Choosing an OSR Base (Whitehack, Basic Fantasy, Trophy Gold)

So I was asked by a friend what I thought of Basic Fantasy. I knew nothing about it. Instead of telling him I'd never looked at it I thought I'd take it upon myself to look into the game and see what it was all about. Keep in mind that I'm a mostly "narrative" gamer, who rarely dabbles in the OSR, although Trophy Gold has definitely turned me on to the concept. Eventually it's my goal to have an OSR group to run things with. So I was curious to see what Basic Fantasy was about. And how it would hold up to the other two OSR games I own: Whitehack and Trophy Gold.

But before we get into it I need to get something clear with you, the person who's reading. A lot of systems in the OSR are deliberately interchangeable. The OSR is largely built off of BDnD, which means that the movement often resembles Model T's: you can just swap out parts and tech with very little difficulty. Even systems that aren't similar at all, like Trophy Gold and Basic Fantasy, aren't that hard to hack into each other, especially since the systems are so simple that it hardly even takes a statistic class to know what is going on where in the system.

So the goal of this little versus post isn't to say which game is better. Honestly there are elements of all three games that I would use in an OSR campaign; that is a feature, not a bug. The question is what chasis would I use? And that's a very subjective question. Your answer will not be mine. That is part of the point of the OSR. So this post will cover what I look for in a game, just in general, and why I would pick an OSR game.

So, for me, the OSR is the other half of the RPG coin from "narrative" games. When I play a "narrative" game I want characters who can survive long enough to tell a good story about them. I give a crap about theme, about the meaning of the story. I deliberately put in recurring symbols and ideas and spend a lot of my time thinking about how on earth to make something that is purposefully edifying to me, the player(s), and anyone who reads any of the blog posts (assuming I write about it). That's my goal with a "narrative" game. I want something that becomes a form of mythology for everyone at the table. I do it on purpose. I also want to strip the player characters of what they think the are, until there is an answer, way down at the core of them. So, while my campaigns can be really brutal and dark, there is a purpose beyond just making the players suffer: what's down there, way down, at the core of someone? What's their primary choice?

When I get an OSR game? I flip that around. I don't want to hold hands and prevent deaths. I don't want to sit around and ask questions about the deeper meaning of things. It's not that it's not there; I've read too much about story structure and mythology and I care way too much about it for it to not show up. But honestly? The real world is a bloodbath. And sometimes it's nice to sit down and make sure the other asshole can't get dinner reservations anymore. So I want something simple, but flexible, and definitely something that allows people to make characters again quickly, because the dungeon just chewed up the last three people and we need another sad sack to go in and feed the need. Life ain't fair, buddy, get back in the meat grinder!

I do not pretend that there are not other ways to do the OSR.

That's the point.

Nor do I think that meaningful stories cannot be constructed using those mechanics. I know they can. But sometimes a hammer is really good for bashing in a head, as opposed to making a house. And the OSR makes really, really, really awesome hammers.

So how does that square up with Whitehack, Basic Fantasy, and Trophy Gold?

Well, let's take a look.

Whitehack is a modern riff off of BDnD. I say modern because there's only one resolution mechanic (d20 roll under the character's stat), character classes are more or less balanced, and the emphasis is upon streamlining down to the bare essentials, something that older games seem to know very little about. That being said, the character classes are pretty robust for the OSR, allowing for players to really sink in their teeth and care, no matter how much they don't want to. A lot of the game is deliberately collaborative, giving the players the ability to define  the setting almost as much as the GM, right there on the fly. And I love that! You can get a passive-aggressive war of canon between the players. I like that feel. It's a good antagonistic back and forth. And c'mon, The Auction (which is a conflict resolution mechanic that is meant to be used for everything but a fight to the death) is just an amazing mechanic. I love how quick, dirty, and decisive it is. I'd like to put in some room for compromises and whatnot, but as a base system it's far superior to only having combat. I'm surprised the innovations in Whitehack haven't spread further, considering how easy and simple they are to implement.

