When Steve Jackson released the GURPS rpg, he did not pretend as if the idea for a character point build system, solitaire adventures for rpgs, or painstakingly detailed campaign settings simply occurred to him spontaneously. Not at all! He laid out how the Champions rpg, Tunnels & Trolls, and Empire of the Petal Throne rpg all influenced his design efforts with his own rpg line. This seems not only reasonable to me, but it also seems right somehow.

People that take up the task of relaying BrOSR developments and/or creating an internet personae predicated entirely on playing and promoting BrOSR-style campaigns really seem to me to struggle with following Steve Jackson's example, though. Indeed, they very consistently do any and all of the following:

• They create derivative works that present BrOSR developments as if they were self-evident or else something that “everybody knows”.

• The attribute BrOSR developments to other bloggers or creators that did not actually have a significant role in developing any of the techniques, terminology, or practices.

• They expect the BrOSR to carefully answer every objection that is made to their claims, but when someone suggests that they have independently come to the same conclusions as the bros, they accept these rather silly assertions with absolutely no skepticism or pushback.

• They diminish the difficulties in creating an entirely new rpg culture in the face of constant hostility by making snarky dismissals of the BrOSR effort on the template of “all you had to do was ____” or “all you really did was ____.”

• They incorrectly suggest that people played in the BrOSR fashion in the past when there are large numbers of extremely vocal people insisting that no one EVER played this way.

• They use BrOSR rhetoric and/or their mastery of a subset of BrOSR ideas to build an audience for themselves, but turn around and use their platforms to attack or undermine the BrOSR when they present new developments.

• Similarly, they might make a lot of noise online about BrOSR concepts, but then turn around and adopt a pose of false humility by declaring that “oh, this is only silly elf games” or “I really don't add anything of value to the world through my hobby.”

In short, there is maybe a dozen true visionaries that serve as a de facto r&d department for a much larger number of “face men” or “front men”. Or maybe they should be called “popularizers” or “rehashers”. Whatever they are called, there are two groups. We will call the first group Makers and the second group Takers for now.

The Makers can do nothing but good for the Takers. They provide new things to discuss, new ways to think about rpgs, and even open the way for people to experience really successful campaigns.

The Takers, though… they live in a different space. They appear to have a tremendous incentive to behave as if the Makers don't exist. As if what the Makers accomplished was trivial. As if the Makers’ next area of investigation is silly, unimpressive, or unexciting. They act as if they are in a kind of prisoners dilemma scenario with the Makers and as if it is no big deal at all for them to consistently betray the Makers.

Having observed years of this kind of behavior, I have to say… it is as tiresome as it is consistent. But I no longer think it is inevitable. Perhaps people before now deserve some leniency given that some things about the brosr effort were not yet as proven or well-established as they are today. There is no reason to dig to deep in these matters, though. It is as they say all water under the bridge.

But going forward?

I think it is fair today to ask if perhaps the Takers in fact have an obligation to treat the Makers better than they have in the past. And if I could, I would make an appeal to them all to cease from citing or promoting the works of people that plagiarized from the BrOSR. And to instead highlight the original game design and scholarship of people that have been much more fastidious about citing their sources and influences.

It's the least you can do.