Select a result to preview

OSR Ready - The missing guide for OSR Game Masters

Welcome!

This book is the book I wish I had when I started running OSR-style games. There are so many great things out there, but leave the Game Master wondering, "Well, now what do I do with this?" I wanted to put together resources and techniques that have shaped how I prepare and run games over the years that my players still talk about even 10 years later.

My hope is that by using this material, you'll feel like you know the steps to take to prepare an OSR campaign or session that your players will love.

This starts with the styles of campaigns and how to prepare them. From there, I break down preparing to run a session and some things to keep in mind when you're playing at the table. We can't forget about what you should do after the game is over, and common Game Master mistakes.

About the Author

Hey there! I'm Ryan, a long time player and Game Master of TTRPGs and fan of OSR style games. I've been playing off and on for over 20 years, and love to help people enjoy the hobby.

If you'd like to see what other game-related items I've published or contact me you can find out more at:

What Is OSR?

OSR stands for Old-School Renaissance or Revival. It's a movement that started back in the early 2000s in response to contemporary tabletop roleplaying games. People felt that they remembered the oldest versions of these games were the most fun, and a community of folks started writing about how those games worked and why they were fun.

This community kept growing and started producing new games sometimes called "retro-clones" to recapture those old games. The community and what it produced continued to evolve for well over a decade with the intention to preserve the feel of the game and the principles behind it as the games and systems themselves took wildly different forms.

You'll read more about some of what makes OSR games unique, at the risk of oversimplifying, OSR games think the fun part is in choosing to steal from the dragon, not the roll of the dice when you do it.

Campaign Prep

Preparing a campaign is no simple thing, and is not consistently discussed in many OSR systems. Having said that, preparing a campaign doesn't have to be overly complicated and, in fact, OSR lends itself well to strategic limited preparation by creating tools and materials to draw upon during play.

Campaign Notes

One of the most important decisions about preparing for a campaign is where and how you'll keep your notes for it. Since campaigns span many sessions, your note-taking matters. For campaign notes, in particular, you'll want a dedicated place where you can write notes and refer to them quickly. These notes are different than the notes that come up during an individual session or as you generate ideas and materials.

Creating effective campaign notes is all about having just enough detail in a way that is effective for you to improvise around, and reference quickly. Many examples of notes follow a tried-and-true method of numbering maps and write a note for what is at each of those numbers. What you write for those numbers may be a sentence, a paragraph, a stat block, a reference to a treasure table, or all of this.

Your notes should have what you need to perform well as a Game Master. Elements you're comfortable improvising you can leave out, elements you aren't comfortable with, fill in. Experiment with how much detail you need with each thing, and pay attention to how much time you spend at the table cross-referencing material.

Creating a Campaign

If you want to create a campaign, don't worry about the scale of it; just know that a campaign is played out over many sessions. It can be as serious, episodic, or silly as you and your table like. Still, to get going, you'll need to answer some (not all) of these questions:

You'll likely come up with more details beyond what these questions ask of you, and that is fine. The main point is to get down the really big picture items and elements. All the detail that shows up in each session will be something you work on in another step.

Campaign Styles

Broadly speaking, there are two major campaign styles that exist. It isn't critical to decide now which you're using, but your future prep will change depending on the style.

Crawls

Crawls could be a hex crawl, point crawl, dungeon crawl, or even a mystery game. These styles of games are based on the party picking where to go and exploring freely. This style of game emphasizes exploration as a key element of play, as the choice of where to go is at the forefront.

Each substyle of hex crawl, point crawl, dungeon crawl, or mystery game makes use of several common preparation techniques.

To create one of these style games, you'll be working with a map. Often, it helps to prepare these games by preparing the map one layer at a time. The first layer is about the major elements or landmarks. The second layer will dive into a specific area and add unique, interesting, and campaign-specific elements to it. The third layer involves creating material to make the world feel by having random encounters, a library of NPCs, etc. Since exploration is a big part of these games, exploring should be interesting.

Hex Crawl

Some specific aspects that apply uniquely to hex crawls are that they are a much more open map. Your prep may focus on major landmarks like mountains, forests, rivers, cities, etc. Then each hex will get a pass where it gets stocked with something to make it interesting or nothing. If you're looking at a hex map that is 30-40 hexes by height and width, that creates 1200 hexes of potential locations. Don't worry though, most of them will be empty.

