Author: TAFL (Page 2 of 3)

Design: Travel Navigation

January 29, 2026 / TAFL / 0 Comments

I’ve been wrestling with how to make travel the equivalent of dungeon exploration in activity (my bespoke system is entitled “Legendary Journeys,” after all). I think I cracked that nut.

It’s typical to have a navigation check when parties are wandering in the countryside. Their fearless leader checks to see if they’ve wandered off course during the day and are lost. Well, what if we change that up a bit?

Suppose the navigation roll does two different things. First, it slows the party by some amount, measured in time or movement points or whatever your system uses to measure progress when traveling. Assume the party gets it sorted out by discovering the error and getting headed in the correct direction from where they are. This, I think, can offer that “wandering in the wilderness” feeling without the wholesale “getting lost” condition.

What it also does, secondly, is provide an opportunity for the party to find/stumble upon Points of Interest they would otherwise have missed. So, if we make the navigation check a bit more difficult so the party wanders a bit more often, they can find a lot more stuff to eat their faces…er, explore.

Each time the party travels through the hex, the navigation check can result in the party traipsing along a different path and finding something new. If we want to, we can restructure the navigation roll to reflect that each trip through is likely to be a bit different which allows for new discoveries. Indeed, we can structure things so each trip through a hex is just different enough that new discoveries are possible.

That would provide more possible interaction and greater interest in travel situations. The wilderness and travel should just be something to endure before getting to the good stuff at the destination. Traveling should be an adventure of itself. It should be possible to have the journey to a location to be more involved than what happens at the location, which upends the usual circumstances of play.

Update:

I’ve been stewing on this topic for a long time, wanting to end with a sub-system that offers up travel-as-adventure instead of travel-to-reach-adventure. What I wrote above is just a part of that. Yes, offering variation in trips through a given wilderness space increase the chances of discovering new points of interest. That, of itself, doesn’t make a wilderness trek feel like a dungeon foray, though.

What that doesn’t offer is all of the interaction that can be expected in a dungeon setting. The tricks and traps and puzzles we find in dungeons are generally missing in the traditional wilderness travel rules. I think that’s a element we have to introduce to bring wilderness adventure up to the same level as dungeon adventure.

Providing more chances to find POI is just the beginning. Having multiple small dungeons to be found during travel doesn’t provide the same flavor as full-size dungeons. I think we need to have our encounter tables expanded to include more, plus add in pre-planned material for any given trip.

I think of the wilderness in a fantasy game setting as wild, in the sense that the kinds of things and situations found in folk tales/fairy tales are not only possible, they’re not uncommon. Spend much time traipsing about in the wild and you will encounter weirdness of some sort — fairies come through the Hedge, elder beasts from the Greenwood, people from other worlds, weather anomalies, malevolent spirits, enchanted pools, ancient shrines radiating power, and on and on. These are the things that can provide the same flavor in the wilds that a variety of rooms and chambers provide in a dungeon, especially when many of them invite direct interaction with the PCs.

To that end, I think the encounter rules have to provide as many opportunities for something to interact with as a party could expect to have in a dungeon. That’s not to say that every ten-minute turn of travel should include a check or reaching a new “room.” It does mean that there should be fairly regular instances of interesting things to do, whether measured by hour-long turns or opportunities per hex or in some other fashion. A trip should be filled with chances to engage with the unusual and interesting bits of the setting.

As there are many folks who approach dungeon settings as the Mythic Underworld, I think it just as useful to approach at least parts of the wilderness as the Mythic Wilds. Stretches of forest or swamp or plains that feel as if they have an interest in the PCs traveling through and aren’t taking kindly to the intrusion. I’ve already been thinking of the Little Gods, spirits of the place, that can take notice of travelers; this extends that to the entirety of a locale taking notice. An increase in encounters with hostile critters, say, with those critters being the most dangerous in the locale. Those critters trailing the party and causing issues. The party getting slowed repeatedly by fresh obstacles the terrain throws up in the way. Stopping for rest breaks or camping resulting in getting constantly harried by denizens of the forest that make rest impossible.

