Meanies of the Old School

Although I have been computer savvy since the early 90’s, I never spent any real time looking up the gaming community online. When I returned to gaming after several years off in 2008, I got in touch with most of my players on tha’ internets (before it had always been friends or friends of friends). That worked out well (in the long run), and around that time I started spending more time looking into D&D and other game communities. Damned if I was ever going to a con or hanging out at a store again, but the web seemed to be a great place to hear commentary and stories about gaming so I threw my hat in the ring.

My biggest surprise was the (heavy at the time) huge amount of debate over the various editions. Old School vs. new. I should have foreseen it really, but I was shocked that the community was huge enough to support an edition war. When I returned to gaming, I thought that Magic the Gathering and video games would have all but turned rpg tabletops into a thing of the past, played only in this tiny niche. Who would have thought it was still big enough to support all kinds of argle bargle.

So mostly younger people were arguing for the new editions, while mostly older folk reminisced (and even still played) with the golden days of 1st edition D&D and prior. After getting involved in some online threads and starting my own blog, I have come to realize that there is something even more insidious than edition wars. There are tiny little wars within editions, especially that regarding 1st edition. I think in the past I heard the quote “… bayoneting our own wounded…” in relation to the old school, and I realized better what that meant in the last few days.

I have long since left rpg.net behind. You just could not make a comment or tell an anecdote about your gaming without many of the locals starting arguments about gaming and telling you that you are wrong. That is one of the things I hate to hear the most in gaming from or for anyone – “you are doing it wrong.” If everyone is having fun at the game table, then nobody is doing anything wrong.

I don’t want to mention the names of sites (other than that one already mentioned), because the particular one I am thinking of right now has a ton of great old school resources and I would not want to denigrate that. But I have had some fun posting to the threads of that “site that shall remain nameless,” but realized that it seems to have some of the asshole overflow of rpg.net. Especially in the 1st edition AD&D forum, where I thought I could actually connect with other olds school enthusiasts, there are always a handful of people waiting to poop in the punch bowl. There to tell you that you did this and that wrong, or that your players are taking advantage of you, or that you are cheating as a DM, or whatever. Most shocking to me was one of the creeps telling me I’m a cheater because I have some house rules. I found that to be totally jaw-dropping.

No matter what you did in a game, some arrogant prick drops by with a negative tone to kill your buzz. And unlike rpg.net which seemed to be teeming with snarky younger dorks, the 1st edition forum is mostly older folk, my age or older. Unfortunately many of those older guys seemed to have had a lot of bad game experiences (I suspect due to their people skills), and they pass along their bitterness about it by crapping on other people. It’s maddening, because you go in to share and open up a bit about your gaming, but that is when the sharkes cruise in. Mostly because they have nothing better to do.

If I remember correctly, James at Grognardia used to spend much time at the site I have hinted at here, and stopped spending time in the forums just like I am going to do now. Just like me he talked about it with respect for its resources, but the threads are just full of bile. Let’s face it, the game blogging community is where it’s at, and we have actual presences with our blogs, which makes us at least a little bit more responsible for our words and attitudes. A fellow blogger will call you on the B.S. - and much better that than some 22 year old punk who thinks he plays the game better than you, or some bitter and lonely codger who gets his jollies by projecting his bad gaming past on you. Yep, bayoneting our own wounded.

Outside of the blogs, I am involved in the European folk music community, and in that scene you have these old musos and hippies with grand, happy tales of music past. Everything spoken of with respect and playful glee. I was hoping I’d encounter something like that in relation to the old school gaming community outside of the blogs, but I guess that, ironically, was a true fantasy.