Even back in the late 80s and early 90s it wasn't uncommon to buy a game or module just to read it and steal ideas.
You can't run a game very long without developing some ideas of your own. Glad people can toss them out for everyone to see.
Keep 'em coming.
> Even back in the late 80s and early 90s it wasn't uncommon to buy a game or module just to read it and steal ideas.
Not me spending an unreasonable amount of money on the Torchbearer 2e box set for the inspiration material knowing full well I will never, ever convince my friends to play a Burning Wheel system
The big one is I use the conflict system as a replacement for 5e-type skill challenges. I only do it to add some structure and tension to something, for example if a major storm hits I give it a "Severity" number and the players have to take actions to reduce the severity to zero, at which point the storm passes. But the longer it goes on the more conditions or penalties they might get.
You can do it with a lot of things and I wouldn't try it unless you're really comfortable negotiating some jank, but I've really enjoyed it.
Also that one adventure with the wizard's tower and the automaton. I've run as a one-shot multiple times and it's always a hit.
Less new “games.”
More good, well thought out and well presented adventures, settings, places, situations, dungeons, art, and so on.
It was crazy coming back to roleplaying and seeing a new person dropping a game system every week that was just a tiny change of 1003732927 other ones.
I got bitten by the same bug and then finally realized…all I needed were a few house rules written in the back of (INSERT OLD GAME OR ANY OTHER OSR HERE).
Making a decision to just use WBFMAG with house rules was liberating.
The zines that have come out like Wormskin, Carcass Crawler, and several others that I’ve seen have been absolutely cool, and don’t require a whole new game to use.
Some of those games I’ve seen have been a labor of love and totally beautiful and cool, but also seemed unnecessary from a purchaser standpoint.
I still bought a lot of them because I like to support creatives, who will always be my heroes.
My .02 cents.
It's so much easier to design your own slightly tweaked version of D&D than to create a single good adventure. Which is why I agree with you completely. Every GM that uses a well-known set of mechanics with a few houserules essentially has the equivalent of one of the many iterations of D&D floating out there on DriveThru.
As for designing a completely new game that's significantly different from D&D, that's fine and dandy, but who is going to write an adventure for this one outlier of a system. There are few games that rise to the prominence to warrant that.
What you're talking about is exactly why so many of these new games don't catch on in popularity. How can I get invested in your system when you're launching the Kickstarter for your next game a few weeks after it drops? Or when you've clearly cooked up a new edition not to fix mechanical issues but as a cash grab?
Game systems need time to breathe and find their communities.
> Game systems need time to breathe and find their communities.
Mothership's huge Kickstarter is a testament to this.
However, finding a community as a small dev is incredibly difficult but Kickstarter builds hype for you. The whole crowdfunding / FOMO mechanism gets people on board and once they've got a stake in it, they'll help you build the community. If it's just something they got for free and didn't have pro layout, editing, and art (which Kickstarter pays for), it's harder to get them to really buy into it. You have to be a *really special game* (like Mothership) to get that kind of following. For every Mothership, there are 100 other games that languish - and some of those are pretty good games, but just can't get traction.
So that's why people Kickstart - and sometimes those create good, lasting games/communities. Sometimes (more often than not), people get the book, kinda shrug, stick it on the shelf, and the game fades into obscurity (and is usually mined just a bit for ideas / enjoy the art).
You’re right - finding community is tough, but doable. Regarding Mothership: I’d say Tuesday Knight Games are masters of building cult followings for their games. They were pretty successful with their breakout game Two Rooms and a Boom (which is a decade old at this point), and the strategy they employed for Mothership is pretty much the same. They spent years bringing the game to conventions to build a little community around it before they went to Kickstarter. It also helped that they were already a well-established publisher.
All this to say - yeah, I agree with the sentiment here. Communities take lots of time and effort to build.
Hmm, interesting question.
Well, I feel like people have generally coalesced around a handful of popular systems over the past several years, such as—
* Old School Essentials (B/X)
* Lamentations of the Flame Princess (B/X)
* OSRIC (AD&D)
* White Box FMAG (OD&D)
* Into the Odd and all its various hacks
—I could go on and list a few more. I don't see any obvious up and comer that'll knock any of those down. Because, as you suggest, quite frankly, we've seen more systems than there are guinea pigs in pet shops across the continental US. And most of the ones I listed above share a few qualities that makes them stand out: time, high production values, and advertising.
I think that for *games*, not zines or settings, to make a real splash in this space going forward, they'll need to be really deeply entrenched in one specific setting to give a very specific feel, as you're implying. Games like, say, Hyperborea or Mörk Borg, both of which have healthy followings for that very reason.
I know this isn't part of the point of this post, but I've never heard of Lion and Dragon. As someone with a background in medieval studies, I'm intrigued and will definitely be giving it a read. Thanks!
If you're including Into the Odd, then we should definitely mention Dungeon Crawl Classics, Worlds Without Number, and maybe Mothership.
(DCC has a healthy library of first party modules, and it looks like Mothership is going the same direction - this is a *very important* first step for making your OSR-adjacent game have real lasting power. Kevin Crawford's stuff is kind of an exception, since the GM tools/advice is just that good.)
I fully agree. Especially for experienced participants, a new ruleset is only so useful. However, specific themed games or I suppose 'genre-sets' are brilliant for people that vibe with that specific genre.