Basic Fantasy is a modern facelift of Basic Dungeons and Dragons. No, really, the rules are almost entirely lifted off that venerable ruleset. That is not always to its advantage. Multiple resolutions mechanics that don't really mesh with each other are a pain to explain to new players. The multiple saving throws of the system also don't really make much sense to me, given how the differing throws are used for things not explicitly covered by the monikers of said throws. I find that annoying. I know some don't. But it was enough to make me not use Beyond the Wall as much as I should, so that should tell you how much I hate multiple resolution mechanics!

That being said, Basic Fantasy has a really wholesome feel to it. This sucker is cheap as hell and bound nicely. My wife normally doesn't remark upon the quality of my RPG books but she definitely took a minute to admire it, especially for its five buck price. But there's mechanical stuff in here that I like too! There's ascending AC, instead of THACO, which is nice to not have to figure out. I prefer Whitehack's system for AC but this works as well. And the bestiary is just wonderful. So many publishers sorta skimp on the bestiary, thinking about making it its own book. And that's fine. But this bestiary? Man, I love it a lot.

Trophy Gold is the weirdest of the three games. It's not a d20 system. I know that plenty of OSR games these days are not OSR, but the archetype certainly is that of a d20 game, at least for now. Hell, it's not even a "full" game, as it's still in zine form, with rules spread between two zines, Gold and Hearthfire (which is still behind the Patreon paywall), not to mention all the incursions they've made in other issues. I greatly prefer the base dice system. I don't think most d20 games take advantage of the mercurial nature of the d20 nearly enough, which 13th Age turned me onto. Trophy Gold, borrowing from such amazing games such as Blades in the Dark and Cthulhu Dark, has something I enjoy a lot more than "standard" d20.

For those of you who don't know, the system in question is a d6 dice pool, probably 1-3 dice are being thrown (3 is you being stupidly lucky). After rolling look at the highest die of that pool:

1-3 is a horrible failure. Things twist out of your control and something bad happens.
4-5 you get what you want, but something bad happens too.
6 is an unqualified success

It should not take a rocket scientist to figure out how a typical session of Trophy Gold is going to look. If you roll those dice you are done. Done. And that means you do not want to roll, at all, ever. Which I think is half the point of doing the OSR in the first place. And the thing is that I want to keep that experience, always. There's a power ramp to many OSR games, bafflingly enough. I think some OSR games handle it better than others, but I don't think most handle it as well as Trophy Gold, because of how freaking evil that dice mechanic is.

That alone is enough to sell me. And that's before we get into the awesome Bestiary mechanic, which allows you to make up monsters on the fly. The monsters are then entered into their own log, unique to the group, which passes down the group, getting added to. It becomes an artifact of the group. Which I think is just so freaking cool! The Hearthfire rules, which further flesh out the loop of dungeon to home and back, create a mood that I just cannot ignore. It's a very melancholic sorta game, where people fail a lot more than they succeed. Which just makes success that much sweeter.

Well, in theory, assuming you don't sell off your friend to a lich so you can get out of the dungeon alive. Cough.

Cough.

Trophy Gold wins, for me. It's innovative, with a fantastic set of base mechanics that keep the core experience of exploration and player skill at the forefront, and you can have wildly different bestiaries coming out of each campaign? Not to mention those Hearthfire rules? I'm sold. This, for the record, is not a dunk on Whitehack or Basic Fantasy. Both are extremely good for what they do. But I find a bit of my "storygame" roots breaking through here. I like the way that Trophy Gold in particular is set up. I'll happily hack a little bit more if it means having a mechanical experience that appeals to the tastes that I already have.

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The Bereaved: Session 2

Mokola woke up, face down, in the snow. He could barely feel his fingers and toes and there was frozen blood on the back of his head. Four of the five orcs were dead, with wounds that matched weapons that were delivered by Midnight Guild members. with no sign of Karl. Mokola checked his pack; in the scuffle that had killed the other orcs his pack had been smashed; he had one day of rations left, from his original 11. Mokola examined his torches and was pleased to find that they were not damaged. He found a hollow tree and lit a fire, but managed to cut himself because of how cold he was.

