Girard's idea of mimetic theory is not new. He's just creating new terminology for social scientists for the human passions of jealousy and envy. This problem has been well understood and documented by Christian Saints since Christ but for some reason secular post moderns need new terms to explain something very old. If anyone bothers to study Christianity back to the beginning and the writings of the Christian Saints, Girard is not saying anything new and the Saints actually understand human passions and the human condition more thoroughly than Girard ever did.
I was drawn to the OSR from out of the 5e space for two main reasons. 1. As a conservative, I found like minded folks in the OSR space. Of great importance was the fact that a decent majority of folks sought to REMOVE culture war politics from their games. 2. The encouragement from the community to take ownership of my table. To make my game my own, as opposed to dealing with bad faith broken character builds and reams of backstory. As someone who is still relatively new to the scene, Shadowdark was one of the first OSR adjacent games I bought. I stashed the pdf in my google docs and forgot about it in favor of Castles & Crusades. I’ve been playing regularly the past few months and it’s been a blast. I really don’t see the reason for all the hate.
I completely agree with your statement above Uriah. I've been having a blast playing in DM_Bluddworths Shadowdark campaign right along with you. I'm always looking forward to the next session.
I find this intriguing, because I am definitely more progressive, but followed a similar path. Now I did end up falling in love with Shadowdark, and regularly play it and run it, but there was a certain niceness in enjoying a game that didn't have a faction ranting and gnashing teeth about it being "woke". I guess part of it is that we get used to seeing our stances as normal and logical, and when we feel like they are being attacked because something is different, we can get defensive and counterattack, even when those things are actually an attack. Just as having a gay NPC is not attacking conservatives, having orcs be monstrous or the world be dark and dangerous is not an attack on progressives or liberals. I think too many people see us vs them in everything, and while it does explicitly exist in some cases, a lot of times, a game is just a game.
My interest go far beyond elf game, haha. In fact, using mimetic theory in plot hooks with NPCs that desire something is a way to get players interested in them IMO.
Thanks for pointing toward an interesting intellectual iceberg! I think I have had me head in the sand or something, because I wasn't aware of too much drama with Shadowdark until a few days ago. But then, I'm not a huge fantasy gamer... But this memetic rivalry is a fascinating rabbit hole to go down.
Mimetic rivalry is why giving your NPCs goals, motivations, and desires will engage your player characters. For instance, presenting a tomb as just a tomb is one thing. Saying, "A group of thieves and bandits seek a lost treasure in the tomb for themselves," immediately plays on mimetic desire in players at the table.
I think that the idea that Shadowdark is screwing over the rest of the OSR is silly. If anything, it's providing an off-ramp for 5e players, which I think is a good thing as 5e gets more and more stupid, woke, and corporatized. The haters are just being ugly and jealous.
Sounds like envy to me. Just sour grapes. I enjoy OSR products, but I guess I'm not emotionally attached to them the way I used to be attached to other products in the past. EDIT: the only reason I don't already own Shadowdark is because I'm broke. Otherwise I would have already bought it as well as a bunch of other OSR stuff I want.
For me a big part of the success of Shadowdark is the layout. I ignore a lot of OSR games due to poor layout. Want my attention? Then learn from Kelsey Dionne and Gavin Norman and Frank Mentzer - get good at the process of presenting your material on a page!
I appreciate that you pointed out the dirty way people with a narrow identity often act, Regardless of Their Political Stance. It's that narrow identity that is fragile, and while not all are jerks many are maliciously defensive of that status. There's nothing wrong with having a group. When you start focusing on the "purity" of the group, you're on the path to violence. I don't mean being grumpy towards people you don't want to hang out with, I mean this scapegoating and ostracizing, which some people follow up with attacks on reputation and escalate from there.
I mean if you tell anyone in business or finance that one entity is screwing over another(by being successful?). They'll say good for them. That's literally the point of any business venture. To captivate the market. Not that things are that simple. I mean are not the different books within the same system competing with eachother on some level. I know i might have actually suffered the misfortune of buying a 5e module if there weren't so many resource books.
Choking out the OSR?? What, with the 0.5% of the market Shadowdark commands? We are all eating scraps down here. Bless her for her success. OSR game writers: if you're feeling left behind, step it up. If you're not finding success where she has, ask yourself what it is YOU are lacking. RPGPundit is a good example of bottom rung cannibals, who CANNOT STAND to celebrate someone else's success, and it's not like he's unsuccessful himself.
