UnSung Heroes of the OSR World!

Unsung Heroes of the OSR World! How did that topic come about? Is this the first of a series? How does one get designated as a Hero of the OSR World, Sung or UnSung?

First I will tell you how the topic came about; however, the rest is up to all of you. If people contact me with nominations for this list, then it will become a series, and you will have to let me know if you agree with the picks.

Over on my forum, Scott Anderson (of the Treasure Hunters HQ blog and author of several OSR games) started a thread titled One-Step Equipment Generation  and in it he said:

I want to relate to you a great document for equipment generation at an open table or otherwise starter-friendly 0D&D.  They provide equipment lists by character class with just one 3d6 roll.

He provided links to two documents one formatted compactly for DM use and one formatted for handouts to the players. Being a modest and honest fellow he did not take credit for it, but notes that it originates with Brendan of Necropraxis (Traditional fantasy roleplaying games). 

This led to a little bit of discussion and Scott commented:

Brendan S. is one of the unsung heroes of OSR. He just keeps pumping out gameable material week after week.

(In my opinion, the unsung five-star heroes are Brendan, Courtney Campbell, Roger G-S, and Chris Tamm. They all toil under the radar with little self promotion, and each one delivers oodles of original and elegant content all the time.)

I agreed with this saying:

Yes, great guys and great blogs:

Necropraxis - Brendan S

Hack & Slash - Courtney Campbell

Roles, Rules, and Rolls - Roger G-S

Elfmaids & Octopi - Chris Tamm

These are presented in no particular order, I am not ranking them (nor was Scott) in regard to each other. They are all great blogs with a long history of turning out a lot of gaming materials. 

Elfmaids & Octopi has been around since 2012 and currently has 921 posts. This site also has several pages besides the blog alone and they are filled with links. It would take my all evening to try to describe everything that is available on this site. The additional pages are

• EMO DnD Rules and world
• Planet Psychon
• Gamma Aeon Apocalypse
• Long Stairs Dungeon Zones
• Mesopotaimian Adventures
• My Cthulhu BRP RQ3 Roadwar games
• Space Stuff
• MARVEL FASECRIP
• Downloads

 Hack & Slash has been around quite a while, I am not sure how long since the extensive Blog Index is organized by topic and not by date, additionally some posts are part of the Trick & Trap Index and the Hoard of the Dragon Queen Index. This forum is subtitled "Home of the Quantum Ogre, Agency, Theory, and Fun". The Quantum Ogre is a great series and that does not even scratch the surface.

He says:

The complete series is worth a read: The coda explains all the most common misunderstandings regarding the series. If you haven't read it, you should.
On How an Illusion Can Rob Your Game of Fun On Slaying the Quantum Ogre On Resurrecting the Quantum Ogre and Having Him Over for Tea On the Corpse of the Quantum Ogre

Necropraxis has also been around quite a while, since 2011 and currently has 658 posts split into the categories:

• Campaigns
• Guest Posts
• Reviews
• Rules
• Spotlight
• Uncategorized

He also has a very useful Downloads  page, an OSR Search page with an indexed list, a Suggested reading list, the Hazard System gameplay engine and a link to his product titled Wonder & Wickedness.

Roles, Rules, and Rolls has been around since 2010 and has 824 posts and he has a section called Rules and Tools:

• ALL THE TABLES (pop-up random generators)
• Bag of Tricks 2 (adventure trick generator)
• 52 Pages 2.0 Mar '16
• Cellars of the Castle Ruins key
• Cellars of the Castle Ruins map
• Bag of Tricks on Abulafia
• Silhouette Menagerie: 19 Sep '12
• Old School Dungeon Encounters
• Powerpoint Mapping
• Egg of the Gazolba: Nonviolent 1 Page Dungeon
• Varlets and Vermin: Low level monsters
• Bag of Problems (adventure problem table)
• Dramatic Personae 0.1 (NPC types and personalities)
• Experience House Rules
• Old School Player's Sheet (homebrew Basic-like character generation in 5 pages)

Like the other three blogs there is a ton of things to read and to use and it  will take quite a while to look at it all. I am just getting started, as I have read some of them, but it took Scott to point out that I was missing a lot.

Now in the thread at my forum, another poster put forth Delta's Blog Delta's D&D Hotspot as another candidate for this list. This blog is subtitled Math, history, and design of old-school D&D. This blog is a classic Old School blog and it has been around since 2007 and has 685 posts. I do not think this one is an UnSung Hero, I think this one is a Sung Hero, because this one is well known and widely recognized and I hope you have been reading it. An Excellent blog that sets the bar high. I think the other four blogs mentioned above have met that bar and deserve to be recognized. Delta's other site is called  OED Games - Original Edition Delta brand supplements.

So there it is, what do you think?  Do you want to nominate someone? Who are your UnSung Heroes and for that matter, who are your Heroes?