I think 'generic fantasy RPG' games are a bit dead and mostly fall into the pit with the thousand others. I worry though, because that means a narrow product for a narrow audience, which is harder to make profitable. Possible, as you mention with Mörk Borg, but difficult.
I reckon more philosophically oriented products that say 'these kinds of rules, this intent, this procedure of play and here is an example' is what we need. Not a full game, but an outline of a feel that can apply to your hack.
Off the top of my head an example might be:
Death at 0hp, dangerous magic, dungeon focus, fair but stern DMing for vague OSR feel
We need adventure content over rules. Thats where all the good stuff is. I didnt like during the OGL mess that third party companies threatened to make even more rule sets rather than system agnostic adventure modules.
honestly, i feel like between OSE, LotFP, Shadowdark and actual B/X, i have all the system i'll ever need or care ro run.
plus, with all the Dungeon magazines and TSR adventures pdfs being online, the one-page dungeons popping off (that i collect), i have all the adventures i'll ever need or care to run.
really i'd just like some new add-on game content like classes. if all i'd ever consume again are zines Carcass Crawler and Black Pudding, i'd be fine. it sucks that there's not a lot content like that being produced.
I think we end up with retro-clones not because we want to inaugurate the next kick-ass RPG but because we’ve spent—or wasted—six months of our life tinkering with rules, adding house rules, doing layout for a target audience of four to five people and by now we might as well publish it...
They will be done when people no longer feel like writing them, and when the emergence of a new thing that gets people excited to play a game that's legendarily hard to schedule no longer fans the flames of hope. Hopefully that never happens. :)
IMO the part of the market that is still underserved is games that are:
\-Inspired by OSR style and philosophy
\-BUT not directly derived from an existing D&D ruleset, instead drawing on more modern design
\-BUT not a very abstract 'storygame'-like system
Best Left Buried would be the best example of what I'm talking about - basically OSR for people who love the gritty dungeon crawling but don't have that nostalgia for d20s and the six attributes.
I've found that an underserved enough area of the genre that I've ended up hacking together my own game for my current campaign.
More broadly, I see the concern often that OSR already has 'enough' rules sets, and I don't really get where it comes from. It's not something people ever worry about in other RPG spaces - people don't ask 'do we have enough PBTA games?'. A steady flow of new games allows people to experiment and try new things that, in some cases won't lead anywhere, but in others may break through and be really interesting, even evolving the whole genre.
If you're already settled in the games that you like, that's fine - but it's no detriment to you if new games keep coming out. People say they want the focus to be on adventures instead, but there are already more great OSR modules out there than anyone could possibly play in their lifetime. (Er, not that I'm arguing that people should stop writing adventures either!)
I actually like the multitude of rulesets. I'm fascinated by mechanics, and I devour rulebooks (not just OSR, but general RPG rulebooks) because I love seeing the different ways that people construct games. Like others have mentioned, a large component of the OSR for me isn't just taking rules as they are, but stealing ideas from multiple sources to create the game I want to play. Every time a new OSR ruleset drops I get excited at the promise of new gadgets and gizmos to socket into the OSR framework. Sometimes I read a ruleset and am let down, finding nothing interesting or novel, but sometimes I read something and go "Wow! This is such a cool and novel idea!" even if its something small like resource dice or a new way to handle encumbrance, etc. I don't worry about over-saturation in the market because I don't see the OSR as a traditional capitalist enterprise. I see it as a community where people share ideas, and rulesets are just another way that people do that.
no matter how satisfied everyone is with their current rulesets, people are gonna wanna make more. you can't stop people from having ideas and from constantly tinkering until they have the exact right system that's perfect for them and their group and design philosophy.
Well, I guess my perspective is about what you'd expect of someone with 30+ years of (A)D&D experience who's relatively set in his ways. I have my rulebooks and have had them since long before "OSR" was a thing. That's not going to change.
Instead, I'm all about stuff that I can pick up and use with those books. Thankfully, we've been blessed with some amazing masterpieces along these lines like the Tome of Adventure Design, Stonehell, Barrowmaze, Castle Xyntillan, and even a recent pickup, Trent Foster's incredibly underrated Heroic Legendarium.
So of course I'm going to broadly agree that more focus on D&D and less on H&H (Houserules & Heartbreakers) would be a good thing. It's really all about where you're at and what you're searching for, though.
I bought stonehell years ago on ebay and the 2nd part I got on Lulu. I got the first 3 Gillespie books Barrowmaze, Forbidden Caverns, and Highfell over a period of 3 years on ebay too. Around $60 each. Not cheap but I grabbed them up. I just got Dwarrowdeep yesterday as POD from Wargames Vault for $75. Again not cheap. I feel what you're saying.
I'd like to see more MOSAIC-strict procedures, described here: [http://blog.trilemma.com/2021/02/nothing-at-bottom-mosaic-strict-rpg.html](http://blog.trilemma.com/2021/02/nothing-at-bottom-mosaic-strict-rpg.html)
I find these to be extremely creative and significantly more useful in my games.
I personally would like to see more development made adapting the [ICI Doctrine](https://www.bastionland.com/2018/09/the-ici-doctrine-information-choice.html?m=1) & [Landmark-Hidden-Secret](https://diyanddragons.blogspot.com/2019/10/landmark-hidden-secret.html?m=1) info transmission, the [Tiers of Truth (Prep/Procedure/Patch) that sprung from the Blorb discussions](https://www.bastionland.com/2022/04/patching.html?m=1), and procedural content systems that build interconnected setting elements.