A general procedure to create a hex map goes something like this:

  1. Create large geographical landmarks (Mountain ranges, forests, lakes, oceans)
    1. Add rivers going from high elevation to lower bodies of water
  2. Add any major campaign related cities or locations
  3. Add other large cities and towns
  4. Connect large cities and towns with roads
  5. Pick your starting location for the party
  6. Prepare details for that location and a radius of 3-4 hexes out from it

The other hexes will get filled in dynamically as you go. You'll need to develop random tables to help with this. A starting point for what might be in a hex is provided below.

Roll What's There?
1 Nothing
2 Nothing
3 Treasure
4 Trap
5 Landmark
6 Anomaly

Treasure would be anything the party may find valuable (It might spark a whole adventure where they figure out what it is and how to get it to market). A trap would be any peril your party could face that isn't a creature, like a chasm with a perilous rope bridge, or a deadfall that could crush a person. Landmarks are any unique features that could be interesting. Anomalies are odd things that exist without providing an obvious threat to the party, like a telepathic floating gem.

You can use the template below for wandering monsters and stocking hexes. Location appropriate represents things that make sense to be in that location and fairly common and likely a mild or moderate threat to the party. Something very dangerous should be a threat that will likely result in at least one player's death. Something out of place could be dangerous or not, but it should leave the party wondering.

Roll Encounter In a Lair?
1 Nothing No
2 Nothing No
3 Location appropriate No
4 Location appropriate No
5 Something dangerous Yes
6 Something out of place Yes

The Lair question tells you if the encounter is out in the open or is taking place where the creature resides. These lairs can be as simple as a hole in the ground to a dungeon with several encounters.

You can take this template and create one for woods, plains, lakes, rivers, underground, or any other type of location to create specific tables for wandering monsters with more specific creatures and things to find.

In between sessions you can look at where the party is, and based on what their plans are you can develop the radius of hexes around them and leave the rest to another day.

Point Crawls

Point crawls are a simplified hex crawl that turns the map into a series of locations and how they connect like a mind map. Each location gets descriptions, encounters, and everything it needs. Travelling between points often invites its own encounters, just as travelling in a hex crawl would. Point crawls don't require as much material as a hex crawl, but often benefit from more attention paid to each individual point and the travel between them.

For Point Crawls, you'll want an equivalent of wandering monsters, but these will be more like adventures that happen while you're at a point for some amount of time. Similarly, you'll want a list of things that can happen while travelling.

Dungeon Crawls

Dungeon crawls are built around the map of a dungeon. Preparing a dungeon crawl requires developing a map, often with multiple levels, traps, doors, secrets, and stocking the rooms. When stocking a dungeon, you can use a table to help you decide what's in it, similar to what is in the hex crawl section. Somewhat unique to a dungeon, though, is that you need to provide some description of what is in each room. A dungeon should not feel like a series of empty rooms.

Designing a dungeon may sound complicated, but you can start simply by getting some grid paper and blocking out some rooms, then connecting them. Connect your rooms in a way that creates multiple paths to get from one place to another. From here, you can stock each room using the results of random tables.

There's a rule of thumb that dungeons get tougher the deeper you delve. So monster tables should favor level appropriateness with a rare chance for a surprise. Traps deserve extra attention. For each trap, spend a moment thinking about how it is triggered, if there is a mechanism controlling it or magic, how it resets, and what clues for its existence are around. When you stock treasure, don't be afraid to make it stockpiles of trade goods, paintings, jewelry, art, etc. The variety and mass help the dungeon feel lived in, and again give interesting choices to the party. Finally, doors between rooms and halls can get stuck and jammed. The simple detail of jammed doors will completely alter how your party interacts with the dungeon.

An option for dungeon crawls is to keep the map hidden from players and have them map their own. While this can feel like it takes away from the game, it represents a layer of play where they have to pay close attention, and allows the party to get lost and turned around in a way they would not otherwise expect.

Another set of challenges to prepare for is provisions, loss of light, and encumbrance. More than bookkeeping, these details create emergent and important choices for the party.

Mystery or Clue Map

A unique approach to a Point Crawl allows for mystery games to take place. Create a map of clues that exist for your mystery and connect them by how one clue would lead you to the next. This map can exist as its own map or be a part of any other structure.

The main points here are to describe the clue, how it's found, and what significance it has. Include at least one clue that goes nowhere as a red herring. A good clue map isn't linear and allows the party to chase leads in any direction. With that in mind, some clues point to more than one clue.

