Heavens to betsy, I do believe I have come down with a terrible case of the vapors.
This one is pretty complicated. Basically, there is an in-authentic and ham-handed movement being orchestrated to remove the influence of Western Civilization from the gaming scene and replace it with the pink slime skinsuit. Friend of the blog, Jeffro Johnson, wrote a phenomenally influential collection of blog posts for the OSR that turned into a fascinating study of the works listed in Appendix N, and how they relate to our culture. The Johnny-come-latelies who spent three years saying Appendix N doesn't matter, watching with horror the burgeoning reclamation of the gaming space, have launched a counter-offensive whereby they hope to shift the meaning of Appendix N from "the books that built tabletop gaming" into a label with no more meaning than "books some rando likes"
This review from the good guys at DMR Books goes into things in more detail, and thoroughly demolishes one of those astro-turfed project in fine style:
So give Bebergal’s book a pass. Go big instead. Put your time and money into reading the works of Appendix N (find the old editions), the Players Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Masters Guide. Form your own conclusions. Jeffro Johnson’s Appendix N is far better company on this adventure. Johnson shows there is more treasure to bring up from his passionate, engaging delve... Bebergal, though, just stumbles into the first pit trap on level one. He needs to roll a new character, hope for a better wisdom stat, and try a whole lot harder.
As said above, there is a lot more to the story, and this review covers it all extremely well.
Don’t give them an inch. And don’t turn your back. They are like a small fire catching in your home. Ignoring it doesn’t work, because it won’t burn out on its own. It won’t be happy until everything you and your predecessors have built is reduced to ashes.
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