OSRPGtalk

Words from a grognard

Design: Magicking I

September 23, 2026 / / 0 Comments

This is a subsystem that’s been percolating for ages, repeatedly rising and sinking in the morass in my head. Now that I’ve been putting it together for specific systems, more aspects bubble up.

Channeling

The fundamental element of this approach to working magic is the idea that casters have to channel mana to do their thing. Lots of folks have offered up mana point/magic point systems over the years though I’ve never seen one that measured the channeling instead of setting up pools of mana. I stepped away from thinking of mana as a resource that the caster accumulated and just as surrounding energy that the caster draws on, so the focus lands on how much the caster can draw and control at a time. That’s made a significant difference.

Another key step involved stepping away from channeling a set rate of mana to a random rate. This was tied in with finding a way to vary how long it should take to cast a spell, as I want to avoid a feel of magic-as-technology with set, reliable working times. I landed on rolling dice to measure the channeling as much as to provide variable timing as anything else — one has to channel so many pips of mana to cast a spell, and that can take more or less time as determined by the roll of the dice. That randomness works out diagetically as the caster having to work to summon and channel the mana and such an endeavor being a bit different each time.

Focusing on channeling, I reckon, makes how much a caster can channel an important factor. Then, just like with purely physical exertion, how much the caster can channel before fatigue throws a wrench in the gears also becomes important. Those factors become easy to measure and regulate using the dice — how much can be channeled is set by how many dice can be cast per turn, and how much can be channeled before fatigue sets in limited by how many dice per day.

I’m starting with the idea that a caster can channel only a single die at a time. The default is one per round, though that could certainly mean one per phase where casting is considered, if more than once per round. Even if more than one die can be cast during a round, a limit on the number per round makes sense, still. The limit on how many dice can be cast during a day of activity is also readily modeled by limiting how many dice the caster has capacity for. The number of dice available at any time helps limit magic work to keep it limited in play.

With that established, it becomes apparent that the exertion model also can support PCs pushing themselves to channel mana beyond their working capacity. As runners can force themselves to continue on after hitting the wall of fatigue and eventually stumble across the finish line of a race, magicians can push themselves and work magic beyond when they should. The part to work out is how much extra they can push, how long it takes, and what the price they pay will be. I can see wizards literally knocking themselves out by way of overexertion channeling mana — keep casting until they pass out.

The amount of mana required to cast a spell is arbitrary, of course, and can be set to reflect the desired feel of the game world and play therein. I first started playing around with the channeling dice using spells from AD&D, just dropping the channeling system in to replace the Vancian slots. I landed at requiring 5 points channeled per spell level to cast.

For an individual spell of 1st level, that 5 points of mana channeled means that rolling one channeling die means the spell is powered and completed one-third of the time. I played around with requiring 4 points of mana channeled, which meant half the time a single die was sufficient. That coin flip of success worked well, on the face of it.

If I use 4 pips/spell lvl, then the odds for finishing casting using one die per spell level begin at 50% and fall for every spell level thereafter. That’s not necessarily bad, it just didn’t end up feeling the best to me. Using 5 pips per spell level, made working magic decidedly more demanding, in comparison, and immediately drove me to consider how many dice the caster would have available. With the 4-pip cost, I was looking at a single channeling die per spell level the caster was expected to be able to cast in a day. With the 5-pip cost, I had to consider how adding extra channeling dice capacity would affect casting.

Adding extra dice to the channeling capacity made a major difference. With the caster having more than one die per spell level to throw at the casting, the odds improved to make the casting more reliable. Adding extra dice to the wizard’s capacity then led to being able to perhaps cast an extra spell, if the rolls go well. It adds another choice for the player to make when marshalling resources. At this point, I’m playing around using the caster’s level plus one for the number of channeling dice available.

A first-level MU in AD&D has a single spell slot. Replacing that slot with two channeling dice means that MU could potentially cast two 1st-lvl spells instead of just the one. Even with two channeling dice, however, casting the spell isn’t a given. That’s a variance that I can get behind, as it reinforces the idea that working magic is a challenging affair and doesn’t always go as expected.