"I only am who I am because I was born that way. I have a gift and I am trying to not be selfish about it but to use it. Okay? And if you want to knock me for that, it's your own problem. Okay? Jealousy will get you nowhere. I'm gonna keep rockin' on!" - Eddie Adams Having seen her not knowing she wrote those rules, just playing games at NTRPG my take is she's just a gamer who enjoys playing and running fantasy RPGs. In that brief interaction she seemed undiscernible from other old school GMs enjoying themselves. As for the source of envy, what's fascinating is it's entirely non-monetary since there is no real money to be made, it's just over glory.
I've been scripting my response to the shadow dark controversy. There's a lot of tribalism, a lot of envy, and a lot of bucket crab mentality involved but there's also a heavy presence of reactionary absolutism too.
@@TheBasicExpert True. Virtue signaling is cringe regardless where it comes from, and I'm seeing a disconcerting amount of it on what I've generally considered 'my side' for a couple years now, whether in politics or in games.
@@nicholasrova3698 I think it's because the culture war is winding down. And as that happens, targets on the otherside dwindle so you have to start looking closer to home. For almost a decade now this is all people have fought and thought about and now they are running out of targets.
@@TheBasicExpert Valid point. And I'm all for the Left finally losing their stranglehold, but I'm now concerned what the Right will do with their new-found position. If I was an optimist I'd say they'll wield their power and influence with wisdom and candor... but I try to be a realist and I very much doubt that'll happen. There's already stupid purity tests on the Right and people falling back on culture war stuff to cover for terrible behavior.
@@nicholasrova3698 I think we need to be "better" than the other side and police our own in a higher principle way. If cancel pigs and what not are not acceptable, we need to tell people, no matter if they are on our side or not, to settle down if they get out of hand or cross the line.
It's like the theory that not everybody can be wealthy, because there isn't enough money in the world. Wealth is created by work and creativity. It's infinite. The same is true of the OSR. Every good OSR system can be successful. If they are good, people will buy them, and people will play them. It will them increase the number of consumers, thereby increasing the chance of success (assuming it's good).
No, it is _not_ infinite, and no economic theory in the world operates under such a premise. And while work and creativity should ideally be a path to generating wealth, that isn’t always the case either.
Shadowdark came at right place and right time. You got other ones like 5 Torches Deep that were a mix of 5e and OSR that didn’t get that kind of attention. I may pickup shadowdark at some point but I got multiple other D&D adjacent games that are sitting on my shelf that I want to use. If I could just get only the GM’s section out Shadowdark that would be awesome.
The envy of ShadowDark seems to me to be caused by zero sum economic thinking. Zero sum thinking assumes all income to one person takes income from another. You got into it in the fifth minute. I totally agree with your thinking.
But it _is_ zero sum. I don’t know where this ridiculous idea that everyone has infinite resources to spend on anything they want comes from, but spending time/money on one thing by definition means there’s less to spend on another.
Congrats to her for creating something that people are buying and playing. I have no interest in her game but that is merely because I am too invested in AD&D 2E and BECMI. I don't have room for another fantasy game if I am being honest. I really only play AD&D 2E, BECMI and Mongoose Traveller 2E/2300ad. The people causing problems over her work are just children that need attention. She should be praised for actually creating a TTRPG that is making waves. This is one reason I ignore social media.
I have AD&D1e and other TSR editions as well. SD is there to play with my kid and normies on the fly. My one critique of the game is that it is specific. If you own these games already, you don't *need* SD. It has good tables inside though. So that is a plus.
@@TheBasicExpert I've always found the OSR to be amusing. Why play a clone of AD&D 1/2E or BECMI when you can just play those versions and house rule things which is encouraged in the books. I get the argument that the clones use modern mechanics but if I wanted modern mechanics I would play a modern game. You can never have too many good random tables that is for sure. I've taken a bunch from 3.X and Pathfinder 1E. In fact I need to overhaul my charts. I look at it this way: its great that she created that product and it is doing well. We need more creators like that and less wotc. I honestly don't see how her game would even remotely effect other games. Maybe I am just out of my mind or so far removed from social media lol. I've always been of the mindset play whatever games you like but gatekeep your game because not everyone should be in your game. You need the right people with the same mindset or these games fall apart faster than a house of cards.
@@TheBasicExpert That is what I do. I was surprised by the amount of 5E players I have met that have absolutely bought into the propaganda of wotc about the TSR versions of the game. I think there is a definite difference between 5E players and players who play other games.
Thank you for explaining this theory. I was not familiar with it, though I am quite used to the social phenomenon. To be fair, I only see this kind of behaviour online. When I'm playing any kind of roleplaying game (indie, OSR or even DnD), the players are just there to have a good time.
