SWORD DREAM Community Interviews
The first time I heard about “Old School Roleplaying” I assumed that it was a bunch of grumpy old white guys trying to kill their players and assert their dominance with boring rules from the 80s. Instead I found a thriving, supportive community filled with ideas and awesome people.
However that negative impression has continued to be prevalant thanks to some bad actors in the OSR scene and a vague sense of complacency in the community. But recently things have started to change for the better, and SWORD DREAM has emerged as a symbol of that change.
SWORD DREAM?
Recently the “SWORD DREAM” hashtag/acronym/joke has become a beacon for people who want to see a change in the OSR.
Read about the 9 Principles of SWORD DREAM, a bunch of interesting blog posts, and tweet posts. Follow the #SWORDDREAM hashtag for infinite content.
There is a #dream channel in the OSR Discord if you want to talk about this stuff some more.
Also, also there is a SWORD DREAM game design event coming in July!
This post will feature several interviews with various creators who want to see more inclusivity in the OSR community. We’ll talk about existing problems, ideas for solving them, and what SWORD DREAM actually means. I’ll be adding in responses as I receive them, so this post will grow over time!
Introduce yourself in a single sentence.
Click the Names below to see their responses. "I'm a second-generation Pakistani-American multiclass immigration attorney/RPG creator; after freelancing on Mongoose's PARANOIA line in the 2000s, I began getting into the OSR scene, and am currently a partner with the Hydra Cooperative." Blog: Legacy of the Bieth Twitter: @Allandaros "I'm a writer and artist and designer. These days I make psychedelic metal roleplaying games." Website: Wizard Thief Fighter "Hello, I'm a software developer by day, fledgling game developer by night, humane IT proponent and aspiring humane nano-publisher; I make some games and write a lot of bad code and try really hard to make working conditions less shitty everywhere I go." Hi, I'm Jack Graham, formerly the lead writer on the Eclipse Phase RPG, now a game designer in the SWORDDREAM movement. This is Emmy, who makes various games and game-related books, generally with lots of whimsy, body-horror and strangeness, and who blogs at http://cavegirlgames.blogspot.com Shoe Skogen is probably not a cannibal but one can never be too sure. They've been part of the FLAILSNAILS scene almost since the beginning and have played everso many games. And now, run the OSR as Crown-Captain, which is a hard job but someone has to do it.Humza Kazmi
Luka Rejec
Mike Lombardi
Jack Graham
Emmy Allen
Shoe Skogen
What made the initial SWORD DREAM resonate with you, if it did?
Humza Kazmi
SWORD DREAM resonated with me because of the playful nature of the framing ("Second Wave Of RPG Design / DIY Rules Everything Around Me") and the goal/intention of being something better than the toxicity and wilful blindness that had made up a lot of the OSR scene's interactions on G+.
The phrase in and of itself is opaque to me - but then again, so are the letters "OSR" together. I don't really care whether a scene is called Sword Dream or CGA or Second Branch or even still OSR, as long as it's a scene that tries to do better than what's come in the past.
Luka Rejec
What was the initial SWORD DREAM? When we cooked up the cookie acronym? That was certainly fun. The fun and humor and tongue-in-cheek silliness. The openness and the friendliness of everyone involved.
It initially started on the 12th of February 2019 as a few of us got the idea to come up with a new name for a discord server and I suggested "Second Wave of RPG Discord aka S.W.O.R.D." D.R.E.A.M. came via Lombardi two posts later. Then, four posts later, Fiona Geist put the two together. Finally, another four posts later, Galactic Nomad suggested changing the "D" in SWORD to "Design," making it "discord independent."
It didn't have a single definition or meaning, there were obvious contradictions in the name itself, and it was never proposed as a specific thing—simply a fun, kind, inclusive label for folks and things and activities. Some people decided to view it as a movement, others as a genre, yet others as a meme.