That also made me consider that idea of exertion in real terms. So, the MU spent both channeling dice on casting a sleep spell and still hasn’t managed to do so. Well, that’s when pushing the effort to gain another die for channeling has to happen, so the player rolls another die to finish the casting (likely, though still not a given) and then accumulates fatigue. That fatigue affects PC activity in general and isn’t limited to just magical working, as it causes checks for capacity and the wizard could pass out, though is more likely to end up stunned and suffer penalties to all checks for a phase or two.

As mentioned earlier and should be obvious after having read about the process so far, the use of the dice determines casting times. No longer is a 1st-lvl spell finished in the same number of segments every time it’s cast. Nope. It’s finished when the mana has all been channeled, however long that takes. So, with a low roll on the first channeling die, the spell isn’t finished in that first bit of measured time. It may be finished on the next or the one after that. This also ties to the pushed effort, as pushing to add a die can be done immediately at great cost or in another bit of time following the normal rolling at lesser cost. Again, the player can choose how to use that resource and how important finishing a spell is. I like that a great deal.

Channeling dice recover with rest, much the same as hp. I reckon allowing for one die to recover after eight hours of no magic use is something to consider; playtesting can speak to how that affects play. In general, though, I expect a full night’s rest to recover the whole of the channeling capacity, though that, too, warrants playtesting.

This is the foundation of the channeling system I’m using for magic works. There are more facets to it that will appear in later posts, of course.

Design: Action

September 21, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Action is an important part of most fantasy RPGs, with “fantasy adventure game” being an accurate description alongside “role playing game.” Many players automatically turn their thoughts to the combat rules a system offers and perhaps later consider rules governing perilous climbs, balancing on ledges, chases, pursuits, swinging on ropes over yawning chasms, and so forth. Imaginary fights claim the most exciting territory for many players.

Action rules help determine: what’s important to the system and what players can expect to happen frequently; how the players can expect PCs and foes to interact; how dangerous adventuring can be for PCs

Action rules require abstraction of elements due to game demands. This is a key element of crafting action rules and fitting them into the system with the other parts. How abstract, how granular, what choices are available to players?

When crafting an action system, ordering the action is the primary challenge. Ordering provides the structure that everything else is built on.

First, we look at the abstraction. What level of detail are we looking at? How do we best support the level of detail we want?

The granularity of time keeping has to support that detail. If we want granules fine enough that finding and disarming a trap requires eight specific steps/decisions, then a round of a minute might not fit best with that.

The traditional structure is built on rounds of some length and the action that takes place is generally assumed to fit within the time of one round. Whether a ten second round or one minute round, the action has to fit, for the most part. The abstraction assumes a process of multiple small steps when disarming a trap or skewering a rat or deciphering glyphs.

One criticism of this is that not every action a character is allowed reasonably fills a round — there are actions that strain credulity when stretched out that long a time. Others are multi-round affairs with but one decision to be made at the outset and everything thereafter is but a countdown.

How we order action involves putting one action ahead of another and we have to decide on how to go about doing that. Do we look at the nature of the action? The expertise of the character acting? Determine it randomly? Base it on the size of the creature (a giant’s arm is so long it effectively telegraphs swings well in advance)?

Then, do we place the actions in phases to regulate adjudication order? Magic work comes before missile fire (or vice versa) so spells get loosed prior to arrows thudding home in the wizard?

In the projects I have underway, I’m working on three different action systems. One uses five phases during a round to help highlight differences between weapons and skill levels and action types. A second system uses three phases to break down ordering. And the last uses beats wherein a player doesn’t know in advance if the character can finish a chosen action in that time frame or not. If you guessed the first two systems have quite similar goals for action abstraction and the third takes a significantly different approach, you’re correct.

Quick looks:

Five phase system: Swift; Quick; Tempered; Deliberate; and Slow (and Last) phases.