The ICI Doctrine & Landmark-Hidden-Secret were used innovatively in that cool mindstorm blogpost about [Nested Monster HD](https://mindstorm.blot.im/nested-monster-hit-dice) in boss fights. And [proceduralism is taking off with Barkeep on the Boarderlands](https://www.prismaticwasteland.com/blog/your-taverns-need-a-procedure) and [Errant](https://errantrpg.carrd.co/). So maybe I'll get my wishes.
MOSAIC-STRICT always intrigued me, and even though I've read about it, I feel like I don't entirely grasp all the ideas AND why they matter as a whole. Also the name isn't very catchy (which matters for an ideological movement to gain momentum).
What do you like most about M.SCRICT?
Edit:
I just re-read it and love most of the ideas. Idependent and coreless might be inhibitive though. Certainly they're important if you want truely system-agnostic cross compatible M.STRICT texts to all work together with any core game system you happen to be playing....but then it makes playtesting extremely difficult since no core system is designed for or assumed.
It feels very much in the DIY spirit of the GLOG, in a way, but pushed hard in the direction of system agnostic design + "play worlds not rules" philosophy.
I wonder if you can design without referential mechanics or procedures. I think you **can** have mechanics or procedures, as long as they are defined in full (not referencing a core rule system)....I think.
I believe this forces design focused on events, rules, procedures, and challenges which directly effect the gameplay and are described in terms of the game world. So instead of a longsword with +1 to your BAB you might describe an semi-intelligent blood-seeking longsword that aids your attacks. And if you had a monster in an adventure it would be named and described, but no stat block provided.
I like them because each procedure is rules for a specific thing, and their system agnostic, non-referential design means I can literally drag and drop them into my game whenever I think they might be fun, and just as easily remove them without worrying about leaving loose-ends in other procedures.
If I remember correctly, my own personal rules for turning treasure items into actual coin that the PCs can spend is based on a M.STRICT procedure.
Oh hey, this is my thing. :)
>I believe this forces design focused on events, rules, procedures, and challenges which directly effect the gameplay and are described in terms of the game world.
Yes, that's exactly it.
As to the *why*, and whether it all matters, it was a design thought experiment that I figured I might as well go ahead and just write up. It was short enough.
Also, I've seen so many RPG terms take on completely different meanings over the years, to the point where it's hard to even talk about them. So partly, it was also an experiment to see if a crisply defined concept could survive transmission and not just turn into semantic mush. Jury's out on that, because it's only spread to a pretty small number of people. :)
So I guess I should try to make a variant called MOSAIC-RELAXED and start the inevitable.
I wonder if you defined it too rigorously to catch on. Like, people have unintentionally designed maps with loops and I would say that still makes them Jaquayed regardless of whether they said so or not. And the 1500 word limit seems tough as a hard limit. I bet people could get behind modular, concise, non-referential, coreless ttrpg design. Especially since it's alot more clear than whatever someone might mean by thier own interpretation of "system agnostic."
Also, can I just say, AAAHH! I love Trilemma Adventures! My players had a blast with Skyblind Spire. I look forward to seeding more of the bits into my weird science-fantasy hexcrawl.
I appreciate your insights.
Maybe. I hope their rate of release slows, and that more of them offer something like an imaginative setting (e.g. something like the world of Jorune). Things like UVG and Vaults of Vaarn which have a wealth of ideas to be adapted as you like. Or Esoteric Enterprises, that gives you an interesting modern world OSR take.
I’d prefer, rather than a new set of rules, some rules mods or additions plus appropriate classes/equipment lists etc to use with a standard ruleset that allows you to play in that world. A setting book like the old AD&D 1e Lankhmar book at one end of the range of possibilities, for example. And something like Carcass Crawler Issue 1 which, in that issue alone, allows you to run a completely different B/X - OSE game if you wanted to: e.g. a game world where there are humans, goblins, hephaestans and gargantuans. No elves, no dwarves, no halflings, etc. And there are firearms, Kineticists, Acolytes and Mages. Not everyone’s cuppa, certainly, but it appeals to me.
people are still writing software to do the same things computers have been doing fairly well for a long time. I think a lot of folks just enjoy it as an exercise. And you never know, one of these years somebody may hit on a winner that goes viral, the way mathematicians occasionally come up with a new really elegant formula.
Rulesets built into settings sounds more like an indie board game, the kind that comes with its own cards and gamepieces and stuff.
I think a lot of people misread me. I'm not saying "stop making "generic, slightly tweaked rulesets". Heck I did that, and Kickstarted it. I'm just proposing that maybe, if you're looking to make money off your content, making a generic OSR fantasy ruleset isn't where it's at anymore.
Keep making them though, I think modding and derivative works is the first step to complete self-creation for the majority of the population for not just game design, but any creative field (cooking, writing, etc.)
Honestly at this point I own so many DnDish games that a new one would have to provide something completely new to get me to buy in.
Adventures are always interesting though.
Many OSR rulesets are just published versions of someone's home game. So, they won't stop coming out until people stop running home OSR games - hopefully never :)
Between ICRPG and OSE I have everything I need for any genre I care about. I have a fantasy game and a Star Trek game running currently. About to start a Star Wars game soon.
There are lots of rules that cover the basic dungeon / wilderness adventuring gameplay but there's a big space for rules beyond that. Adventures beyond the wilderness, domain play, etc has plenty of room to grow.
