OSRPGtalk

Words from a grognard

Tag: #oldschoolrules

The Old School: Hallmarks II

March 19, 2026 / / 0 Comments

More thoughts on what makes for an old school experience. Some of this is simply expansion on a topic mentioned in Hallmarks I because I think the added commentary adds something to the discussion. As I return to thoughts of playstyles, I expect more details and notions to arise and I’ll toss them up here. Perhaps I’ll get around to pulling all of it together, properly organized, and then post it.

I’ve offered that settings are what define the world in which PCs operate. Any exceptions to normal physics are delineated so that players can interact with a consistent basis of understanding; gravity is going to make a long fall quite detrimental to a PC’s health…although here are the specific ways in which that can be ameliorated. Players are able to predict, in general terms, how things work and thus gauge how risky a course of action will be for the PC.

Settings also tie in with other elements. PCs are expected to be grounded in the setting, with some nominal ties to specific elements. The most basic is likely that of origin; where the PC comes from establishes them as *part of the setting* from the outset. The PCs aren’t foreign to the setting, they’re just another one of many elements that are part of the setting.

That’s important because old school campaigns are about the setting. The system rules didn’t include anything about pre-planned “character arcs” or long, involved background stories because the campaigns were expected to be about what’s going on in the world and how a group of random characters engage with it. With everything involved being part of the setting, it’s the setting that is featured in play. It’s this that makes every PC replaceable in a campaign, with it not unusual that a player could begin a campaign and then change PCs over time without that campaign ending.

A system begins to lose old school flavor when the approach to PCs loses tight definition in an effort to provide a lot of customization. As the ancestral wargames offered up a “fighter is a fighter is a fighter” approach, the old school RPGs proceeded with that idea, I reckon, because it kept the PCs grounded in the setting and helped to make them replaceable. The expectation was that a PC becomes memorable based on how it’s played with the choices the player makes defining the unique nature of the character. Thus, a character is only fully defined through play and that’s where the important differences should arise.

I’ll even offer that this is part of developing player skill, in part — take this standard-issue archetype and make something more of it *in play.* So much of the play experience and character definition happens “off-sheet,” as is often said. Players can’t rely on special combinations of customization options to provide “easy button” solutions to play challenges, a build isn’t a substitute for creative solutions the player cooks up. The character sheet acts as a toolbox for the player, not a source of solutions; interrogating the fiction by asking questions to find elements that can possibly be exploited to help overcome the challenge at hand is far more important than looking to the sheet for an answer.

Old school play is very much in the “play to find out” camp. Even in tournament play, while each round of the tournament provided a continuation of a general plot, the individual installments often didn’t dictate an explicit sequence of encounters and events. G1-3 Against the Giants, for example, moved the overall plot from round to round from G1 with hill giants to G2 with frost giants and then to G3 and fire giants. When playing through G1, however, there was no expected order of encounters as to how it would play out, nor do I recall any instances of “the PCs have to do X then Y” or similar to finish the module.

Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, with its order of battle roster, makes this even more apparent. PCs can have denizens appear during a fight with others and then, when arriving at those critters’ regular quarters, there won’t be any critters to be found. The module doesn’t decide if the critters will be encountered during the large melee, in their own quarters, or somewhere in between. That lack of expectation and reliance on the GM to sort the happenstance is representative of an old school approach.

Old school systems also expect exploration as an important component of play. this hearkens back to the importance of setting, because finding out what is in the setting and what’s happening in the setting is core to the experience. Exploration becomes important as a way to find out about the setting, as the setting provides for play. A solid procedure for exploring sites thus seems to be a requirement in old school playstyles.

I hope my thoughts here can spur thought and spark ideas from other people. I can’t say that my idea of the hallmarks of old school styles are necessarily the most accurate or thorough, certainly. I can say that thinking on the subject has helped me deepen my understanding, certainly.

Design: Travel Navigation

January 29, 2026 / / 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.

Design: Surprise

November 27, 2025 / / 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

Characters: Hit Points & Bloat

January 26, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Hanging out with old school gamers will indubitably result in hearing fussing about hit pooints in D&D versions.One of the recurring laments among old school crowds is that of hit point bloat, especially when talk turns to AD&D. That’s often heard alongside the ongoing search for ways to generate hit points that aren’t as likely to cripple PCs when players roll badly. The whole concept of hit points, it seems, is good at a theoretical level and lacking in execution most of the time.

There have been many different ways thought up to address the issues surrounding hit points, and I have a new approach to toss on the pile that some may find useful. First, however, I think it’d be useful to take a look at hit points as they began and how they can operate in the systems that use them to serve their purpose a bit better.

The concept of hit points arrived from the world of wargames. In the years when RPGs were being developed and the years prior when the wargames that spawned RPGs ruled the field (!), six-sided dice were pretty much the only game in town, so to speak. D4s, D8s, and other fancy dice weren’t used in games, just the humble cubes of six-siders. That meant that wargames used D6s by default.