It is an online thing, I think the anonymous nature of the internet allows it to breed and flourish. But it can happen in real life and even at the table. People are just slightly less likely to be cruel face to face.
It's an interesting thought. I would like to hear more about why you think the role-playing game market has no market cap at all. Why do you believe there are infinite customers buying infinite books?
Have you seen people's bookshelves? I'm looking at mine. Scarcity doesn't mean that it's zero-sum. WotC has consistently outsold all of the OSR and yet no one ever complained that WotC, even with it releasing PODs and PDFs of old TSR stuff, is choking out the OSR. It's a scapegoat and argument from pure envy.
ACKSII did extremely well. OSE does well. Dolmenwood. Shoot even Colville's game didn't get these accusations (he got entirely different ones). Knave 2e didn't get this. Why? It's an argument from envy.
Your thoughts about socialism were right on target. Othering people does not mean letting the best products take the spoils, but I believe it absolutely is a winner-take-all game. Each sale someone else makes means dollars they got and you didn't. And that's the way it should be, IMO.
Good video. Excellent perspective. For me, ShadowDark RPG is a great take on another way that old school D&D could have been. Honestly, in some ways, it is simpler than B/X, from a pure rules perspective (ignoring presentation and non-rules elements). It also looks very easy to homebrew stuff for without breaking it. I personally love Old School Essentials and would not part with it. Same goes for my old B/X and BECMI stuff. And, Swords & Wizardry, and Castles & Crusades. And, OSRIC. But, if I were to design a D&D clone/emulator, right now, I think ShadowDark RPG would be a great place to start. But, I look at the whole of ShadowDark RPG as not really presenting rules. Rather, it presents an internally consistent framework from which a great game can be ran. I was recently in a game where the DM was trying to run B/X // OSE and I noticed he was experiencing frustration with a lot of the rules and so were several of the players. As I watched, I couldn't help but think that had ShadowDark RPG been his framework, most of his and the players' frustrations could have been avoided. Rather than making ShadowDark RPG the villain, I think there are some things to learn from in there. And, perhaps someone (or perhaps several) will go about producing other D&D variants that improve upon ShadowDark RPG has done. I do not think that ShadowDark RPG is a danger to the OSR. On the contrary, it shows that there's still room for the OSR to grow. Sure, some might think that if it isn't directly cloning a TSR version of the Game, it's not OSR. But, I would ask, should that be the goal? What if fun, ease of use, and a great gaming experience was the goal?
Conversations on Twitter and TH-cam about gaming of any kind, and especially independent development, is like a bunch of people noticing how they don't live in a society enough. It is an industry talking about an industry... King Waspinator 's Clout Snake character repeated in reaction ad infinitum. Even good people, good participants in industries, are sucked into the vortex so long as they are not acknowledging which rules they expect an industry to follow; the worst part of trade unions is how they tend not to represent their purported purposes and instead try to take control for the control, and the less transparency there is in that the more it tends to actually revert to coercion, bullying, and even violence. ... and the obvious political actors against activism aren't worth listening to if they don't follow their own rules and aren't holding themselves to standards keeping these factors (in themselves) in check, and doing so transparently. But... if it's for gaming, and not control of an industry, or the corollary to a trade union or social network or guild (for lack of a different and less implicit choice of words), then there doesn't really need to be a conversation about it. The value of the conversation itself comes into question, and seems to ask for some clarity of definition of purpose. (I don't want to unsee the mass psychology or scapegoating as much as I don't want to repeat it myself)
It isn’t about economics, but ideology. Hell even Pundit’s decades long war against ‘story games’ was on the basis of ideology rather than any practical element of design. For them any failure in the market implies a failure of their ideology. And for the most part the entire indie market is like this now. I have some theories as to why this is the case, but none of them would help fix the issue. Meanwhile #ShadowDark is well designed and delightfully free of any such proselytism. So if it’s taking market share from other games that’s fine with me, despite the fact it’s not my cup of tea.
I don’t know about all the choking out other games and stuff, but why all the hype about her game? I looked it over and it’s pretty much like all the rest. Here is another game that does this, does that, and timer on torches. Whoopee! I don’t get it. She takes concepts that have been in other games and packages them neatly is all I’ve seen. it’s just another OSR
She had a big following and I think her game fills a niche of modern 5e style game that feels old school. Something a lot in the OSR have tried to do and didn't do as well. She has written 5e adventures for a decade and her channel has 20k subs. She has other creator friends with larger channels. She leveraged the advantages she had like any designer should.