After successfully applying a bandage Kenin the Ghost showed up. She revealed that it was indeed Midnight Guild members, six or seven of them, led by Yron (the Midnight Guild member who had been encountered earlier) who had killed the orcs, with the other one fleeing. Only two or three had been sent by the Headmaster to look for the missing soldiers, however. They also left Mokola behind, something that the (more-or-less) honorable Guild of Midnight Stalkers would never do. Kenin followed them, trying to see where they went. Turns out that it's only a few hour's walk to Dragonskull Fort. So, after warming up, Mokola set out for Dragonskull, following Kenin. Mokola has a Cloak of Shadows, a gift from a friend that, when properly attuned, helps to make a character practically invisible, but it takes a day to attune. Mokola begins to attune to the Cloak as he travels and finally finds Dragonskull Fort.

Dragonskull Fort was set in the side of a mountain, inside of a massive dragon's skull. The area in front of Dragonskull was hollowed out natural spring, with more water added in from a redirected nearby river. The artificial lake itself is filled with spikes, cemented into the lakebed, and every foul substance you can imagine; rumor has it that if the whole lake will catch fire if a match is lit nearby. Even now, in the middle of the dead winter, one can smell the lake from way up on a nearby mountaintop.  In the area above Dragonskull Fort loose and sharp rocks have been layered, making assault by a large force upon the top of Dragonskull impossible.

Mokola, looking down upon the fort and holding his nose, started to look for a way down the sharp rocks above Dragonskull Fort. Not only did he find a way down, but he also found an enclosed area nearby, which let him sleep unmolested for the night, even in the cold with a fire. He also found a weaker area in the rock formation which, if a rock was thrown at it, would create a rockslide. The next evening Mokola made his move. He gets down the hill because of the Cloak, but he trips and sends a number of rocks down, onto the Dragonskull Fort below, cutting himself.

A group of trained assassins are not going to miss that. About a half dozen or so of them come out and see Mokola with no difficulty. Mokola lit a torch and threw it onto the lake and it lights up, startling everyone. Mokola tried to use the distraction to hide, but couldn't; his compatriots saw right through the ruse, and began to shoot at him with bows as other assassins started going up the hill, after Mokola. An arrow hit Mokola and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

Mokola woke up, chained and in a prison cell, face to face with Yron. They verbally spar, with Mokola trying to appeal to Yron's honor as a member of the Midnight Guild as well as the pragmatic question "What happens when the humans are wiped out?". Yron shuts down these avenues, however, stating that he's with the winner, who is going to be Lord Kuntal, the leader of the orc horde. The orc with a cleaved face from last session is brought in, as a traitor. As it turns out this orc had decided to betray Lord Kuntal, and so therefore he was marked for being the Orc Queen's sacrifice as well.

After a few hours of being alone with the unbound orc Mokola was finally able to get a response out of the orc, who is fiercely loyal to Lord Kuntal and agrees with the punishment that he is given. Mokola tries to figure the orc out, but the Orc Queen comes in... who is a bombshell raven haired human woman. She takes the orc and Mokola out, paints them in feces, and kisses them both, planting spiders in their mouths. The spiders, when spat out, turn into flame. Chanting in a tongue that was unlike any tongue known to men, the orcs cursed Mokola and his orc companion.

They are then set on fire.

The Bereaved: Sessions 0 and 1

"Angry Orc" by tomcii

This all started because of an apology. I'm running two solo Burning Wheel games (of which posts shall be made as well) and was talking to my buddy Andy about this, and just suddenly felt incredibly guilty. I was the GM who first introduced Andy to RPGs, only to find that I had an unintentionally created a monster. Andy is not kind of a good GM and definitely not kind of a good player: he's one of the best in both categories that I've encountered. But for the last ten years Andy has GMed for me, not the other way around. I generally go to him when I'm tired of GMing and he very nicely lets me play a game.

So, as I was talking to him, I realized I could do a game for him. And then I wanted to do a game with him. And then I was talking about it and realizing that two Burning Wheel games is going to be a lot of work, so adding a third was probably not a good idea. Andy and I are both gaming snobs. We also like exploring new games and enjoying mechanics that no one else has thought about before. I'd been wanting to try Whitehack for almost a year, having bought the game and gotten a Notebook copy of it for Christmas, one year ago. So I suggested it, and somehow Andy decided this was a good idea.

