I avoid attaching myself to communities (mostly because I’m antisocial) so I don’t know how much of this writer’s experience is specific to them instead of universal, but this certainly seems depressingly plausible.
seems very plausible. keeping a community together, with a shared purpose, where people are generally happy, and doing it over a long period of time is very hard. likely a certain amount of luck is needed for success.
I would add that moderating a community is a SWEET SPOT issue. not too hot, not too cold. its difficult. time consuming. energy consuming.
the OSR RPG community for example, was a bright spot in the Facebook group world. very active, with lots of sharing, lots of great discussion. it did so in part because it was heavily moderated, was created with a sorta of DON’T EVEN THINK OF COMING HERE gate. however, over time it started eating itself. the posts with the most engagement became the ones about the most recent “this terrible person did a terrible thing” story. lots of posts that were essentially, “I want to get into RPGs, tell me what NOT TO BUY” (instead of asking what people like). infighting. accusations. etc. engagement just slowly wilted. its a pretty dead group now, mostly just promotions, very little discussion.
(of course, some of it is the general heat death of Facebook…)
This is why we will always be SWORDDREAM to me.
Never heard of DIYRPG.
I also think it poor form to comment on NSR without even bothering to learn what it means.
My experience–and I had no idea the OSR existed until a few years ago–is that the heyday of the nazis and other assholes has passed and the majority of old school afficianados don’t tolerate such toxic nonsense. I see how Goodman Games is having a heap o’ trouble right now because of re-engaging with the Judges Guild ownership after having sworn off such association several years ago. Zak S is a prohibited subject on the Reddit OSR sub. And so on.
So, I can see how a lack of gatekeeping would cause a site or community to fail. The majority of old school folk have no truck with the bigots. If one allows the bigots to operate in the community, expect the majority of old school players to ignore the site.
Note: I’m an old white guy.
I think it’s kinda death by 1,000 cuts.
It’s kinda obvious that there are still a minority of assholes in these spaces that think people like me don’t deserve dignity, and unfortunately people still wanna talk about their work like I should give a shit. With that out of the way…
There’s been a huge growth of OSR/NSR since 2020. I am part of that growth and so I can only comment from that time on, but it seems obvious the signal to noise ratio has exploded. A lot of projects get lost today that wouldn’t even a few years ago. Add in Google’s enshittified search results and it’s really hard to find things that haven’t gotten enough buzz to pop already.
This along with greater necessity for high quality layout, design, and illustration to stand out in the crowd increases the barrier to success, if not entry. If you can’t pay for those things you have to be the whole package. That’s a huge time commitment.
But let’s ignore all this. I would love to prioritize, say, the isometric megadungeon for Errant slowly accumulating in my sketch pad, but I’m a trans woman in the US. I have bigger fish to fry right now that have upended my plans for the year. The shitheads on the internet are discouraging. Having to have the same discussions over and over again is discouraging. But they are symptomatic of a larger problem.
So, what to do?
Spend more time talking about the work you like by marginalized authors who are great instead of the authors and others that are an obstacle to diversity. It won’t fix the world but it means more time enjoying good work having good fun.
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I’m not sure I buy this take… Some individuals putting a stink on something because they are shitty people doesn’t make an entire scene a “an alt-right shitshow.” There are plenty of people just like myself (an old white guy) who would happily tell someone that their bullshit isn’t welcome anywhere near my game.
Maybe this is just our moment to be the Dead Kennedys and tell the N*zi Punks to F off. Either way i’m not going to let shitty people ruin something I love just because they happen to like it too, in my mind that’s them winning.
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I’m all for community reflection and reinvention, but this part strikes me as odd. Mastadon is… not super popular in general. The massive social infrastructure shifts that made Twitter (and now bsky) iconic left personal sites as a whole behind. I’d blame those factors first instead of assuming a lack of engagement comes from personal judgment.
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I’m not sure about the more recent parts of the “history” put forth here (I do agree with the earlier parts of it, though), but for me at least, I feel like too much gatekeeping, too much insularism, too much siloing, is what ultimately pushed me away from these spaces. Not even actively, but simply because I didn’t want to have to run the flamethrower gauntlet meant to keep other people out when I already have my own acceptably non-reactionary gaming communities to be a part of.
Given enough time, as a community’s values start to crystallize, as people become more comfortable with each other, their positive and affirming communities become safe havens for negativity, they start to agree on “acceptable targets”, people just feel more okay with venting, etc…and the more that happens, the more people whom you don’t intend to start catching strays. I’m not saying that shouldn’t be allowed–it’s as true for me and the groups I’m a part of as it is in the ones that (probably unintentionally) make me feel unwelcome–but that kind of thing ultimately cuts off so much opportunity for growth.
(At the risk of pointing to a cop-out answer, COVID and social isolation probably hyper-accelerated this phenomenon in online spaces, and that’s a big part of why I lament that this has happened but also can’t totally condemn it. There’s so much more that can probably be said about this and how I think a lot of us haven’t realized yet how much we’re still trying to claw our ways out of that quagmire.)
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basically middle school social dynamics. some of my most uncomfortable memories are of myself getting caught up in this shit. it feels righteous when you do it… when you are 12. looking back I shudder at what I did. but like, you live you learn. I find value in those memories because I think they make me a better adult.
so when I see that in the GLEE that certain people have attacking enemies in a lot of RPG communities, even if sometimes the targets deserve it.
its… just… unseemly. I don’t like it.