get;

1- You are a weepy tart aren't you.
2- My half orc father would suck the juice out of your finger bones,
3- I'm surprised they gave you clothes milk sop.
4- Clean the latrine and we won't kill you, yet.
5- Got any coin?
6- There is room for sycophants such as yourself.
7- I believe your private parts may fetch a fair price on the open market.
8- Rumor is...
9- A breath of fresh air in a cloistered belfry, give this man a fresh towel.
10- Have you tried the sorbet?

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