And then I couldn't think of a campaign idea. Nothing.

So I just had Andy start making a character. Because sometimes whole campaign ideas can spawn off of just one random fact about a character. So Andy sat down and began to make a character. He picked his class first. Now, in Whitehack there are three base classes: the Deft (specialists in a field), the Strong (the combat monster and able to harvest special abilities from dead critters), and the Wise (Miracle workers who pay for their spells with HP).


Andy went for the Deft. Deft characters' Groups are not tied to stats, and they also have access to special tricks/mentors/items that no one else does, one active and one inactive (switching between them takes a day). Andy decided his active Mentor would be a ghost by the name of Kenin, who was a rival of his, back to haunt him. His inactive benefit is a cloak that can hide with anything. It's not magical, it just... blends...

Kenin sparked off an idea for a campaign, and I had something to pitch. Kenin had died in a failed assassination attempt of the orc lord Kuntal, who had overwhelmed the country of Crondas and was at the capital city, Terl's, gates. Kenin would not talk about why she failed, but she came back and asked Mokola (Andy's assassin), her rival, to finish the job for her. But in the interval Kuntal had destroyed Terl, destroying it. The royal family had managed to escape, but it's the dead of winter and nobody can last that long.

So the campaign begins with Mokola's talk with the leader of his assassination guild, the Guild of Midnight Prowlers. In the wake of the wholescale slaughter of the Kingdom of Crondas the Guild has allied itself with the crown. A few days ago some scouts of the crown had been sent out to examine Fort Dragonskull, which was neslted a few days away to the east in the Dragonbone Mountains.These scouts have not returned and so the headmaster is sending Mokola out to figure out what's going on. The headmaster has already sent a number of his agents out, but he's worried about their loyalty, and is sending Mokola as a back up to the back up.

After gathering some supplies Mokola set out. After being taunted about how much he sucks and really has no drive by Kenin, Mokola sent her out to check out a nearby campfire.Kenin came back, laughing, and told Mokola they were no threat even to someone like him. Mokola approached the campfire and found five individuals around it who were heartily sick of each other. One of these survivors, Karl, asked to come with Mokola. Karl was a bit grouchy, but he tried to keep up with Mokola the best he could, asking whatever questions he thought Mokola would answer. Mokola kept Karl safe from gigantic eagles and helped him outrun a group of orcs, even burying one of the orc's blades in his face.

They also ran into one of the survivors of the Guild's party: Yron, who clearly was not happy with the headmaster's idea to make them friends of the crown. As they staged a perfectly normal conversation Yron motioned for Mokola to kill Karl, since he was nothing more than a rube civilian. But Mokola refused, and instead asked Yron what had happened to the others. Yron told them that his other compatriots were dead, slain by orcs, as were most likely the king's men. Yron did not offer to journey with them, instead turning back for home camp, telling the pair to watch out, or else they would wind up dead.

Karl finally had to rest, after going all night without rest because of the relatively clear weather. Mokola, who needed to scout, warned Karl not to rest unless he thought he could do it safely, and stepped out to re-orient himself. But the temperature dropped significantly and the winds howled, driving Mokola to reconsider his course of action.

Which is when Mokola found himself surrounded by orcs, including an orc with a deep impression of a blade in his face. Mokola could hear a captured Karl behind him, begging him to run, that the orcs were trying to cut off his escape routes.

Mokola fled. Karl's shouting stopped abruptly. Mokola realized that he was almost completely cut off, so he tried running right at one of the orcs, elbowing him in the face as he went by.

But the orc grabbed Mokola by his head and slammed his head into a tree.

The Whitehack: Read-Thru Review

I've always had a bit of a fascination for the Old School Renaissance. There's something about the uncompromising, focused play that I find alluring. While I generally disagree with the level of nostalgia and dogmatism that the movement gravitates towards I've always wanted to try one of the movement's games. And, after paying attention to the movement for years, I've decided to try out Whitehack first. The things that have drawn me to the game are its simple, flavorful, and emergent gameplay.

