I Fell Down a Hole and Landed in the OSR
What's up Goblins!
I’m Judah aka DNDIY. I’m a 27 year old San Diego native who’s just the tiniest bit pretentious about coffee and totally captured by this small corner of hobby that is TTRPGs. As an introduction to me, here’s how I ended up here.
In March 2020, right at the start of COVID before we really knew how long we were going to be inside, I moved into a house with 6 of my friends (San Diego rent is insane). That went I think as good as it could’ve with 7 guys in their early / mid 20’s. Most of us lost our jobs and the few that didn’t were now working from home full time. After about a month or two of being cooped up and losing our minds a bit, one of us pitched an idea that would end up changing my hobby life; Let’s play Dungeons & Dragons!
Luigi is the one who pitched this idea and was the only one of us who had played before, so naturally he became DM for our 5e campaign. Finally, the house had something to dig our teeth into. The next week preparing for the session it felt like every conversation was about D&D. Watching videos, figuring out DnD Beyond, buying dice, and making up typical “my parents are dead” backstories for our characters. For the next year Luigi lead us through our first campaign. I played “Zaheer” a Dragonborn Monk who eventually got some homebrewed gauntlets that did fire damage! Needless to say I was hooked.
Soon after that campaign ended I ran my first games for that same group. I ran the game in 5e as it’s all I knew existed at the time. I was lucky that Luigi was there as a player to help with the rules as it’s a lot to keep everything together and working especially as a first time DM. I learned a ton in those sessions and had a lot of fun with friends. However, in retrospect I’m able to see just how hard I was grinding up against the system itself. I had a hard time with tracking combat, keeping on top of ALL the rules, and generally feeling burnt out at the end of sessions.
Certainly a good amount of this is because I was a new DM, but that’s kind of the point. I was lucky in a couple ways. I had an awesome friend who was able to help me out with system stuff, a table full of friends who were gracious and encouraging, and I had time. Lots and lots of time. I honestly don’t think I would have stuck to the game in the way that I have if not for being stuck inside for all of COVID.
-- 3 Years Time Skip —
It’s the beginning of 2023 and the WOTC OGL scandal is happening. I was still playing regularly and deep into the community so I was pissed off with the rest of the internet. This is the first time a couple YouTubers I was watching started to mention games other than D&D.
I had recently gotten engaged and was getting ready to move out of the house I shared with my D&D group. I was going to be in between games since so I decided I wasn’t going to run D&D in my next game. Eventually when I settled in my new place I started a new game of Pathfinder 2e!… which lasted exactly one session. It seemed like a perfect analog for D&D and had decent support. The thing is all of the things I was grinding up against in my 5e games were magnified in Pathfinder.
That experience put me in a slump for the next year. I didn’t run much of anything or even really play. Eventually when I got the itch again I went back to running and playing in 5e. Those issues were still gnawing at me and eventually I did what a lot of people in this space do. I started making my own game.
-- The Last Two Years —
So that’s what I’ve been doing the better part of two years. It wasn’t really until that I started investigating what I would want out of my own system that I started to dip my toes into the OSR and adjacent subcultures. Buying, reading, and running systems like OSE, Cairn 2e, Mythic Bastionland, Knave, Shadowdark, and the like really opened my eyes to what’s possible in the hobby (Not to mention Roll for Shoes that really blew my mind). I really feel like I’ve found my little hobby home in the NSR/OSR and have made my way thru the Between Two Cairns back catalog this last year. I’ve been a “lurker” in these spaces for the most part. Not really engaging on the blogs or discords but I want to change that this year. That’s mainly what this blog is about. Becoming an active participant in the corner of the hobby that consumes all my creative energy already.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading!
I’m looking forward to all of our adventures this year.