Even locales that aren’t Mythic Wilds can offer similar experiences. The lands immediately surrounding an ancient barrow that holds a malevolent golem possessed and animated by the spirit of a long-ago tyrant and warlord. Hauntings a-plenty, undead clawing out of the ground and shambling after the PCs, shadows flitting about out of direct sunlight and chilling the PCs to the bone. The PCs can figure out what’s at the area’s heart and try to put an end to it, though that just may result in the golem escaping it’s chambers and roaming the wilds to create yet more havoc.

Encounter tables should provide for much more in the way of flavor and challenge. I can see each area having designation of danger that affects the results on tables, or specific tables for each such area. As I mentioned previously, I also think the regular addition of pre-planned POI can make a major difference. Even if it’s a drop-in selected from a list of possible drop-ins, knowing that on a given stretch of travel something a bit more involved is going to crop up that’s already prepped makes GMing a trip a bit easier, and the players will get regular doses of more substantial and demanding play. Prepping a handful of events/encounters/sites for a given stretch of wilds in advance can go a long way to filling out travel in an interesting fashion.

Planning a trip thus gains quite a bit of flavor. Planning a route now involves deciding what known stretches of dangerous ground it might be better to avoid, though at the expnse of taking more time to reach the destination. PCs can try to find good sources about what to expect along the way and prepare for it. Planning a trip becomes the equivalent of planning a dungeon foray, as does the actual experience of it. An exercise in survival becomes an exercise in adventure.

On Evil Monsters

January 19, 2026 / TAFL / 0 Comments

There are topics that seem to rise again and again in RPG fora like undead horses to be flogged. This comes about because of the regular influx of gamers to discussions, so evergreen discussions are to be expected despite the eyerolls they garner from veterans. One such horse carcass is that of evil monsters, particularly humanoid monsters.

The argument against having such moves along the path of “innately evil humanoids don’t stand to reason because there’s going to be good individuals even in an evil culture and it’s horrible to say they’re all evil” and then to move on to how it’s inherently racist to have evil non-humans.

Stop. Stop right there.

The problem I see is simple: these claims rely on the notion that non-human critters are simply humans in funny suits. That what one can expect from human cultures is what one can expect from non-humans. That non-human thought and feeling and understanding is exactly the same as with humans.

I’ll offer up that non-humans aren’t humans in funny suits, that they are, indeed, non-human and that expecting the human experience to map onto the non-human experience is foolish and leads to bad fantasy. The non-human experience should NOT map directly onto human experience.

Now, for us, as humans, to be able to use non-humans in play, yes, we have to be have enough similarity between the two for us to use — for us to understand so we can portray elves and dwarves and so on — and still be different enough to set them apart as not human. (Yes, RPG play has long suffered from elves and dwarves as simply humans in funny suits.) The Venn diagram humans and non-humans should never be a perfect circle, even if there’s relatively little space separate.

So I’ll observe that we humans can’t comprehend all of the non-human experience, so we’ll never understand why some non-humans are what we find to be irredeemably evil. They’re not poor, downtrodden souls being wrongly persecuted for being in the wrong place, they’re inherently evil creatures creeping into human domains and a threat to all humans.

Even if they’re bipedal and human-like in form, they aren’t human. They’re not stand-ins for oppressed peoples. They’re non-human monsters and a threat to us all.

Non-human creatures that aren’t evil should also be viewed as not being fully understandable by humans, and thus by the players at the table, for much the same reason. They may not be the inherent threat the evil monsters are, yet some of their behavior should certainly be inscrutable to humans to preserve the weirdness of the fantasy.

To pay the Joesky tax, I offer up the Shadow Curs, as yet untested kobold substitutes:

NO. APPEARING: 10-100
ARMOR CLASS: 7
MOVE: 12″ / 9″
HIT DICE: 2-5 hp
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-4 or by weapon
SPCL ATTACKS: none
SPCL DEFENSE: none
MAGIC RESIST: standard
INTELLIGENCE: low
ALIGNMENT: Lawful Evil
SIZE: Small (2 1/2′ – 3′)

The curs have two forms, that of a dog and that of a dog-faced humanoid, similar to a werewolf. When in the dog form, a cur has capabilities as a dog. In the humanoid form, a cur has opposable thumbs and can wield weapons accordingly. Transforming from one form to the other takes but a couple of seconds and doesn’t affect the cur’s ability to move and fight.

