![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Well here we go, a crank years in the making but I'm tired and stressed and so very Done[tm] with a lot of things so you know what, time to vent some spleens. (I have so many spleens, they're piling up and even Abby the ghost wizard cat can't keep up)
Today's vented spleens involves the OSR and its insistence on PCs being pathetic losers, mud-farmers, criminals, desperate sods, etc etc etc -- you all know this dance; it's baked right into what PCs get called these days in a lot of games, to the point that its often the name of a game or retroclone or whatever. Knave. Errant. And so on.
The baked-in assumption that a PC is low and lowly because why else would someone go in a dungeon unless they had no other options, right?
This was, in my not so humble opinion, horseshit in ~2008 and it's still horseshit now, but lo after better than a decade and a half of fossilization here we are. It's taken as gospel that in an OSR game, a PC is a desperate scrounging sod or some other misery-laden wastrel or whatever.
Yeah, no.
What happened was a pile of cranky reactionaries waaaay back decided they hated 3e (and some of them also hated 2e, but it was 3e that was literally The Edition That Can Not Be Named on Dragonsfoot, one early origin point of reactionary horseshit) and therefore anything that smacked of 3e was Bad[tm]. This pretty quickly metastasized into anything "heroic" being Bad[tm], and also anything that smacked of other than Tough [Men] Beating Up Things Or Avoiding Beating Up Because We're Smarter Than Those Icky Superheroes[tm] was Bad[tm]. Something with anything resembling setting or an underlying story? Extra super double points Bad[tm]!
(this is especially hilarious to me because waaaaaaay back around 2008-2009 when the "OSR" itself was gelling on Blogspot there was especial vindictiveness against Dragonlance, which was -- to hear the longwinded bloviating going on -- the source of all that was Bad[tm] and ultimately led to the evil of TETCNBN. Dragonlance is of course now beloved of the current crop of reactionary tools, because oh how the turns have tabled.)
(even more hilarious is the old chestnut of the "mythic underworld" -- which is just that, a myth, as any glance at old modules sure doesn't give one a look at the kind of origins or inhabitants the whole ~Mythic Underworld~ trope goes on about. but the MU is yet another way to wave a flag of we are Tough and Risk Everything in the ~Mythic Underworld~, those "Heroes" just do silly ~adventuresin their new fashions with their new slang rassumfrassumgrumble. having a Narrative or a Background is Bad[tm], but this shared OSR myth is Very Important[tm]. lawl.)
All of the above rambling is to slowly bring us staggering and grumbling to the following:
- Story and, just as Bad[tm], Character Background *gasp!* was derided. Real OSR players don't do that! Go write a novel!
- So why are the PCs going in that dungeon? If you give them a reason, what if that's *gasp* bringing in Story? Or Character Background? Horrors! D:
- But then why are they doing it?
- Well, who would go do such scary things, skulking for treasure and slaying dragons and maybe dying? It can't be an Adventure, that smacks of Heroes. Must be people with no other options -- Tough Mud-Kicking Scum. Yeah! Who else would do it?
(have you ever noticed how calling PCs adventurers has also dropped off?)
Leaving aside that the question of "who would go in a dungeon?" is kind of like asking "who wants to risk their life, oh, caving or climbing Mount Everest?" anyway, there's all kinds of possibilities that don't involve misery or penury. I mean here, have a short table I just wrote in five minutes:
d8:
1. Raised on old legends and bard's tales, wants to be sung about like that someday
2. Hunting for remnants of an ancient civilization
3. Is a member of [insert extant or just-made-up org here] and is On A Mission
4. Seeking a lost family member or friend who did the same
5. Deeply curious about the source and structure of the dungeon
6. Was given the impulse by a higher power (or they think they were)
7. Has a scholarly interest in the flora/fauna/monstera they expect to encounter
8. No one's done it yet! Wanna be the first!
... But, oh dear, those sound an awful lot like Character Development and maybe even *gasp* being an Adventurer. Why, you might even think you might get to be a Hero!
Can't have that.
Debt is allowed, though. It's kind of bleakly entertaining how many games just right out say that's why your PC is in the dungeon -- because of debt. Why, you might even get to roll on a table and find out who you owe to! Exciting! (apparently this doesn't count as the dreaded Character Background, presumably because it's keeping your PC in the mud and thus still a scuzzy scum of the earth without the risk of Heroism.)
But -- and here's the thing -- none of this is baked into the old games/editions everyone claims/ed to be hearkening back to. You're an adventurer, dammit, go adventure. And I know from personal experience, at least, that we all cheerfully made up reasons why our (sometimes hapless) adventurers were going to go spelunking in dungeons. A lot of the time it was as simple as "because it's cool" -- cavers, only with swords and treasure sacks, lol. But other reasons as well.
The OSR and its successors have crafted a self-fulfilling prophetic loop of Not Heroic (rah rah we tough because we ... don't play "strong" PCsmore on that another time) -> character background/motivation bad -> why are the PCs doing this -> because they don't have a choice why else would they -> very Not Heroic scuzzy mud-wallower -> etc ad infinitum.
It's like the insistence, for years upon decades, that dinosaurs had to be cold-blooded, no matter what, because "they were reptiles". And then in other places in the same textbook (I have done this myself with my own eyes so many times in my life, lol), the claim will be that obviously we know dinosaurs were reptiles -- because they were cold-blooded!
Cold-blooded -> reptile -> cold-blooded -> reptile -> etc etc
And it's been such a Thing for so many years now it's just taken as given, which drives me insane.
It also smacks of that trend? fad? whatever closer to the turn of the century, of buying spray-on mud for one's shiny truck or SUV so it would look like you were actually a tough hardass taking your precious Tough vehicle into The Wilderness instead of just driving it around Urbania. Always did, really.
