@Taskerland @Printdevil so we're heading towards two-party system?

@vdonnut We'll never get there but there are definitely two major gravity wells rather than 3, 4, or 5.

You often see people say stuff like 'if you don' t like 5e or Pathfinder then you should look into PbtA games' skipping over everything in between.

@Printdevil

@Printdevil @Taskerland Guess it's time to pick up my satchel, staff and cloak and start carrying news from one silo to another. Have to say I was hoping for warmer weather.

That makes me think of "Salute of the Jugger"

or "The Traveller in Black"

@RogerBW @Taskerland

@Printdevil @RogerBW @Taskerland I never see The Traveller in Black referenced in discussions of gaming influences. Too weird and impersonal?

I've been thinking about my observation that the five-or-so silos comprising the #ttrpg scene are ideological in nature.

One of the characteristics of ideology is that it totalises... It's not just a school of thought but a vision of the world and you don't necessarily realise you have an ideology until you encounter someone who rejects it.

I've noticed a few people claiming that 'Gamism' isn't a thing anymore but I would argue that it is about 80% of the hobby and *growing*

@BigJackBrass @Printdevil @RogerBW Ooof... I had to look up the Traveller in Black. Those stories sound very moody.

@Taskerland I don't buy the ideological thing. To be sure, there are noisy _individuals_ who think everyone should share their tastes.

But tastes are all there is to it.

There will always be nerds who need their tastes to be somehow _objectively_ "valid," because some people have fragile needs. But no amount of that kind of emotional damage adds up to ideology, IMO.

Those were some of my favourite fantasy writings growing up, I am always surprised how little they get referenced by RPG peeps.

The pay off at the very end. You knew it was coming but... ooof...

@Taskerland @BigJackBrass @RogerBW

@Printdevil In fairness, they were out of print between 1977 and 2014 - I had heard of Brunner but only really Stand on Zanzibar. @BigJackBrass @RogerBW

@Printdevil In fairness, they were out of print between 1977 and 2014 - I had heard of Brunner but only really Stand on Zanzibar. @BigJackBrass @RogerBW

@Taskerland @Printdevil @BigJackBrass I don't think that can be quite right; ISFDB lists various editions of The Compleat Traveller in Black through the 1980s (and an ebook in 2014).

@Printdevil In terms of the five silos you have the OSR, PbtA, the broader itch indie game scene, 5e, and the broader trad fame scene but I would argue that 5e has eaten the broader trad game space and is in the process of eating the OSR to create a 'Mainstream D&D' scene while PbtA is slowly absorbing the broader rump of indie game development.

@Taskerland Hello. I agree about the five silos (I'm in the indie one). Not sure about D&D devouring OSR (are you including NSR stuff like Mythic Bastionland?). I disagree about Pbta devouring the indie scene, I think the opposite: Pbta is being deconstructed and cannibalized by the indie silo.

@RogerBW @Taskerland @Printdevil The collection I had was certainly an eighties paperback.

@BigJackBrass I was probably misreading isfbd. I just saw a 77 collection and a mire recent reprint that included some of the Traveller in Black stuff. @RogerBW @Printdevil

Either way I was certainly very young reading it. I just love the concept of the instigator, the one who turns the wheel in it all.

@Taskerland @BigJackBrass @RogerBW

@SJohnRoss I think we are headed in that direction. Real-world ideologies are never perfect and they do have some flex to them but they do also limit the boundaries of the imagination and the viseceral horror that people display when they encounter different approaches does look a lot like ideological difference. It's not just 'these people are wrong' it's 'there is something wrong with these people'.

@Printdevil It reminds me a bit of manga stuff like Golgo 13 and Lone Wolf and Cub which is basically hundreds of episodes of 'terrifying amoral assassin is hired to murder a hyper-bastard, bad things follow' @BigJackBrass @RogerBW

@mdom My sense is that the NSR has been re-absorbed by the OSR - Mythic Bastionland is procedural in a way that Into the Odd isn't. Ditto, the Non-fantasy elements of the NSR are increasingly ignored outside of Mothership.

My sense of PbtA is that while there is an legit influence, PbtA people also lay claim to Brindlewood and Forged in the Dark stuff suggesting centralisation rather than the fragmentation you suggest but I suspect your sense is clearer than mine.