In either form, a cur looks like a mongrel dog, with fur and fangs accordingly. Small packs are families led by the sire and dame. Large groups are composed of multiple family packs and typically led by the largest of the pack leaders.

Design: Surprise

November 27, 2025 / TAFL / 0 Comments

Surprise is one of the bits of system that didn’t hold up under scrutiny and is worthy of a post on its own, I think. There’s a whole lot of tinkering going on with how surprise operates, beginning with how it feels and including what purpose it serves in the system.

Let’s begin with a look at how it plays out in RAW. I’ve long wondered why groups get surprised one-third of the time upon encountering another group or monster. Reading through all of the OG materials has offered no reasoning to support that rate, so this appears to be one of the things that has been perpetuated simply because of tradition. I decided that I’m not down with that; one-third of the time is simply more than I can sustain disbelief for–it just doesn’t serve my fantasy to have competent adventurers getting flummoxed by running into beasties that often.

To that end, I’ve moved to lesser chances, closer to 25% of the time. If I recall correctly, the odds are about 27%, using the dice roll I’ve landed on. I’m using the 2D6 roll that I’ve pressed into service for some other purposes.

I’m also all for PCs being able to bump the odds in their favor, whether decreasing the chance of being surprised or increasing the chance of surprising others. How the players play should matter and this is but another way their choices matter mechanically and fictionally.

How long surprise lasts has also not survived its viewing under the microscope. The initial measure being provided by the die roll, with a surprise result of 1 or 2 resulting in a matching number of suprise segments was an elegant way to find out long surprise would last. Two segments of surprise are also referred to as “full surprise,” which illustrates that two segments was the longest surprise would last, originally. Then, with the accretion of further rules, notions such as creatures that could surprise more frequently changed how many segments could be notched in that fashion. Tossing in the use of dice of a larger size — D8 or D10 — for surprise checks in some situations, and figuring out how long surprise lasts becomes muddled.

As I don’t think more than three segments of surprise is reasonable — especially with a one minute round — I’ve capped surprise at that. The number of phases of surprise is also established by the dice roll for surprise.

What surprising combatants are able to do during each segment of surprise also got limited. The notion that each segment of surprise garnering a full series of attacks, without regard to the number of attacks entailed, got dropped, too. Two attacks are certainly possible, depending on circumstance; anything beyond that stretched my sensibilities past breaking. And certainly no launching multiple arrows each segment, so only one readied arrow per phase, with a phase required to ready one. I’m also considering an added bonus to having surprised the opponents when the first full round of action fires up, which returns a bit of the overwhelming advantage provided by surprise in the RAW.

This has also resulted in dropping references to segments in the surprise rules, in favor of referring to phases. This is with the understanding that I’m also dropping the use of the term “segment” entirely, at this point, because of its long association with being one-tenth of a round; rounds will be apportioned in fewer parts when the whole is reassembled (five phases per 20-second round).

The urge to allow for PC actions (player choices) to affect the odds of surprise also extends to how long surprise lasts, measured by how much activity the surprising party can do before the surprised can engage fully and player choices can quicken response when PCs are surprised. As above, the number of melee and missile attacks possible will be limited, what movement is allowed carefully meted out, and what casting or other magical work can get started and/or finished. A surprise situation, under this approach, may not happen as often, yet it provides a major advantage to one side when it does happen.

Ambush

An ambush provides a different experience of surprise. Only the party being ambushed can be surprised due to the ambushing party knowing full well when it will act. How the ambush is set up and executed will affect how much activity the ambushing side will get to do before the victims can respond. A well-planned and -executed ambush can provide a bit more time for salvos, too.

Sneak Attacks

A sneak attack is a form of ambush, just on a smaller scale, so to speak. Sneaking up behind a guard to take them out or firing a crossbow from the darkness into a sentry’s back rely on the at-least-momentary lack of awareness and engagement, as much as springing forth from hidden positions along a road when attacking a caravan does.

A Rough Draft of Surprise Rules

Surprise: Roll For doom

https://osrpgtalk.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DA-Surprise-v-0.8.pdf

Layout: Red Letter Edition

October 20, 2025 / TAFL / 0 Comments

An approach now appearing in game materials involves using bold print to highlight important info. Adventure products have it to highlight initial aspects PCs notice. Rulebooks emphasize basic rule statements. Colored type has been used similarly here and there over the years. Recently, I’ve seen game text using red letter print ala Biblical publishing practice–I’m intrigued.

