The Rosetta Stone: A thread about common design principles in OSR/Classic and story/indie games. This wouldn’t have been possible without @DistemperedGus who asked and answered some pressing questions. The heart of this thread is the role of rules in games, so follow along.

In our discussion, I asked about why the OSR/classic game space relied on existing, older mechanics rather than creating new rule systems that better express their amazing, innovative settings.

@DistemperedGus responded that "A starting point to answer this is the concept of “rules toolkits” and system hacking. In a classic game I know each GM is going to use a different set of house rules if the game has evolved to any degree that evolve over time."

"Rules in classic play then to be extrinsic rather than intrinsic to player problem solving. An appeal to the rules is a last resort, they are allowing your plan a chance of failing, and largely exist to test player schemes or solutions rather than to enable them. "

"One describes how one searches for a secret door rather than take a 1 in 6 find doors roll if one can. This means that a great deal of the utility in an adventure is found in the ideas and concepts - it also makes for peculiarities like a need for more GM prep."

"Classic mechanics tend to be esoteric - in the varied sense, not the secrets sense. Maybe eccentric is the better word. In any case subsystems have a bunch of different and varied mechanics whose interactions are limited."

"There’s a tradition of situational mechanics. As long as some of the base tools are the same, an adventure designer can drop in varied situational mechanics instead of appealing to a prior ruleset, meaning one need not rewrite the rules to change circumstance."

There is a lot to unpack here, but the heart of this explanation is the idea of discussing situational mechanics and the role of the GM. Both disciplines diverge from the 2nd Ed D&D or D20-era idea of comprehensive rules for every situation.

Story Games also have a clear history of embracing situational mechanics and using certain rules as options of last resort that are used to determine the success of player actions, rather than a step by step procedure.

One of the classical maxims that was established by @lumpleygames was “Roll the dice or say yes”, which I tend to rephrase as “Say yes, or roll the dice”. In short, players will succeed in what they do unless failure would be an interesting outcome.

If both success and failure can lead to interesting outcomes, it means this is an important point of uncertainty that the rules can help you resolve. Otherwise, just go directly to the interesting option and avoid needless mechanics.

The concept of the “Move” in the Apocalypse World or Dungeon World framework is to provide clear situational rules. The standard format for a move is “When X situation happens in the fiction, roll 2d6."

"If you get a 6- on the total, things go badly. If you roll 7-9, you succeed with a cost or a drawback. If you roll 10+, you get most or all of what you want”.

Each move is just codifying what X situation is, and giving examples of the kinds of outcomes that can emerge based on those thresholds. Moves tend to fit into a common “meta-structure”, and that is where a lot of the design work is.

When you run into a situation that a move applies in, use those rules! Otherwise, just make rulings and run from there. A practical example of this in both formats would be opening the lock to the palace treasury so to sneak in and rob the place blind.

If I was running BX, a lvl 2 thief would roll percentile dice and see if they got under 20%. If they fail, as a GM, I would have the door open but have them run into a set of four palace guards playing cards on the other side.

In Dungeon World, I have them “Defy Danger” with their dexterity stat, to see if they can break in without attracting attention. On a 10+ on two dice, they get in without attracting attention.

On a 7-9, they get in and run into guards. On a 6-, a patrol finds them as they are struggling to open the lock and the group is ambushed.

Both use the same framework. When you are in situation (trying to pick a lock), roll to see what happens. If they succeed, great! If they fail, the DM makes an interesting outcome or they are forced to try something different.

The key difference in Story/Indie games vs OSR/Classic games IMO is how the DM makes decisions. In classic/OSR tradition, this is based on the accumulated experience of the DM over time. Being a good DM is something you learn, and your role is as an adjudicator.

In indie/story games, we tend to make the process of DMing a game in its own right. There are rules on how to DM and limits to power to guide the experience. The DM is a player with different responsibilities.

In Apocalypse World, one of the principles (rules) is to “Barf Forth Apocalyptica” as a GM. This means it’s a rule that the DM must create interesting, post-apocalyptic details like mutant-pigeons that say "please" or using bottlecaps as currency.

The Indie/Story game model is that the game designer is making a sandbox for all of you to play in. The OSR/classic model is that the game designer is giving the DM an interesting toolbox to create their own game.

Both models are valid and are remarkably close to each other in many ways. When you hear indie/story gamers say ‘System Matters”, what we mean is that the tools you use to run your game, and the style of DMing, will shape play.

If your DM style is adversarial, your OSR/Classic game will reflect this. There will be lots of players trying to outsmart the DM and puzzle solving. If your style is collaborative, lots of worldbuilding at the table.

Indie/Story games just say “in this game, you need to DM this in an adversarial way” or “in this game, you need to be collaborative and build worlds together”. It’s all about creative constraints.

Indie/Story game players? Assume that every OSR game includes a sentence that “In this game, both the players and the GM are constrained by fictional positioning.” Our tradition expects everything to be written explicitly, but that’s an implicit assumption in the style.

There is a lot more to unpack, but most of us are working in remarkably similar design spaces. Let’s continue to learn from each other, and I would love to hear more thoughts form folks like @DistemperedGus or @Pandatheist