Three phase system: Early phase; Main phase; Late phase.

Beats system: everything in each beat is simultaneous; a PC may be able to make a quick attack or move a normal attack or move, start a lengthy attack with stunting that won’t finish for another beat or two; Action Dice determine what’s available in a given beat.

As the title mentions, I’m looking at these as action systems and not simply combat systems. They’re being crafted to cover melee, ranged weapons (including artillery), magical dueling, aerial fighting, underwater skirmishing, chases and pursuits, scurrying along ropes, clinging to rock faces, and any other sort of action I figure could make an appearance in games on a regular basis. I’m looking to make them suitable for use with skirmishes and to work alongside mass battle rules as needed.

Design: More On Travel

September 21, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Earlier thoughts can be found here: https://osrpgtalk.net/design-travel-navigation/

I’ve been pondering the choices players should be making for travel and trying to whittle the number of key decisions down to few enough to not clutter up play. While doing all that thinkery, I’ve come to realize that a detailed understanding of what, exactly, the travel is supposed to provide for in the game is key to deciding what choices players should face.

OD&D relied on a boardgame for a wilderness map, a game about survival, and that focus on survival carried over into the D&D mythos. Gotta make certain the party has enough food and water for travel and then more for when entering the dungeon. Light sources then get added to the list of resources to be managed (though light doesn’t seem to ever get mentioned during wilderness travel — no overcast nights or deep fog or other circumstances requiring light sources?)

So I had to ask myself what choices I really want to have at the heart of my travel rules. In most environments, water is reasonably abundant to where PCs should have no trouble refilling skins when needed; that’s not a resource in need of management. The management of food, when it comes down to it, is a resource that requires but management of time, with hunting and gathering being available choices. Navigation can be an issue, though I don’t see wholesale getting lost and wandering far off course for long periods as reasonable, and certainly not something I want to include; I think navigation issues are better seen as triggering more opportunities for discovery and adventure and slowing progress to the destination.

I think fatigue is far more important a consideration during travel than any of those factors. Choices about speed of travel, how long to travel during a day, and how well the night’s camp allows for recovery from the day’s travel — those are important considerations in the experience I want to offer in my systems. That also gets affected by finding distractions along the way, time sinks that provide more interaction and challenge at the expense of miles traveled and conservation of stamina. That requires choices about how to manage time on part of the players; that’s what I want at the heart of my travel rules.

The Types of Travel

I’ve also taken to looking at movement in the wilderness as having three different modes: travel along roads and clearly marked trails; travel following landmarks relying on animal trails and dead reckoning; and actual intentional exploration of unknown areas. Journeys, excursions, and treks into the wilderness. I think the nature of each warrants different procedures for each. This means that pointcrawl and pathcrawl and hexcrawl procedures will appear.

I recently stumbled across the notion that PCs should be able to find shortcuts here and there in the wilds, reflecting them finding game trails and the like that help cut off a bit of time/distance when traveling. I love that! It fits nicely with my penchant for variable travel distances and with failed navigation meaning only a delay before the party gets back on track. The travel procedures can slow the party or speed the party along. Woot!

The Weird Environs

I think it worth a look at the environs the PCs move through, too, as those can — should — have an effect on movement rates and encounters. Incursions by other worlds on the main setting world can appear in all sorts of places, and the Fantastic Wild should be rife with the odd and unusual. I’m still pondering and playing with the existence of such incursions being obvious or not to the travelers. The incursions I’m thinking of are pre-planned sites on a campaign map, either, just randomly

The lands of Fae can intrude on the mortal world, with the most obvious places for that to happen coinciding with hills or hedgerows and the like. Hints that something is amiss can include faint music, distant chatter of small voices, or odd glimmers of light. The sudden appearance of fae creatures or beings would be a dead giveaway, though the fae could certainly have stepped through to the mundane world without the party having stepped through in the other direction.

Haunted forests or groves or the like can also waylay traveling parties. A slight darkening, mists rising unexpectedly, the appearance of distant features that PCs can swear weren’t there just moment before, all of those can provide clues that the party has stepped into a different realm.

