My First Post: or New Beginnings for an Old DM.  

After a hiatus from the world's 'greatest' TTRPG of a few years due to the pandemic and life, I am finally back at the table for a game that takes place every other Wednesday, (or as regularly as will permit).

During my time at uni I would run a near enough weekly game with a group of 6 players that would often run 12+ hours at a time, and almost always ended in arguments, bickering and backstabbing, mostly amongst themselves, but every week those poor players would come back for more. Since then I have grown older and tired and can no longer play until the sun comes up and our eyes turn red. 

So Why Blog Now? 

Well, as someone who has seen and played many editions of the world's 'most famous' TTRPG, grappling with the THAC0 system at age 7 using my dad's old 1st ed rulebooks; which were well loved when I started taking interest and only fell apart more as I read them under my covers at night, to buying my own edition and getting confused at the complete tonal shift, I finally have something I feel I can call my own! 

Yes, I started on 1st edition, but that was my dads. 

Yes I bought 4th edition in about the summer of 2009, but that felt strange and I never fully clicked with it. 

My University years were spent playing Pathfinder 1e and this started to feel like something more recognisable, yet fresh (to me anyway) and simple enough that we could all grasp the rules very quickly; yet it was complex enough we could all break them. Of course we dabbled and experimented with other rule sets (as you should experiment during your most informative years)and we would learn what we liked and didn't like, but we would always return to Pathfinder. 

After Uni I quickly felt the GM itch and had to find a new group back in my hometown. I graduated in 2015 and 5e was still relatively new, so I grabbed the core books, contacted some mates, who also contacted some mates and I was back at it. 5e was fantastic! Slim, Slick & Sexy. 

Over the next five years I would play as often as I could using this ruleset and never had any complaints. I ran homebrew, published and anything I could get my hands on. It got to where I was running two entirely different games, with different settings, players and playstyles, sometimes both in the same week and I loved it. 

But by the time 2019 hit I was burning out, and although we tried online platforms the thrill of the table quickly vanished for me and I became disinterested.

It's 2022 BABY & I'M BACK! 

Back at the table, sturing gossip and rumours between my players, setting traps and dangling the carrot of loot slightly out of reach; and I couldn't be more excited. This time I have a secret weapon. OSR! I love it! It's finally my perfect flavour. 

It has the nostalgia and oddness of 1e that I grew up on and fell in love with, the freshness and bold innovation (whether you enjoyed it or not) that 4e brought to the table, and the streamline slick feel that 5e gave me eight years ago.  It's my perfect mashup of all I love and I think that's because it's a living, breathing community. 

And that's why I have started this blog. I want in. I want to add my own ideas, opinions and random roll tables. The OSR community is so closely tied to the Blog scene that to simply post on Reddit or Insta would not be adding to the living OSR organism in the truest spirit of the thing.

-Yak