So, I’m going to experiment with red letter editions of rules, at least into playtesting. I want to get feedback from users as to whether the use of color, in addition to bold type, helps make it easier to parse the rules in any fashion. I expect to experiment with the practice a bit, too, with using bold, colored type for one purpose and simple bold type for another.

Accessibility may be an issue for color blind readers. Using bold, colored type may overcome that with the bold type still standing out despite lack of color. And the colored type may appear a different shade than standard black type. As long as the colored type appears a different shade than the standard bold type, I expect using both would be workable.

The actual red tint to use is also an open question. I don’t think the standard red letter print used in Bibles provides the best flavor for a game, so I’ll be experimenting. Perhaps a darker red. I’ve seen blue in some game texts and found the shade used too light for my tastes, so all of the shades I experiment with will be dark, to start.

My hope is for the use of red letter print to make important information even easier to find and scan. As the texts will be used for reference, anything that helps with scanning words during a lookup will be useful.

Design Theory: What About Skills?

October 7, 2025 / TAFL / 0 Comments

One vexing problem that presents itself when designing an old school system now is the question of how to use skills. This is a design problem because the earliest D&D systems used an implicit skill system instead of an explicit system. That has lead to a lot of people thinking that the old school rules don’t have skills built into them, a mistaken position.

I’ll leave it to those who’ve spoken of it before me to lay out how skills in old D&D appear (see Lucy Blumire’s blogpost about old school skills) and simply assume that the skill system is present as fact. That skill system is implicit in the text, with instances of it only showing when specifics are needed; at no point are the skills presented as being a subsystem in the rules. One way in which this characteristic affects the mechanics directly is in the realm of PC abilities.

At no point in describing PC abilities is a general skill system laid out or referred to. Even when the thief class showed up in a supplement with its personal skill set described, there was no discussion of a general skill subsystem in the rules. The thief skills also differed from the general skill usage by requiring percentile dice rolls instead of an X-in-6 approach. It wasn’t until the appearance of expansion books for AD&D that an explicit presentation of a skill system debuted.

This all means that designers of systems taking an old school approach these days have to decide how to involve skills in the systems. Do we design implicit skills that only get described as a discrete dice roll used in a specific situation here and there, or do we lay out skills as an explicit part of the system? Are skills to be a one-size-fits-all measure of X-in-6 chances called out discretely for everybody or will PC competence vary by class and/or experience?

I’ve decided I want to take a hybrid approach to skills. PC skills will be described as best as possible as discrete instances of what a specific class can do, instead of a list of skills that can be learned and developed by any PC. I also. however, will describe how PCs of other classes use those skills, without them being able to develop any greater competence (much the same as with the X-in-6 approach). This is the same basic tack as thieves being able to develop their ability to climb sheer surfaces while non-thief PCs have just a general chance to climb and never develop that skill further, so it’s not without precedent. An example from my projects would be that of fighters being able to employ stunts in melee (and the development of those locked in through level advancement) and non-fighters being able to attempt the same with much worse chances of success (and no improvement possible).

This approach involves no setting up an explicit skills system that covers learning new skills and generating ratings, then rules on how to develop those skills over the course of play, and how players can go about choosing how many skills and what skills their PCs possess. It stays with “at this level, PCs of this class can do X and all other classes can only wish they could do that as well” approach of AD&D and avoids the explicit approach of Traveller or Runequest or GURPS. I just won’t be shy about calling out the skills.

DA Design: First Combat Module: Notes 1

September 28, 2025 / TAFL / 0 Comments

I’ve been playing around with the first of the alternate combat sub-systems in the Dangerous Adventures project. What began as a purely Weapon Speed & Casting Time exercise has morphed into quite a bit. It still has weapon speed and casting time involved, though they appear differently, now.

The primary problem that reared up with the system as originally envisioned involves movement. Breaking movement down by segments proved to be a bit tedious and boring in play. Even grouping segments of movement together on an ad hoc basis whenever all that would happen for those segments would be movement just wasn’t working well.

Also, the weapon speeds in the book obviously weren’t intended to be used in a strict segment count system, so those would all have to be re-figured; I couldn’t find a suitable mathematical formula to use to assign them segment counts. It’s easier to simply work up new speed ratings from scratch.