The Elder Lands are akin to Faery, and the two can overlap a great deal, as the boundary between them is even more porous than that between them and the mundane world. Where the trees and plants in Faery tend to be a bit…brighter…, the trees of the Greenwood grow larger, with darker foliage. The beings found in the Elder Lands also tend to be larger, whether animal people or monstrous creatures.

All of these affect travel times, with the major factor being how quickly the travelers realize they are, indeed, Elsewhere and figure out how to get back to the mundane world. The distance traveled Elsewhere has to be traversed again, with perhaps some variation that could shorten or extend the distance. Having passed into and out of another world can also taint the travelers so they encounter more beings from the other side that slow them, even when back on the mundane side of things.

Design: Social Interaction Basics

September 21, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Social interaction is one of the facets of play that has long been somewhat contentious. There are those who maintain that all social interaction should be left up to the people at the table and completely free of any mechanical consideration. There are those who recognize that player capabilities vary greatly and without mechanics, it would be impossible for a socially inept player to pull off a charismatic character. And there are all of the people who wish for something that doesn’t mechanize the whole interaction yet want the rules to provide *something* to help sort it out.

I’m in that last group. I want there to be rules providing structure and resolution while allowing the interaction at the table to guide it to that resolution. I recognize that the players and the characters are *not* identical in capabilities of any sort, so the way in which we don’t make players pick up weapons and physically act out fights should also be reflected in not expecting players to physically play out social interactions. Let the players be players and the characters be separate entities that the players aren’t expected to imitate perfectly.

The best of the systems I’ve seen that address social interactions in play involve using the venerable Reaction Table from early D&D. That makes a good deal of sense, as the Reaction Table is all about PCs interacting with others and what type of reaction they receive while doing so. I can see using that table as the basis of a social interaction system while understanding that it needs a lot of tweaking to offer greater nuance in adjudicating situations in play. The possibility of a hostile reaction resulting in a physical attack when a PC hails a merchant group along the road should be much slighter than the basic Table results would indicate, for example, prima facie.

I expect a base line level of regard the NPC has for the PC. Then PC actions can adjust the reactions of the NPC for better or worse, leading to success — the NPC acquiescing to the PC’s wishes — or failure — usually, the NPC simply walking away from the discussion. That general approach, I think, allows for a lot of nuance in execution and lots of ways to hand additional processes on it to add to the flavor.

This approach also supports all manner of player expression of PC action equally, that is, there’s no inherent preference for third person statements of action, first person statements, or improv theater expressions. This rests on the assumption that interactions are structured by procedure that inputs discrete information for a time unit and generates output for that, with limited time units available during the interaction. A player acting out a PC soliloquy can stretch on as long as the GM allows and it still involves one discrete turn in play, the same as the next player stating their PC statement in a couple of short sentences.

As with many activities, I’m also a fan of the uncertainly regarding the time required or time available to the PCs. That uncertainty drives a basic sense of urgency, as players understand they don’t necessarily have as much time as they want to sweet talk the mayor into helping them and they can’t be sure how much time they actually have to do so. Poor reactions can shorten an interaction session. The length of the session can be subject to randomization from the outset, too, which can be limiting.

I just recently spent some time chasing the rabbits of Reknown and Reputation down their respective holes, and those certainly have bearing on resolving social interactions. They also have bearing on what interactions happen in the first place, too, so should probably get their own post or posts.

Design Theory: Processes, Procedures, and Loops

September 21, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Play of an RPG is governed by the loops of activity expected and supported by the system rules. On the largest scale, a game system uses one or more play loops, which in turn rely on procedures for each part of the loop, and those in turn rely on procedures to provide the detailed execution.

Loops

A loop is the largest structure to support play in a system. Many systems only offer one main loop, such as “Start in Town –> Travel to Dungeon –> Explore Dungeon — Travel Back to Town.”

