[LotFP] Interview with James Raggi

[Havard]

In that respect, though, I think this whole OSR thing is detrimental to the hobby; if Raggi would make a real step ahead, and publish his stuff as a fully separate game, he'd be way better off, as would be many others.

I think that Raggi's point was that the OSR isn't good or bad, it simply is. And that makes sense to me. While there are elements within the OSR, or old school fans at least, who are simply spreading bile and hate across the internet, the fact remains that there are alot of people out there who enjoy the type of game products that were made in the early days of D&D/AD&D. And the awareness that these people exist has sparked a lot of creativity both among the amateur or small time publishers and among fans who just want to share stuff for free.

Personally I am more in the group that think we should be sharing our ideas freely across the Internet than those who want to make a minuscule profit out of their poor quality adventures. But then there are the people like Raggi and Geoffrey MicKinney and all of those people who make good stuff and create the opportunity for us to pay a bit for those books in order to get illustrated printed versions of them. I guess I can't see much wrong with that either.

I really recommend the Walking Eye Interview with Ron Edwards and Victor Raymond for some interesting perspectives on OSR publishers and their Indie RPG counterparts.


-Havard