The bounds of OSR

Absolutely, and they’re fun too! :slight_smile: This is less to adapt OSR to my own sentiments, and more a thought experiment as to what OSR could mean outside of its original context.

Yeah, I don’t think the original sentence was actually a helpful distinction; the point is less anything about stories in specific, and more about OSR is more of a game in itself than compared to later RPGs that make story traversal or story creation a goal.

I completely missed this aspect in my original post! You’re totally right that board games exist in a different space from RPGs. OSR game still exist in the same imaginary space, outside of the ‘symbolic’ space of hardcoded rules, as other RPGs do. My analogy was more to draw focus to how OSR games have emergent narratives that come out of playing the game instead of artificial narratives, and how they have definite win conditions (Gold = XP, die at 0 HP, torches last an hour) that drive play. The point of OSR games is to play and see what happens because the play is where the fun is, and I think that aspect is more board gamey than story gamey in comparison to later RPGs.

Completely agree that changing the game environment while retaining OSR principles (player skills, risk taking, clear failure, resource management) would have to mean drastically changing or replacing the concepts of HP, AC, and Attack. This is what I’m interested in–what those OSR principles look like outside of the original context of dungeoneering or hexcrawling.

And that’s also why I think there is a closer relationship to OSR and board games than OSR and narrative oriented RPGs, despite the imaginary level where the rules as written have to be avoided to avoid low chances of success. I think that level is actually unique to OSR compared to board games and other RPGs; you lose by relying on the rules as written, and have to play creatively outside the rules to not fail. Yet, the gameplay remains primary, and not narrative creation or traversal.

For sure, XP is central to this discussion because the function of XP is to define player goals. So, in a way I think that is the easy question, while it’s harder to come up with other elements (resources like HP) that necessarily have to change to play OSR style outside of the original DND context. This is where the dual comparison to board games and party games helps for me to think through this: board games for the focus on player skill and hard victory/failure conditions, and party games for the imaginary space where the game actually takes place.

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I don’t think this is unique in any way to OSR-style play as opposed to, say, post-Forge or Forge inspired games. I could quote you a bandolier of games that are directly designed to create emergent stories (Trollbabe, Apocalypse World, etc…), although the extent to which this is currently recognized, acknowledged or even achieved by the “storygame” (have I already said I hate this word?) crowd is debatable, but that’s a whole other topic of discussion.

The main difference that I can see is that the inherent questions that the players are designed to answer are different: Stakes in Apocalypse World are mostly a thematic concept, so players have agency to answer thematic questions that emerge in any way they want; while the “stakes” of exploring a dungeon in B/X D&D relate more to personal safety, death, challenge, risk and reward, so agency of the players is more about taking risks and living with the consequences. Which makes B/X a very different game :slight_smile:. So there is focus on agency in both types of play, but different kinds of agency.

And it’s normal that if you don’t understand or haven’t experienced the other kind of agency it might look from the outside that that game is designed to produce “artificial story”, whatever you mean by that.

I’m not trying to derail the thread, just trying to get some points across to increase your awareness, hoping that it can help you achieve what you want to achieve.

I think this is more a philosophy in how to use the rules of the game text. While the procedures of play are really more than the rules of the text, they could include any procedure that the people at the table use to agree on the details of what’s happening and what happens next.

For example, a simple procedure of play that goes usually implied is “I declare what my character does, the referee describes the outcome”. They also could include any principles the referee uses to determine the outcome. The OSR community is notoriously fuzzy on defining these, but I think that at least reflection on them is warranted (the Principia Apocrypha are a great step forward in this direction).

I think what one needs to focus on while designing a game text for maximum clarity is what are the expected procedures of play, and then write a game text that describes those as best as possible. Not saying someone can’t change them, but at least you expressed everything you need to.

And I think that if you want to understand what “the bounds of OSR” are it’s important to talk about these things and explore in more detail what they mean (at least to you), despite the OSR community sometimes defying classification or definition of the term.

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Yeah, I’m interested in the stakes and gameplay of old-school DND! :slight_smile: By emergent narrative (though I don’t think this term is super helpful since it could mean a lot of things) I don’t mean the procedural creation of stories through the game like PBTA games, but how players don’t go into OSR to make a story or play through a story. If a story happens, it’s basically incidental. And again, I think that whole topic is only incidental to OSR DND since the gameplay loop is to avoid death and level up through dungeoneering.