Multiple loops are possible, however. When PCs are expected to take actions while still in town, such as solving a mystery or researching a legendary item, then a loop concentrating on that play is offered. Play that involves travel to a known destination and negotiating with entities there is a different loop than exploring a dungeon would entail.

The more explicit a system makes its loops, the easier it is to GM those loops. The system can support each loop with procedures and expected choices to maintain an engaging level of play.

Procedures

A procedure is a step-by-step walk through of decisions and outcomes in support of a specific sub-system required by a game loop. Combat is one such procedure, as is infiltration by stealth, social intrigue among noble houses, magical and/or scholarly research, and any other aspect of play important to the experience desired for the system.

Some systems have but one major procedure with all other aspects of play resolved ad hoc by the GM, despite claiming to have multiple “pillars of play.” The presence or absence of a procedure highlights the relative important of any given aspect of play. Ars Magica, for example, has procedures for magic that show it to be far more important than melee or intrigue or anything else. Contemporary editions of D&D offer up melee procedures as primary, with the social interactions and any other activity as much lesser.

Processes

A process is the structure of a mechanic called on to help adjudicate efforts made during a procedure. An attack during a melee procedure is an example of a process: “If the sum of (2D6 +applicable ability rating + circumstantial modifiers) is => (a difficulty Target Number), then the attack is successful.” A successful attack might then call on a process for gauging how much damage the target takes from the attack. Then the target may require a process to determine how seriously the attack affected them.

Role playing games have long been primarily about the processes used, with proponents of dice pools or percentile systems or the venerable D20 or the use of cards instead of dice or any of the other resolution mechanics that have appeared in game systems over the decades. The processes do have great effect in how play feels and it’s important to find processes that support the game experience desired. I think it’s also important that system rules treat procedures and loops as being just as important.

This has been happening, of course. The Errant game system offers up procedures for major parts of expected play and has been notable for that reason. Find it here. Errant has been described as rules light and procedure heavy, which I think makes it a good illustration of how to make the procedures that use the processes of the game as important as the processes themselves.

At this point, I’ve yet to nail down all of the loops and procedures I expect to lay out in my projects, though the processes are largely already so. I can see a lot of play loops possible in addition to the basic “go forth and survive a dungeon” loop. There’ll be more options for activity when characters are at home/in town, some off-camera, some requiring longish stretches of time, and most tying into situations which involve the PCs leaving town to go forth and survive elsewhere.

Design: Sneaking

September 21, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Sneaking around a hostile stronghold is a situation that seems to arise with some regularity in the fantasy adventures I’ve experienced. It could be caves with unfriendly humanoids living therein, a hostile noble’s estate manor, alleyways in a border city, or amongst the winding switchbacks and boulders on a mountainside.

One of the weaknesses of the classic Thief character class in D&D has been that the class was designed for the character to operate in solo. Yeah, in games about groups of characters acting in concert, thief characters were designed to do their thing all by themselves. Everybody else can take a break and play some poker or something among themselves while Sneaky McThiefy does their thing. This isn’t a horrible arrangement when it comes to picking locks or checking for traps, though any time infiltrating a stronghold comes up, things can get kludgy.

It’s possible, certainly, for the players to plan infiltrations with the non-thief PCs causing distractions and getting into position for obvious intrusions on the site to mix things things up. Playing out the split narrative between solo sneak and the rest of the party can prove tricky, though. I reckon part of the solution is to simply include the non-thieves in more of the sneaky stuff.

It’s always been the case, as many have claimed, that all PCs can sneak around to some extent; the chance to surprise foes rests on that assumption, despite it never being stated. All PCs have some ability to dart from one hiding place to another, climb over walls, and hide behind furnishings and in dark corners. The difference, as I see it, lies in how well they can do it when compared to the professional sneaks.

All PCs can move quietly. The difference lies on how quickly they can do so and how close they can be to guards without noise giving their presence away. Where a thief can pass within several feet of a watchman without notice, the rest of the party may only be able to pass without tipping the watch off at a distance much further away.