Now, beginning from scratch means that the ratings don’t have to reference segments, nor range from 1 to 10 to fit. I can break the round into any number of segments that I wish, based solely on what seems to work best for me. That means I can structure rounds around (!) any of the concepts involved in combat. With that in mind, I’ve landed on five segments/phases in a round, based on the different types of movement I want to include. I think the five-step phasing will assist GMs to work in any unusual activity, too, with the provided descriptions of movement types giving suitable examples to generalize from for rulings on the ground.

The list of movement-types: Shift/Intercept; Split-Move (& Fire); Half-Move (& Attack) [Or (Attack &) Half- Move]; Charge (& Attack); Counter-Charge (& Attack); Full Move (Advance); Full Move (Run). These movement-types should provide enough examples to provide guidance for GMs ruling on weird actions.

This is all part of the chassis for the combat system, part of the Basic rules for it. There will be Expanded rules that include abilities added for some PCs (fighters) as they increase in level and also fit both Mana Channeling & Counterspell and Magical Combat procedures. I think it’s flexible enough, at this point, to support any other combat types I may want to add (read: that I’m contemplating now).

Now, LJ has a three-phase round structure to accommodate all of the above, to one degree or another. It’s interesting (at least, for me) to see how the same basic ideas brought on two different structures. I’ll likely post about that at some point so everybody can compare the two.

https://osrpgtalk.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Five-Phase-Ordering-v-0.65.pdf

Design Theory: Combat, Abstraction, & Procedure

September 23, 2025 / TAFL / 0 Comments

Part of my early-rpg-gaming study has involved reading the Chainmail rules and how those were used, not only for minis wargame play, but also play of OD&D. As Chainmail is a wargame, most of what it provides is rules for combat, so it’s an integral part of studying the OG RPG combat rules.

One of the most interesting tidbits to be found in Chainmail is that it has three combat systems. Yeah, it offers a mass combat system for use with miniatures wargame scenarios, a man-to-man system for individuals beating on each other, and a fantasy combat system for dealing with monsters. The rules text as a whole offers up a lot of information on the earliest fighting rules and there’s much to be gathered from reading the text.

Procedures Provide Structure

One aspect shared across all three systems is that they’re all broken down procedurally in play. It’s this procedural step-by-step approach that provides a great deal of the verisimilitude among the abstractions made in the rules. The use of phases provides a feel for how action proceeds apace, yet some activity most often precedes other activity and that difference helps ground the whole in time. I compare stepping through phases here (as with B/X and OSE) with the free-for-all of AD&D and find that using phases does make a difference in flavor, at least for me, so I figure there are other players for whom it makes a difference, too.

The phases provide some structure for the abstractions, especially when dealing with actions that aren’t described in the Advanced rules, such as split-fire missile actions. The phase structure places the initial move early in the round, the missile attack later, and the final move segment after. Let’s look at how it plays out:

THE MOVE/COUNTER MOVE SYSTEM

Both opponents roll a die; the side with the higher score has the choice of
electing to move first (Move) or last (Counter-move).
The side that has first move moves its figures and makes any split-moves
and missile fire, taking any pass-through fire possible at the same time.
The side that has last move now moves its figures and makes any split-moves and missile fire, taking any pass-through fire possible at the same time.
Artillery fire is taken.
Missile fire is taken.
Melees are resolved.
Steps 1 through 6 are repeated throughout the remainder of the game.
Note: Missile fire from split-moving troops is considered to take effect immediately during the movement portion of the turn, and the same is true of pass-through fire. All other fire, both artillery and missile, is considered to
simultaneously take effect just prior to melee resolution.

This provides a basic feel for time advancing through the round. This feel is enhanced by stepping through artillery fire and general missile fire and melee. While there are arguments to be made about having the chaos of battle reflected in simultaneous resolution for everything, I find the feel of time progressing during a round to be preferable. The switching from player to player and monster to monster with simultaneous resolution doesn’t provide the same.

I also believe that stepping through the phases in play helps GMs develop a feel for how to approach play, in general. Building a habit of taking matters one step at a time during resolution can help GMs provide consistency in adjudication and that helps with the verisimilitude of the setting.