There is a distinct irony in the scarcity mindset here, as Shadowdark appears to have brought a large audience along with it. There’s a fair chance that those players, new to old school gaming will want to branch out.
Interesting video! Sometimes a background in Philosophy just over complicates the truth ( I use Occum’s Razor) - why not just “Haters gotta Hate”? - jealous talentless wannabe game designers cast shade on successful others -
OSR has had a constant and repetitive cycle of pointing at scapegoats for their lack of dramatic success. The reality, from the start, is that the hobby as a whole is so small that there really is not money for everyone who produces content for the hobby to make a living at it. Pareto means only a small number of creators will find monetary success. And, the failures will always have a need for a new scapegoat.
Take a drink every time someone posts a negative video about Shadowdark. I tried to join Basic Experts villain arc legion of Doom, I wanted to be Gorilla Grodd, but it turns out I'm the condiment king
I'm not an american, so maybe I don't know anything, but it seems to me that extreme ideological purity has some roots in american puritanism. American far progressives seem seem to have alike mindset, but competely mirrored ethics to reactionaries. Non religion treated like religion, anti-conservative norms just as rigid as conservative ones. It's weird to me, an atheist progressive social democrat.
Are you from Europe? The Roman Catholic church shaped much of the foundation there. Protestantism is what shaped here, and protestantism that was rejected by other protestant groups. I think it lends itself to such things. You may be on to something with the purity testing linked to the country's first peoples that settled here and their religious beliefs.
@@TheBasicExpert Yes, Poland specifically, the most catholic one nowadays. Many european countries are protestant like Sweden or partly Germany and they don't seem to be like that though. Maybe it's like you said, USA protestants are the protestants of protestants.
@@TheBasicExpert Yes, Europe. Even european protestant countries are not like that. Yeah, american protestants seem to be more removed from catholics. Catholics seem to be one of the most level-headed christians.
It is really absurd to suggest the success of Shadowdark is costing other 3rd party independent creators. Shadowdark is actually leading me into buying other OSR rulesets and independent publishers to add to my coming Shadowdark campaign. Previowuly, our group had been 3.5 players and then Pathfinder when 4.0 came out. So if not for Shadowdark, I’m not sure if I would have gone down the OSR rabbit hole and checked out other systems, and I bet there are lots of other people out there with similar experiences.
i find this troubling that we even need to have this conversation. The strength of the hobby, from my view, was the support it has for everyone within it, no matter what your flavour of gaming. Do i blame any one entity for this seeming dissension? possibly, one maybe a few corporate entities have a large part in creating this negative hype and creating negative rivalry instead of positive support. I would love for my game to be the next greatest thing in our hobby, and yet I am not dwelling on anything, but am enjoying seeing others becoming successful, such as Kelsey and Shadowdark. Which is how this hobby should be moving forward. Support is fleeting within a capitalist society. If we dig deeper, maybe we can find it again. Play what you love, 5e, OSR, whatever you want to call it, just play stop bringing others down to lift yourself up. Ego and pride grow dissension.
Here is the article I referenced:
violenceandreligion.com/mimetic-theory/
Girard's idea of mimetic theory is not new. He's just creating new terminology for social scientists for the human passions of jealousy and envy. This problem has been well understood and documented by Christian Saints since Christ but for some reason secular post moderns need new terms to explain something very old. If anyone bothers to study Christianity back to the beginning and the writings of the Christian Saints, Girard is not saying anything new and the Saints actually understand human passions and the human condition more thoroughly than Girard ever did.
I was drawn to the OSR from out of the 5e space for two main reasons.
1. As a conservative, I found like minded folks in the OSR space. Of great importance was the fact that a decent majority of folks sought to REMOVE culture war politics from their games.
2. The encouragement from the community to take ownership of my table. To make my game my own, as opposed to dealing with bad faith broken character builds and reams of backstory.
As someone who is still relatively new to the scene, Shadowdark was one of the first OSR adjacent games I bought. I stashed the pdf in my google docs and forgot about it in favor of Castles & Crusades. I’ve been playing regularly the past few months and it’s been a blast. I really don’t see the reason for all the hate.
You had me at conservative.
I completely agree with your statement above Uriah.
I've been having a blast playing in DM_Bluddworths Shadowdark campaign right along with you.
I'm always looking forward to the next session.
I've also been having a great time running Shadowdark for my players. 5 sessions in and it's been a blast!
