OSR Influence on Running Not Old D&D

Anyone who runs RPGs must read and think about this.

While I'm not currently running any "Old School" rulesets, which would include rpgs based on original D&D, basic/expert 1980s D&D, first edition or second edition AD&D, and their various reorganized reprints (Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Basic Fantasy Roleplay, OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, etc.), my DMing, adventure creation, etc. are all heavily influenced by the Old School sensibility.

For me, what this breaks down is primarily the ethos of letting the players set the course of the adventures. While I will set up interesting shit in the world, create NPCs and their machinations and plots, the players will always be who decide what they do. Any choices they make will impact the world logically, so they will bear the repercussions of their actions. But like in Old School play, if they fuck with a dragon, I'm not going to 'protect' them based on their level. My players have done some crazy shit, and it was as hard as it would be no matter their character stats or whatever. So when they broke into an enemy castle by themselves, it was filled with enemies and they almost died. In fact, as would later happen when they invaded a skaven stronghold beneath a city, some critical hits with burning oil flasks was all that stood between them and death.

As a corollary of that player-driven plots and play, I've adopted numerous tools from the Old School Renaissance folks (see blogs to the right) for writing adventures and settings. Now, my prep for a campaign is in this order: (1) pick rules, (2) define for myself a general campaign idea - currently, rival knightly houses with some chaos (dark magic) corruption, (3) write down the first starting adventure hook/idea and the initial major NPCs (currently, investigate a dungeon beneath a vassal nobleman's tower, NPCs being his liege, Lady Griselda, and her rival/neighbor Lord Chrodegar), and (4) start playing. More ideas will flow after that first adventure, so I write up a few ideas I have and start plotting the next adventure. When I say plotting, this is old school too: just some adventure hooks. NPC X wants you to do Y thing related to his/her goals, and offers Z reward for doing so.

Practically, I will say that while you introduce the overall campaign theme (e.g. rival knightly houses, a little Game of Thrones-y with chaos monsters), then do character creation. The characters should (will) influence what kinds of adventures you sketch out. So in my current game, I have a 'fighter' and a spy/rogue type, so I want adventures to have elements for both of them to do - fight stuff and negotiate and spy. This means I want to keep it often human focused, so my spy player-character can talk to stuff and use his gossip and charm abilities, and that will often revolve around defeating something in combat too.

I focus on writing down adventure hooks (basic ideas) and then some decision points early on in the adventure. Then I use the kind of resources created by the Old School Renaissance to actually run the adventure. This will be stuff like random encounter charts, monster and NPC stats for those the PCs will fight, and other rules stuff that I can pick up as I'm running and have some fun interactions. For others, this will be a basic dungeon they found too. Having some maps around or drawn up is key. So for my current campaign, I created a big doc with basic stats (knights, horses, etc.), a list of random encounters, and a chart with 20 major NPCs. Then we made PCs. I drew up my first dungeon map, and played the first adventure. It was great, and the wonderful session reports have flowed from there.

Another corollary of the Old School-style impact of player choice on the game is requiring in-game, in-character descriptions of what characters are doing. Trying to cut down on "I make a gossip roll" or a "Stealth check" (some may call this a "simulationist" style). This breaks the fun and imagination game you're playing. "I make is Stealth check" is suited for a video game (maybe), but not a game driven by talking with your friends. So, generally I try to ask for the players to describe what their character is doing or have them speak in voice, and then I as DM will tell them what to roll (if anything). Procedurally, this is a lot of asking what they do, and refusing answers that are simply a check/roll (exception: attack rolls can be described 'gamey' like I attack or whatever) - "No, what is Boneshard actually doing." Then I use the skill/ability roll to determine how I describe the outcome.

So why not Old School rules or Dungeons?

I found that while I have been blown away and engrossed by the creativity, good ideas, and practical advice for running rpgs the OSR folks have offered, when I in fact have run the old school rules, I have been dissatisfied. The main problem is that I don't like running dungeons (small dungeon-esque adventures are great though). When I do, I miss NPC interactions, and in-world politics. The dispute between groups of subhumans in a hole is not enough. I also could give a shit about tracking light, precise encumbrance, etc. My players get bored and frustrated by this stuff too. As a DM, I also hate how D&D games use hit points: it is too disassociated a mechanic. Like a 5th level human or dwarf can have like 40 hp, but an ogre will only have 4d8=16-20 on average? It doesn't comport. Another rules concern is that I see how fun it is for players to have characters with a bunch of different powers, even if they are a fighter or whatever.

So for me, I've had more fun actually running Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP). I ran a long basic D&D campaign using Adventurer Conqueror King, several shortish campaigns using a slightly house-ruled version of Lamentations (level-less spells), and two D&D 5e campaigns (currently 1 now). The basic rules do well in a large group, but then I run into the problems with hit point inflation and my frustration keeping combat (which is fun for me and the players) gritty and as realistic as I like. Even bare-bones rulesets suffer from superheroism at a certain level (5-6+) due to hit points and healing magic, with a silly level of lethality at low levels.

Another factor is that all my house rules are in the direction of stuff WFRP is already doing: different armor and weapons effects, critical hits charts, wild magic charts, on-the-spot rulings to adjudicate catching on fire or whatever. So while there are alot of rules in WFRP compared to Basic D&D/Lamentations or whatever, they're all rules I'm using anyway and are not really much different from +/- 25% probability changes anyway.

All of this is to say that I'm finding you can run a contemporary rules with an old school mentality, especially on the DM side, and have a lot of fun.