Then Lombardi shared it on Twitter as a joke and it took off—and what made it truly resonate for me was when it made a lot of quite obnoxious people quite annoyed. That was truly hilarious.
Mike Lombardi
Well, it resonated with me mostly because it resonated with other folks, especially marginalized folx who had been OSR-adjacent, left the OSR, or had never felt like they could belong/try to fit in there.
It started as a shitpost borne of frustration but very quickly became something more interesting and worthwhile - because those folx leaned into the idea and made it their own.
Jack Graham
Aside from sounding really cool (who doesn't like swords?), I'm gonna be real here: marketing. A lot of my new work fits into the OSR category from an aesthetic standpoint. But I'd been unwilling to call myself an OSR designer, because I felt the scene had some serious problems with alt-righters in its midst.
SWORDDREAM spoke to the same aesthetic without the baggage, so I jumped in with both feet.
Emmy Allen
Honestly, I don't think it's really anything /new/. It's a new term, sure, but it's more an attempt to find a label for a branch of osr writing & gaming that's pretty easily identified. People call it artpunk or DIY or indie or hipster or whatever, but it's fairly clear what we mean. sword-dream stuff basically just puts a clear name on that whole vague grouping.
Shoe Skogen
Well, SWORDDREAM doesn't resonate with me at all really, but the idea behind it did. I favour a FIREDREAM, personally. A SNAILDREAM. A STARDREAM. A new start for the OSR, working hard to heal the wounds of the past. It's an irresistible quest: using the humility and understanding we've gained these last five months to make the whole community better, healthier, more open, more kind.
I am especially interested in the implicit acceptance I've always found in the OSR being explicit, and I'm interested in the whole scene becoming more friendly for women.
What are you hoping changes in the community?
Humza Kazmi
I'd like to see an atmosphere that's more broadly welcoming, particularly to folks from marginalized communities and groups. Relatedly, I'd also like to see a broader set of tones and inspirations in the settings and games that we create. Large parts of the OSR scene grabbed onto the crapsack world, black humor, and high lethality of something like WFRP, along with a punk/early metal vibe (in part as a reaction to the bowlderization of AD&D2e). Those things are all awesome and speak deeply to me, but it's good to see more.
Finally, I'd also like to see a greater willingness to prevent bad actors from dominating conversations and ensuring that people can safely engage with our scene. This is a fraught part, because increased curation and selectivity in engagement can operate at cross-purposes with broadening access and bringing new folks in. I don't have answers for how to strike this balance yet, but I believe that it's something that we can - and must - manage.
Luka Rejec
I don't think the term "community" is appropriate here. What community are we talking about? Roleplaying games? Hobbies? Tabletop games? There isn't a community, there's a shared field of interest, and the OSR is ... let's say ... a genre within it. There are lots of different, sometimes mutually overlapping, communities within this genre space and overlapping it, all with different foci and interests.
However, I do enjoy it as a sub-genre, a humorous movement of creativity in a new direction, embracing new people and opening up possibilities for different inventions.
Mike Lombardi
I'm hoping it reduces some of the balkanization between the "storygamer" and "osr" scenes, both of which are consistently pushing themselves and have a lot of shared values and plenty of space to grow and learn from each other. I'm also hopeful that by continuing to be loud about our values we can at least get the bigots to self-identify themselves away from the discourse, which they happily seem pretty keen to do.
Jack Graham
I'd like people to be more aware of the politics -- often unspoken, unexamined -- that go into games. We don't all need to be sucked into a 24/7 Woke-a-Thon, but a little more awareness isn't gonna kill anybody. A certain baseline of awareness about who creators are and what they're doing when they're not making games goes a long way. I'd like us to get to a point where someone can pick up a product and enjoy it without having to worry about whether they're supporting someone awful.
F'rex, I'm really into metal. With some genres, like black metal or viking-inspired music, you have to go through this fucking research process with a new band to make sure they're not crypto-nazis or some kind of fascist. I feel like you have to do that when you pick up an OSR game now, and it sucks. It sucks having to triple-check stuff you like to make sure it's legit. And that's the point of SWORDDREAM.