I find this intriguing, because I am definitely more progressive, but followed a similar path. Now I did end up falling in love with Shadowdark, and regularly play it and run it, but there was a certain niceness in enjoying a game that didn't have a faction ranting and gnashing teeth about it being "woke". I guess part of it is that we get used to seeing our stances as normal and logical, and when we feel like they are being attacked because something is different, we can get defensive and counterattack, even when those things are actually an attack. Just as having a gay NPC is not attacking conservatives, having orcs be monstrous or the world be dark and dangerous is not an attack on progressives or liberals. I think too many people see us vs them in everything, and while it does explicitly exist in some cases, a lot of times, a game is just a game.
1:24 Things I didn't expect to see mentioned in RPGs : Girard's theory of the scapegoat.
My interest go far beyond elf game, haha. In fact, using mimetic theory in plot hooks with NPCs that desire something is a way to get players interested in them IMO.
Thanks for pointing toward an interesting intellectual iceberg! I think I have had me head in the sand or something, because I wasn't aware of too much drama with Shadowdark until a few days ago. But then, I'm not a huge fantasy gamer... But this memetic rivalry is a fascinating rabbit hole to go down.
Mimetic rivalry is why giving your NPCs goals, motivations, and desires will engage your player characters. For instance, presenting a tomb as just a tomb is one thing. Saying, "A group of thieves and bandits seek a lost treasure in the tomb for themselves," immediately plays on mimetic desire in players at the table.
I think that the idea that Shadowdark is screwing over the rest of the OSR is silly. If anything, it's providing an off-ramp for 5e players, which I think is a good thing as 5e gets more and more stupid, woke, and corporatized. The haters are just being ugly and jealous.
Sure, but we all know they'd be better of going straight to AD&D 1e.
@@sampedro93161e sucks. Hate to kill a sacred cow, but it does.
Crab theory is probably simpler
Haha that also works. The TLDR version. But this theory would preceded that one and explain why they are crabs in a bucket.
Sounds like envy to me. Just sour grapes. I enjoy OSR products, but I guess I'm not emotionally attached to them the way I used to be attached to other products in the past.
EDIT: the only reason I don't already own Shadowdark is because I'm broke. Otherwise I would have already bought it as well as a bunch of other OSR stuff I want.
A thought-provoking take on the current drama, well said.
For me a big part of the success of Shadowdark is the layout.
I ignore a lot of OSR games due to poor layout. Want my attention? Then learn from Kelsey Dionne and Gavin Norman and Frank Mentzer - get good at the process of presenting your material on a page!
So, FOMO and jealousy. This goes back a long way. Satan wanted to be equal with God. Things have been going downhill ever since. 😅
I appreciate that you pointed out the dirty way people with a narrow identity often act, Regardless of Their Political Stance. It's that narrow identity that is fragile, and while not all are jerks many are maliciously defensive of that status.
There's nothing wrong with having a group. When you start focusing on the "purity" of the group, you're on the path to violence. I don't mean being grumpy towards people you don't want to hang out with, I mean this scapegoating and ostracizing, which some people follow up with attacks on reputation and escalate from there.
I mean if you tell anyone in business or finance that one entity is screwing over another(by being successful?). They'll say good for them. That's literally the point of any business venture. To captivate the market.
Not that things are that simple. I mean are not the different books within the same system competing with eachother on some level.
I know i might have actually suffered the misfortune of buying a 5e module if there weren't so many resource books.
Choking out the OSR?? What, with the 0.5% of the market Shadowdark commands? We are all eating scraps down here. Bless her for her success. OSR game writers: if you're feeling left behind, step it up. If you're not finding success where she has, ask yourself what it is YOU are lacking. RPGPundit is a good example of bottom rung cannibals, who CANNOT STAND to celebrate someone else's success, and it's not like he's unsuccessful himself.
Excellent and thought provoking video. I had to watch it twice to pick up on some of the finer details.
"I only am who I am because I was born that way. I have a gift and I am trying to not be selfish about it but to use it. Okay? And if you want to knock me for that, it's your own problem. Okay? Jealousy will get you nowhere. I'm gonna keep rockin' on!"
- Eddie Adams
Having seen her not knowing she wrote those rules, just playing games at NTRPG my take is she's just a gamer who enjoys playing and running fantasy RPGs. In that brief interaction she seemed undiscernible from other old school GMs enjoying themselves. As for the source of envy, what's fascinating is it's entirely non-monetary since there is no real money to be made, it's just over glory.
I've been scripting my response to the shadow dark controversy.
There's a lot of tribalism, a lot of envy, and a lot of bucket crab mentality involved but there's also a heavy presence of reactionary absolutism too.
