Y’all have probably heard people say “It’s just an elfgame, don’t take it so seriously” or some such sentiment. It’s always been a soft derogatory term, although some disagree. I think it’s soft derogatory because while elfgames are fun, they’re still, I think, important.

At some point, I was chatting to Marcia B of Traverse Fantasy, about how I don’t like identifying as OSR, for a wide range of reasons, but also didn’t love the alternatives.

I want to distance myself from the complex and sometimes problematic history of the OSR, I don’t want to define myself in relation to it like NSR and it’s variations do, sword-dream is well intentioned and has largely faded away.

And Marcia said (this is how I remember it) “I just want to play diy elfgames”

So now I use “diy elfgames” instead of OSR, because it’s a better descriptor (or rather actually describes) the TTRPG culture I’m a part of: That is, we all play our own games cobbled together out of rules crowdsourced from other games and random blog-posts, inspired by each others cool innovations.

It’s kind of a reclamation, but mainly it’s just what I play and what most of my friends play. We’re mainly about diy elfgames.

Addition: Marcia wrote her own post on the topic, and on the same day, no less!

30th August, 2023

Idle Cartulary