On that note, I feel like play procedures are a lot more unstated in OSR rulebooks than for other RPGs. Probably because OSR games are sought out to foster specific procedures and playstyles, so if you’ve come across a rulebook you’re likely to already know how to play at the table and are only looking for specific hardcoded rules.

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Yeah, this is a common misconception about these types of games :slight_smile:, but I won’t go any further in correcting you, I don’t think it’s in the scope of this thread. Also, at least a fraction of the people that are actively playing them publicly are not doing much to counteract this proposition, so it might as well be true.

I think that’s perfectly fine! I am not really interested in going to tell people how they should use their game texts, but I am definitely interested in acknowledging what goes on during play.

I think a better way of putting the thread back on track is to ask you, if you don’t want violence in your game – and I assume this also means no or little death – what would be the failure state for PCs in this case (as opposed to death), and what would be the challenge (as opposed to looking for treasure while avoiding damage or death). I think this is a fun and interesting question to answer!

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Yeah, that’s the crux of it! I don’t think any OSR-like game can be deathless, really. I don’t know what my original thought would look like, but I can see where the same OSR principles can apply retroactively to system concepts like The Quiet Year by introducing more risk and making the rules themselves not enough to reduce or eliminate risk–that way player skill and creativity can shine through. The Ultraviolet Grasslands actually achieves the task of separating OSR play from dungeons etc really well, although it has the same gameplay loop of exploration and looting (depending on what XP mode you play through). I think we can push it a little further somehow!

Maybe I’ll write an OSR hack of The Quiet Year just to see what can be done :slight_smile: The fail condition would be that everyone is dead. There could be an abstract Supply resource to dictate the productive capability/limits of the village. The main question would be whether players act as individual subjects (whether that means individual villagers or individual villages banding together), or if they collaborate to act as the collective subject of the single village.

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6 posts were split to a new topic: Fudging rolls and player agency

13 posts were split to a new topic: Time machine topic

Lots of replies and interesting ones, in this topic! :slight_smile:

I think the basic framework /ruleset of an OSR game (6 Ability scores, Roll high/random element, explore and build words, adventures of all kinds) can work for almost any type, feel or style of game.

From the most combat heavy, hyper-violent, realistic, dark setting and game to a barely any rolls, little structure, very positive/upbeat, collaborative story telling, non-combat, NPC-interaction heavy, dreamy almost child-like (in a good way) game.

I have run both, and really enjoyed both. But I always run each style only people with that enjoy or ask for such games. Especially a really dark one I would hesitate to run with most people and some themes I would not do or simply skip over very fast in terms of description. After all, most people play RPGs to relax and even grow, not to get bummed out. But I also wouldn’t run a dice-less and XP-less, 0 Combat, 0 Dungeon-delving campaign for more than one or two sessions in a hurry. People like some progress, collecting things, a sense of risk or danger, milestones, a sense of goals and accomplishment. These are cool and natural impulses as well, so I like to provide for them in my game and narrative.

As for the board games vs RPGs thing, I personally sort off dislike vast majority of board games yet love RPGs! What I dislike about most board games is that they are very procedural, usually adversarial (there is only one winner at end of board game, rest all lose in game mechanic terms), low on story-telling and or world-buidling (usually have none). The rules are far more rigid than in RPGs, no GM discretion etc. Your options (both in what you do next or how the “story” develops are usually severally limited compared to an RPG. Besides that I don’t even think the playing field is level in most board-game sessions.

For instance: usually by the time you are third or half way through the game, you know! who is going to win. The person who drew a few good cards or had 2 good rolls at a critical junction, or even just because they had the better starting position at the outset. Or, the person who owns the game/is most experienced is far likelier to win…

In these very common circumstances, the other 3 players often know it too, that their chances are very small, so they are there more or less there for nothing in terms of being the “winner”. I mean if everyone still enjoys the game, great! But it is not my bag. I want EVERYONE to win. :smiley: That is how I define a game as ‘cosy’: everybody “won” = had a great time, some valleys and lots of peaks and everyone is thoroughly invested throughout the entire game and afterwards everyone feels amused and elated, not down in any way. Fortunately, the OSR really engenders and often even heavily favours this style of play, sure it can be gritty and your character can die, but that is all the more reason to work together and not try to go only for personal glory or backstab your friends.

I think the OSR allows for everything and it is a very personal preference. The “duality of man” and “it takes all kinds” come into play. For example, I LOVE UFC and MMA, I train a tiny bit, yet I don’t want that kind of violence in my game necessarily, or rarely. I also love Kittens, dogs and cute stuff all day! And I like having some of that in the game too, it makes people vulnerable and child-like sometimes, which is one of the very best things about playing games as an adult for me.

