It's always the butler
I barely got into the OSR Discord and already stumbled upon the Blog Carnival, then read Prismatic Wasteland's post and just started writing, so I guess I'm starting a blog with a controversial topic already!
Might be a sign of the times, you know? Maybe things are so hectic in just fulfilling our obligations to those around us, that even leisure, fun and play have become a chore to do. In a similar way that playing the newest fantasy RPG video game is much easier than assembling a group of people to play make-believe, asking that cold-eyed butler for a list of "10 medieval fantasy barmaid NPC descriptions that strike just the right balance of chaste and flirty" is easier than actually coming up with it, right?
Why are we replacing "fulfilling" with "easy", though? One could argue that we've been doing it for a long, long time, with encounter tables, equipment tables, NPC trait tables, gaming tables, coffee tables, tables and tables and tables. But I'd like to think that the table and similar longstanding elements are no more scheming butlers than a sketch is to a sculptor. They are part of a process that naturally requires the interpretation of someone who will turn those rough, and sometimes random, ideas into a cohesive whole. Such is the process.
Why are we abandoning it? One could argue that this is no abandoning: just as we once didn't have access to such a wealth of supplements for all game genres, we have just added a new tool to the mix. That's a pretty valid argument. A tool's purpose is to make something easier, right? Well, what does the sleepless butler make easier? To entertain your friends? To imprint your mark in your creations? To be a pleasing company to game with? Never mind how horrific that already sounds, it's simply shortsighted. To struggle in your not-quite-there craft is what leads to growth and mastery, while a blade that isn't tended to will eventually be covered in rust.
Why seek such a shortcut? Have we become so impressed with the overflow of high-production cases of the hobby to the point of thinking such a performance should be the goal? Compared to some, I've joined this hobby so recently and even so I can already think of many accounts where my group had such immersive and engaging fun that no one would even think of the butler's clanking steps, much less hear those awful screeches. If even I can say that, being as new a traveler as I am in TTRPG land, then I'm sure those trailblazing veterans of the hobby can fill pages and pages with similar stories.
About 8 years ago, I was the Game Master for a very simple game of Mausritter for some friends that hadn't played in many years. In their travels, I rolled that they ran into a couple of flies and one of them actually tried to talk to the bugs. Now, I could've very well ruled that they just couldn't, but it was so unexpected, that I just jumped into it without thinking. And then I just decided to make the best impressions I could of Aladdin's Iago and the "Do the roar" kid from Shrek 3 for reasons that are still a mystery to me. That one moment established that this is probably how all flies speak in this game. Neither my players nor I can fully remember the actual adventure, but that interaction continues fresh in our minds.
It's such a long-lived wisdom in the hobby that our improvisation is often more memorable than anything that could be prepared beforehand, that maybe it'd be better to just remember that the next time the services of the butler of silicon seem tempting. Just send him back to his strange, strange city.