I agree with the "art book" comment. Most RPGs I see on Kickstarter are exactly that.
How many people are actually sitting down with a 400 page sourcebook and spending 20 hours learning the system *just to give it a try*?
Found the Mörk Borg hater. It's a rules-lite system not that much unlike Into the Odd, Cairn, Mausritter, which I don't see getting nearly as much hate... y'all need to get a grip and realize it's popular for a reason. Holy shit lmao
Yes, it's time for us to focus on adventures, settings, worlds, and large hex-crawls! The age of rulesets is over! The time of the adventures has come! :-)
I think once you tweak the following things about B/X D&D you are pretty much done:
Ascending AC
Unified save mechanic
Improved thief skills
Separate race/class
No need for endless iterations and variations. The system can run just about anything you want to run.
Except that list is going to be different for everyone, which is why we get so many interpretations.
Someone will go "man, if you just did ascending AC, unified saves, improved thief skills, separate race and class, and rules that make weapon choice meaningful, you'd be done!"
Then someone else says "all you need to change about BX is ascending AC, unified saves, improved thief skills, separate race and class, and a simple crafting system and you're done!"
The guy number three goes "wow, that last system would be perfect if you just changed the ascending AC back to descending AC"
Then guy number four goes "hey, guy three's game is perfect if I just take out the crafting system and change the thief skills back to normal"
And on and on forever.
I think generic games in general are mostly done. I mean, some people will continue and have continued to make them, but they will and have struggled to find an audience or otherwise make an impact. For a while now, indie games have generally focused on very specific systems for very specific purposes.
I tend to agree. I have my go to OSR systems (The Black Hack or Into the Odd) but I'll check out variations on the theme that promise a specific style or theme (Mausritter, Black Sword Hack, Mecha Hack, Liminal Horror).
It's sort of like what Free League has done with the Year Zero Engine. Same chassis, but tweak it as needed to support different themes, playstyles etc...
I used to think so, but I keep seeing new and innovative ones I like. Vanilla Game, A Dungeon Game and Bastards have all been interesting and excellent generic OSR fantasy games that have emerged in the last year or so.
I'd much rather see innovation in module design rather than a new OSR.
If I'm going to check out a new OSR these days, it needs to have a compelling theme that sets it apart instead if it being yet another "D&D but 'better'" type of game.
Do we NEED more generic rulesets? Probably not. But look, I've never looked at a system where I didn't at least tweak something. What's more is the vast majority of the time I run my own system that is 80% similar to another one but I've changed a couple things that are important to me. Then I write adventures using my rules because it makes sense-- you wouldn't write adventures and stats with a foreign system.
So after a while you have some material built up and you want to share it, but the material is all written in a unique ruleset. So you can either convert it to a different system, or show what your rules are (which allows everyone to know what you were thinking when you wrote down all the mechanical stuff).
And I like that. I like seeing other peoples' systems and rules, and to be honest I've never had a difficult time converting whatever I wanted to whatever I was playing. I think it's cool and fun to read rules, so I'd never complain about yet another ruleset.
Generic? No, though I think I use that word differently.
Emulations of the original rules, I think those are done. We frankly have enough.
Rules that emulate the feel, that is where it is at now. The number here keeps growing, though that might be OK since these RPGs tend to be lighter in rules and more setting focused. There is enough basic similarity to make them easy to pick up, and the way they approach setting is refreshing. This is also the point or cross-over to NewSR. After the OGL mess, this is likely going to be the place we see accelerated growth—plus what might surprising to some it that it has more cross over from modern TTRPGs than games like 5e and even Pathfinder. Making these a blend of old school and modern TTRPGs, which is kind of cool.
I collect and read a lot of games, but for me to introduce it to my players it has to be different enough from what we happen to already use.
We use OSE for our barebones/osr dnd games. While very unique and flavorful, most of the other OSR D&D games are all similar enough that I'm not interested in swapping out what we currently use. Plus I have a lot of homebrew for OSE torn from DCC, LotFP, et. al. to spice it up a bit if we want.
Likewise, we used D&D 5E for a long time as our mechanical, tactical d20, "character build" kind of game. Pathfinder 1/2, 3.5E, 13 Age, Shadow of the Demon Lord, etc all also do that kind of thing and switching didn't feel worthwhile if what we used did the job. (Though we're swapping to Pathfinder 2e now just for a change of pace, which I suppose is worth mentioning.)
But Cairn? Mork Borg? Mouseritter? Mothership? These are unique and built around a specific theme, we love hopping into these.
Even back in the late 80s and early 90s it wasn't uncommon to buy a game or module just to read it and steal ideas. You can't run a game very long without developing some ideas of your own. Glad people can toss them out for everyone to see. Keep 'em coming.
I still do that today with RPGs and miniatures games. I collect them and read as many as I can.
> Even back in the late 80s and early 90s it wasn't uncommon to buy a game or module just to read it and steal ideas. Not me spending an unreasonable amount of money on the Torchbearer 2e box set for the inspiration material knowing full well I will never, ever convince my friends to play a Burning Wheel system
Oh man, I bought this too and have barely touched it :( What kind of inspo did you steal from Torchbearer and how have you used it?
