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| The Gadabout by Tomek Larek |
As our corner of the hobby matures. more and more real good thinkers get involved and put the intellectual framework together for us, plainly, so we can begin to hang things on it in an orderly way.
Here are The Ten OSR Concepts (in capital letters of course) that were thought up and put down to paper by Gregory Blair, Brian Harbron, F.M. Geist, Zedick Siew, Brian Murphy, Dirk Detweiller Leichty and Daniel Davis. I put a little extra commentary in for #5 which is original.
1. This is a game about interacting with
this world as if it were a place that exists.
2. Killing things is not the goal.
3. There is nothing that is "supposed" to happen.
4. Unknowability and consequence make everything interesting.
5. You can play as your character, not as the screenwriter writing your character.
5a. OR use your character as a kind of complicated pawn in a complicated board game. It’s OK to not inhabit your man.
6. It's your job to make your character interesting and to make the game interesting for you.
7. If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics stink.
8. The answer is not on your character sheet.
9 .Things are swingy.
10. Your paper man will die. Celebrate his life and make a new one.
2. Killing things is not the goal.
3. There is nothing that is "supposed" to happen.
4. Unknowability and consequence make everything interesting.
5. You can play as your character, not as the screenwriter writing your character.
5a. OR use your character as a kind of complicated pawn in a complicated board game. It’s OK to not inhabit your man.
6. It's your job to make your character interesting and to make the game interesting for you.
7. If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics stink.
8. The answer is not on your character sheet.
9 .Things are swingy.
10. Your paper man will die. Celebrate his life and make a new one.
5a is my own contribution.
In my opinion, both 5 and 5a are appropriate ways to play your man. As long as you're taking his world as he experiences it seriously for him, then you can add as much or as little of yourself to him as you like.
This should be shown to every new player before the game starts.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree. I think it would have to be re-ordered and maybe simplified somewhat because many people don't like to read - and I think 9 and 10 are very very important.
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