New School Revolution

Blue Skies Ahead

Hello friends.

I don't usually write posts like this. Generally, I don't even write posts about myself, and I am not trying to create more drama with this entry. There is enough of that in the world as it is (in fact, I've asked the OSR feed mods to filter out my name from the feed for now).

That said, enough people have reached out to me in the past day that I felt it necessary to write this post, a place where I might collect my thoughts, talk about "what happened" over on Bluesky, and then... move on with my life?

To be clear: this isn't one of those "I was right" posts. On the contrary! I think there is plenty to agree on in this debate, and while I'd like to highlight some of that in this post, I would rather focus on my reasons for leaving Bluesky more than anything else.

Click here if you don't want to read the whole story.

A Minor History

On December 31st, Ben Milton (aka Questing Beast) posted a review of my module, Beyond the Pale. To be clear, I was a pretty big proponent of Ben's for many years, as a patron and consumer of his work. My RPG, Cairn, is based on Knave (the original, CC-BY version)! I still have a Maze Rats shirt somewhere.

Last year, I decided to cancel my membership after Ben repeatedly, confoundingly, continued to platform full-on bigots, protofascists, and folks that I find particularly icky. We have enough bad apples in the hobby, and Ben's "apolitical" stance irked me quite a bit. What's more frustrating is how frequently he highlighted the work of amazing creators like Zedeck Siew, Evlyn M., and so on! And in recent months, he's done things that are at best tone-deaf and at worst... well, quite disappointing, to say the least. As Chase Carter points out on Rascal, there is no such thing as being "apolitical."

When I saw the review, I became excited. This was the first such video review of an adventure I'd poured two years of my life into. The book was a significant effort on my part, and I am proud of the end result. And he did a good job flipping through it and discussing his likes and dislikes. I watched the video and posted the link on Bluesky.

I'll be honest, I didn't really give my original post that much thought. I hadn't paid much attention to Ben's channel for some time, and while I was dimly aware of the Red Room fiasco, my impression was that he had walked back the endorsement, returned their money, etc. But again, I hadn't given it much thought!

Well, some folks on Bluesky thought it was a bad move on my part. For them, Ben's long association with the worst elements of this hobby put him firmly in the same camp as those he promotes, and giving him a boost—even for my product—was a bad move. And you know what? I think they're right! But more on that in a moment.

For folks who know me, who have been in my spaces, you know that I'm a pretty hardline moderator. I have been consistent about banning links to specific creators on the NSR Discord, the Cairn Discord, and others. I have also been consistent in another way: I've always allowed links to platformers (with caveats). I am not a fan of Tenfootpole, for example—the forums there are a den of snakes—but I've always allowed links to reviews there. This is a fine line to walk and always worth revisiting. Hence posting a link to Ben's review of my work: it was consistent with my own views and moderation over many years now.

That said, I'm going to repeat myself here: the people that think it was a bad move to link to Ben's video are right. Ultimately, we are not going to move forward as a hobby around these issues until those that sponsor the "baddies" get blocked out of our spaces! Personally, I wasn't fully aware of how bad things had gotten, but it seems that for many, the tide had turned recently, and I was left unaware. I think the post sparked a needful, worthwhile conversation that I really didn't mind having! I'm all for disagreement and discussion among friends and enemies alike.

But that's not why I left Bluesky.

A Good Reason As Any

(Skip to here if you don't care about scene drama.)

Why did I leave? It's honestly quite simple: I realized that Bluesky gave me 1/10th of what I was putting into it.

When Bluesky first launched in private beta, I was one of the first 10,000 users. I was excited by this "new Twitter" and its open-source protocol, moderation tools, and vision. I went all-in: I set up starter packs, spent 50+ hours and my own money on an OSR-specific feed (which used to be way, way harder than it is now). Recently, I migrated the feed to a subscription service at the cost of $100/year. I was all-in on creating a community there. Frankly, I think I spent far too much time on the feed and should have jumped ship to a similar service a long time ago.

To be clear, I'm not trying to brag or ask for gratitude, any of that. I simply think it's important to know all this so that folks have context for why I deactivated my account so suddenly.

Here's what happened.

After my post linking to the Questing Beast review of Beyond the Pale went live, someone "subtweeted" (subskeeted? ha) my post with a screenshot. They said, "Do better OSR," or something along those lines. Others replied there, and at one point, my post was referred to as "an act of cowardice." I think that's the point where things took a turn for me.

I took the post down and wrote another post about being open to dialogue. And a discussion was had! I think I was even convinced! But that didn't stop the other conversations that were happening, of course.

I have pretty thick skin. I don't mind criticism and frankly enjoyed some of the conversations that rose out of this fiasco! I like to argue. I don't even have a problem with calling out (though I do prefer calling in). What I didn't like was the Twitter-style dunking, clout-chasing, and subtweeting that occurred. Instead of DMing me or replying to one of my posts, some people did the most Twitter-like BS imaginable.

I suppose the "aha!" moment for me came when I saw that most of the people promoting this bad behavior were folks I did not know, who are themselves not even OSR creators! And then I realized: I don't care about any of this. The amount of effort, time, and money I put into making a home on Bluesky was not worth the toxicity and drama this all spawned. I am aware, of course, that I have added to that drama by leaving so suddenly, but that's just how my mind works. Once I make a decision, I act on it. Drives my wife crazy.

To provide a counterexample to all of this, let me tell you all a story. We all know that Reddit has a pretty bad reputation, and /r/OSR doesn't have a great one either (for good reason). But it is still a central place for OSR discussion, and I am happy with the mod team there. I can speak personally on that front, as I nearly left the subreddit when a person who will remain nameless harassed me and any mention of my game (and later went on to write a hateful screed about me as well). I told the mods there that I was unhappy about it and leaving, but that I wanted them to know why. Their response was wonderful: they banned the user and told me they'd keep an eye out going forward. And so I stayed. This is not something that can happen on Bluesky; it isn't built for community. It is built for self-promotion and (at best) micro-conversations.

Social media is broken, especially in a Twitter-like space. How can you create community when there are 300-character limits, where anyone can talk to anyone, and public clout-chasing is an inevitability? There is no room for nuance or empathy. The terminally online will act in ways one would never expect to see in the real world, but the cost of their actions is very much the same.

Fortunately, I'm not planning on going anywhere. I still have this blog, Discord, Discourse (please!), and many other places I find fulfilling. Going forward, you can expect to hear from me here a lot, I think.

A final note: the outpouring of support has been frankly incredible. I haven't seen anything on Bluesky, but I've received dozens of DMs and emails. It's been wonderful. I am fine, really. I appreciate all of you.

Thanks for reading all this. I am not trying to add to the drama of this, but I know it is inevitable and absolutely not worth it. I only write this in the hopes that it helps someone, some day. You never know.

#drama #social-media