Five hard questions about OSR play

#61

I think this is a player facing example of the distinction I’m making above about pre-prepped material as a skeleton for play.

Like you have the map of the old orphanage (sounds like a great campaign starting location!) and the key, but rather then filling in all the necessary, unpredictable, unwritten, unwritable, but inevitable details you are having players fill in some in a concerted effort to create backstory linked to location history. This sounds really useful in a haunted location, a ghost story, where some of the challenges are traditionally linked to the psychology of the characters.

Have you done it for a more traditional sort of location/genre? Say a ruined borderlands keep or ancient tomb?

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#62

Yeah it is like a second layer of more personal details.

You have the dungeon map and the rooms contents as a layer and then you have this additional layer generated by probing the players that you superpose over it.

When I use this technique with locations that are less personal I often send NPCs into the dungeon and ask questions about them, stuff like: “your cousin was part of the first expedition into the ancient tomb, did he ever came out?”

But I don’t use this technique all the time. Sometimes I only use it for the base camp and not for the dungeon itself. That said this discussion make me want to run a game just to experiment more with this. :slight_smile:

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#63

This notion seems pervasive, and I’m not sure when it became the accepted distinction.

Apocalypse World’s GM-facing rules include Agenda, Principles, Moves, and Always Say.

One of the things to Always Say is “What your prep demands.”

To me, it feels like the mechanics replace random tables with “lists of interesting things/places/people and what they want” (Fronts and Threats) and “lists of interesting small-scale outcomes” (the Moves).

It’s a game focused on aiding the creation of a narrative, not the exploration of a given terrain, but I don’t know why it’s become so associated with “anything goes!”

Maybe that’s how most people run it. I’ve always found my prep (of what people in the setting are up to now) to be essential, and bending it doesn’t make a better story. The world feels less real.

Despite their different approaches to gaming, I’ve always found that OSR and PbtA share similar tool sets and sometimes the same principles.

Thank you to everyone for your answers in this thread; an OSR approach looks more attractive to me than it ever has before.

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#64

I would say that “anything goes” is quite a misnomer here. But if it helps to get you a clear position to what you want it was nevertheless helpful.

#65

I’m not suggesting that anything goes; all these principles have to be balanced against each other. Instead, I’m referencing things like “ask questions, use the answers” and “play to find out what happens”. Those things have some amount of tension with your prep. For me, they fit well together because those questions reminds me not to overprepare as I am inclined to do. Otherwise, there’s no room left for questions and finding out what will happen, since I’d have written it down in advance.

I’m not sure where “anything goes” comes from; perhaps you’re referencing something I’m unfamiliar with.

#66

I have limited experience with OSR games, yet from my view based on a few sessions (DCC, Labyrinth Lord and another one):

(1) I did assume that decisions are made based on what is in the characters and groups best interest with justifications being reflected onto the character. Safe from critical situations the character is played as player assumes the character would act.

(2) From my understanding the OSR GM is seen to be responsible for setting up an adventure or scenario with whom the players can act by proxy of their character in an exciting way. Thus if there are pacing problems those might be attributed more to the players than the GM.

(3) Player authored material are integrated within the rule context and the group contract. When my chaotic cleric decided to first bellow a “kneel” at the foes and then proceed to attempt a speech converting them to her believe, it was between the rules (charisma) and the GM to see whether it succeeds.
From my perspective the game style does ask for players to be creative and come up with stuff.

(4) I don’t understand how situations/characters/etc that specifically target individuel PCs are in conflict with the integrity of the setting?

(5) I can’t confirm the observation. Though I have literally neither observed a game nor heard of a game where player wander around and smash pots for rupees. I know that it’s something in the Zelda videogame series, yet never seen it outside of Zelda videogames.
I did instead got the strong vibe from DCC that engaging in direct murderhobo’ing would lead to a fast and fatal tpk. Like, we barely survived our first encounter. Thus, when trying to rescue the people who paid us, we got creative with trying to avoid to battle 15 foes and their boss in a pit. Something that got me to ask whether there’s a big object/broken statue (there was, after a check) to throw down at the boss (which we excelled at).

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