All PCs can hide in places that provide cover and shadow. The difference lies in how much cover and how deep the shadows necessary to allow for it to be effective. I offered up a take on AD&D thief skills some time ago that touched on this, so I’ll see if I can find that again and link to it. (Note: it’s a bit lengthy.) For those who enjoy that classic approach on thief skills, I figure that look at the skills will provide material to consider adding to play.

That take on the classic theif skills speaks to the points mentioned above about thieves being qualitatively better at sneaking around. Thieves can move more quickly and quietly and get closer to guards without being noticed. They can hide better and requires less cover and shadow to do so to avoid notice.

I suspect that there’s a need to describe how amateur sneaks — the other PCs — can sneak around to help integrate the whole party better in plans to infiltrate a stronghold in a way that doesn’t spend most of play time resolving the actions of the solo thief character. So many people seem to have assumed that because thieves have skills explicitly described that other types of PC can’t also do the same activities, which is nonsense. The difference is akin to that between somebody who plays pick up basketball in a gym and the pros who make a living at it; they all play basketball, the pros are simply much better at it. In the same fashion that Hrothgar, the Mighty, is better at fighting than Nimbleshanks, the Quiet, Nimbleshanks is much better at sneaking than Hrothgar.

Laying out some explicit processes for sneaking in general should be included in the rules, certainly. GM materials discussing how to present the situations to include more sneaky activity by other classes also seems helpful. I’m thinking the process offered that walks through infiltration actions should explicitly support actions by all PCs, instead of focusing on what the thief does will carry the rest of the load.

Describing Setting

September 2, 2026 / / 2 Comments

In the many, many GM sections and GM guides I’ve read over the years, there’s been discussion of how to describe the bits of setting the PCs are interacting with in the moment. What I’ve not seen much of is using the brief description of where the PCS find themselves to impart more information implicitly than explicitly, that is, without making the description of the surroundings the focus of the commentary.

Take the arrival of the PCs in a new village. It’s common to offer up a paragraph about what the village looks like to try to provide a basic feel of it to the players. I’m thinking that can be done more efficiently using fewer words by making the elements that get mentioned carry extra weight.

The village is thriving? How can we show that in few words, words that aren’t simply all about describing the village? Well, how about a short mention of a group of children running by playing with rolling hoops? How about a mule parking its butt in the middle of the street and its owner loudly lamenting the obstinate animal’s behavior? Just a couple of moments from the normal, daily routine of the village.

Now, what if there’s some trouble arriving? A courier racing by on horseback demanding access to the mayor. A cluster of haggard sellswords bellowing at each other drunkenly near a stable. Those moments feel quite different than the children playing and suggest something untoward has happened.

Or there are troops from the baronial guard stationed at key points in the center of town. They’re idle, yet watchful and obviously geared up for possible trouble. The townsfolk hustling around on their daily business may appear oblivious to the guard, which provides one feel, or appear dour and subdued, which provides a different flavor.

And this can all be conveyed in just a couple of phrases or sentences that aren’t really focused on describing the village. “You sidle past a couple of townsfolk who only glance furtively around you as you approach the tavern Reginald recommended you visit, its freshly-painted sign bright in the sunshine” versus “You pause to watch a mule and its owner argue about carrying a load at the edge of the market square before Reginald appears alongside you, laughing at the fuss.”

It might be useful to sketch out a list of elements that can be used to convey normal activity in a site that you can drop in as needed. A list of “Sights and Sounds of a Thriving Town or Village” that includes children playing, people shopping, vendors selling, townsfolk socializing, and so forth. Then a list of sights and sounds of a troubled settlement. Just a couple of lines worked into the narrative of play can go a long way.

Design: On Character Development III

August 27, 2026 / / 0 Comments

This episode of brain dribbles actually looks at character generation, so should likely be titled as the first “On Character Development” piece. It just happens to be the third to make it into type, so what’m I gonna do?

