Author: Brandon Graves
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Blank slates
As someone who lives in the OSR community, but keeps an eye on a couple of “modern” RPG communities as well I’m frequently confronted with an appreciation for subtle things in the OSR mindset that make games better. Things that aren’t talked about much. The unsung heroes if you will. Over the last couple of…
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I miss being “Advanced”
The OSR is a playground filled with every toy you can imagine. Systems as far as the eye can see filled with tables, ideas, Passion & Brilliance (with a Capital P & B respectively). It’s a wonderful landscape that has everything a GM could want.We often espouse the virtues of the “Rules Lite” System. B/X…
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Mechanical Dissonance and Rule #0
I often struggle to balance my desire for a narrative focused gaming experience, and the grand desire to have solid mechanical backing of that narrative. In my head, in the loftiest of my dreams, I see a game that I run in which i simply sit down, players describe their characters and at any given…
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Options vs. Emergent development
(These are just general musings. There is no advice, there is no pearl of wisdom. Read for as long as it interests you, disregard as soon as is convenient. There are no answers here. Only Dragons) I have a problem. A conflicting set of core ethos’ that I struggle to balance and come to grips…
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Examining Dice Rolls
There are two seemingly conflicting schools of thought that exist in the TTRPG gaming space. One side posits that adventurers should be mostly capable individuals, after all if they weren’t they wouldn’t make it very far. With that in mind it is believed that a thief attempting to pick a lock should succeed at picking…
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Finding a Focus
Growing as a GM is a difficult thing to do. Running TTRPG’s is a multifaceted skill set that has no immediate path to perfection, and that can be fairly frustrating. Even as an experienced GM I find myself wishing that study could help improve the way I run my games, but while consuming advice &…