Episodic

The episodic style of play is what many adventure supplements leverage. These games are built primarily by creating a set of scenes or encounters that the party will go through. They tend to be more linear than a crawl style, but also lend themselves to richer descriptions and stories. This style of campaign is less about exploration and more about experiencing a story and world.

Preparing for episodic campaigns means you're preparing one episode or session ahead of your party. Preparing more than that will often lead to frustration, as your party will almost never stay on the course you expect.

A common problem with this style is called railroading. Railroading is where the Game Master forces or contrives a way for the party to wind up back on the track the Game Master planned. It is the opinion of this author that this is something to avoid. If they go off course, let them, and discuss it. Oftentimes, you'll learn more about what the players find interesting, and that's where your attention should shift to.

TV Episodes

When preparing a campaign, it is often good to consider downtime, side quests, and odd adventures. Many episodic TV shows do this by having some episodes focus on a main plot, and others do not.

Preparing in this manner is a question of following your players' lead on what is interesting to them and you, and preparing a single session's worth of material with interesting characters, encounters, and surprises. It may not advance the story of the campaign at all, drop a hint, or be one focused solely on it.

3x3x3

This technique works well for episodic play and low prep. Since you're preparing one session at a time, you can take advantage of this smaller scope. This technique asks you to prepare 3 locations, 3 NPCs, and 3 encounters.

Each one of these may need as little as one sentence. It depends on your comfort level with filling in details on the spot.

When you prepare this way, it is important to note that these things represent options. There is no need to connect all of these elements at all. They are tools you use in the session. For example, the party wants to go talk to someone about the golden barges. You have an NPC ready. That leads the party to want to go somewhere else, which you happen to have a location you can use. Maybe on the way, they have one of the encounters.

This technique is about having tools and materials to use on the spot to fill in content around the players.

Odds and Ends

There are a number of additional things that complement OSR games you'll want to invest in. These may be tools you need throughout the campaign or for an individual location or session.

Rumor Tables

A rumor table is a list that you can roll on that has a set of rumors that the party may learn through interacting with NPCs, reading books, finding clues, etc. Some may be true, and some may be false.

A good rule of thumb is that any sizable location the players may spend time in will benefit from a rumor table. Even a larger dungeon will benefit from one, as it will provide clues, mystery, and suspense for the next time they return. It is unlikely you'll need more than 20 rumors for a location, and you'll likely be able to get away with six.

Simply write a rumor, and indicate if it's true or false. Then, when players interact with someone or encounter something that might have a rumor, roll, and make a note that they've learned that rumor, players will often turn a rumor into a whole adventure.

Sometimes it is easiest to start prep by writing rumors and using the interesting ones to create locations, adventures, and more.

Wandering Monster/Encounter

This was covered in the section about hex crawls, but its utility extends well beyond that specific style of game.

A handy table with six entries will make the world feel alive and less sparse. Fill it with creatures that bring the world to life. Then you'll decide on a frequency to roll. Common examples would be each day of traveling or between points of a point crawl.

You can make them more colorful by creating a chart of interesting encounters. An encounter chart is a list of interesting situations or encounters the party may bump into that you roll on. Often, a one or two-sentence description of the encounter is all you need. An encounter might be meeting a wandering merchant who secretly tries to kill travelers and steals what they can get.

NPCs

One of the hardest things is to make up interesting NPCs on the fly. At the end of this is a chart you can use to quickly come up with names, professions, and more for NPCs. You can also make your own.

While having this ready can speed up play, creating details about an NPC is something your players can do as well. Simply prompt a player for a first name, another for the last name, another for a unique physical detail, etc.

It is also extremely useful to have a reaction or morale chart. This chart helps you decide their attitude towards the party. To use the chart, you roll when the party encounters the NPC to learn their initial disposition. You can modify your role based on anything you think is appropriate. You can make a new roll as the situation with the NPC changes. You might roll again if they experience violence, receive a big request, detect a lie, etc.

If you need a quick chart, here's one you can use:

Roll Disposition
1 Hostile
2 Suspicious
3 Indifferent
4 Cautious
5 Helpful
6 Friend/Ally

Locations

It never fails that your players will want to go to something you didn't anticipate. Having a building they can explore, a dungeon, or a monster lair on hand can make a huge difference in the game. Preparing these things is helpful, but you may never get to use them. You'll have to use your judgment about your own campaign and sessions to know what you may need or not.