Whitehack's gameplay is simple. This is generally the opposite of what I go for in games, mostly because complexity can lead to a greater amount of richness in the narrative of a game. Rule-lite generally strips things down too far and forgets that, first and foremost, RPGs are games that make stories, not make sessions of shared make-believe. There needs to be systems that can trip up the players and that can complicate the narrative in ways the players do not expect. Whitehack solves this problem by making sure what systems do exist generate complications. Players are defined by Groups, which can be either races, affiliations, or vocations, not your Class, which is merely how you accomplish your goals, not what you are. These things are determined by group decision. You merely say that you are an elf knight and you get a greater chance at succeeding when doing things that pertain to those aspects. You simply say what you do and the rules give a framework to challenge you in the way that you defined.

Whitehack's simplicity lends itself to flavor. When Andy and I sat down to come up with a campaign concept I couldn't think of anything for a campaign. So Andy looked through the classes and decided he wanted to play a Deft character, someone who is a specialist in his chosen field. By the time he was done making up stuff I had a campaign idea, as he had come up with a ghost who helped him in tight spots and had a cloak he could do fun tricks with. I started asking questions about the ghost and the assassin's guild that Andy was a part of... and we just took off. None of these elements design have a whole lot of mechanical weight, yet. Whitehack runs off of group fiat, and what the group says is permanent. This means that, as time goes on, the mechanics are reinforced differently as one's understanding of the world evolves.This in turn creates more flavor that you have to circumnavigate.

All of this adds up to what Whitehack promises: emergent gameplay. The ruleset is intentionally sparse; most of the game rules can be summed up within 20 pages. You wouldn't know that the game has this element from its spartan ruleset, but this is where Groups come in. Groups are sources of your characters' expertise: affiliations ("groups" you belong to), races (I hope I don't have to explain), and vocations (which are things like woodcutter, knight, assassin, etc.). Every time you are faced with a task that you think a Group applies to you must state how it applies and then roll 2d20, taking the better of the two (the game calls his a double positive roll). You get two of these groups to assign to your stats (one Group per stat!) with and, as the game progresses, you get more. And that's the thing: you get more. As the game progresses you get more flavor and mechanical weight, which means that the game fundamentally changes with the addition of each Group. Each of these Groups fundamentally alters the setting, which alters the story, which alters your player. Most of the classes end with 5 Groups. That's 3 seismic shifts per character (except the Deft, they get 6! And their Groups aren't tied to Stats! So powerful!) It doesn't look like much, and that's the trick.

I'll be posting more as I play, but these are my initial impressions. Can't wait to write more!

A Theoretical Manifesto

It's been a really long time since I've written on GMing. Part of that has to do with having a kid, leaving the Army, moving, and changing jobs; it's hard to GM when you've got so much going on. But, thanks to the wonders of The Burning Wheel and The Whitehack and solo campaigns, I'll be starting not two campaigns soon, but three. I've had some time to think about my methods and madnesses, and this is my manifesto: people need structure, ring plots are awesome, re-incorporate often!

People need structure. I don't mean structure as in "this is what the players are going to be doing today". That's called rail-roading. What I mean is that people, narratively, flourish with a structure that the GM follows. Now I'm assuming a Burning Wheel-esque structure: character sets Beliefs and Instincts and the GM challenges them, as opposed to the GM coming up with a plot to walk the players through. This means deciding, ahead of time, how you, the GM, are going to challenge the character(s) in a general fashion. And when I say general I think I should say "vague". The way I like to conceptualize what I'm talking about is to use Story World cards. The image draws up associations, which can be used to throw at the players' BITs.

If someone was to have a  Belief I must stop my brother the Duke, no matter the cost and I had that card to challenge the player with, I'd try and show just how similar the two brothers really are. I'd take the other two Beliefs the character had and copy them exactly. If one of the Duke's minions is an evil douche have the Duke punish the guy, publicly, in a manner the player agrees with. Have the Duke be horrified by any bad outcomes from his actions, whatever they may be, and swear to fix them. And do this for all of the Beliefs for everyone in the game. The thing is that this card can create completely different outcomes.