I want people to be able to pick up an OSR/SWORDDREAM book and not have to sweat this political stuff. But we've got to be kind of political to get to a point where we can be less on-alert politically all the time, if that makes sense.
Emmy Allen
I think the community is pretty healthy right now, and - frankly - booting out that one asshole recently was the start of that. Once that particular brand of toxic pedantry was excised people took a hard look at the discourse and decided they wanted to move away from his influence. The emergence of sword-dream as a label is just another step in this direction, I think.
Shoe Skogen
Mostly the things I've said - there were a lot of cultural conventions in the OSR that Zak somehow managed to calcify in place. I want to smash them apart and use the pieces to build something much healthier. I want the bits that are unfriendly to women to change into something more open, more cooperative. And I want options - I want to break out of the same old assumptions and get really experimental about what the OSR can be. I see that happening already!
What do you want to preserve from the OSR?
Humza Kazmi
I want to preserve a culture of personal creation and exploration, a tradition of keeping material focused on improving play at the table, and a design interest in classic RPGs, both as inspiration and a useful jumping-off-point for our own designs. While I want to make sure that we (as a group) create a broader diversity of settings, I also have a deep abiding love for grimy picaresque worlds (and will still be focusing the brunt of my design attention thataways).
Luka Rejec
Preserve from the OSR? Well ... everybody's always going to preserve whatever they want, and there was never just one OSR. Some folks looked back on the original games with nostalgia, others with curiosity, others with economy, and yet others with excitement at using simple building blocks to build alternatives, different possibilities and games. All that's staying, of course.
I'd suggest that folks keep the openness to innovation, difference, and creativity. Also the emphasis on fun and actual play and games over too much theory-crafting.
But it's fine to move on from some of the more toxic individuals who've built their reputations on aggressively polarizing discussions, name-calling, bullying, and trolling. Behavior like that doesn't do much for the health of any hobby or community. Can't do much about what they decide to call themselves, but folks can move on and make positive changes and creative work instead.
For myself, I've never been too comfortable with solid labels. I sometimes referred to my works as OSROWHY (OSR or what have you). Nowadays, tongue-in-cheek, I call it psychedelic metal roleplaying. But if I were to pick a descriptor that is sufficient, just roleplaying games is fine. All the rest is chocolate sprinkles and gravy.
Mike Lombardi
I wanna preserve the design, the DIY, the kitbash, the make your fucking vision and give no fucks drive. I wanna keep the experiments, the blogging, the sharing, the daring.
Jack Graham
So much. The aesthetics. The out-there imaginings. The "slam some stuff together and make it work" attitude toward rules. The openness with regards to sharing ideas and making things hackable. There's so much there that's good to work with!
Emmy Allen
Oh, most of it, except for the bit where people are assholes online because of cliqueyness and culture wars.
Shoe Skogen
The freedom and DIY aesthetic, definitely! Anybody can show up and just make shit. That's magical to me. Also, the feeling of acceptance and tolerance. Some online scenes seem to have no air in them, the window of acceptable creativity feels very narrow and it’s just my nature to strain against that. In the OSR, for all its faults and little invisible walls (and it does have some), there was still always a sense that all one had to do was show up and be rad. I like this.
What are you most excited for?
Humza Kazmi
Bringing in new folks with new design ideas. Amplifying the voices of folks who have been interested in this scene, but hesitated due to some of the loud pernicious voices that were given center stage (Zak), and that were never on the stage but loudly insisted that they were (Pundit, Venger).
Luka Rejec
Umm ... the end's in sight for the layout that's been consuming me alive. Book will go to the editors soon. That's exciting. Finally.
Mike Lombardi
I'm most excited to see what the infusion of great designers who didn't feel comfortable in this space can do with the groundwork the OSR laid and how the OSR designers can grow in kind as we just make cool shit.