A good way to create some of these things is with online generation tools. Don't worry about creating everything you might need; just try to have one or two ready ahead of time when the game may need them.

Just Enough

When preparing a campaign, it is easy to get lost in detail and the excitement of what is possible. Enjoy the feeling, but don't burn out. Way too many Game Master's ideas never make it to the table because they get lost in the potential, and eventually drown in the detail.

Focus on just the major elements. Think of these major elements as the paint and theme that you'll use as an artist as you create many unique pieces. Each session will be where you bring the elements to life and create that unique piece.

Session 0 and Safety

Whenever you start a new campaign or your player base changes, it's a good idea to come back to session 0. Session 0 is a common term that folks use to represent preparing to play, sometimes that involves creating characters and setting the stage for the campaign.

More importantly, though, session 0 is where the folks who are playing establish agreements that keep the game fun for everyone. Some questions you'll want to cover are:

These questions might provoke some eye-rolls, but they're important in setting up a healthy gaming group. Just about everyone has memories of a terrible game experience that one of these questions could have helped with.

Session Prep

It doesn't matter if you're using a pre-written adventure, your own campaign, or you're making your own material; you'll need to prepare.

How much you need to prepare and what you need to prepare range widely. The main thing is that you should know what you struggle with as a game master. Many Game Masters, for instance, struggle to come up with NPCs with names and descriptions easily. Your comfort in the theme and material will help you improvise more readily, and preparing what you're not good at will make up the difference.

Either way, you'll want to prepare enough to smooth out the difficult spots.

Session Length

This is a great topic to discuss with your players to know how long they can play in a given session. Many groups choose to play in 2-4 hour sessions, but you should pick what works best for your group.

There is a sweet spot every Game Master has in terms of preparation. If you run short of material before time, you can simply say so and see what your players come up with. If you have more material than what they needed, it'll be there for a rainy day.

If you are playing for several hours, weave in breaks. A good rule of thumb is a 5-minute break every 45 minutes, and a longer break every hour and a half.

Also, many groups bring drinks and snacks to share if they're playing in person, and others have meals together while they play.

Adding Detail

Oftentimes, there is a gap between pre-written material and the details you need to run a game smoothly. You should expect to have to add more material than what you already have.

Can you improvise everything? Yes, of course you can! However, with the mental load of everything else going on, this extra burden of making everything up can quickly exhaust you or leave you unable to remember all the things you've already made up.

A useful way to prepare material is by levels of detail. An example of this would be that you have a one-sentence description of a building. This level of detail is useful if nobody goes in the building, but it falls apart after that. So let's talk about how to add and describe levels of detail.

What we're going to do is use an outline to represent levels of detail. The top-most level of the outline is what is immediately obvious. Each level in the outline represents another layer that the players may or may not explore or experience. Let me give a quick before and after:

Before

A well-appointed room that smells of tobacco and pungent cheeses. Overstuffed furniture made from rich dark wood makes for a nice study.

After

Well-Appointed Room

Hairless Cat (4/8/2/0/small beast, special: holding the cat as it escapes can have a 1d6 chance of infection)

Now, when you look at this, a few things are likely to stand out. First, there is a lot more detail in the outline version. That is because the one-sentence description is interesting, but it isn't enough. The next thing you'll notice is how this format is much easier to scan to find the information you need. The first example is good to read outside of play, but in the moment, a format that is quick to scan makes things much easier.

Rules

Many OSR games favor fewer rules, which means remembering them isn't always too challenging.

Having said that, there will be times you don't know a rule or what a spell does. Just pause the game and look it up, or have a player do it. You don't have to know everything or get it right all the time for the game to be amazing.

Common Situations

Lethality

The OSR world is very comfortable with games that are lethal and rules that support it. This attitude that favors lethal games is different than many other popular games, and deserves special consideration.

As a Game Master in the OSR space, lethality is fun when done well.

To keep games fun even when they're lethal, be upfront about the possibility of death. Before the campaign or session starts, let them know that combat can always lead to death. During play, as the players encounter things that could kill them, tell them! If they choose to attempt something where failure could lead to death, tell them! If they want to interact with something that is totally unknown and could kill them, tell them!

It may sound like you're protecting players from consequences, but in reality, by telling them death is possible, you're giving them key information, and you'll be astonished how often they go through with it anyway.

XP and Advancement

OSR games vary in how they view character advancement. Some do it based on the accrual of experience points that are often gained through treasure acquisition. Others favor narrative forms of advancement, and others still view advancement somewhere in the middle.

