DIYRPG failed because we didn’t gatekeep enough!

Back in 2009, lots of small personal websites covering homemade pen and paper RPG material and general thoughts around the subject popped up. Mostly as a decentralized forum for people very dissatisfied with how D&D had been developing for the last 15-20 years and the direction it kept heading for to the future. Because people found common ground in how D&D used to be in the olden days, it became known as the Oldschool Revival. Unsurprisingly, this became a fertile space for “Good Old Boys” to connect with other like-minded middle-aged straight white men and reminiscent how everything used to be better before their cherished private space was invaded by newcomers (young, queer, non-white, and women) who kept trying to put their own stamps on the traditional values of the game.

Not saying that RPGs are a hobby that is particularly attractive to misogynists, homophobes, and racists. But any space where older white men come together to bond over their teenage memories is inherently a potential hotbed for them to thrive.

But many of them knew how to be subtle, and I guess young white men like me might have been oblivious to things that women and non-white people would have spotted from miles away. And sure, there was drama and some kerfuffles, but hey, many of these controversial guys created really creative and evocative RPG material! Some of it a bit try-hard edgy, but very different from the output of the big commercial publishers.

Zak S., James Raggi, and Venger Satanis were all big darlings of the OSR. I too marveled at their creative output.

But with success and adoration, the masks started to come down. First gradually, then increasingly. But people loved their work, and saw themselves as members of a friendly community, and so nobody really wanted to rock the boat. Also, as people engaged in more research on the famous creators from the early days in the 70s, things came to light that previously nobody seemed to have paid attention to. The creator of Tekumel and the inheritor of the rights to Wilderlands turned out to be tied to Neo-Nazis.

I guess it was in the late 2010s that the facade was finally crumbling down, and lots of people who had been big fans and proponents of Oldschool Roleplaying stopped associating themselves with the OSR label because the space was looking increasingly toxic. Which meant that the real shitheads increasingly had the space to themselves.

And there seems to have emerged a new space for people still interested in simple RPG systems and sharing free home-made game material, but not wanting to have anything to do with the toxic pit that was left over from the OSR. DIYRPG was put to consideration as a new banner to rally around, and also NSR (whatever that was supposed to mean? New-Oldschool Revival?)

But then I saw something very peculiar happening, I think about a year or so ago. New people coming into this new space being all hyped about DIYRPG embracing both the NSR label, and also using the OSR label interchangeably. Apparently unaware of their their respective backgrounds. And I think it wasn’t long after that that the DIYRPG scene on the internet seemingly collapsed. I heard of several people just leaving it all behind them because it’s still full of racists, homophobes, racists, and other bigoted shitheads strolling around in the open and being heaped with adoration.

DIYRPG didn’t work out because quietly cutting ties with the OSR label and just doing our own thing wasn’t enough. It felt to me that we tried to create an RPG space on the internet was inclusive. But we didn’t explicitly make it a space that is actively anti-nazis, anti-homophobic, and anti-abusive. Tolerance was what turned OSR into an alt-right shitshow, and hesitance to call people out for their shittiness in an attempt at politeness is what made DIYRPG fail. And now most of the creative people making cool stuff and sharing the most interesting ideas seem to be gone.

I have been thinking for a while that it seems strange that the discourse about innovations about RPGs appears to have trickled down to almost nothing, even though I believe we still have barely even scratched the surface of what pen and paper can be and what could be done with the medium. And yes, perhaps it’s because all the people with new and creative ideas don’t want to talk with those of us who are still left running their own personal RPG sites and hanging out on Mastodon. Because they assume we’re still hanging out with the OSR shitheads. And I actually can’t blame them.

I very much would love to have a global community and space of both new people with fresh ideas and old veterans open to expanding our horizons and searching for new possibilities. I don’t know how to do this with so many of the people with the brightest potential having already given up on it and turned their back for good. But to have such a thing work, it can no longer be “OSR, but with a friendlier face”. There must be a clear severing of ties and an explicit rejection of all hateful and abusive people. Awful people can have fascinating creative ideas. But a space for DIYRPG creativity must always be about the community first, even when that means purging interesting works associated with horrible people from our collective discourse. And it’s not like there should be a thought police making background checks. The truly awful people who ruin things for everyone but their bros don’t merely have a slip of the tongue were they crossed a line. They are the kind of people who never back down from something dumb they once said, and instead just keep piling on more of it to the applause of their equally horrible friends.

DIYRPG has the potential to come back. Maybe next year, or maybe in 10 years. But it will only work out for us if we constantly make it clear that assholes and shitheads will not be tolerated, and that brushing away concerns is complicity.