Just like any of the other OSR personalities I posted about, I have done little extra research on Erik Tenkar. Just like them, I speak mostly from experience. And in my early blogging days I had almost none at all. I was kind of aware of his blog, just like I was kind of aware of many others at the time. But whether by circumstance or something else, I just did not take a very close look. Before 2020, I knew very little.
I will shamefully admit that I looked at the troll site Your Dungeon is Suck from time to time in those early days (something I may post about in the future). And it was probably in that often cringy place of gaming's most angry trolls that I first started hearing about Erik.
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| Newsflash: he got goofed on |
So up to around around 2019 here is what I knew:
His real name is Erik Stiene.
He is a retired New York City Policeman (internal affairs I think).
He had some controversies related to Gary Gygax's widow Gail. Having to do with the Gary memorial.
So now I know more. I think it was around 2020 when he was hospitalized due to a heart issue. I could post a picture from his posts from around that time, but I honestly do not like pictures of folk in hospital beds. Seen enough of that in real life. But I guess it was a real close call. For some reason I started paying more attention.
At that time most of his blog posts were essentially promoting the game material of other entities. It took me awhile to realize he was expanding past mere blogging, certainly a dying format.
Erik was doing Youtube videos about this and that of gaming. One of the main reasons I started following is that he was a great source of news of what was going on in gaming. OSR related mostly. Zak Smith kerfuffles, Satine Pheonix and her shenanigans, and lots of calling out kickstarters for their dastardly deeds. That seemed kind of a specialty. Sort of like what Houdini did with mediums and fortune tellers.
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| How's that for a deep reference? |
He and his wife do a regular "Gamers Health" video feature that I believe was inspired by Erik's health issues. More on that in a moment.
Erik does regular videos with OSR pals like Joe the Lawyer, Robert Conley, Bad Mike (who I am almost sure I bought a bunch of Wilderlands of High Fantasy maps off of through Ebay over ten years ago), and a few old dudes I have no idea who they are.
Erik also has a Discord for years now, and I actually joined it not too many years ago. Interact a bit there and have even messaged a little bit with the good constable one or twice regarding this or what issue going on in the OSR. One thing I have found is that he and the Discord is sort of a safe space for potentially more sensitive gamers out there. Case in point:
Not too many years ago I saw a comment in the threads about an upcoming James Raggi interview, and asked that James be asked about his recent comments about why anybody would bother cleaning their toilet since they shit in it anyway. I mean, I found it funny. If not a little gross. That was enough to trigger at least one person who accused me punching down on the mentally ill. I thought that was kind of silly since I am not sure that was a serious attack on Raggi. But what the heck, OK. Erik actually was inspired to post a video on the subject, and though he did not mention me in particular, he clearly was thinking of me when he mentioned "somebody in the Discord being insensitive." Read about my post on this here..
Around 15 years ago I would have had a field day with this. But being more mature, and more on a path to being a more enlightened person, I actually gave it some thought. I still don't think it was an unreasonable comment. But I started to realize Tenkar was providing a bit of a space for folk who would be anxious about things. I mean, if we have been playing DnD for long enough we have seen a shit ton of this. People a little bit on certain spectrums. I mean, around that time on he and the wife's Health feature, they talked about maintaining hygiene at conventions. Literally advice on how the viewers should occasionally go in the rest room and splash water on their stinky pits.
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| Erik suddenly catching a whiff from the audience. |
That is kind of the thing we all discovered when girls started paying attention to us, maybe even sitting up close next to us. But fuck it, there but for the grace of god go I. It boils down to advice on helping people, so I don't want to make too much fun. And from the rare times I have been to conventions I will agree, yeah, more of these dudes need to be taking their Star Wars and Naruto T shirts off in the bathroom and splashing hot water on their steaming flesh pits.
But besides news and health advice, Erik is clearly a defender of the old shit. The good old Mythic Underworld stuff I once found so fascinating. It lost a lot of its luster for me before I was out of my 20's. All this stuff particular to lovers of old DnD that Tenkar is recently posting about (every day now). Encumbrance, low stats and no skills, rations, dungeon trope this and dungeon trope that. He is a warrior for that stuff that was a part of my DnD (and still to a degree). And it's all good.
I was ride and die for early DnD as well for most of my life. But when I moved to a new town and started running DnD online around 2020, I adapted to 5th edition. I no longer hated skills and feats and this and that. I no longer referred to newer DnD as "superhero games." I was running campaigns for people in their 20's and 30's. They don't give a shit about that old durp. But that is OK. I still have an old school vibe to my stuff. I don't do dungeon tentpole campaigns anymore. I slowed way down on that in my 30's. But I still love my Judges Guild and Arduin Grimoire stuff. I still use some old material for these kids I run for these days. And they eat it up, not always knowing it is old stuff I am tapping into. I just finished a year and a half Isle of Dread campaign for players 25-35, and they loved it. 5th edition has its issues, but I don't care. It has grown on me.
But Erik Tenkar promoting the old stuff is all good. And talking about secret doors and treasure allotments may be pretty much preaching to the choir as far as his cronies and viewers are concerned. But he is expanding things from his simple blogging days, coming up with new angles. And from what retired policemen get as far as pensions he doesn't have to do it for the cash. It's clearly for the love of the game.
Find the OSR Bartenders blog here and easily find him on YouTube. Cheers.
https://www.tenkarstavern.com/
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