What you should do as a GM is get a feel for the pacing needs for your players and prepare games accordingly. A game with players that don't mind slow advancement may be perfectly happy figuring out how a magical item works instead of leveling up characters.

One thing to note, though, is that many players wind up feeling rewarded by equipment and the satisfaction that comes from completing a personal agenda for their characters, and this should be a key part of any long-running game.

Characters Have Secrets, Players Don't

Player vs player conflict can ruin a game for people. Player-vs-player in this case means two characters begin to fight or work against others. While this might make sense narratively that characters have agendas that pit them against one another, we also have to remember that a fictional character's motivation doesn't justify ruining a real person's game.

A good rule of thumb here is that characters have secrets but players don't.

This means that if anyone realizes that a character would do something that would make the game less fun for someone they bring it up in advance of taking those actions. Everyone at the table discusses the situation and how to handle it without jeopardizing what is fun for others.

Maybe the table decides to have the character hold off for a while until a few more things happen. Maybe the player who is going to get attacked actually wanted to play a different character and is happy with it. You'll only have these options if you discuss it.

Creatures and Stat Blocks

A great creature has at least one distinct physical trait and one or more behavioral ones. One way to make a creature is to start with something normal, then tweak from there. Don't be afraid to go through several rounds of tweaking. Each round should push that critter to the beyond.

When putting a stat block for your creature, you can do whatever makes sense for this creature, but it is often helpful to use other creatures or a player character as a reference to see where it sits in terms of mechanical strength and weakness.

While there is absolutely no reason to scale your creatures to the players, it is generally good to have a sense of what will happen if they choose combat. Clever players will find a way to evade, trick, disarm, melt with acid, or any other number of things instead of getting into a punching match.

Most OSR systems will present creatures in a full and shorthand notation. The shorthand is what you can make use of in your notes and prep, and the full version becomes source material to draw upon for inspiration or added detail. Below is an example of shorthand for the game Troika.

Laughing Rats (3/10/2/0/small beast) Special: If more than one is encountered, they will start giggling the first around, and after d4 rounds break into hysterical laughter. Save or get the giggles.

Running the Game

Running games is exciting, tiring, and inspiring. You'll find that your players do something you're not prepared for, ignore what is obvious, and focus on things that aren't relevant. When you're at the table running the game, it's about building something together. Even though you have different roles, the goal is that everyone has fun.

With that in mind, let's get into some advice for running games that you may want to consider.
what makes them unique. The rest is going to operate under the premise that you only need dice if failure is serious or interesting, and that most of the game happens in the story.

Here are some common scenarios to explore OSR style of play.

Lying and Diplomacy

There are so few rules for social interactions in OSR that it might feel a bit intimidating, but it really isn't. There are two main components to social interactions in the OSR world: Morale and interactions.

Every creature benefits from rolling on a morale or reaction table to help the Game Master decide their starting disposition. As key moments happen interacting with an NPC, you can roll again and give any modifiers you think relevant. For example, flattering someone who enjoys being flattered would likely improve their reaction rolls. This cycle of interaction and rolls can continue until one party gets what they want, the interaction stops, or hostilities start. As the Game Master, you'll be able to decide when the timing is right for each of these scenarios with the result of the morale rolls.

Now, what happens when we have things like lying? Well, let's imagine the party is attempting to gain entry into a lord's estate and decides to lie about it to the guards. The Game Master simply listens to the lie the party wants to tell and informs them of the consequences of being found out, as well as their likelihood of being discovered based on that lie. The party moves forward, and the Game Master decides the lie is just good enough for the guard, who is now highly suspicious, to let them in, but alert the other guards.

When an NPC lies to the party, we treat the characters as competent, and we can inform them that something they said doesn't sit right, or they're not telling you everything, or they're lying about something. Telling the players may sound like it ruins the game, but in games where you roll for this, the act of rolling is the same as telling everyone at the table a lie happened, even if the roll fails. In contrast, simply exposing that a lie happened gives the players the key information they need to make the next set of choices.

Hiding and Sneaking

In the OSR world, anyone can hide or sneak! OSR assumes characters and players are competent. But how do you know it was successful or not? Let's create a more specific scenario. Imagine the party is in a dungeon, exploring a mostly intact bedroom with furniture, draperies, and other items. When they hear footsteps, they quickly hide around the room. Each player says how they're hiding. The Game Master decides the patrolling monsters aren't on alert, so the party is safe. In another situation, he decides the patrol is aware there is something dangerous, but not concerned they're in the room, so the party is still safe. In the final situation, the patrol heard noise coming from the room and knew there was a danger, so they searched the room.

