I just realized something that I have been feeling lately, but haven't really been able to put into words until now.
The OSR scene has changed. When it first started picking up a lot of momentum, it was largely focused on people making things. A horrible but smart person called it the "DIY RPG" scene. It was all blogs with bits of games and hacks and weird little systems.
Now, it is dominated by "purists". B/X is recommended to the point of exclusion. OSE, I think, played a bit of a role in this, but it's not just that.
This is really very obvious when you look at the split between OSR and NSR. People creating new things, and exploring new ideas, no longer felt welcome in OSR spaces.
Too many OSR people think "if it's 'new' it's not 'old' so it obviously doesn't belong in 'OLD School Revival '". But, exploring new ideas is core to the hobby, and has been there since the beginning. Part of OSR was going back, but it was also about putting the power of the design back into GM hands. That's one of the major cultural shifts with D&D3.5. Unified rules where everything has a rule, and the players feel like they are invested in those rules.
D&D 5e went through sort of the same arc (maybe every edition has, with perhaps the exception of 4e).
When it started, it was all about natural language, and rulings over rules. They even kept a slow release timeline so as not to have it become bloated too quickly. But bloat it did. And once again players are investing in the rules instead of the worlds their GMs are presenting. People stopped relying on GM judgement and started considering "Sage Advice" as official rules errata. The 2024 version of the rules are an extension of that. They lock down on the nebulous bits, hard coding the rules more.
Perhaps this is just the natural lifecycle of any rules system large enough to perpetuate itself the way D&D does.
I loved 5e. Still do, really. I'm just tired of running it. Not really because of the rules themselves (though, that's part of it), but because the rules are "known". The players don't play in my world, they play 5e. The players don't interact with my world, they interact with 5e. The players aren't invested in my world, they are invested in 5e.
This is why, often, when someone really gives my campaigns a chance, they don't usually mind trying new systems. Because the system is just a vehicle to present my world, and they trust that my world will be good.
This really goes back to why I started working on my “Rage Bait” campaign. It's not really new. I started thinking about it years ago. It comes from a desire to get back to what I loved about 5e. It both builds on the system's untapped potential, while also shedding some of the parts that I feel have become restrictive.
I do want what happens to surprise everyone at the table, the players and me both. But, an important distinction is that even though none of us expected it beforehand, it feels like it fits. "Of course!" my players say, about something they did not expect. It should seem obvious, in retrospect, but ONLY in retrospect. The 20/20 vision of looking back should be able to trick them into thinking it was the "right" answer, but when it is in front of them, they should NEVER feel like there is one right answer. It should be a bit of paradox, a bit of Schrodinger.
It feels like so much to ask for. I would think it was ridiculous if I hadn't done it so many times.
I think there are a couple problems that occur.
One, is that when finding new people to play with, they don't often have this mindset. They essentially have to unlearn their experience with other GMs. This is almost definitely why I do better with players who are completely new to the system, if not the entire hobby.
The other problem is that over time, that 20/20 hindsight starts tricking them. They stop believing that anything was possible. It is easier, I think, for them to imagine I manipulated them into choosing the correct path, instead of believing that I could do what I do without one. Especially, I think, when they go and see that almost no other GMs are giving that kind of freedom.
This is kinda like how people are when they talk about Critical Role, and other entertaining actual plays. They think "they must be scripted because I have never been that entertaining without a script". Which, to me, is just sad. I don't even think Matt Mercer is that good of a GM. He does great voices, and is a great and dramatic actor, but the actual nuts and bolts of him running the game aren't anything I haven't seen before.
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