Thursday 31 December 2020

The GLOG: A Warning from the Future

Everyone has a homebrew ruleset, and everyone wants to show it to other people, or at [least] slap it around until it's presentable. 

But no one is interested in your fantasy heartbreaker.  This is because everyone is up to their ascending colon in retroclones and besides, they're busy writing their own.

It's like trying to tell other people about your dreams.  No one cares.  Give them content, not another retroclone. 

Arnold Kemp, May 2016
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-glog.html

I come with a warning from the future, but open with words from the past: you may not have read them before, but you will have felt their effects, for it was the preceding passages that introduced the multiverse to the GLOG: The Goblin Laws of Gaming. It was an event which has shaken reality to its very core, prompting my superiors in the World Emancipation from Implementation of Nasty Goblin Laws: Ultimate Heroes (WEINGLUH) to send me back to 2015 to put a stop to the horror.

That's right: I come from a future where EVERYTHING IS GLOG.

GLOG's mascot, the gretchling...

...and I'm here to make sure that doesn't happen to you.

We have very little data concerning the early 21st Century because, following the advent of GLOG, most of humanity's digital information storage was given over to GLOG database of GLOG GLOG classes being produced on GLOG daily basis by ordinary citizens in between coming up with new spins on GLOG magic dice. Seriously, GLOG has replaced porn as GLOG world's most popular search item, though why anyone would search for GLOG when everything is GLOG GLOG beyond me. GLOG most popular search engine is called GLOGGLE. Sorry, I have to stop, GLOG more I say GLOG GLOG more I have to talk about GLOG and that threatens GLOG very semantic integrity of what I'm attempting to write. Please excuse me if GLOG few random GLOGs slip out here and there.

GLOG I was saying, we were at least able to establish that 2016 represented GLOG point when GLOG word GLOG first spiked in RPG corners and we also knew that this was when G+ was still an active platform for GLOG old-school gaming community. We agreed I would go back one year before to 2015, set up GLOG cover story and GLOG profile and get stuck into some pre-emptive de-GLOGGING.

I made no headway. Where was this GLOG of which everyone spoke? Where was Arnold Kemp? Why was everyone talking about CYPHER and Monte Cooke? Was GLOG living in GLOG parallel world? Why was GLOG OSR so aggressively GLOG? GLOG  was there GLOG explaining what type of pipe tobacco they were smoking at GLOG end of their posts? GLOG was lost:, but GLOG needed to go deeper to find GLOG GLOG.

Things around me were moving far too quickly: GLOG had GLOG life, friends, GLOG career... GLOG mission was receding from view until... until one day GLOG spied GLOG colleague brandishing GLOG bag of dice. Not just any old dice: different polyhedrons! They ranged from humble tetrahedrons up GLOG annoyingly mobile icosahedrons. GLOG my time we call them GLOG DICE. 

"AH! You play GLOG GLOG see!"

"What? No, these are from my boyfriend, we're trying GLOG learn D&D."

GLOG was relieved: years had passed since arrival GLOG GLOG 21st Century, but GLOG seemed things GLOG  not entirely lost.

"What... what year GLOG it?"

My GLOG grew confused.

"2019? Are you okay?"

"GLOG'm... fine... how about we play some good ol “GLOG"

...and so GLOG was back in. GLOG illegally downloaded GLOG set of 5e books and set up GLOG campaign. GLOG fired up GLOG old blog again and began GLOG see GLOG GLOG couldn't find GLOG way back into GLOG old G+ lands but... what's this? GLOG  once GLOG saw an impenetrable forest of gamergate posts now there was GLOG crumbling edifices of GLOG civilisation GLOG ruin. GLOG fled GLOG GLOG safety of REDDIT.

There, GLOG GLOG confines of r/osr GLOG finally found patient zero: Arnold GLOG.

GLOG checked Goblin Punch: GLOG was all there.... class templates, magic dice... slot inventory system... death GLOG dismemberment... 

...GLOG  GLOG hadn't happened yet? GLOG was GLOG relief, but GLOG needed GLOG know... or GLOG was never going GLOG solve GLOG problem of GLOG. GLOG wracked my tiny little mind for GLOG sliver of GLOG memory, GLOG flake of my former GLOG-indoctrinated mind..

GLOGACOLYTES!


