Category: Musings

  • A Simple Weapon Mastery System

    Premise In the OSR Community one thing gets talked about often: How to make Fighters more competitive long term. This is a question that has plagued the D&D community since the early day’s and there have been many proposed solutions that have all been met with varying degree’s of success. Recently I have been pondering…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…