This is sort of a part two to my previous post about breathing new life into the NSR movement. The NSR movement was an offshoot of the OSR in the early 2020s trying to bring more open minded values to the somewhat old-fashioned (heh) OSR. Over time the games labeled NSR got absorbed into the OSR label, so the movement lost its purpose and label its meaning.

I'm in no position to claim any ownership of this stuff, I wasn't even there in 2020. Yochai Gal still uses the newschoolrevolution.com domain. The NSR Cauldron is a whole community of 4000+ people. Reddit has it's r/NSRRPG community. No Straight Roads is a popular video game.

But what I can do is contribute. My artistic talents lie in graphic design. So what I have done is express what I think the NSR is and should be in the form of a logo. You can use the logo if you want, I hereby release it to public domain using the CC0 license. It's SVG, you can copy and save it as is.

If you do choose to put the logo on a product or website, here is what it signals:

FRESH: New, experimental, and different. You promise your game, product, or site provides something new and exciting, and is not beholden to the traditions of old.

OPEN: Accessible, for everyone, to be played with any style of play or school of thought. You, the author, give permission to the audience to use your creation in the way they best see fit. Your product may also be open-source, free, or have an open license.

INDIE: Small and independent, not mass market. You publish your work as a small independent creator. Your product can be small in form, size, or scope. Supporting your work supports you, not a big corporation.

Details of the Logo

THE SPLASH is a loose interpretation of bouba from the famous bouba/kiki effect. This is a reference to the jokey poll Tim B. did determining OSR is kiki and NSR is bouba.

However, the splash is not just bouba. It's the splat of a tomato, ketchup, red paint, or your choice of red substance. It's really Fresh. Your game is so experimental it might get tomatoes thrown at you. Just like NSR, it is not a specific shape. It can be anything. It's very expressive.

THE RED is the bold and radical color of revolution. It's definitely not the OSR blue. If red NSR is so great, why is there no red NSR 2? This specific shade of red is red2 found in the color defining rgb.txt in your computer. Not related to the movie Red 2. RPGs are a print-based medium, so you can get decently close to this red using the basic CMYK red, mixing equal amounts of magenta and yellow.

THE FONT is obviously Alegreya SC. This family of fonts is truly iconic. Used in famous games such as Cairn and Whitehack. It is in my opinion The NSR Font. And it's free to use.

What I Want the NSR to Be

The NSR movement was cool. I like the games people call NSR. But with this logo I want to let go of the OSR origins. The 2026 NSR should not be defined as the thing that isn't OSR. It should be a proud proclamation to the freedom of creation, and rejection of the status quo of labels and play cultures. I want your NSR game to confuse the people who try to put it in a box. I want your NSR game to be considered commercially non-viable. I want your NSR game to be for a player, and not for a customer.

Wear the NSR ethos (and maybe my logo) with pride. Or even better, make your own logo!