OSRPGtalk

Words from a grognard

Month: August 2026

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.

Design: Surprise, Redux

August 1, 2026 / / 0 Comments

I’ve already given some thoughts on the topic that can be found here:

Design: Surprise

I just recently got back to those rules with an eye collecting all the principles behind them for a master file to refer to when writing the rules for all three of my projects. I also want to get them finished and released soon, so they’re out of my head and in the wild where other people can freely use and abuse them and provide me with feedback.

One change I can report immediately is that I’ve dropped the use of “phase” when referring to surprise, and now think in terms of “beats.” I think it works better to think of that time passing in that fashion by removing the association with discrete measures of time. This first occured to me when working on the GG project and needing a good way to describe the progression of action in that project.

I’ve reorganized the Surprise rules to better focus them on “how to.” Peeling away the layer of description that provided the whys and wherefores has been slow, although I think it absolutely necessary. I have a pronounced tendency to explain the reasoning behind rules instead of offering “just the facts” and it’s something that I have to work hard to stymie.

The reorganization also helped clarify what I want surprise rules to do. The encounter system should shuffle some basic information about an encounter to the surprise sub-system — and this is key — to first check to see if a surprise situation is possible and/or desirable for the encounter. That’s something that I find missing from the traditional surprise rules, where the sub-system is assumed to be part of every encounter. It explains all those encounters in play where the parties are too far apart for it to make a difference.

The traditional rules also ignore differences in sensory abilities between the two, leaving that entirely, without guidance, to GMs. I’ve had players act surprised (!) when their PCs couldn’t surprise creatures that were able to smell the PCs well before the two groups got close enough for the PCs to notice the other. They’d never considered scent to be a factor because they’d never read it in the rules.

The first thing I’ve designed my surprise rules sub-system to do, then, is to determine whether surprise can even be a significant factor in an encounter. I’m not going to bother checking for surprise if it isn’t. Are the groups close enough to actually engage in some fashion when one notices the other (or they each notice the other)? That depends on sensory abilities and limits provided by terrain and weather and such, first, and then considerations of engagement and interaction based on the proximity, next. If the parties can’t launch missiles or spells and can’t close to bash each others’ heads, then surprise just isn’t something I care to add to the situation.

I’ve also wondered why the traditional rules want the encounter system to provide one distance for an encounter and then change that distance if one or the other is surprised. I want the encounter system to determine the distance based on sensory limits, then the surprise system can determine if surprise adds anything to the encounter based on that distance. When the nothing burger of both sides being surprised is tossed in at distances where no real engagement is possible anyway…well, that’s nonsense I want to step away from.

So the surprise rules should first check to make certain surprise is possible and would have a significant effect on an encounter. After that, then the details of surprise checks appear, with modifiers to the checks, how many beats of surprise result, and anything that could affect the number of beats for individuals.

I also think the lack of what surprise entails in terms of limitations on actions, for both the surprised and unsurprised, is a failing of the traditional rules. Does being surprised affect saving throws? A PC surprised by a dragon and getting toasted isn’t as likely to save as an unsurprised PC, I reckon, and this sort of thing is unaddressed in the traditional rules (thus relegated entirely to table rulings by default, as with so many other things). I want to provide some guidelines for what being surprised entails in more detail.

Same for being unsurprised and taking actions. What are the limits on movement — charging, sneaking, fleeing? How are attacks limited — in number and/or targeting? Casting spells, using items, loading missile weapons…how are the unsurprised beings limited? Expressly laying out some general rules helps GMs make rulings in the edge cases.

That rough draft is obviously obsolete now. I can say that the 2D6 check is still good. All other parts may have been revamped, though, as I’ve picked through it all and put it through its paces. I’ll offer the roll results again, for those who don’t want to click through to the other post.

* Roll of 2 or 3: surprised for three beats

* Roll of 4: surprised for two beats

* Roll of 5: surprised for one beat

* Roll of 6+: not surprised

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