At this moment, the party knows they'll get discovered. A roll would not improve this situation. It is obvious and coherent with the story. Consider the alternative where the alerted guards arrive, and someone rolls a high skill to hide in the bed. The alerted guard then tries to search the bed but cannot find anything because the dice dictate otherwise. That is the key difference between OSR and non-OSR play.

Perception and Searching

This one can admittedly get a little tricky to describe. Let's begin with some basics and then end with a more nuanced example.

In the room of a dungeon, there is treasure hidden behind a painting, and the party has just entered the room. You describe the basic contents of the room, including the painting. The party decides to look for anything interesting. You ask if they're going to ransack the room or be kind of quiet about it. They say they'll be quiet, and you let them know that they'll be able to search the room in about 30 minutes. They agree, and you tell them that they have found the treasure hidden behind the painting. No roll is needed because competent folks are taking their time searching.

Let's say the party is camping in the woods, celebrating their successful haul from the dungeon. They're gathered around the fire, drinking and retelling stories. Goblins smell the food and hear the conversation, and are sneaking up on the party. Now, as the Game Master, you've got some choices to make, but it boils down to this: Would the party detect the sneaking goblins or not? After a discussion with the players about what could happen if nobody keeps watch, the players decide to party and take the chance. The goblins ambush the party. If someone did keep watch, they would realize something is approaching the party because they are competent.

In the oldest style of these games, there is a difference between secret and hidden. "Secret" in the OSR definition is almost imperceptible, maybe due to magic or impeccable craftsmanship. Secret things are hard to find even when you're looking at them, and that's why some characters have a unique ability. Hidden, by contrast, isn't immediately visible but is likely to be found if you spend time looking. This distinction comes into play as you prepare your games. While the distinction of secret exists, it is not common and is almost exclusive to secret doors in dungeons.

So, how would finding a secret work if you don't have supernatural abilities? Imagine the party found a map that indicated a secret door was in the room. They spend 30 minutes looking but cannot find it or any trace of it. One of the party members suggests tapping each stone in the wall with the back of a dagger to see if they can hear the hollow sound. They spend an hour tapping stones and hear the hollow sound of the room behind them, which helps them locate the door. Now, let's break down what happened in this example. The party had a map that indicated the presence of something nearby. Their initial search turned up nothing. A broad search will lack the attention to minute detail required to find something that is secret. When the character suggests tapping on the stones, this specific approach focuses on minute details and eventually leads to the discovery.

Record Keeping

Alright, this part may sound a bit silly, but it really does make a significant difference to the game. Many emergent adventures take place because of good record and timekeeping. It sounds like a chore, but it adds so much to the game when choices around resources matter.

When the party is exploring a dungeon or cave, tracking things in 10-minute intervals helps you know when their torches burn out, when to make wandering monster checks, and how quickly they burn through their provisions. When the party realizes they'll be in the dark soon or that they're going to run out of food, the adventure changes quickly.

Imagine a party that entered a dungeon and found a treasure pile. After giving the details of the pile, the Game Master asks, "How will you transport it home?" The party then weighs options of leaving it to get carts and hirelings, leaving someone behind to guard it, and what they should take today in case it's all they get. On the journey back to get hirelings and return, they have to keep them safe throughout the journey and potentially deal with a lot of unwanted attention as they return to town with carts full of treasure.

The simple act of keeping honest accounts of inventory and encumbrance allows all of that emergent adventure to happen, with each step an opportunity for something interesting to happen.

OSR Perspectives

Agency Is Fun

Agency is a fancy word for choice. One of the things that makes OSR games fun is agency. One very important aspect of running games is to give your players that freedom of choice. Earlier in the sections about episodic play, there was mention of railroading as a problem. Hopefully, it isn't hard to imagine that if you force players to experience your story, you've also taken away their choices and limited their fun.

Giving players agency shows up in all aspects of gameplay, and it takes time to think through how your judgment as a Game Master will impact their agency. For example, in many games, encumbrance is seen as a chore and is ignored, yet by taking it away, you also take away all the choices players would otherwise need to make about what is important to them and what isn't.