This perception that other people's success sucks away your own says significantly more about you than the person doing better than you.
@@nicholasrova3698 it seems obvious but these people go a step further, masking it as virtue.
@@TheBasicExpert True. Virtue signaling is cringe regardless where it comes from, and I'm seeing a disconcerting amount of it on what I've generally considered 'my side' for a couple years now, whether in politics or in games.
@@nicholasrova3698 I think it's because the culture war is winding down. And as that happens, targets on the otherside dwindle so you have to start looking closer to home. For almost a decade now this is all people have fought and thought about and now they are running out of targets.
@@TheBasicExpert Valid point. And I'm all for the Left finally losing their stranglehold, but I'm now concerned what the Right will do with their new-found position. If I was an optimist I'd say they'll wield their power and influence with wisdom and candor... but I try to be a realist and I very much doubt that'll happen. There's already stupid purity tests on the Right and people falling back on culture war stuff to cover for terrible behavior.
@@nicholasrova3698 I think we need to be "better" than the other side and police our own in a higher principle way. If cancel pigs and what not are not acceptable, we need to tell people, no matter if they are on our side or not, to settle down if they get out of hand or cross the line.
It's like the theory that not everybody can be wealthy, because there isn't enough money in the world. Wealth is created by work and creativity. It's infinite. The same is true of the OSR. Every good OSR system can be successful. If they are good, people will buy them, and people will play them. It will them increase the number of consumers, thereby increasing the chance of success (assuming it's good).
No, it is _not_ infinite, and no economic theory in the world operates under such a premise. And while work and creativity should ideally be a path to generating wealth, that isn’t always the case either.
As they said on the chan boards, Are You Pro-Skub or Anti-Skub?
With Skub standing in for what ever you want.
Shadowdark came at right place and right time. You got other ones like 5 Torches Deep that were a mix of 5e and OSR that didn’t get that kind of attention. I may pickup shadowdark at some point but I got multiple other D&D adjacent games that are sitting on my shelf that I want to use. If I could just get only the GM’s section out Shadowdark that would be awesome.
Maybe just get the PDF and print up the tables you think you would use.
The envy of ShadowDark seems to me to be caused by zero sum economic thinking. Zero sum thinking assumes all income to one person takes income from another. You got into it in the fifth minute. I totally agree with your thinking.
It's a justification for a scapegoating.
But it _is_ zero sum. I don’t know where this ridiculous idea that everyone has infinite resources to spend on anything they want comes from, but spending time/money on one thing by definition means there’s less to spend on another.
Congrats to her for creating something that people are buying and playing. I have no interest in her game but that is merely because I am too invested in AD&D 2E and BECMI. I don't have room for another fantasy game if I am being honest. I really only play AD&D 2E, BECMI and Mongoose Traveller 2E/2300ad. The people causing problems over her work are just children that need attention. She should be praised for actually creating a TTRPG that is making waves. This is one reason I ignore social media.
I have AD&D1e and other TSR editions as well. SD is there to play with my kid and normies on the fly. My one critique of the game is that it is specific. If you own these games already, you don't *need* SD. It has good tables inside though. So that is a plus.
@@TheBasicExpert I've always found the OSR to be amusing. Why play a clone of AD&D 1/2E or BECMI when you can just play those versions and house rule things which is encouraged in the books. I get the argument that the clones use modern mechanics but if I wanted modern mechanics I would play a modern game. You can never have too many good random tables that is for sure. I've taken a bunch from 3.X and Pathfinder 1E. In fact I need to overhaul my charts.
I look at it this way: its great that she created that product and it is doing well. We need more creators like that and less wotc. I honestly don't see how her game would even remotely effect other games. Maybe I am just out of my mind or so far removed from social media lol.
I've always been of the mindset play whatever games you like but gatekeep your game because not everyone should be in your game. You need the right people with the same mindset or these games fall apart faster than a house of cards.
@@nordicmaelstrom4714 I honestly advocate people to go to the original rules and TSR editions and read them for themselves.
@@TheBasicExpert That is what I do. I was surprised by the amount of 5E players I have met that have absolutely bought into the propaganda of wotc about the TSR versions of the game. I think there is a definite difference between 5E players and players who play other games.
Thank you for explaining this theory. I was not familiar with it, though I am quite used to the social phenomenon.
To be fair, I only see this kind of behaviour online. When I'm playing any kind of roleplaying game (indie, OSR or even DnD), the players are just there to have a good time.