I think every GM has experienced this when you introduce a cute familiar or NPC, people really bond with this imaginary creature sometimes and want to take care of it or delight in any of it’s antics. I can’t think of any other game almost where these type of things happen on the regular, so I never want my game to be devoid of this, but I also don’t want it to be 75% + of my game. I, and my current players (3 out of 4 of which love cute and cosy stuff) would get bored.

In terms of the style of play and nature of RPGs, I am always reminded of my favourite qoute about D&D::

"The remarkable thing about D&D is that everyone has to play together. Even the DM, who plays all the monsters and villains, has to cooperate; if he doesn’t—if he kills the entire party of adventurers, or requires players not to cheat on life-or-death dice rolls—the chances that he will be invited to run another session are small.

Here I am tempted to advance a wild argument. It goes like this: in a society that conditions people to compete, and rewards those who compete successfully, Dungeons & Dragons is countercultural; its project, when you think about it in these terms, is almost utopian. Show people how to have a good time, a mind-blowing, life-changing, all-night-long good time, by cooperating with each other! And perhaps D&D is socially unacceptable because it encourages its players to drop out of the world of competition, in which the popular people win, and to tune in to another world, where things work differently, and everyone wins (or dies) together."

All the considerations in the qoute above also apply to the cosy vs dark RPG game thing. If you are always running a dark, scary and especially a full-on depressing game, people are not going to enjoy that for more than a few sessions, unless they are hyper-edge lords, which I don’t want to play with anyway. In such pitch-black stories the players are also likely to cooperate less and tend to become more chaotic or evil, which is a bit strange if you are a party of adventures trying to meet challenges together…

You can be very, very dark yet funny, out there, surrealistic or thought-provoking and I think that can work for groups! Examples of such stories would be Horace and Pete and Bojack Horseman. They, on the face of it, are some of the darkest and most depressing shows and stories I have ever seen. However, at the end of watching them I am often smiling, because they are funny, “real” and make me think. And they have their very cute or redeeming moments as well. Balance in all things is good.

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Temporary locking the post to fix the mess I made, it should be open in a couple of minutes.

I love that quote! The collaborative nature of RPGs is unmatched :smiley:

I’ve never seen OSR framed that way! Usually I see it as like, since your character can die so easily, you have to make your character survive for them to mean something. Playing DND as the survival of the party rather than that of the individual character reframes the whole situation in a more interesting, collaborative light :slight_smile: I love that!

Totally agree! Goodness, I’ve read a game that was 100% cutesy and fluffy and it was even hard to read (I don’t want to be rude by saying which one, but it was a hack of The Quiet Year). The contrast between danger and safety is what makes the two of them desirable states for play, I think.

Focusing on the balance and collaboration inherent to the game is definitely key to fulfilling gameplay long-term! :smiley:

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I largely agree with @Froggy. I don’t think OSR games are any more board games than other role-playing games. I do consider them a subset of firmly traditional role-playing games, however, where the players are capable to interact with the fictional world solely through their characters (i.e. aside from character background, they don’t make up details of the fictional world, only discover them).

(If I am allowed to toot my own horn, I have written about it on my blog.)

There is nothing stopping you from running games focussing on exploring social environments rather than desolate ruins (see Ghastly Affair or Silent Legions). A common trap of these games is that it is often too convenient not to think in terms of plot, and by doing that time and space become less meaningful. For example, moving from point A to point B may take up an unspecified amount of time that doesn’t inconvenience the game too much - but that is a cardinal sin in TRVE old-school gaming. In a plot-based (but otherwise traditional) game if the players figure out where they need to go to stop the ritual, they are expected to arrive just in time, whereas in a more faithful old-school game the GM would meticulously track time, and it’s entirely possible that even though the players figure everything out, the big finale happens while they’re on the road.

(Ugh, I’m rambling - I should probably just reply to specific points youguys have raised so far.)

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I like your blog post! :smiley: Very succinct summary of what the OSR playstyle entails!

I’m actually not really interested in social environments, more on fostering a less cynical tone and involving more resource management outside of life and death. And beyond that, I’m interested to see how far the OSR playstyle can be stretched beyond its original context. Totally agree on the importance of not taking parts of the world for granted, like the passage of time. That’s part of the reason some “haven rules” I’ve seen are hard for me to wrap my head around, because they depend on abstract time that’s supposed to have passed. Time keeping is important and useful!

