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May 21, 2013, 6:55am

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Topic: Are there any OSR group blogs? (Read 320 times)

jmccann
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Are there any OSR group blogs?
« Thread Started on Jan 31, 2012, 12:55am »

I am interested in finding out if there are any OSR group blogs. I have some ideas which I think would be nice to publish in a blog but I am positive that I don't have enough posts in me to sustain my own blog. There is nothing worse than an infrequently updated blog and I don't want to have one of those. But I think with a couple of other like-minded bloggers with similar interests, an interesting blog could result.

Are there any blogs like that?

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Cameron DuBeers
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Re: Are there any OSR group blogs?
« Reply #1 on Jan 31, 2012, 1:38am »

My general feeling? Avoid 'blogs.

Post something brilliant here and any 'blog worthy of note will repeat what you said ad infinitum.

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kesher
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Re: Are there any OSR group blogs?
« Reply #2 on Jan 31, 2012, 10:01am »

The Mule Abides

Lord of the Green Dragons

...are the two that spring immediately to mind. I know there are at least a few others.

I'd be interested in such a project...

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Finarvyn
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Re: Are there any OSR group blogs?
« Reply #3 on Jan 31, 2012, 3:01pm »

I'm not sure what an "OSR blog" is.

If you just mean any blog based on OD&D or AD&D, there are several. If you mean a blog based on the clones, most of them have individual blogs for game development and such but I don't know of many "generic clone" sites.

I mostly frequent message boards. Blogs are only valuable if one person has a lot to say, and I find that most folks don't have enough content to interest me for the long-haul. (Grognardia is the only one I read daily. There are some others I check every few weeks.) The neat thing about message boards is that you get several people all posting ideas, so they stay fresh.

The best message board for OSR (other than here) would have to be Dragonsfoot. K&K has some good content as well but they tend to less tolerant of posts outside of certain parameters.

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kesher
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Re: Are there any OSR group blogs?
« Reply #4 on Jan 31, 2012, 4:13pm »

I, anyway, was assuming by "OSR", Jim was referring to whatever might be loosely considered to be relating to the style of play favored by the Old School Ruckus.

It's funny--I actually can't stand most message boards; this is really the only one I read or participate on. OTOH, I read lots of blogs, not necessarily daily, but due to the plethora of excellent aggregators out there for my ipad, at least weekly.

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Koren n'Rhys
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Re: Are there any OSR group blogs?
« Reply #5 on Jan 31, 2012, 4:29pm »

My read is that he's looking for a community blog - with multiple posters - since he won't produced enough volume to keep up a personal blog. Like an OSR version of DungeonMastering.com or Gnome Stew?

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jmccann
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Re: Are there any OSR group blogs?
« Reply #6 on Jan 31, 2012, 9:42pm »

Jan 31, 2012, 10:01am, kesher wrote:

...are the two that spring immediately to mind. I know there are at least a few others.

I'd be interested in such a project...

Of these two, only "Mule Abides" seems to be alive. The other has no posts since September despite having tons of contributors.

I knew of both of these but did not realize they were group efforts.

Jan 31, 2012, 10:01am, kesher wrote:

I'd be interested in such a project...

I'll keep that in mind. Are you saying you'd be interested in reading it or contributing? If contributing, how often do you think you would post?

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jmccann
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Re: Are there any OSR group blogs?
« Reply #7 on Jan 31, 2012, 9:43pm »

Jan 31, 2012, 4:29pm, Koren n'Rhys wrote:

My read is that he's looking for a community blog - with multiple posters - since he won't produced enough volume to keep up a personal blog.

Yes that's it.

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kesher
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Re: Are there any OSR group blogs?
« Reply #8 on Feb 1, 2012, 8:48am »

Quote:

I'll keep that in mind. Are you saying you'd be interested in reading it or contributing? If contributing, how often do you think you would post?

Both! I'd probably post 3-4 times a month.

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Koren n'Rhys
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Re: Are there any OSR group blogs?
« Reply #9 on Feb 1, 2012, 10:48am »

Interesting. I always though Green Dragons was just ~~Tim Kask's~~ private blog. Never noticed it had that list of contributors. Same with Mule Abides. How do you even set up a blog multiple people can post to?

I don't post to my own blog often at all, but I do share things there occasionally. I'd certainly follow a new OSR blog, but doubt I'd contribute. Between my blog and a handful of forums I have enough places to post and gather feedback.

EDIT: My bad- as Tavis points out, GD is Rob Kuntz's site not Tim Kask's. Sorry Rob! And again, I assumed everything on Mule Abides was Tavis's work - so thanks for the clarification there too!

« Last Edit: Feb 2, 2012, 9:51am by Koren n'Rhys »

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tavis
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Re: Are there any OSR group blogs?
« Reply #10 on Feb 2, 2012, 8:53am »

As you guys are saying,the advantage to a shared blog is that having lots of people post gets you through fallow times for any one individual.

The disadvantage is that all those people's contributions often get credited to just one guy - most often me in the case of The Mule Abides, which I feel bad about and do all I can to say "no James and Eric and Charlatan and Maldoor and Greengoat are the Mule too!" But I do that myself - it took a long time to realize that Lord of the Green Dragons had contributors other than Rob Kuntz. I think some blog readers contribute to the problem; if you are at the Mule's Wordpress site you can see the contributors list on the right, but if you're reading it via RSS feed it may not be as clear.

This problem becomes more acute the more unified the blog is. The Mule Abides strikes a nice balance, I think, in that we all have shared play experience with New York Red Box but different interests - James' series on Kirby comics or posts about "indie filth" sessions, Eric's Red Box workshop and random charts, Charlatan's Saltbox, and Greengoat's cartography.

However that unification means a) because we are similar in some ways we get mistaken for one another and b) we have a raison d' etre that doesn't allow easy expansion to folks from other cities. Guest posts would be one way around that; I'm going to post one today and would be glad to discuss others.

« Last Edit: Feb 2, 2012, 8:58am by tavis »

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