The rules also offer a list of possible actions to take. This list is predicated on minis play, of course, and yet most of what it describes can also happen in man-to-man and fantasy play — split-move fire, pass-through fire, indirect fire, direct fire, cover, charging, and melee. Yes, a player could have a PC do something not on the list, yet the list illustrates the variety of possible combat action just by its size and what it covers. I suspect most GMs could study that section of Chainmail and come away with a better understanding of all the things that can happen and how to sequence them and adjudicate them, even with having to adjust for playing an RPG instead of a minis wargame.

Chainmail also provides a different take on initiative by dint of having the different combat systems order action differently. The basic roll isn’t the end all be all of old school initiative, it turns out. The man-to-man system, for example, uses weapon speeds to figure out how many attacks a combatant can make based on a comparison of weapons between them and their foe. A small, quick weapon vs a large, much slower weapon can lead to multiple attacks that wouldn’t be possible using the fantasy combat system; fighting men and fighting monsters are qualitatively different in Chainmail.

A key concept I pull from this is that using procedures in play offers a lot of benefit at little cost. I don’t see scrapping the free-for-all for phased resolution to result in a loss of flavor in any significant way, while doing so gains a good deal of feel in play. It’s because of this that I’ve embraced the use of phases in my projects, although the specifics vary by which title.

Blog News: Revamp is Underway

September 23, 2025 / TAFL / 0 Comments

At work this past weekend I was able to hash out notes on several more topics that will appear in posts on here. The reorganizing and editing of the old posts is also happening apace, despite all that taking writing & design time to do. I figure getting it all organized and finally out of my head will free me up for more design and writing time before long, which would be a net gain for me. When my head gets cluttered, I lose productive time. (And as the triple bypass revealed that I’d been walking around essentially dead for some time, I want to get it all on paper before I do actually fall down.)

Among the things I pondered while working on the assembly line were wizard-locked doors, wards and seals, magical constructs, power crystals for constructs, and what would be driven by such. Also, various ways to involve tracking fatigue in play, some of which I’ve played around with prior and others I’ve not. Thoughts on some tutorial adventure materials with commentary on what players and GMs have to consider as play moves along. Notions about sages — hiring them and how they go about doing their research. A bit on lighting in dungeons that PCs don’t have to provide.

Topics still percolating in my head from before include: counterspell processes for casters and how those work in combat against enemy casters; fighters and performing stunts and exploits; how to possibly use my channeling dice mechanism as part of my Resolve system and what change in feel/flavor would come about (and whether it seems reasonable, at all).

And a good deal about topics for GMing materials. Things to consider for settings, guidance on developing dungeons/ruins/adventure sites. Thoughts on design theory. All. The. Things. And I write best and most productively after I’ve nailed the organization down for whatever I’m writing, so getting it all out of my head and into an outline of some sort is going to help finish it.

The Old School: No “fail forward”

September 22, 2025 / TAFL / 3 Comments

One of the most annoying bits I read in online discussions of RPG topics is the notion of “fail forward.” I’m going to try to restrain myself so this doesn’t turn into a straight up rant, as this is one of the lamest notions I’ve heard about game play in the 40 years I’ve been playing elf games. I rolled my eyes when I first encountered it and my opinion of it has dropped since then.

If a PC attempts some task, it goes, and fails in the attempt, play can’t advance because nothing happened. If a PC fails, they say, it should still advance play, by which they mean the PC should succeed in some fashion despite failing. Leaving aside the nonsensical notion that every PC action should meaningfully advance progress in some fashion, this argument is ludicrous. (I think it indicates the player making the argument is far too lazy or lacks the creativity to be a good player, though I’m trying not to rant here.)

Experienced old school players understand things differently, I reckon. They know — from experience — that having failed at one approach to solving a problem simply means that they have to get creative and explore one of the other possible solutions. They don’t expect things to be easy and know that the first, obvious solution may not work. They expect that they may have to work a bit harder than that.

So, when the thief fails to pick the lock on the door that promises to provide access to the area believed to be awash with piles of coins and gemstones, all is not lost. There’s no need to whine and demand that they get access to that part of the dungeon just because they tried something that could gain them access and success should be handed to them with some lame “consequence” attached. The old school players understand they’ll have to work harder: perhaps there’s another door not far away that leads into that section of the dungeon; perhaps in the shadows overhead there’s a passage that bypasses the door; perhaps they can force the door, grab something to use as a battering ram, hack it to pieces, or burn it until they can smash it; trick some dungeon denizen to open the door for them.