I’m not entirely sure about that. Up until a few years ago I was very much into the gamey aspects of it, but over the last few years I have moved away from that (interestingly more towards the position I held before encountering old-school D&D) in the sense that I prefer treating rules as the physics engine of the fictional world. Now that doesn’t mean that introducing fun mechanics and thinking in terms of mechanics is bad (heck, it’s fun for a reason!), but that even though “rules matter”, the same set of rules can handle a wide variety of events and situations. In fact, most “universal” systems work like that (e.g. GURPS, BRP, or Tri-Stat): they are somewhat limited, but depending on how you use the tools they have and how you turn the dials, you can do very different things with the same engine (see also Sine Nomine games), as long as you don’t expect to change the underlying philosophy (i.e. whether time/place are immutable or the distribution of narrative rights).

What? Is that as exceptional as “killing the entire party of adventurers”? :smiley:

I have to think about that a little, but as for the less cynical part, for me the answer lies in good vanilla fantasy that is built on the source material (i.e. myths and folklore) directly instead of the derivations. Dolmenwood is a great example of this: it has all the goodies of D&D, mortal danger, treasures, secrets, but it also feels whimsical and fantastic - without being gonzo or edgy.

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I honestly totally forgot about universal systems being a thing! I guess there’s something to be said for how the hard mechanics of a system encourage particular playstyles, but that only really holds for systems that set out to have particular playstyles (except for any latent assumptions that come from an ancestral system). It could be easy to just have a base universal system and put some XP drive on top to define players’ goals. :slight_smile: Thank you for this!

Also thank you for the Dolmenwood recommendation, I’m checking it out now! :smiley: I adore settings that are creepy or scary without being edgy, if that makes sense. Maybe that’s anathema since gonzo is a big thing in the OSR scene, but I think it’s more interesting/meaningful/something. Not to speak ill of gonzo either! Just a matter of taste.

I think as for your game, you seem to be going in a direction of some sort of community-management or resource-retrieval game. You still want death to be a failure state, but probably of starvation or other non violent means. Do I understand this correctly? I think this might be fun.

I think this is a terrible idea. I have never seen a so-called “universal system” work without the introduction of significant GM fiat, roll fudging, hand-holding, railroading or other such techniques. The reason is simple: most universal systems are only concerned with modeling the game world, and not with pushing play in any direction or goal. You will thus end up with outcomes that are undesireable for your style of play all the time, and someone – usually the gamemaster – will have to intervene to fix that.

The only ones that I can think of that come close to being functional are Savage worlds, Fate and Solar System, and they still require significant work to adapt them. But that’s because each of these is actually trying to go for a specific play feel that can be adapted to any setting. They are still trying to push play towards a goal.

Rules don’t mediate actions between characters and definitely don’t represent some sort of physical laws of the game world. Some of them might be presented this way, but that’s not what they actually do. Rules regulate players (GM including) to inject randomness, “bounciness” or structure into collective narration, to make it more fun. Once you realize this, design becomes easy. While some rules might be presented diegetically, not all rules are, and definitely not even in early D&D (what the hell are HP, Levels and XP anyway?!).

There is a space for extra-diegetic rules (and extra-diegetic procedures, like referee principles, which should be written down!). Surely presenting rules and principles diegetically can help immersion, but that shouldn’t be thought of as a design goal, and definitely not as a clear-cut definition of “what rules are meant for”.

If either of you find this kind of game interesting, there is Do Not Let Us Die In The Dark Night Of This Cold Winter a.k.a Cold Winter, which might be a nice starting point.

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I agree and that’s why I’m interested in the design of game systems to define goals and player activity, but I didn’t want to disregard their thoughts completely because they were offering a different perspective I hadn’t thought of yet . I prefer rules to meaningfully drive gameplay and not to act as the physics engine, but it’s helpful to think about what rules could be and what those rules mean for the game. That way, we can delineate how rules in general precede gameplay.

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Yeah, your line of thinking is completely fair, and it’s important to consider different points of view!

Am I right in my guess of what type of game you would be going for?

Yeah! I think I’m going to make a blog (I would hate to word vomit on here all the time) and freeform design some rules and see what happens! :slight_smile: I’ll have to think about what role(s) the players take on, whether they collaborate as one village or if they are multiple villages or families collaborating together.

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Thank you for reminding me of this! I love the resource management between Food, Medicine, and Fuel :slight_smile: I wonder if this could be improved with like meeples or something, that way you don’t have to erase and write over things so often.