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| Lich King by Peter Mullen (2020) |
d12 PAMPHLETS FOUND IN A DUNGEON
Just a little goofy random "table" here that doesn't really serve anything other than a quick giggle. If I had to throw something out to populate it, it'd probably be something akin to "Warlocks & Weirdos: Recognizing an Enemy Spellcaster Before Being Turned Into Goo."
A Note on the Foreword
As a doom-scrolling, brain-rotted Zoomer, I resent the lack of recognition in this particular prologue, but considering how young myself and others in my generation would have been during the first stirrings of the OSR and a general assurance that none of us actively used Google+, I suppose it's understandable. That said, the OSR is assured to see an influx of Gen Z creators and ideas seep in with enough time, if indeed we are still referring to it as the OSR. As we become more atomized in our interests and more willing to accept processing longform content with age, I think rediscovering seminal blogs of this space will be a real treat for many. It's also interesting to note what I perceive to be a lack of confidence in this foreword, as if the creators were unsure that this kind of project would actually materialize. I cannot help but notice how far it has come.
WHAT I WANT IN AN OSR GAME by Brooks Dailey
Alright, here we go, the meat and potatoes. This article discusses some of the maxims and aims of the OSR as compared with a more generalized, modern TTRPG experience. Essentially, Brooks asserts that the OSR is a distinct experience because it actively eschews the need for narrative continuance and cohesion in favor of, well, a game. The GM presents a game world, the players describe what they do, and the GM tells them what happens. Something something tactical infinity, something something rulings over rules. The OSR is a challenge or puzzle that requires players to be skilled in order to "solve" the problems presented.
I think Brooks hits the nail on the head when name-dropping pulp fiction stories and characters: we're not lounging on who's and why's so much as exploding into the when's and how's. The conceit of OSR play is that it is a challenge-based experience where the story unfolds not according to narrative arcs but logical results of interaction with a weird, unpredictable world. I think 5e players have a hard time adjusting to this style of play because the culture of play it's associated with is almost diametrically opposed to players as agents of change in the world. Yes, you did save the world and find closure on your tragic ten-page backstory, but all of that was intentionally facilitated by the GM's plotlines. In the OSR, your achievements are exactly that: achievements. Your characters earned them because you as a player won at playing, and the GM was just there to tell you what the world does in response to your actions. This doesn't (necessarily) mean that the GM was playing against you, but the world sure as shit was, and you beat it anyway.
This was a smart first piece on the part of the editors since it functions as a distillation of the ideas of the oft cited Principia Apocrypha lightly juxtaposed with features of other modern games. This helps orient neophytes to the OSR mindset without abandoning what might have been a psychological anchor for some people's understanding of roleplaying.
A comparison of old and new D&D by Gavin Norman
Man, this article originated in the shrouded annals of anno domini 2011, and Gavin asserts in the original digital version that this was his first "OSR philosophy" post. That's bananas to me considering the first OSR system I became familiar with was OSE, and I'm pretty sure that game is the de facto system for old-school play today. Anyways, the bottom line of the text is in a similar vein to the one before it, but this one hones in on what I see as two important concepts: reactionary rulings (over rules) and table individualization.
The more amorphous nature of procedure and character metrics in the older games make it hard for players not to settle into the idea that rather than playing a piece of paper, they need to play like they are actually trying to fight a monster or disarm a trap by torchlight. This echoes the challenge-based focus of Brooks' piece from a slightly different angle: the fiction of what is happening is not centered in narrative motivations, and characters are not centered in ability quantification. You have to play like you are trying to win, and your character is a cool vehicle in the game to impose your will and die horribly in your stead when you screw up. A lack of rules (that players can see) means that a GM is empowered and encouraged to negotiate the creative actions of players into a rules framework that is stretchy enough to accommodate quite a bit of tomfoolery.
A corollary to this is the recognition that different GMs will likely rule things differently because of how they have structured their internal rulings process in conjunction with the written rules. Gavin asserts that this creates a dialogue between players and GMs seeking to reach consensus on what is appropriate for what crops up during play, avoiding the need to process or memorize extensive situational rules. I can't help but agree that this works better for me in many ways because I find needing to digest or even look up rules to be much less fun than just going with whatever sounds cool (as long as it doesn't irreparably damage the game's logic).
Monster Design from Classics - The Lich by Chris McDowall
Chris talks about how to vary the stats of a lich in a way to create new monsters in a variety of flavors while retaining the balance/essence of the original. Frankly, I'm not a huge fan of the writing in this one, despite the fact that I utilize the concept regularly. I think Chris doesn't do a great job of actually retaining the essence of his example monster as a throughline for all of the variations he arrives at and presents.
It would have been better if he established some archetypes and shown how a lich might have functioned within them, or shown how creatures within the same archetype might differ because of flavor. Whether it's the "Big and Dumb" or "Small and Smart" categorization, or something outside of these, there's a way to make a monster feel like a lich if you nail the tone and abilities. Likewise, there are tons of ways to make a physically weak but magically adept enemy not make people think "oh, like a lich." It doesn't seem fruitful to just name a bunch of creatures that could be any other monster with a unique theme and say "ah yes, this is obviously an extremely warped variation of a lich."
Maybe I'm missing something here, but this piece is kind of a stinker in my opinion when it comes to the writing and presentation. There are better ways to illustrate this concept. I'm not even really a fan, but Pointy Hat knocked this idea out of the park in my opinion by comparison, and he's firmly rooted in solely the 5e ecosystem. As good of a writer and designer Chris is, it's very strange that this is one of the things representing him in KNOCK!
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That's all for now. As I was writing this, Questing Beast uploaded a video on what the OSR playstyle is, and I'm glad that I detected a significant degree of continuity with how I define it.
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