It is an online thing, I think the anonymous nature of the internet allows it to breed and flourish. But it can happen in real life and even at the table. People are just slightly less likely to be cruel face to face.
It's an interesting thought. I would like to hear more about why you think the role-playing game market has no market cap at all. Why do you believe there are infinite customers buying infinite books?
Have you seen people's bookshelves? I'm looking at mine. Scarcity doesn't mean that it's zero-sum. WotC has consistently outsold all of the OSR and yet no one ever complained that WotC, even with it releasing PODs and PDFs of old TSR stuff, is choking out the OSR. It's a scapegoat and argument from pure envy.
ACKSII did extremely well. OSE does well. Dolmenwood. Shoot even Colville's game didn't get these accusations (he got entirely different ones). Knave 2e didn't get this. Why? It's an argument from envy.
@@TheBasicExpert How do you define zero-sum?
Your thoughts about socialism were right on target. Othering people does not mean letting the best products take the spoils, but I believe it absolutely is a winner-take-all game. Each sale someone else makes means dollars they got and you didn't. And that's the way it should be, IMO.
@@BobMcDowell the way these morons do. SD's success has come at the cost of these poor creators in the OSR.
Thanks for the video Jon
Good video.
Excellent perspective.
For me, ShadowDark RPG is a great take on another way that old school D&D could have been. Honestly, in some ways, it is simpler than B/X, from a pure rules perspective (ignoring presentation and non-rules elements). It also looks very easy to homebrew stuff for without breaking it.
I personally love Old School Essentials and would not part with it. Same goes for my old B/X and BECMI stuff. And, Swords & Wizardry, and Castles & Crusades. And, OSRIC.
But, if I were to design a D&D clone/emulator, right now, I think ShadowDark RPG would be a great place to start. But, I look at the whole of ShadowDark RPG as not really presenting rules. Rather, it presents an internally consistent framework from which a great game can be ran.
I was recently in a game where the DM was trying to run B/X // OSE and I noticed he was experiencing frustration with a lot of the rules and so were several of the players. As I watched, I couldn't help but think that had ShadowDark RPG been his framework, most of his and the players' frustrations could have been avoided.
Rather than making ShadowDark RPG the villain, I think there are some things to learn from in there. And, perhaps someone (or perhaps several) will go about producing other D&D variants that improve upon ShadowDark RPG has done. I do not think that ShadowDark RPG is a danger to the OSR. On the contrary, it shows that there's still room for the OSR to grow. Sure, some might think that if it isn't directly cloning a TSR version of the Game, it's not OSR. But, I would ask, should that be the goal? What if fun, ease of use, and a great gaming experience was the goal?
It's more like a the monkey ladder experiment or a crab bucket. Scapegoating would be if everyone blamed Shadowdark for the failings of 5e.
Well why are they crabs in a bucket? Because of this theory. They are not mutually exclusive.
Well done, sir, well done indeed!
"SJWs and Culture Warriors are more alike" BINGO!
Conversations on Twitter and TH-cam about gaming of any kind, and especially independent development, is like a bunch of people noticing how they don't live in a society enough. It is an industry talking about an industry... King Waspinator 's Clout Snake character repeated in reaction ad infinitum.
Even good people, good participants in industries, are sucked into the vortex so long as they are not acknowledging which rules they expect an industry to follow; the worst part of trade unions is how they tend not to represent their purported purposes and instead try to take control for the control, and the less transparency there is in that the more it tends to actually revert to coercion, bullying, and even violence.
... and the obvious political actors against activism aren't worth listening to if they don't follow their own rules and aren't holding themselves to standards keeping these factors (in themselves) in check, and doing so transparently.
But... if it's for gaming, and not control of an industry, or the corollary to a trade union or social network or guild (for lack of a different and less implicit choice of words), then there doesn't really need to be a conversation about it. The value of the conversation itself comes into question, and seems to ask for some clarity of definition of purpose. (I don't want to unsee the mass psychology or scapegoating as much as I don't want to repeat it myself)
Interesting video.
It isn’t about economics, but ideology. Hell even Pundit’s decades long war against ‘story games’ was on the basis of ideology rather than any practical element of design. For them any failure in the market implies a failure of their ideology. And for the most part the entire indie market is like this now.
I have some theories as to why this is the case, but none of them would help fix the issue. Meanwhile #ShadowDark is well designed and delightfully free of any such proselytism. So if it’s taking market share from other games that’s fine with me, despite the fact it’s not my cup of tea.