Jack Graham
We just announced a game jam that will run through the month of July. Over 100 people are signed up at the time of this writing. I'm incredibly psyched to see what they create!
Emmy Allen
Iunno. There's a lot of cool stuff, but the various community projects are very interesting.
Shoe Skogen
I'm excited for so many things! The #Dreamjam coming up, for one! And then SUMMERDREAM bundle. The idea of actually printing up Trash planet as a zine. Seeing all the new innovation and change that will come to the osr with this shakeup. Healing the damaged reputation of the OSR, too! So many great creators and so much crazy wonderful DIY energy... It's just a splendid time, really. Exhausting! Very exhausting! But wonderful. I can't get enough.
What do you think about this playing out on twitter and in calmer discords?
Humza Kazmi
I still miss G+ as a venue, and it's a bit of a shift hopping to Twitter and Discord, but c'est la vie? It's odd seeing smaller groups promote this and grow slowly, but in some ways I think that's really handy for allowing new voices who haven't always been at our table to speak up.
Luka Rejec
I think it's great that it has lots of different people excited, new people jumping in, different ideas, logos, names, games, art, books popping up. It's a fun ferment and cauldron.
And, as I mentioned, seeing a few nasty and mean-spirited people get incredibly riled up about it is both sad and hilarious at the same time. The serious, pompous, and derogatory way they react to an exuberant and fun moment of online activity and creativity ... that's just so petty.
Mike Lombardi
I think it's been interesting. For my part, I strongly resisted the urge to centralize anything and had to keep juking "But you started this what is the true sword dream" tweets and DMs.
I think it's absolutely for the best that this has played out in multiple discords and across twitter and in DMs and face to face chats as everyone involved thinks over what they do and do not want, where they're trying to go, and what this means (if anything) to them. That's more likely to be healthy and last than anything I could've planned or tried to organize.
Kazumi and Jammi and Jack and Mabel and Humza and Fiona and etc are all way smarter than me and them speaking on what they want is the most important part of this whole thing, for me.
Jack Graham
I know it left some people out of the conversation, but having some of our organizational conversations on private discords was really helpful. It cut down the noise and let us talk about what we wanted to be without the chaos of twitter and without detractors being able to throw beer cans in the ring.
But I hope we're being public and transparent about the outcomes of those conversations, and I've tried to keep a super open door on the Skeleton Wizard discord for anyone who wants to join the discussion in good faith.
Emmy Allen
I've only been tangentially following the discussion tbh. It seems sensible and nice so far, though.
Shoe Skogen
I think I inherently trust Discord more, just because there's more a sense of empathy and warmth than in twitter. Because it’s not showy, there’s a lot less performative nonsense and playing for points. I do love how easy it is to spread the word on twitter! I like both really, for totally different reasons.
I will say that discord gives the ability to curate one's group, which has immeasurable use when trying to have really focused, getting - shit-done type talks - which is where most of my important work is happening right now. But twitter is often lower-drain which is really nice. I really like the energy on there sometimes. Also, if you want to nerd out with me over community management, I'm always down.
Have you learned anything you didn’t expect along the way?
Luka Rejec
Should really have made up a shorter acronym. Possibly P.U.G. - Pretentiously Undefined Games.
Mike Lombardi
Mostly I have met a bunch of new designers and learned that I am a soyboy eunuch with inappropriate facial hair. ^_^
Jack Graham
I had no idea how many cool people there were in the left wing of the OSR. Having avoided the OSR label as a designer, I was inadvertently missing out on a really excellent community.
Emmy Allen
Nah. As I said earlier, to my mind this is more attaching a label to a pre-existing scene than creating something new.