This could probably be titled “On the Death of Attributes” as that’s the primary focus of the thoughts leading up to this. In OD&D, rolled attributes were used for very little. A prime requisite score lower than average would provide a penalty to accrued experience points and a prime requisite score higher than average would provide a bonus. Dexterity, Constitution, and Intelligence ratings could affect some specific abilities beyond that xp adjustment, though the attributes didn’t carry much mechanical heft. (Dungeons & Dragons, Book I: Men & Magic, page 11)

By the time AD&D rolled out, attributes carried much greater heft in mechanical terms. The range of bonuses expanded, the abilities to which those bonuses applied expanded, minimum scores were required to qualify for character classes. It was possible to generate a pair of characters of the same class that would have vastly different experiences in play due to one of them rolled poorly and gaining no bonuses and the other rolled well and thus having a much easier go from the outset. The urge for some differentiation resulted in built-in advantages garnered for some PCs, reducing the need for playing skills with those favored characters.

To truly focus on player skill, which is a foundational principle for old school play as I understand it, then ameliorating any significant built-in advantages or disadvantages rises in importance. At this point, I don’t see how involving the same degree of advantages to be gained via random rolls remains viable.

Couple that with the frustration of rolling a set of attributes only to use those to get a modifier that is actually used in mechanics and I’ve ended up where I am now: not gonna bother with attribute rolls. If there are to be modifiers to specific abilities, those need to be generated for those specific abilities without any intervening step.

So, I’ve done away with attributes as a defining aspect at character generation. Any bonuses to specific abilities will be assigned to those abilities directly, whether by random roll or player direction; a random roll may only indicate which set of discrete abilities the player may choose from to assign a bonus to. Limit the number of possible bonuses so a player can’t “win” at chargen and yet still allow for a bit of differentiation at the outset. It could also be a requirement that a bonus apply to one of the abilities important to a character class to qualify for that class.

Old School Hallmarks: Lethality

August 18, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Over on The RPG Cauldron we have a book club of sorts where we’re reading important blog posts from the heart of the OSR glory days and discuss those. The most recent of those (as of this post) is GusL’s post about lethality in old school games. It was worth a read when I first encountered it and was worth re-reading for the discussion in the book club,

This is what I responded with on the Cauldron:

“I think Gus just touched on the usefulness of mortality in old school play. Each and every incident that costs the PCs dearly helps train the players as to what doesn’t work well and provides a specific context to analyze as to what might have worked better. It provides a learning opportunity with harsh consequences that can provide greater feedback to the players about what works and what doesn’t, which one would hope would inform their play thereafter. “Remember when Ealdric died? We want to avoid that…” when considering activity in a similar situation.

“Those harsh outcomes also bring the setting into sharper focus. It becomes easier for players to gauge risks and judge the information they learn about locations and inhabitants with greater accuracy. The highly abstracted threat of reported giants, say, gets a bit less abstract in the wake of an incident where a few ogres battered half the party into goo. The equation of “Ogres tough = AVOID GIANTS” helps develop the flavor of the countryside in that part of the setting, with smart PCs either routing around the area or making extreme haste while traveling through or sneaking through at night or the like. Each of those different approaches to moving through the area can reveal more of the setting, which makes for a richer experience of the game world.

“The lethality also highlights the fact that player choices are of primary importance. When the PCs step out of the mold without much to set them apart from another of the same class, what ends up differentiating a legendary character in that campaign from the generally forgotten also-rans is both the longevity due to good choices and the added individual flavor and quirks that accrue due to being in play so long. The run-of-the-mill starting PCs become luminaries of the setting after ten levels of care and serendipity. It’s impossible to know at the outset what, exactly, is going to work to make a PC memorable; trying to plan that in advance simply isn’t possible to end up with a diagetically organic PC.”

I’ve also more thoughts on old school PCs. I’ve stated before (here) that old school PCs are differentiated in play and that the greater the specialization, the further one strays from old school ethos. I’ve a more nuanced take on that now, I reckon. I pointed out that the old school fighter is a fighter is a fighter and the more non-fighting stuff that gets added removes from that. I still think that adding a bunch of non-fighting abilities does weaken the archetype. I now also think that specializing fighters with fighting abilities still upholds old school precepts.

