KNOCK!-off #1.5

An artist's rendition of what sacrificing
HP to make attacks might look like.

Still chugging... for now.

What's the Deal With Igor's Hump by Jack Shear

You never know when you might need a random table for hump biology. Rate my OC: The mad scientist to which Igor is employed is, quite obviously, a lich. The lich's simulacrum is sealed within layers of metal casings and runic wards... inside Igor's hump. If his master is defeated, Igor will do anything in his power to relocate safely so that the lich can emerge from the emergency incubation hump d4 weeks later. Gross.

Some Ways of Killing D&D People by Daniel Sell

This list of interchangeable death systems is to die for.

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Sorry.

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The first has what I believe to be a slight typo that confused me at first, but ultimately makes for a really clean, delightfully unpredictable system: roll a d100 over your lifetime accumulated damage or die. Clean, easy to remember, and (perhaps the most underrated aspect) prevents you from having that huge smudge on a character sheet's HP box from constantly writing and erasing.

The second feels like a modified hit dice system that I talked about previously when examining Mr. Nieudan's thoughts. You spend HP to roll saves or attack, turning health into stamina as well. This definitely leans into the "dice are your last resort" idea that we have also seen in Brooks Dailey's WHAT I WANT IN AN OSR GAME, also previously covered. Look at me go remembering these things.

Finally, unrelated to HP directly, damage dice exploding now appears in other systems like Savage Worlds and EZD6 as a prominent feature I believe. Good stuff.

Not mentioned in this piece is something I like trying to include where possible: one last action before you croak. This capstone for a character's life tends to make for more memorable moments when permitted even if it is funny that low level adventurers can just be obliterated in a snap. I would also be tempted to tack on a light scarring system to the first rule Daniel brings up if you get within a few points of dying on a roll, leaving a character with a reminder of a close call.

OSR-STYLE CHALLENGES: “Rulings Not Rules” is INSUFFICIENT by Arnold K

After so many one-pagers, this one forced me to turn the rest of my brain on. The title is a bit of a rage bait/clickbait way of explaining to the reader that declaring a game should rely on one of the OSR sacred maxims is different from seeing it reinforced at different levels of interaction. These levels—being system, adventure, DM, and players—need to facilitate or even necessitate DM intercession in the form of rulings.

In the case of a system, having rules that specify overly-specific situations in granular detail informs participants that there is an expectation that they should abide by these regulatory stipulations rather than just, you know, implementing something reasonable if/when it comes up in play. Arnold brings up "incomplete systems" as something that can naturally avoid this since common sense plugs the gaps, but further iterates that systems cannot have inextricably interdependent components lest you break stuff you actually weren't supposed to. Nate Treme is legitimately a genius for Tunnel Goons in this regard since there is literally nothing to break and everything to rule on.

That said, a goon of the tunnel variety is not suited for dungeon of the linear, CR-balanced, combat-focused variety. At the adventure level, you need some level of shoulder shrugging to let players be able to scheme their way out of something. The mother of innovation is necessity, especially if the GM is thinking "damn, I'm not sure where I'd even start with this." Furthermore, the magic tools gathered in journeying through these whackadoo wilds should not be assigned a numeric value so much as a descriptive one; OSR tools don't help succeed checks, they help you avoid them. You have my permission to print this article out and take a highlighter to that last sentence.

The last two levels can be smushed together and can be addressed by boiling everything down into a few pithy cents: be a fan of the PCs, manage expectations, and pretend (perhaps even roleplay) like you were really there, all things I have now seen and declared true before.

K!1 has done a really good job so far of asking me to take what it be that was revealed by the foundational documents of the movement and churning my brain through the insights of what others in the space think about them. It's the equivalent of holding the odd, misshapen mess that OSR is in a physical form and rotating it around to look at it from every conceivable angle. Maybe tasting it, too. Just a little lick.

My Goblins Are... by Fiona Maeve Geist

Goblins are the spice of life, especially if they are extra weird. This piece is basically just a lore entry for goblins you should be using and a few tables It would feel wrong to tamper with anything presented or add on a meaningless table row. Instead, I shall share with you as suggestion that between sessions, games, campaigns, settings, groups, etc... you use the same goblin; inexplicably integrated and unnervingly knowledgeable, like a cosmically ordained jester destined to appear one way or another as an avatar of an eldritch and mildly irritating will.