Shoe Skogen
Oh, wow. Well, I suppose I've been reminded a little bit how resistant some folk are to things changing. there hasn't really been a lot of that, though! In fact, most of the resistance has come from supposedly woke folks, not liking the idea that cool stuff can come out of the OSR. Mostly though, I've been inspired by the passion and open-mindedness of this little group of crazy weirdos, and how much work has come about because of it.
What is your DREAM?
Luka Rejec
Keep writing and illustrating games and stories, grow the audience, bring fun to more people, create better products.
Mike Lombardi
My dream is to write open-tables and picaresque supportive games which strongly encourage kitbashing and DIY, high consequences, high agency, and high trust, which help us emergent stories about people in their communities fulfilling their ambitions and the tensions of their lives.
For the community, my dream is that we're able to support and embrace everyone experimenting and pushing their design skills and ensure we're paying fair wages and making our work accessible, which also means also that the spaces are safe to be in for folks.
Jack Graham
Five years from now, we're gonna look back at the Reign of Obnoxiousness lead by certain obstreperous trolls, and it's gonna seem like a bad dream. We've got a lot of work to do still to get there, but we've made a good start.
Emmy Allen
Spooks in black sunglasses fighting tentacle monsters from deep time, and nobody is a racist.
Shoe Skogen
To make gaming better, always! To narrow it down a bit, my mission this year has been to build bridges between indie games and the OSR, and foster the sharing of content and creativity between two scenes that have been (stupidly, I think) set against one another too often in the past. Of course I want to make all gaming more inclusive and diverse.
In terms of DREAMs tho, I have a FIREDREAM. It's a dream about taking same passion and fire that we use to knock down outdated, oppressive regimes and institutions, and using that same fire to warm and nurture a strong, healthy community. That's my DREAM and I'm writing it into my games, and my everyday.
What cool stuff are you working on right now?
Humza Kazmi
I'm working on prepping issues 1 and 2 of Hydrazine, our long-delayed but forthcoming magazine. I'm also helping get the Odious Uplands and the omnibus Completely Unfathomable together, working on an omnibus of the Slumbering Ursine Dunes series, and organizing production for Zedeck Siew's Lorn Song of the Bachelor. Beyond that, I've got a pointcrawl module that I'm working on for Legacy of the Bieth.
Luka Rejec
Finishing up the UVG. Releasing the SEACAT rules soon; the loose rpg system is the skeleton of the UVG. Coming up with a pretty cool terrain adventure system for Longwinter. Completing Red Sky Dead City by next year. Talks about an SUD omnibus edition. Finishing my art version of Neoclassical Geek Revival—finally. Electric Bastionlands coming soon. And then a few other projects in various stages of disrepair.
Mike Lombardi
Right now I continue to work on Pentola whilst doing the shepherding for the Beneath the Canals stretch goals, but also my Gondola card game and several freelance writing jobs. Prepping for another round of Pentolan Zinis in the early fall!
Jack Graham
I'm about to release the open playtest of my story game, Battenburgh, about comedically dysfunctional families. Fans of Wes Anderson and Jim Jarmusch's movies should really enjoy it.
I'm also releasing (monthly-ish) my zine, Skeleton Wizard, which is full of 5e content, story games, and heavy metal-fueled weirdness. Issue #3 will be out around the end of June.
Emmy Allen
Grubby urban fantasy, whimsical ship voyages to the edge of the world, larp stuff.
Shoe Skogen
So much stuff! I’m working on content for the #DREAMJAM of course, mostly pulling apart some game conventions and doing them over again. I’m working on a game called Six Strings with my design partner Erik Bearnhardt.
Conclusion
I hope these interview not only give you a good overview of SWORD DREAM, but also how different people are inspired/excited about it. I, for one, can’t wait to see how SWORD DREAM grows from here. I hope more people get excited about tabletop RPGs and their awesome potential for community building and storytelling.
Selfish Plug: My own OSR/SWORDDREAM hexcrawl “Bone Marshes” is out now! Give it a look!
Header image from Voyage aux Châteaux historiques des Vosges septentrionales