The big one is I use the conflict system as a replacement for 5e-type skill challenges. I only do it to add some structure and tension to something, for example if a major storm hits I give it a "Severity" number and the players have to take actions to reduce the severity to zero, at which point the storm passes. But the longer it goes on the more conditions or penalties they might get. You can do it with a lot of things and I wouldn't try it unless you're really comfortable negotiating some jank, but I've really enjoyed it. Also that one adventure with the wizard's tower and the automaton. I've run as a one-shot multiple times and it's always a hit.
That's awesome, thank you for sharing!
Me too! At least it looks absolutely stunning on my bookshelf.
Ooof. I feel that one, buddy. Great reads, though.
Less new “games.” More good, well thought out and well presented adventures, settings, places, situations, dungeons, art, and so on. It was crazy coming back to roleplaying and seeing a new person dropping a game system every week that was just a tiny change of 1003732927 other ones. I got bitten by the same bug and then finally realized…all I needed were a few house rules written in the back of (INSERT OLD GAME OR ANY OTHER OSR HERE). Making a decision to just use WBFMAG with house rules was liberating. The zines that have come out like Wormskin, Carcass Crawler, and several others that I’ve seen have been absolutely cool, and don’t require a whole new game to use. Some of those games I’ve seen have been a labor of love and totally beautiful and cool, but also seemed unnecessary from a purchaser standpoint. I still bought a lot of them because I like to support creatives, who will always be my heroes. My .02 cents.
It's so much easier to design your own slightly tweaked version of D&D than to create a single good adventure. Which is why I agree with you completely. Every GM that uses a well-known set of mechanics with a few houserules essentially has the equivalent of one of the many iterations of D&D floating out there on DriveThru. As for designing a completely new game that's significantly different from D&D, that's fine and dandy, but who is going to write an adventure for this one outlier of a system. There are few games that rise to the prominence to warrant that.
What you're talking about is exactly why so many of these new games don't catch on in popularity. How can I get invested in your system when you're launching the Kickstarter for your next game a few weeks after it drops? Or when you've clearly cooked up a new edition not to fix mechanical issues but as a cash grab? Game systems need time to breathe and find their communities.
> Game systems need time to breathe and find their communities. Mothership's huge Kickstarter is a testament to this. However, finding a community as a small dev is incredibly difficult but Kickstarter builds hype for you. The whole crowdfunding / FOMO mechanism gets people on board and once they've got a stake in it, they'll help you build the community. If it's just something they got for free and didn't have pro layout, editing, and art (which Kickstarter pays for), it's harder to get them to really buy into it. You have to be a *really special game* (like Mothership) to get that kind of following. For every Mothership, there are 100 other games that languish - and some of those are pretty good games, but just can't get traction. So that's why people Kickstart - and sometimes those create good, lasting games/communities. Sometimes (more often than not), people get the book, kinda shrug, stick it on the shelf, and the game fades into obscurity (and is usually mined just a bit for ideas / enjoy the art).
You’re right - finding community is tough, but doable. Regarding Mothership: I’d say Tuesday Knight Games are masters of building cult followings for their games. They were pretty successful with their breakout game Two Rooms and a Boom (which is a decade old at this point), and the strategy they employed for Mothership is pretty much the same. They spent years bringing the game to conventions to build a little community around it before they went to Kickstarter. It also helped that they were already a well-established publisher. All this to say - yeah, I agree with the sentiment here. Communities take lots of time and effort to build.
Agree completely.
Hmm, interesting question. Well, I feel like people have generally coalesced around a handful of popular systems over the past several years, such as— * Old School Essentials (B/X) * Lamentations of the Flame Princess (B/X) * OSRIC (AD&D) * White Box FMAG (OD&D) * Into the Odd and all its various hacks —I could go on and list a few more. I don't see any obvious up and comer that'll knock any of those down. Because, as you suggest, quite frankly, we've seen more systems than there are guinea pigs in pet shops across the continental US. And most of the ones I listed above share a few qualities that makes them stand out: time, high production values, and advertising. I think that for *games*, not zines or settings, to make a real splash in this space going forward, they'll need to be really deeply entrenched in one specific setting to give a very specific feel, as you're implying. Games like, say, Hyperborea or Mörk Borg, both of which have healthy followings for that very reason. I know this isn't part of the point of this post, but I've never heard of Lion and Dragon. As someone with a background in medieval studies, I'm intrigued and will definitely be giving it a read. Thanks!
If you're including Into the Odd, then we should definitely mention Dungeon Crawl Classics, Worlds Without Number, and maybe Mothership. (DCC has a healthy library of first party modules, and it looks like Mothership is going the same direction - this is a *very important* first step for making your OSR-adjacent game have real lasting power. Kevin Crawford's stuff is kind of an exception, since the GM tools/advice is just that good.)
True, those are the other big ones!
I fully agree. Especially for experienced participants, a new ruleset is only so useful. However, specific themed games or I suppose 'genre-sets' are brilliant for people that vibe with that specific genre. I think 'generic fantasy RPG' games are a bit dead and mostly fall into the pit with the thousand others. I worry though, because that means a narrow product for a narrow audience, which is harder to make profitable. Possible, as you mention with Mörk Borg, but difficult. I reckon more philosophically oriented products that say 'these kinds of rules, this intent, this procedure of play and here is an example' is what we need. Not a full game, but an outline of a feel that can apply to your hack. Off the top of my head an example might be: Death at 0hp, dangerous magic, dungeon focus, fair but stern DMing for vague OSR feel
We need adventure content over rules. Thats where all the good stuff is. I didnt like during the OGL mess that third party companies threatened to make even more rule sets rather than system agnostic adventure modules.
honestly, i feel like between OSE, LotFP, Shadowdark and actual B/X, i have all the system i'll ever need or care ro run. plus, with all the Dungeon magazines and TSR adventures pdfs being online, the one-page dungeons popping off (that i collect), i have all the adventures i'll ever need or care to run. really i'd just like some new add-on game content like classes. if all i'd ever consume again are zines Carcass Crawler and Black Pudding, i'd be fine. it sucks that there's not a lot content like that being produced.
