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Musings on the OSR

I love the notion of OSR books - the bare minimalism, the daring reinvention and questioning of schemas and tropes. So here are my musings on some OSR-style mechanics.[1]

Goals

like old D&D
don’t fill the character sheet with 1,000 special skills
simple rules
lethal game-play, forcing players to be clever

Why HP?

If we’re going to go full-on minimalist, recycling is the way! Instead of tracking HP, we could just as well re-use Attributes as a resource which could be depleted.

The guard brings his hammer down - lose 3 Strength!

The kobolds stab at your legs - lose 2 Dexterity!

The spirit wriggles free of your control, and sends a psychic whip-lash as it floats away - lose 2 Intelligence!

Anyone Can Cast

Anyone can cast spells, or bind spirits, but they risk losing their minds, becoming lost souls who hunt their own kind, or wander aimlessly until they die. Only those with enough mental stamina and knowledge can use these abilities without too much risk to their sanity.

Everything is a Feat

The OSR usually clings to classes, while eschewing modern D&D notions, such as feats; but I think they’ve backed the wrong horse. Feats are far easier to handle than classes, and they can do much of the same thing.

Let’s take a paladin, and tear him apart, piece by piece:

+1 to hit things
‘Lay on Hands’
Tough-as-fuck
Steed

There’s not much to a low-level paladin once you pull the bits apart. Let’s see what’s inside a thief next:

Sneaky
Lock-picking
Backstabbing

We could combine some pieces to make a ranger:

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Ranger

+1 to hit things
Sneaky
Tough-as-fuck

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At this point, we could add a basic spell-system, and represent everything D&D once did by just lumping a few Feats together.

Character Progression

Characters could progress by lumping Feats together.

+1 to hit things
+2 with swords
+2 in the wilderness (player must explain how the wilderness is useful)
+2 from Tactics (player must explain the plan, including the exact area)

Combine the lot above, and a ranger could gain +7 when ambushing bandits in the woods, and attacking with his sword.

Players would recalculate their bonuses constantly, depending on the situation.[2]

Skills don’t have a separate system - each is just another feat. A very general Skill grants +1 at things, while more specialised Skills grant +2.

Races & Cultures

We could probably just represent elves, dwarves, and humans with a particular Feat, then add another Feat for people’s culture and class.

Dwarves get ‘Sturdy’ (+1 to resist unwanted movement).

Those from the valley gain ‘Navigation’ (+2 to knowing where you are).
And since he’s a tanner, he’ll gain +2 to leather-working.

Humans gain ‘Giant’ (+1 Strength).

This one from the islands gets ‘Seafaring’
And they began as…dice roll…a noble, so they have Poetry (not all Feats need to be terribly useful).

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I could go on, but you get the idea. Races are feats. Classes are feats. It’s all feats. Even weapons could be ‘Feats’ in a sense - you could just make one bonus for a stick, another for a hammer, and a warhammer would just be a hammer on a longer stick.

I call it, ‘the Hobbit system’…because it’s small.

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[1] I suppose this is more ‘NSR’, since there’s no attempt to ‘recapture’ or polish D&D here.

[2] If ‘recalculating the bonus’ every fight sounds horrible, remember that it won’t be if the players only have 3-5 Feats that might help in combat.