When you roll dice and you realize you're killing a character, many DMs will advocate for altering the number for dramatic effect. Yet, from the lens of agency, altering the roll invalidates the choices that the player has made since the results are now going to be ignored.

Agency is about giving players meaningful choices. Some of those choices won't seem fun, but you'll find yourself sitting with a much happier table of players if you give them those choices.

Player Skill and Metagaming

A conceptual problem that has plagued gaming tables for years is how to handle the problem of what your character knows and can do, separately from what the player knows and can do.

The simplest and best way to handle this is to realize there is no issue at all.

Let me give an example: The party believes there is a trap ahead. The player of a non-verbal character suggests that the smart character played by someone else study it.

Another example: The same situation happens, and the character throws a rock to trigger the trap.

In both of these examples, we have players and characters acting out of sync, but in a way that is fun and in no way destructive to the game itself. Your players are having fun because they figured it out.

The only time a game master should have any concern is when a character does something truly outside of what everyone understands them to be. When this happens, you can simply ask. You aren't here to police them, but it is good to make what isn't obvious, obvious.

Yes, and...

This saying is born out of Improv, and it is built around the concept of building on what is there. Players have to build on what descriptions and consequences you give. A Game Master should also build on what the players are doing as well.

Consider a simple example of incorporating player backgrounds into the session. It may not always be obvious how, but when you can, you are building on what was there.

When players want to do something that seems insane to you, you can say agree and inform them of what might happen. If players want to add details to scenes, you can say yes to them and add more to make it even richer.

Situations Over Story

Situations over story is a concept to help you prepare and run games. Many Game Masters struggle with trying to make things fit into a story or reaching an end goal. Situations over story is asking you to let go of those concerns, and focus on creating situations and environments for the players to interact with, instead of making everything fit into a cohesive story all the time.

Another way to look at this is that you, as a Game Master, are providing prompts that your players will respond to and fill in with action, drama, humor, and more. Situation over story is perfect for many styles of OSR play where discovery is a big aspect of the game.

For a Game Master, focus on the specific situation the players are in and creating. Let the concern about what is next, how it fits, and what if fall away. The threads of the main story will come together over time.

No Surprises

Anyone who has played tabletop RPGs has an unpleasant memory of a Game Master surprising them with a consequence that felt wrong. Nothing can sour a game faster for someone than this moment.

What happens is that a player's expectation of consequence does not match the Game Master's. This situation can only happen when the player and Game Master believe secrets and surprises are good.

Consider a party in a dungeon, and the Game Master describes charred remains on the floor. This is the Game Master's first hint to the party of a trap, and they stop and debate for a minute before deciding to just move on. The Game Master realizes they didn't get the hint and are about to be surprised by a very dangerous trap that is likely to kill someone.

The Game Master who believes in "No surprises," says, "Before you go on, your characters would have every reason to believe there is a trap involving fire ahead. You don't know how it works yet, but if you continue as you've suggested, one or more of you could die."

Does telling the players they might die because there is a trap ruin the game? Not at all. By telling the players, you've given them the information they need. If the GM decided they didn't listen or search well enough, the players are likely going to feel cheated and that they died to a gimmick.

By informing the player of the trap, they have all the information they need to make the decisions they want. In no way does this mean they'll avoid the trap and avoid death. It means they won't be surprised by it.

Organizing

When you're running the game, it can feel like you're being pulled in many directions at once. One part of you will be thinking of what you prepared, another on the rules and how they apply, another on what the players are doing, another on how to make this moment better or interesting, and another on what might come next. Having everything you need organized helps you keep as much room in you're head open for all of this instead of pausing to find things.

You will want to experiment with having the following things available while you run your session:

Rules and Rulings

As you read through many OSR systems, you'll realize there isn't probably a rule for the situation you need. Don't panic. This is less of a problem than you may initially think.

Include the Players

The easiest way to handle this is to be honest about the situation and the challenge you're having, and come up with a way to handle it. Explain how you see the situation and what you think the likely outcomes are. Seek feedback from the players as to what they think makes sense. Normally, this is all it will take to handle the situation.

Don't Overcomplicate It

There may not be many rules, but there are enough that most situations can be adequately handled within the framework provided. Focus your attention on how the rules can apply to the situation, and you'll likely come up with something very simple, agreeable, and effective.

Should You Roll?

A common OSR principle is that you roll dice only when the consequence of failure is interesting or serious. There are two things you need to know to answer whether you should roll or not. The first is what the interesting consequences of failure are. The other is whether the characters and players can eliminate the risks by taking time, working together, etc. If there are consequences and risk remains, roll. Otherwise, don't.