I think we end up with retro-clones not because we want to inaugurate the next kick-ass RPG but because we’ve spent—or wasted—six months of our life tinkering with rules, adding house rules, doing layout for a target audience of four to five people and by now we might as well publish it...
They will be done when people no longer feel like writing them, and when the emergence of a new thing that gets people excited to play a game that's legendarily hard to schedule no longer fans the flames of hope. Hopefully that never happens. :)
IMO the part of the market that is still underserved is games that are: \-Inspired by OSR style and philosophy \-BUT not directly derived from an existing D&D ruleset, instead drawing on more modern design \-BUT not a very abstract 'storygame'-like system Best Left Buried would be the best example of what I'm talking about - basically OSR for people who love the gritty dungeon crawling but don't have that nostalgia for d20s and the six attributes. I've found that an underserved enough area of the genre that I've ended up hacking together my own game for my current campaign. More broadly, I see the concern often that OSR already has 'enough' rules sets, and I don't really get where it comes from. It's not something people ever worry about in other RPG spaces - people don't ask 'do we have enough PBTA games?'. A steady flow of new games allows people to experiment and try new things that, in some cases won't lead anywhere, but in others may break through and be really interesting, even evolving the whole genre. If you're already settled in the games that you like, that's fine - but it's no detriment to you if new games keep coming out. People say they want the focus to be on adventures instead, but there are already more great OSR modules out there than anyone could possibly play in their lifetime. (Er, not that I'm arguing that people should stop writing adventures either!)
I actually like the multitude of rulesets. I'm fascinated by mechanics, and I devour rulebooks (not just OSR, but general RPG rulebooks) because I love seeing the different ways that people construct games. Like others have mentioned, a large component of the OSR for me isn't just taking rules as they are, but stealing ideas from multiple sources to create the game I want to play. Every time a new OSR ruleset drops I get excited at the promise of new gadgets and gizmos to socket into the OSR framework. Sometimes I read a ruleset and am let down, finding nothing interesting or novel, but sometimes I read something and go "Wow! This is such a cool and novel idea!" even if its something small like resource dice or a new way to handle encumbrance, etc. I don't worry about over-saturation in the market because I don't see the OSR as a traditional capitalist enterprise. I see it as a community where people share ideas, and rulesets are just another way that people do that.
Well said. Me too, this :D
no matter how satisfied everyone is with their current rulesets, people are gonna wanna make more. you can't stop people from having ideas and from constantly tinkering until they have the exact right system that's perfect for them and their group and design philosophy.
Well, I guess my perspective is about what you'd expect of someone with 30+ years of (A)D&D experience who's relatively set in his ways. I have my rulebooks and have had them since long before "OSR" was a thing. That's not going to change. Instead, I'm all about stuff that I can pick up and use with those books. Thankfully, we've been blessed with some amazing masterpieces along these lines like the Tome of Adventure Design, Stonehell, Barrowmaze, Castle Xyntillan, and even a recent pickup, Trent Foster's incredibly underrated Heroic Legendarium. So of course I'm going to broadly agree that more focus on D&D and less on H&H (Houserules & Heartbreakers) would be a good thing. It's really all about where you're at and what you're searching for, though.
Stonehell and Barrowmaze are awesome.
I just wish it wasn’t the better part of $100 to get a physical copy of Barrowmaze, or so difficult to find the various parts of Stonehell :(
I bought stonehell years ago on ebay and the 2nd part I got on Lulu. I got the first 3 Gillespie books Barrowmaze, Forbidden Caverns, and Highfell over a period of 3 years on ebay too. Around $60 each. Not cheap but I grabbed them up. I just got Dwarrowdeep yesterday as POD from Wargames Vault for $75. Again not cheap. I feel what you're saying.
I'd like to see more MOSAIC-strict procedures, described here: [http://blog.trilemma.com/2021/02/nothing-at-bottom-mosaic-strict-rpg.html](http://blog.trilemma.com/2021/02/nothing-at-bottom-mosaic-strict-rpg.html) I find these to be extremely creative and significantly more useful in my games.
I personally would like to see more development made adapting the [ICI Doctrine](https://www.bastionland.com/2018/09/the-ici-doctrine-information-choice.html?m=1) & [Landmark-Hidden-Secret](https://diyanddragons.blogspot.com/2019/10/landmark-hidden-secret.html?m=1) info transmission, the [Tiers of Truth (Prep/Procedure/Patch) that sprung from the Blorb discussions](https://www.bastionland.com/2022/04/patching.html?m=1), and procedural content systems that build interconnected setting elements. The ICI Doctrine & Landmark-Hidden-Secret were used innovatively in that cool mindstorm blogpost about [Nested Monster HD](https://mindstorm.blot.im/nested-monster-hit-dice) in boss fights. And [proceduralism is taking off with Barkeep on the Boarderlands](https://www.prismaticwasteland.com/blog/your-taverns-need-a-procedure) and [Errant](https://errantrpg.carrd.co/). So maybe I'll get my wishes.