Oh and the pissing on "heroism" and Adventurers and holding oneselves up higher for playing low debt-addled grubbers like its a badge of honour sure as fuck is still the going thing -- even in supposedly more enlightened arenas like the NSR scene -- they just piss on 5e now. the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Today's vented spleens involves the OSR and its insistence on PCs being pathetic losers, mud-farmers, criminals, desperate sods, etc etc etc -- you all know this dance; it's baked right into what PCs get called these days in a lot of games, to the point that its often the name of a game or retroclone or whatever. Knave. Errant. And so on.
The baked-in assumption that a PC is low and lowly because why else would someone go in a dungeon unless they had no other options, right?
This was, in my not so humble opinion, horseshit in ~2008 and it's still horseshit now, but lo after better than a decade and a half of fossilization here we are. It's taken as gospel that in an OSR game, a PC is a desperate scrounging sod or some other misery-laden wastrel or whatever.
Yeah, no.
What happened was a pile of cranky reactionaries waaaay back decided they hated 3e (and some of them also hated 2e, but it was 3e that was literally The Edition That Can Not Be Named on Dragonsfoot, one early origin point of reactionary horseshit) and therefore anything that smacked of 3e was Bad[tm]. This pretty quickly metastasized into anything "heroic" being Bad[tm], and also anything that smacked of other than Tough [Men] Beating Up Things Or Avoiding Beating Up Because We're Smarter Than Those Icky Superheroes[tm] was Bad[tm]. Something with anything resembling setting or an underlying story? Extra super double points Bad[tm]!
(this is especially hilarious to me because waaaaaaay back around 2008-2009 when the "OSR" itself was gelling on Blogspot there was especial vindictiveness against Dragonlance, which was -- to hear the longwinded bloviating going on -- the source of all that was Bad[tm] and ultimately led to the evil of TETCNBN. Dragonlance is of course now beloved of the current crop of reactionary tools, because oh how the turns have tabled.)
(even more hilarious is the old chestnut of the "mythic underworld" -- which is just that, a myth, as any glance at old modules sure doesn't give one a look at the kind of origins or inhabitants the whole ~Mythic Underworld~ trope goes on about. but the MU is yet another way to wave a flag of we are Tough and Risk Everything in the ~Mythic Underworld~, those "Heroes" just do silly ~adventures
All of the above rambling is to slowly bring us staggering and grumbling to the following:
- Story and, just as Bad[tm], Character Background *gasp!* was derided. Real OSR players don't do that! Go write a novel!
- So why are the PCs going in that dungeon? If you give them a reason, what if that's *gasp* bringing in Story? Or Character Background? Horrors! D:
- But then why are they doing it?
- Well, who would go do such scary things, skulking for treasure and slaying dragons and maybe dying? It can't be an Adventure, that smacks of Heroes. Must be people with no other options -- Tough Mud-Kicking Scum. Yeah! Who else would do it?
(have you ever noticed how calling PCs adventurers has also dropped off?)
Leaving aside that the question of "who would go in a dungeon?" is kind of like asking "who wants to risk their life, oh, caving or climbing Mount Everest?" anyway, there's all kinds of possibilities that don't involve misery or penury. I mean here, have a short table I just wrote in five minutes:
d8:
1. Raised on old legends and bard's tales, wants to be sung about like that someday
2. Hunting for remnants of an ancient civilization
3. Is a member of [insert extant or just-made-up org here] and is On A Mission
4. Seeking a lost family member or friend who did the same
5. Deeply curious about the source and structure of the dungeon
6. Was given the impulse by a higher power (or they think they were)
7. Has a scholarly interest in the flora/fauna/monstera they expect to encounter
8. No one's done it yet! Wanna be the first!
... But, oh dear, those sound an awful lot like Character Development and maybe even *gasp* being an Adventurer. Why, you might even think you might get to be a Hero!
Can't have that.
Debt is allowed, though. It's kind of bleakly entertaining how many games just right out say that's why your PC is in the dungeon -- because of debt. Why, you might even get to roll on a table and find out who you owe to! Exciting! (apparently this doesn't count as the dreaded Character Background, presumably because it's keeping your PC in the mud and thus still a scuzzy scum of the earth without the risk of Heroism.)
But -- and here's the thing -- none of this is baked into the old games/editions everyone claims/ed to be hearkening back to. You're an adventurer, dammit, go adventure. And I know from personal experience, at least, that we all cheerfully made up reasons why our (sometimes hapless) adventurers were going to go spelunking in dungeons. A lot of the time it was as simple as "because it's cool" -- cavers, only with swords and treasure sacks, lol. But other reasons as well.
The OSR and its successors have crafted a self-fulfilling prophetic loop of Not Heroic (rah rah we tough because we ... don't play "strong" PCs
It's like the insistence, for years upon decades, that dinosaurs had to be cold-blooded, no matter what, because "they were reptiles". And then in other places in the same textbook (I have done this myself with my own eyes so many times in my life, lol), the claim will be that obviously we know dinosaurs were reptiles -- because they were cold-blooded!
Cold-blooded -> reptile -> cold-blooded -> reptile -> etc etc
And it's been such a Thing for so many years now it's just taken as given, which drives me insane.
It also smacks of that trend? fad? whatever closer to the turn of the century, of buying spray-on mud for one's shiny truck or SUV so it would look like you were actually a tough hardass taking your precious Tough vehicle into The Wilderness instead of just driving it around Urbania. Always did, really.
Oh and the pissing on "heroism" and Adventurers and holding oneselves up higher for playing low debt-addled grubbers like its a badge of honour sure as fuck is still the going thing -- even in supposedly more enlightened arenas like the NSR scene -- they just piss on 5e now. the more things change, the more they stay the same.