The failure of the thief’s attempt to pick the lock didn’t stall out play. It advanced play by eliminating one possible solution to the problem of the locked door. It enhances play, actually, by providing a chance for the players to get creative in opening or bypassing the door. It drives the players to work a little harder and engage with the setting a bit more. Trying only the easy solution and then throwing hands up in defeat while demanding success just isn’t good play.

The same sort of argument arises when dealing with combat. If both a PC and the monster engaged with it are unsuccessful in attacking each other, the cry arises that nothing changed in the fight and that’s bad. A bit of thought shows this to be nonsense, too. The PC keeping the monster occupied while the magic-user behind them finishes a spell changes things as much as if the fighter simply laid another four points of damage on the beastie. The PC staying alive and upright could be a significant achievement, if the monster outclasses the character. The PC could use that time to reassess the fight and decide on a different approach to it, which also advances play; there’s more to melee than just doing damage to the foe.

There’s so much creative play that can happen after the easy approach fails that I have to wonder if the folks arguing for “fail forward” have ever experienced any play that embraces challenge as an integral part of the experience. If a party always succeeds with the first thing they attempt, I think that play experience would be might shallow and not very fulfilling.

The Old School: Hallmarks I

April 21, 2025 / TAFL / 0 Comments

A thread on Reddit sparked a bit of thought. One of the folks offered up three things they thought underpinned the OSR. Now, I’m not exactly an OSR gamer. I hang out in the OSR because that’s the closest organized (!?) community to my preference for old school, classic style play. My thoughts, then, wandered off in the direction of what the fundamentals of old school play are that I observe.

The first point offered up was about the rules. I agree that the rules for a system are important in providing an old school feel. One distinction I recall discussing decades ago was the difference between task resolution and conflict resolution in mechanics, for example. These days, it would also be fair to say that genre-emulation isn’t built into resolution systems, nor are narrative concerns built in.

The OG approach is to focus on resolving tasks without regard to any narrative concerns about conflict or storyline. One example of the difference involved the PCs cracking open a safe or treasure chest in one location, looking for a unique item. An old school approach would have the presence or absence of the item completely divorced from the task of opening the cache. That was contrasted to the conflict- or narrative-resolution system where the success of the PCs in opening the cache meant that the item was there, because the nature of the check was about that specific item instead of just opening a complex lock.

Old school rules present a fundamental simulation of a world/setting. At their core, the rules all work to provide a sense of a consistent setting, with changes in expectations — magic, anyone? — made explicit and players assumed to be using their understanding of real world cause & effect for anything not explicitly laid out as violating those expectations. In a real world scenario, players could only expect the McGuffin to be in the cache if they knew for certain it was there; if they only suspected it could be there, they understand it might not be if they succeed in opening it.

The rules work to ground the characters and everything they do in a consistent world, with boundaries around capabilities. The system explains what PCs can do with relative certainty so the players can understand what their PCs can reasonably do and what they reasonably can’t. Descriptions of skills and abilities are thus as important for settings limits as for describing abilities. Rules that offer no such structure to abilities offer no reliable simulation of any game reality for the players to rely on, as one can never understand what a PC can reasonably do while using an ability.

Old school rules also work to ground PCs in specific roles in the setting. Fighters in D&D, while able to present in many different fashions, all share a world-based role as soldiers, guards, and warriors who serve nobles or civic authorities or wealthy employers. The further rules systems get away from reasonable roles for characters, the less of the old school flavor those rules have. The more specialized a fighting character gets and the more non-fighting ability gets added, the less credibility it has as part of a reasonable world. As classes of character are reflective of archetypes, the further from the archetype one wanders, the less compelling the character.

An old school approach also works to keep the types of characters involved in play credible. I’ve seen several products for sale online recently that offer up new PC classes for games that just don’t reflect old school sensibilities for supposed old school-styled systems. Classes that certainly aren’t of archetypes one would associate with fantasy settings and classes that, even if they would fit into expectations for fantasy settings, aren’t of a sort to adventure, diagetically.