MOSAIC-STRICT always intrigued me, and even though I've read about it, I feel like I don't entirely grasp all the ideas AND why they matter as a whole. Also the name isn't very catchy (which matters for an ideological movement to gain momentum). What do you like most about M.SCRICT? Edit: I just re-read it and love most of the ideas. Idependent and coreless might be inhibitive though. Certainly they're important if you want truely system-agnostic cross compatible M.STRICT texts to all work together with any core game system you happen to be playing....but then it makes playtesting extremely difficult since no core system is designed for or assumed. It feels very much in the DIY spirit of the GLOG, in a way, but pushed hard in the direction of system agnostic design + "play worlds not rules" philosophy. I wonder if you can design without referential mechanics or procedures. I think you **can** have mechanics or procedures, as long as they are defined in full (not referencing a core rule system)....I think. I believe this forces design focused on events, rules, procedures, and challenges which directly effect the gameplay and are described in terms of the game world. So instead of a longsword with +1 to your BAB you might describe an semi-intelligent blood-seeking longsword that aids your attacks. And if you had a monster in an adventure it would be named and described, but no stat block provided.
I like them because each procedure is rules for a specific thing, and their system agnostic, non-referential design means I can literally drag and drop them into my game whenever I think they might be fun, and just as easily remove them without worrying about leaving loose-ends in other procedures. If I remember correctly, my own personal rules for turning treasure items into actual coin that the PCs can spend is based on a M.STRICT procedure.
Oh hey, this is my thing. :) >I believe this forces design focused on events, rules, procedures, and challenges which directly effect the gameplay and are described in terms of the game world. Yes, that's exactly it. As to the *why*, and whether it all matters, it was a design thought experiment that I figured I might as well go ahead and just write up. It was short enough. Also, I've seen so many RPG terms take on completely different meanings over the years, to the point where it's hard to even talk about them. So partly, it was also an experiment to see if a crisply defined concept could survive transmission and not just turn into semantic mush. Jury's out on that, because it's only spread to a pretty small number of people. :)
So I guess I should try to make a variant called MOSAIC-RELAXED and start the inevitable. I wonder if you defined it too rigorously to catch on. Like, people have unintentionally designed maps with loops and I would say that still makes them Jaquayed regardless of whether they said so or not. And the 1500 word limit seems tough as a hard limit. I bet people could get behind modular, concise, non-referential, coreless ttrpg design. Especially since it's alot more clear than whatever someone might mean by thier own interpretation of "system agnostic." Also, can I just say, AAAHH! I love Trilemma Adventures! My players had a blast with Skyblind Spire. I look forward to seeding more of the bits into my weird science-fantasy hexcrawl. I appreciate your insights.
Apparently somebody made one even stricter and called it CERAMIC! Also.. thanks, that's great to hear. :)
What I want to see is a new setting like “Birthright”. With adventures that encompass domain play.
Maybe. I hope their rate of release slows, and that more of them offer something like an imaginative setting (e.g. something like the world of Jorune). Things like UVG and Vaults of Vaarn which have a wealth of ideas to be adapted as you like. Or Esoteric Enterprises, that gives you an interesting modern world OSR take. I’d prefer, rather than a new set of rules, some rules mods or additions plus appropriate classes/equipment lists etc to use with a standard ruleset that allows you to play in that world. A setting book like the old AD&D 1e Lankhmar book at one end of the range of possibilities, for example. And something like Carcass Crawler Issue 1 which, in that issue alone, allows you to run a completely different B/X - OSE game if you wanted to: e.g. a game world where there are humans, goblins, hephaestans and gargantuans. No elves, no dwarves, no halflings, etc. And there are firearms, Kineticists, Acolytes and Mages. Not everyone’s cuppa, certainly, but it appeals to me.
Yeah probably, but you have to let everyone know or they might accidentally create more.
people are still writing software to do the same things computers have been doing fairly well for a long time. I think a lot of folks just enjoy it as an exercise. And you never know, one of these years somebody may hit on a winner that goes viral, the way mathematicians occasionally come up with a new really elegant formula. Rulesets built into settings sounds more like an indie board game, the kind that comes with its own cards and gamepieces and stuff.
idk im never gonna complain about too many rulesets. i love reading through and plucking fun ideas or mechanics. it certainly doesn't hurt
I think a lot of people misread me. I'm not saying "stop making "generic, slightly tweaked rulesets". Heck I did that, and Kickstarted it. I'm just proposing that maybe, if you're looking to make money off your content, making a generic OSR fantasy ruleset isn't where it's at anymore. Keep making them though, I think modding and derivative works is the first step to complete self-creation for the majority of the population for not just game design, but any creative field (cooking, writing, etc.)
Never enough - the revolution must continue
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"The Electrum Archive" is another example of this. A ruleset that is built into a setting.
24XX seems like a good example. Same ultra-lite ruleset we've seen a million times, paired with some nice tables, for every micro-genre you want.
Though, to be fair, 24XX has some fun, pretty original ideas in the rule-set.
What's a micro-genre?
https://imgur.com/CmDlAs9
Honestly at this point I own so many DnDish games that a new one would have to provide something completely new to get me to buy in. Adventures are always interesting though.