So, a fighter need *not* meet “a fighter is a fighter is a fighter” standards and still be a suitable example of the fighter archetype. I’ve been playing with sub-classes for quite a while and finding frustration when wanting to expand the basic class in this direction or that by adding capabilities that aren’t expressly fighting. Now, if all fighters share those non-fighting capabilities, then I can sign off on them; the problem was that many times they didn’t make sense for all of the possible sub-classes.

One of the long-standing issues I’ve had with D&D versions is that fighters arrive as equally adept with missile weapons as with melee weapons, and can hurl spears and axes with equal efficacy as sticking an opponent with said spear in hand. I recently came to terms with aligning the “a fighter isn’t a fighter is a fighter” from above and the notion that different fighting modes are fairly distinct by allowing that this fighter can be specialized in melee, that one in missile fire, and this other guy is dangerous at ten paces with what he throws. A soldier chucking plumbata at opoosing troops’ shields isn’t necessarily well-trained and effective with thrown weaponry, so having a fighter sub-class that is makes sense for some settings. And an archer specialist isn’t going to pick up a sword and not drop off in effectiveness in a fight (nor will a line soldier pick up a bow and place an arrow through a slit at 200 paces simply because they’re a seasoned sword fighter).

I’ve been sliding into this for some time, with sub-classes that offered some fighting abilities not available to all. Rangers possess basic fighter abilities plus specialized monster fighting; Paladins possess basic fighter abilities plus specialize in undead and demonic foes; warriors possess basic melee and hurled or missile abilities; and soldiers possess basic fighter abilities plus added melee abilities.

All of these sub-classes are thus instances of the fighter archetype. Each possesses all of the abilities of The Fighter. Each then also possesses fighting abilities in addition to highlight different ways in which the archetype gets expressed. It remains an old school approach, because all the fighters still fight, and then the sub-class fighters are all “a ranger is a ranger is a ranger” with the differentiation between rangers arising in play.

All of that seems obvious now, though it took quite a while for it to click in my head to where I understand how it all fits together and why. It’s that moment of epiphany that makes the information so much easier to work with and the projects involved then become easier to craft.

Old School Hallmarks: Inventory

August 4, 2026 / / 0 Comments

I finally realized what left me perpetually unconvinced about notions that requiring players to detail what gear the PCs carry is unimportant. I’m now completely convinced that tracking inventory to some degree is a hallmark of old school play…and understand why I have that conviction.

I read yet another post or comment on one of the many fora dedicated to discussing RPGs that maintained that tracking gear is better observed in the breach, and among other comments in the discussion were a couple advocating for quantum supplies because somehow it’s not a fair challenge to expect players to be able to guess the right equipment to have PCs carry.

That’s when my longstanding denial of that notion finally crystalized and I can now explain it. Inventory tracking doesn’t involve a challenge of predicting what equipment to carry while adventuring. The challenge in old school play lies in using the gear being carried in creative fashion to help solve problems confronting the PCs. It’s not a question of “what did you bring?” so much as it’s a question of “how will you use what you brought?” How will you use that and what you can find nearby? You brought a holocaust cloak? There’s a wheelbarrow in the hollow tree? Well, now we’ve got a plan coming together….

Tracking inventory isn’t just about forcing hard choices about what’s most important to carry. It also forces players to get creative use out of the items the PCs do carry to overcome challenges that arise in play. Lengths of rope are almost always useful in some fashion. Twine, though — is it worth carrying a bundle of twine? What about thread? Chain? All of those could prove useful at some point. Iron spikes, silver stakes, wooden stakes — some of each or just of one? How many? And so on.

The decisions made in packing for adventure should be important. Those decisions should be laying the foundations for possible solutions to challenges. That means it’s important to force those decisions on players as part of playing the roles of the PCs and facing the challenges of play.

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