Now, old school systems have added gonzo elements in many ways over the years. I’ll offer that the inclusion of such doesn’t make those elements automatically old school in approach, simply because they don’t reflect the fundamental approach to such things. A class of demon barbers in a fantasy system wanders far afield from fantasy genre elements and tropes and afield from old school expectations (so all Sweeney Todd wannabes can take a seat).

In that regard, I reckon old school is somewhat conservative in added elements. Even mixing sub-genres within a system works well as old school if the fundamentals for each of the sub-genres are upheld. Fantasy and horror, for example, can work together as shown by several systems available. It’s difficult for Cthulhu mythos and fantasy to mix, though, as the fantasy part of the equation doesn’t support the protagonists all going insane in relatively short order. So a system can draw on Lovecraftian horror, in part, yet can’t fully engage with it and still work as an old school system.

Moving on, the discussion on Reddit then included that the playstyle assumed by the system is part of it being old school or not. I fully understand that there are multiple playstyles that can appear at tables using old school systems. I also understand that some of those aren’t supported by the systems being used.

To wit, in the Long Ago, there were tables where expansive PC backstories were a normal part of their play. At no point, however, were such backstories mentioned in the rulebooks. Character sheets had no space dedicated to long backstories. The stories were wholly unsupported by the rules. So, those tables that used them weren’t doing so by the rules in any fashion, so it’s safe to say that such were not typical of expected play of the system.

With that in mind, the rules do support some basic expectations of play. Exploration was an expectation, with exploration procedures, mechanics, and rule discussions surrounding supplies and resource management, navigation, and so on. While the early rulesets didn’t necessarily explain all of that well, the materials provided were in support of it.

Characters weren’t described in terms of personality or story arc or any sort of narrative storytelling terms. They were described in terms of mechanical resolution of abilities and sets of abilities that determined how the character interacted with the game setting in game terms. They weren’t offered up as protagonists in specific stories, they were imaginary people in imaginary worlds and whether there was any cohesive story of any length wasn’t mentioned; if one arose, cool, if not, also cool, as specific stories weren’t the intent of play.

And that further separates the truly old school from traditional playstyles. The appearance of specific storylines intended for play — popularized by the Dragonlance series — is a watershed moment in dividing streams of play into classical and traditional. The ironic part, I think, is that it involved shoehorning AD&D into specific stories for campaigns, something which AD&D was never designed to do. It also means that some approaches to playing AD&D (1e or 2e) are old school, in classic styles, and others aren’t, with play in traditional styles.

[Note: Yes, I fully aware that many TSR adventures were very much railroads with specific storylines expected. I also am aware that those were designed with tournament play in mind and the railroads served the end of figuring out which groups outperformed other groups to advance to the next round. Many of the non-tournament modules used the same approach because they were designed to the same standard, not because the rules demanded it or even offered support for it.]

The third underpinning offered is that of DIY sensibilities. I can see this to an extent, though only because of practical concerns. Most GMs had to DIY materials simply because there weren’t many published materials widely available to provide for everything needed. TSR and Judges Guild and other publishers could only publish so much. The demand was far greater than what those companies could reasonably produce. Any campaign of any substantive length required more adventure material than could be readily acquired from publishers, so GMs had to provide for themselves.

This also extends to the notion of “rulings over rules.” This OSR maxim is properly commentary on the necessity of having to fill in rules sets because the systems lacked rules on so many subjects that would arise play. We grognards made rulings — house rules — in large part to fill in holes in the system and not because we just didn’t want any rules to restrain us; we were wargamers, many of us, and we followed rules as a habit.

I can fully endorse the notion of DIY being old school in that regard and in the context of GMs tweaking system rules to bring a personalized game to the table. That, I think, is the bedrock of DIY in old school games — the understanding that a system is simply the foundation a GM builds a personal game on that they bring to the table to share with players. What tools from the system they use, how they use them, how much they emphasize or de-emphasize any procedural area, and so forth are personal to each GM. GMs use systems to build games to bring to the table.

I think there’s definitely something of substance to the notion that old school systems share hallmarks. I’ll offer up what I think are those hallmarks in posts here. I’m happy to hear from others what they think some hallmarks are. I’m also happy to hear constructive disagreement with my assessments, too.