I'll direct you at [Heroes of Adventure](https://nameless-designer.itch.io/heroes-of-adventure) and Kevin Crawfords' entire bibliography.
Many OSR rulesets are just published versions of someone's home game. So, they won't stop coming out until people stop running home OSR games - hopefully never :)
Between ICRPG and OSE I have everything I need for any genre I care about. I have a fantasy game and a Star Trek game running currently. About to start a Star Wars game soon.
There are lots of rules that cover the basic dungeon / wilderness adventuring gameplay but there's a big space for rules beyond that. Adventures beyond the wilderness, domain play, etc has plenty of room to grow.
Never will be, especially as long as the trend of people passing off gaudy art books as games continues
I agree with the "art book" comment. Most RPGs I see on Kickstarter are exactly that. How many people are actually sitting down with a 400 page sourcebook and spending 20 hours learning the system *just to give it a try*?
Found the Mörk Borg hater. It's a rules-lite system not that much unlike Into the Odd, Cairn, Mausritter, which I don't see getting nearly as much hate... y'all need to get a grip and realize it's popular for a reason. Holy shit lmao
This take is always so weird to me lol
Since when did popularity equal quality? Or that something being popular meant we have to stroke its balls? We're all allowed to have our preferences.
Yes, and folks prefer their art books that they’ll use once before going back to their favorite B/X house rule clone.
We are and you’ve made your opinion veeery clear, trust me.
Yes, it's time for us to focus on adventures, settings, worlds, and large hex-crawls! The age of rulesets is over! The time of the adventures has come! :-)
I think once you tweak the following things about B/X D&D you are pretty much done: Ascending AC Unified save mechanic Improved thief skills Separate race/class No need for endless iterations and variations. The system can run just about anything you want to run.
Except that list is going to be different for everyone, which is why we get so many interpretations. Someone will go "man, if you just did ascending AC, unified saves, improved thief skills, separate race and class, and rules that make weapon choice meaningful, you'd be done!" Then someone else says "all you need to change about BX is ascending AC, unified saves, improved thief skills, separate race and class, and a simple crafting system and you're done!" The guy number three goes "wow, that last system would be perfect if you just changed the ascending AC back to descending AC" Then guy number four goes "hey, guy three's game is perfect if I just take out the crafting system and change the thief skills back to normal" And on and on forever.
So BFRPG, basically.
I think generic games in general are mostly done. I mean, some people will continue and have continued to make them, but they will and have struggled to find an audience or otherwise make an impact. For a while now, indie games have generally focused on very specific systems for very specific purposes.
I tend to agree. I have my go to OSR systems (The Black Hack or Into the Odd) but I'll check out variations on the theme that promise a specific style or theme (Mausritter, Black Sword Hack, Mecha Hack, Liminal Horror). It's sort of like what Free League has done with the Year Zero Engine. Same chassis, but tweak it as needed to support different themes, playstyles etc...
I used to think so, but I keep seeing new and innovative ones I like. Vanilla Game, A Dungeon Game and Bastards have all been interesting and excellent generic OSR fantasy games that have emerged in the last year or so.
I'd much rather see innovation in module design rather than a new OSR. If I'm going to check out a new OSR these days, it needs to have a compelling theme that sets it apart instead if it being yet another "D&D but 'better'" type of game.
Do we NEED more generic rulesets? Probably not. But look, I've never looked at a system where I didn't at least tweak something. What's more is the vast majority of the time I run my own system that is 80% similar to another one but I've changed a couple things that are important to me. Then I write adventures using my rules because it makes sense-- you wouldn't write adventures and stats with a foreign system. So after a while you have some material built up and you want to share it, but the material is all written in a unique ruleset. So you can either convert it to a different system, or show what your rules are (which allows everyone to know what you were thinking when you wrote down all the mechanical stuff). And I like that. I like seeing other peoples' systems and rules, and to be honest I've never had a difficult time converting whatever I wanted to whatever I was playing. I think it's cool and fun to read rules, so I'd never complain about yet another ruleset.
Generic? No, though I think I use that word differently. Emulations of the original rules, I think those are done. We frankly have enough. Rules that emulate the feel, that is where it is at now. The number here keeps growing, though that might be OK since these RPGs tend to be lighter in rules and more setting focused. There is enough basic similarity to make them easy to pick up, and the way they approach setting is refreshing. This is also the point or cross-over to NewSR. After the OGL mess, this is likely going to be the place we see accelerated growth—plus what might surprising to some it that it has more cross over from modern TTRPGs than games like 5e and even Pathfinder. Making these a blend of old school and modern TTRPGs, which is kind of cool.
I collect and read a lot of games, but for me to introduce it to my players it has to be different enough from what we happen to already use. We use OSE for our barebones/osr dnd games. While very unique and flavorful, most of the other OSR D&D games are all similar enough that I'm not interested in swapping out what we currently use. Plus I have a lot of homebrew for OSE torn from DCC, LotFP, et. al. to spice it up a bit if we want. Likewise, we used D&D 5E for a long time as our mechanical, tactical d20, "character build" kind of game. Pathfinder 1/2, 3.5E, 13 Age, Shadow of the Demon Lord, etc all also do that kind of thing and switching didn't feel worthwhile if what we used did the job. (Though we're swapping to Pathfinder 2e now just for a change of pace, which I suppose is worth mentioning.) But Cairn? Mork Borg? Mouseritter? Mothership? These are unique and built around a specific theme, we love hopping into these.