From controversial publishers and exiled pundits to belligerent posts in facebook groups somtimes it seems to be impossible to swing a cat in the Old School scene without running into agressive and exclusionary rhetoric. As fan of all the wonderful aspects of OSR style games I am concerned with what I see as a worm in our otherwise delicious apple. I am interested in anyone elses thoughts on this situation, I apologize now If this post leaves anyone feeling called out or atttacked. I just want to start a little conversation about our culture.
Most gaming stuff definitely has that image — that is, that the participants are a bunch of relatively young cis white guys who are unable to talk to women and are terminally un-woke when it comes to the issues of social justice.
That said there are a ton of good gamer groups (and games!) if you know where to look. Anecdotally there are a lot of gay nerds out there, and queer people of all stripes seem to love RPGs.
So I don’t think it’s inherent to the medium… and even most of the OSR stuff I’ve read has been pretty good. The stuff to stay away from is those that equate “historical realism” to “violence against women and minorities.” Obviously FATAL exists but in the OSR space I think there’s no equivalent and even Lamentations of the Flame Princess (the darkest and edgiest out there) is dark and edgy equally.