Ring plots are awesome. So the cards alone aren't going to be enough, because how do you balance all of this out? The point of a structure is to provide something that doesn't move so players can feel free to riff off of it. But some variance is needed; you can't just go and do the one card, over and over again. There needs to be a structure to the images, a series to run the campaign on. You can pick any structure you like, I suppose- 4 act, 3 act, matters little- but I like the ring cycle, as popularized by Star Wars. It can be summed up as Introduce, Subvert, and Re-Introduce, summed up as two cards. Determine how many sessions you're going to play each card. For a Burning Wheel game I suggest 4 sessions a card.

1. Introduce-  Using a card, lay out a new situation for the player. Use the card and the Beliefs at the table to craft this scenario. There is much less science to this than art, feeling out what about the Beliefs and the card evoke from you. Each session advance the plot using the imagery on the card. Again, play it loosey-goosey with how you challenge. If you think a dog in an image should be used for loyalty in one session and cowardliness in the next, then who cares? Do it. You've got several sessions to play around with the image. Regardless of how you play around with it, this card is used to mollify the players. Whatever their Beliefs are, treat them as if they are utterly true! Let the players cement themselves into their convictions, playing with them very little. Let them feel secure for awhile.
2. Subvert- This the card that knocks your players over. Destroy them with everything you have. Take these sessions to utterly contradict everything the players throw at you. You've spent several sessions allowing the players to build their stuff and to trust that their points of view are correct. Destroy their confidence.
3. Re-Introduce- Now take your first card and introduce the same kind of stuff you did before, but flipped with the subversion in mind. Combine the two cards, with the first card being taking precedence. Go for tying up loose ends. You've laid down the groundwork and then destroyed it, now use all the pieces and bring it to a conclusion.

Re-incorporate often! Once you've laid down the Introduction step revisit those things. When in doubt, use a previously existing element in a new way, as opposed to introducing completely new things, whole cloth. It's always a good idea to take an old toy and break it and bash it up or build it up. This creates a sense of continuity and helps the players feel like they're in a world. And it will make them confident in doing whatever it is they like, knowing that you will honor their contributions before adding any of your own.

This will, in theory, create a good 12 session arc for Burning Wheel, or any other game. You can create a second arc by swapping the order of the two cards and running the players through the steps discussed above. Want another arc? Reverse the cards again.  You can do this as many times as you wish, until the campaign naturally comes to a conclusion, although I suspect 

Now there will be a few  objections to this method: it limits the GM's creativity, it's not organic, and it will tire over time.

To the first: limits to creativity can be a good thing, as can structure and order. In fact, limits on the human mind makes it sharper, not duller, so long as the limits are not meant to destroy the ability to work. This method is meant as a spring board, not a prison.The cards and the structure are meant to evoke comparisons and give you a place to return to when in doubt. If you're using the structure as a prison that is not the intent. 

To the second: vegetables and what's "natural" grow best with order to hold them up. Ivy and vines grow best with scaffolding to hold them up, it's why they attach to buildings and trees and anything. I don't know about anyone else with creative urges, but I find them to be wild and random, striking when I least expect it and doing whatever they like. If you give this seeming chaos structure and a place to fill up it will do it, organically. 

To the third: of course it will tire over time. Stories conclude. There's a reason why most American sitcoms are garbage: they just retread the same crap, with no actual ending to them. The problem is that most GMs don't know when their stories naturally conclude and want to keep them going as long as they can. Making a story structure can allow you to accept that you need to do so that your players can have the closure they deserve. Planning for closure means your players will get it, somehow. And there is nothing worse than a game that doesn't have even a half-fitting conclusion. Plan for it and accept it and your players will have a bittersweet time, not just a bitter one. 

Like I've said in the title, this is all theoretical. I've been sitting on these thoughts for a little while and am planning to try them out. Hopefully my players won't mind my experiments. And hopefully y'all won't mind following me as I post about the results of them. Onward!