The Golden Age: 2006-2012 - Nearly all of the core games and absolutely the best of the OSR were generated at this point in time. Most of the best supplements too, with few exceptions. The best of Troll Lord games, the best of Frog God games, Mythmere wasn't cucked. Nobody was cucked, we had a decent reprieve from the PC age of the late 90s and early 00s. Lamentations of the Flame Princess produced pretty much all of their decent stuff during this time. The worst things to happen during this time was Gary and Dave both dying. It really was a magical time otherwise.
The Dark Age: 2013-2018 - Basically the beginnings of 5E quieted the OSR scene, releases got few and far between. There were definitely some products produced during this time that were good, but mostly it was a long quiet, and a lot of OSR people turned their attention to 5E and even (after 2014) many started producing 5E product instead of OSR product because of the gravy train it could provide. A direct result of this was
The Shit Age: 2019-Present - OSE's name change and publication from B/X Essentials started the current age of the OSR (in retrospect). The age of low-effort shit, slick looking garbage, itch.io, 5e-lites, style over substance, etc. We had 5e-lites show up during the Dark Age, but they all fizzled out like a fart in the wind because enough people were either playing 5E or hadn't yet forgotten the Golden Age that shit wasn't selling yet. Shit began selling with OSE. As far as I can tell it was the first over-priced, over-produced, under-designed pile of shit. MANY would follow, and still follow. Wokeness infecting 5E's core around 2020 would slowly spread, claiming Goodman Games in 2022 and Matt Finch of Mythmere either directly before or directly after. It did this because the wokeness brought mediocrity to 5E, and then people started dropping 5e, but because 5E was going woke everybody else thought it'd be a good idea to keep up with the Joneses, being completely out of touch with the actual customer base of the OSR and falling victim to the mentality of writing product instead of games.
We are due for a new age. The bad news is, I'm afraid it's already here - The Simp Age. Where everybody is simply accustomed to being fucked in the ass by mediocrity and wokeness and instead of calling it out and kicking the bastards in the junk (by not buying their shit) the choices gamers are making is trying to find the person with the smallest dick to do the job. And it turns out to be a woman I guess. Makes sense.
I lived through the era of watching D&D die and be resurrected into something completely different. Four times.
I lived through the era of watching World of Darkness get light and gay, then proceed directly up it's own ass.
I lived through an era of Legend of the Five Rings produce bad editions, then good editions that wouldn't sell (because the bad editions and even worse CCG editions ran the player base off), then AEG sell it to a fucking board game company, then the worst edition ever written come out and subsequently die.
I lived through Jim Raggi saying he would produce a Ref Book, then taking $12,000 in preorders and laugh at the ridiculous fulfillment date he gave himself of 2018, then proceed to never produce a Ref book and his entire fanbase forget about it like a bunch of cucks.
I lived through the dark age of the OSR when nobody was producing shit because 5E was out and everybody had "Age of Aquarius" on loop and was dancing in a field like a bunch of fairies.
I lived through the absolute best edition of Paranoia (minus the core book), then witnessed the proper core book come out later, only after I'd gotten rid of the brilliant supplementary material. Paranoia is deep up it's own ass right now too.
I will survive this coming/present Simp Age. There will come a time when everyone will cast the low effort, poorly designed, artistically "daring" books from their shelves into the fires of Mount Doom. And at that point I'll be able to say... "I lived through the simp age of the OSR, when all the idiots were pretending to have fun with shit games all the while filling all the holes in with either B/X rules deliberately or AD&D rules through osmotic knowledge and lying to themselves and everyone else, because the alternative would be spending $80 for garbage at best or something they already had at worst"