This meant that when a game used the concept of “hit dice” to reflect how much damage (in the abstract) a figure could take (or inflict), it was measured using a D6. A normal fighting man, in Chainmail, could take a D6 of damage because they had one hit die. That meant that any weapon could deliver a killing blow of one hit die, as any serious weapon was capable of killing a person with a single strike.

This is what brought about OD&D characters all having D6 hit dice — the highest hp roll on a D6 and the most damage from a weapon matched to reflect the relationship between them. Better fighters in Chainmail were rated in terms of equivalence to multiple normal, unremarkable fighters, so a hero had 4HD to reflect being equivalent to four normal troops, for example, and a superhero twice as many. A monster could be the equivalent of even more men, thus having more HD of that size.

Then the idea that some characters should have more hp than others by dint of class arose. Why would mighty fighting men and puny magic-users both have the same size hit dice? Surely a burly, trained soldier should be able to take more abuse than a weakling who spends far too much time reading musty old tomes. So hit dice of differing sizes appeared. (I think decreasing the HD size for magic-users was a bad choice, by the way — they’re still normal persons and if random people on the street have a D6, then M-Us should, also.)

This is the moment when hit point bloat started. Now, a weapon strike of 6 points wasn’t a guaranteed fatal blow for all characters. That sword that could certainly skewer any given person, killing them, suddenly couldn’t kill some people. That led to variable weapon damage, so that longer swords could still kill all characters — an arms race gauged by damage points.

Put that together with AD&D’s larger bonuses due to high attributes and now hit points quickly outpace what came before. A Chainmail Hero, at 4HD, averaged 14 hp. An AD&D 4th level fighter, at 4HD, averaged 22 hp. That’s without considering that the Chainmail & OD&D Hero gets no bonus for Constitution and the AD&D fighter can get up to +4 per die. Oof! That’s how we ended up with laments about hit point bloat.

Now, to solve that problem, we can take several steps. Most of the steps I list here are not unique to me, just ways others have addressed the issue over the years. I’m also listing those I’ve at least toyed with that proved to be effective to some degree without totally changing the feel of play.

Reduce the bonuses for extraordinary attributes. This can shave many hp from PCs, especially fighters with the highest scores. If no PC can gain more than 1 extra hp per die, then the worst excesses are eliminated.

Limit the number of hit dice to be gained. There are lots of tables where PCs only gain hit dice through six levels. That culls roughly a third off the possible totals gained through RAW nine levels adding HD.

Assign fighters smaller HD. Fighter PCs were the most egregious offenders of hit point bloat, with those shiny D10s they roll (and then barbarians arrived with D12s). Limit HD to nothing above a D8 and more points get shaved off possible totals.

Use shrinking hit dice. Use the regular hit die size for 1st level, then use smaller dice for the levels after. Drop everybody to D4s from 2nd level onward. Or drop HD size by step every level until down to a D4: D10 –> D8 –> D6 –> D4, for fighters; clerics D8 –> D6 –> D4; and so on.

Roll hit points differently. One way is to roll 2 dice and average them to get the hp increase for a level. Some folks hate the thought of having to do addition and division to do this, so not workable at some tables.

Roll a single die size for hit points. This is actually my solution, though it’s not quite what one would expect. I’m not advocating for all PCs to again roll D6s for hp. I’m advocating using a D4 for all PCs, with a different bonus added for each class.

The average of D4 rolls over the long haul is 2.5 per die. With a D6, that raises a point to 3.5, then a D8 another point to 4.5. That means the difference between an average D4 roll and a D6 roll is one point; we may as well roll the D4 and add a bonus to get a D6 average.

The price for using this rolling approach is that we can’t roll the maximum for a given die size, so no 6 results on a D4+1 roll. The larger the die size, the more lost off the top end. Notice that we also removed the lowest possible results from the mix, so no worries about only rolling a 1. With D8s and D10s replaced in this fashion, we remove even more of the lower end of the possible results.

So, a D4 straight up for magic-users. Range 1 – 4; average 2.5.

A D4+1 for thieves. Range 2 – 5; average 3.5, same as D6.

A D4+2 for clerics. Range 3 – 6; average 4.5, same as D8.

A D4+3 for fighters. Range 4 – 7; average 5.5, same as D10.

This approach meets a lot of preferences. It maintains the same average rolls. The math is easy. The results in the range are all evenly weighted, unlike with rolling multiple dice to sum or average. And, most importantly, it removes the highest totals from possibility, decreasing bloat.

Using this approach, that 4th level fighter still averages 22 hp from dice rolls; the max number of hp rolling this way for 4th level is 28, though, which eliminates anything even approaching the max roll of 40 using D10s. Use this approach in conjunction with limiting the number of HD to 5 or 6 and reducing the possible bonus to hit points due to Constitution, and hit point totals are much more manageable.

© 2026 OSRPGtalk

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