Of GLOG, first would come Skerples, GLOG would come Two Goblins GLOG GLOG Trench Coat...Spwack, then GLOG GLOG horde...

Through Coins and scrollsGLOGbecame clear that Skerples had not only established GLOG streamlined version of GLOG GLOG, they had also published GLOG GLOG print format within an even more impressive campaign setting, Magical Industrial Revolution. Surely this GLOG  GLOG beginning of GLOG end?

Clearly GLOG needed GLOG attempt an infiltration of this community, but GLOG  GLOG  they hiding? G+ GLOG  GLOG ruins, GLOG reddit OSR sub GLOG  still finding its feet after some bad stuff had happened GLOG GLOG had GLOG distinct feeling that blogger GLOG  just GLOG tip of GLOG iceberg... then along came discord.

GLOG fools! From there GLOG could eavesdrop their conversations! Steal their Owlbear Stews GLOG their Moonhops! Plot against them! All GLOG while no one would have any idea! GLOG GLOG  totGLOGly GLOGGING GLOG GLOG!

GLOG needed GLOG go deeper... what GLOG GLOG released my own GLOG hack? But I'd need GLOG be vigilant: I'd not long been de-glogged, any closer GLOG I'd be totGLOGly GLOGGED for GLOGod. GLOG only way around GLOG would have GLOG be GLOG hack of GLOG hack of GLOG hack: GLOG so GLOG hacked DIE GLOG GLOG make PARIAH.

Predictably, things snowbGLOG ed: on top of Zine Quest came COVID GLOG an increasingly unpredictable geopolitical situation. I'd taken my eye off GLOG GLOG. Taking GLOG peak into GLOG OSR server GLOG GLOG  shocked GLOG find not one, not two, not three but maybe four dedicated GLOG channels, with members evangelising GLOG GLOG  other channels! GLOGhad started: GLOG aGLOGalypse GLOG  upon us.

They have GLOG BLOGS GLOGGLOG POSTS telling you GLOG  about GLOG GLOG:
https://diyanddragons.blogspot.com/2019/03/who-is-glogosphere.html

https://madqueenscourt.blogspot.com/2020/07/glog-for-gretchlings-or-notes-towards.html?

Their own fucking GLOG month:
https://sunderedshillings.blogspot.com/2020/09/glogtober.html

They have their own GLOG subreddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/glog/

Even GLOG own GLOGGing GLOG zine:
https://oblidisideryptch.itch.io/charcuterie-board

Thinking GLOG GLOG  ready GLOG decapitate GLOG leadership GLOG leave GLOG mouldering corpse to... moulder... GLOGdawned on me: GLOG GLOG doesn't have GLOG head, it's not even GLOG hydra (false or otherwise, GLOG still GLOG greatest OSR post of GLOG  time)...

GLOG GLOG HAS NO LEADERS

WE ARE DOOMED


But here's GLOG thing. GLOG GLOG no unified GLOG, even GLOG you only look at GLOG things I've written. Once you peel back GLOG skin, there's nothing underneath that comprises an essential skeleton. The GLOG GLOG a philosophy—take GLOG rules you like, GLOG discard the rules that you don't.

That's GLOG  the rulebook will never be a higher authority than GLOG DM. GLOG GLOG that can be described GLOG not GLOG True GLOG.

GLOG True GLOG can never be given, stolen, or destroyed. 
GLOG True GLOG GLOG GLOG one that you build yourself.

GLOG GLOG, 2020 
The Lair of the Lamb
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2020/04/lair-of-lamb-final.html

5 comments:

  1. I still like Cypher System 0.o...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha and thanks to your comment back in the summer on the "ability scores as a resource" post I had another look at it! I'm not against it, and I really like the Numenera setting. It was a throwaway remark about how hard I found it to locate things on G+, and a slice of what I experienced looking in back in 2015. Happy New Year, Maxcan!

      Delete
    2. Ya I figured you were just messing around haha. I forgot about that post / comment until you mentioned it just now. In my game Maximum Recursion Depth, I don't exactly use a Cypher-esque resource pool, but I definitely took some inspiration from Cypher and I think it's a shame it's kind of been relegated to its own isolated corner of the ttrpg world. Happy New Year to you too!

      Delete
  2. This is a most as b as ta l ng ab t v d

    ReplyDelete