I don’t know about all the choking out other games and stuff, but why all the hype about her game? I looked it over and it’s pretty much like all the rest. Here is another game that does this, does that, and timer on torches. Whoopee! I don’t get it. She takes concepts that have been in other games and packages them neatly is all I’ve seen.
it’s just another OSR
She had a big following and I think her game fills a niche of modern 5e style game that feels old school. Something a lot in the OSR have tried to do and didn't do as well. She has written 5e adventures for a decade and her channel has 20k subs. She has other creator friends with larger channels. She leveraged the advantages she had like any designer should.
Unfortunately if you point this out, people generally flip out and accuse you of jealousy or bigotry or something.
Refinement is as important as innovation.
There is a distinct irony in the scarcity mindset here, as Shadowdark appears to have brought a large audience along with it. There’s a fair chance that those players, new to old school gaming will want to branch out.
Interesting video! Sometimes a background in Philosophy just over complicates the truth ( I use Occum’s Razor) - why not just “Haters gotta Hate”? - jealous talentless wannabe game designers cast shade on successful others -
@@sirguy6678that describes what is but no the why.
This really just sounds like more reasons to take Grognard complaints with a grain of salt and to enjoy the games you like despite the drama.
I got expelled from the Old School @2024
OSR has had a constant and repetitive cycle of pointing at scapegoats for their lack of dramatic success. The reality, from the start, is that the hobby as a whole is so small that there really is not money for everyone who produces content for the hobby to make a living at it. Pareto means only a small number of creators will find monetary success. And, the failures will always have a need for a new scapegoat.
Most things have always been this way. Sometimes it should just be a hobby for people.
@@TheBasicExpert Exactly. Nothing wrong with it being a hobby and then people could chill out and just play games.
Take a drink every time someone posts a negative video about Shadowdark.
I tried to join Basic Experts villain arc legion of Doom, I wanted to be Gorilla Grodd, but it turns out I'm the condiment king
I'm not an american, so maybe I don't know anything, but it seems to me that extreme ideological purity has some roots in american puritanism. American far progressives seem seem to have alike mindset, but competely mirrored ethics to reactionaries. Non religion treated like religion, anti-conservative norms just as rigid as conservative ones. It's weird to me, an atheist progressive social democrat.
Are you from Europe? The Roman Catholic church shaped much of the foundation there. Protestantism is what shaped here, and protestantism that was rejected by other protestant groups. I think it lends itself to such things. You may be on to something with the purity testing linked to the country's first peoples that settled here and their religious beliefs.
@@TheBasicExpert Yes, Poland specifically, the most catholic one nowadays. Many european countries are protestant like Sweden or partly Germany and they don't seem to be like that though. Maybe it's like you said, USA protestants are the protestants of protestants.
@@TheBasicExpert Yes, Europe. Even european protestant countries are not like that. Yeah, american protestants seem to be more removed from catholics. Catholics seem to be one of the most level-headed christians.
Petition to rename the OSR to the Goatscape.
It is really absurd to suggest the success of Shadowdark is costing other 3rd party independent creators. Shadowdark is actually leading me into buying other OSR rulesets and independent publishers to add to my coming Shadowdark campaign. Previowuly, our group had been 3.5 players and then Pathfinder when 4.0 came out. So if not for Shadowdark, I’m not sure if I would have gone down the OSR rabbit hole and checked out other systems, and I bet there are lots of other people out there with similar experiences.
Exactly, it's expanding the customer base really. Other creators could be taking advantage of this instead of dismissing would be customers.
I neither understand the appeal nor the hatred of Shadow dark. It just seems like another old school product.
I think 5e people are curious about old school but avoid it for various reasons. Shadowdark lets them have some of the feel with a modern ruleset.
i find this troubling that we even need to have this conversation. The strength of the hobby, from my view, was the support it has for everyone within it, no matter what your flavour of gaming. Do i blame any one entity for this seeming dissension? possibly, one maybe a few corporate entities have a large part in creating this negative hype and creating negative rivalry instead of positive support. I would love for my game to be the next greatest thing in our hobby, and yet I am not dwelling on anything, but am enjoying seeing others becoming successful, such as Kelsey and Shadowdark. Which is how this hobby should be moving forward. Support is fleeting within a capitalist society. If we dig deeper, maybe we can find it again. Play what you love, 5e, OSR, whatever you want to call it, just play stop bringing others down to lift yourself up. Ego and pride grow dissension.
SD has zero presence in my local circuit. It's like no one's even heard of it. It can't possibly be choking out anything.
That's interesting to hear. I'm not surprised. I don't know how 1:1 the online hobby is with the some in real life areas.