Here's an example: A player wants their character to swing on a rope across a chasm filled with skunk bugs. The player has nothing on their sheet to help them. They aren't in a hurry and have various odds and ends in their inventory. They say they'll rig a harness or something to help. The Game Master says they make it across safely (though maybe with some dramatic flair to point out what could have happened).

Here's a more complicated example: In the same situation, the party is in a dungeon that is far from cleared. The Game Master says that they can take time to figure out and test a harness, but it'll result in a wandering monster check from the time and noise, or they can hurry and take their chances on the rope.

Communication

Rule of Three

This will sound laughable, but if you are ever giving the party important information, give it to them at least three different times. No matter how obvious or clear you think you are, they will not hear or understand you the first two times.

Add Detail Everywhere

Adding small details to even the most basic of situations will add to the flair and invite the players into the world more deeply. While it can be odd at first, this is something you can grow into. A great place to start is when players make a check or contest. Paint success and failure with something unique, something that stands out, incorporates a detail, scents, sounds, or anything else. What might have otherwise been a stumble could be tripping on the droppings of a creature sleeping soundly after a meal disagreed with him, and is dreaming of doing it again tomorrow.

Along with this, don't be afraid to ask the players to add detail as well.

Ask for Intent

After a Game Master asks, "What do you do?" they'll often get bombarded with a pile of seemingly small and unrelated activities. When a player asks to do something that seems oddly specific, ask them what they want to happen or intend to happen.

What you'll learn is that the player has a much more interesting and grand scheme in mind, and they've simply asked for the first part. Without knowing their intent, though, you'll likely disappoint them since you were also born without telepathy. Once they tell you what they hope for, you can incorporate that into how you'll handle their and others' actions.

Consent is important in great games and gaming groups, so let's look at how that plays out. The first example is when you need to make a judgment. It is tempting to make the decision and move on to the next bit of the game, but this is a great time to pause for consent. The reason is that your players may have a different idea of how things should play out, that a detail should play a larger factor, or simply that your judgment is taking the narrative in a different direction. Pausing and asking if the players agree is a great way to build a better game and a better group.

The second place you should consider consent is when you discuss the types of content that your game will have. This happens typically during Session 0, but throughout the game, you'll need to double-check that you are not veering too close to any type of content or material that your players object to. There are techniques like the X-Card that you can use that allow players to physically place an object to show they object, but you can also simply check in if you feel you've crossed a line, or after the session, or between them.

Consent is a big part of building a game together.

After the Session

Harvest Those Ideas

After you're done with a session, you might be tired, but you're also likely to be brimming with ideas for your next game.

Take a few moments and jot those ideas down in a few sentences in your notes. When you sit down to prep again, you'll have some material ready to build on.

Check Your Notes

Taking notes during a session can be tricky to pull off, so after the session is over, take a moment to see if you left anything out.

If you're playing a one-time adventure, you may not need any notes at all!

Summary

Some Game Masters like to write an actual summary that they can send out to the group. This serves both as notes and as a helpful reminder to the players. This is something that can take some time, but it works well to keep the flame burning in between sessions.

Starting out, write a summary that is like a vacation photo. It doesn't represent everything in the vacation, but it sparks the memory of it.

Reflect

There will be things in your game you'll feel you handled poorly. It happens. Often, we're our harshest critic. Take some time and think through the session and see if there aren't one or two things you can improve on next time.

If you feel you made a more significant mistake, you can bring it to the table and solve the issue there.

Common GM Problems

Railroading

Your players will never do what you expect. For the railroading GM, their mind works to force the players back into the world, plot, and situation they created.

Don't do this.

Instead, realize that the game that is being played is the right one, not the one you prepared. When you force players back into what you want, you not only take away their choice, but they will eventually feel like the game is no longer fun.

Fiat

When a GM uses fiat, they are using their ability to make a ruling or judgment for their own purpose instead of playing to the situation as it is. This can happen both intentionally and unintentionally.

Don't do this.

Let's give a simple example: Your carefully designed creature attacks a player and is about to kill them. You don't want them to die this quickly, so you pretend the damage is less than it was, so that they live.

The fiat here is that GM is altering the rolls secretly to make things go the way they want.

Admittedly, the GM fiat problem is tricky. You will encounter times when you accidentally forget some information, build a creature that is not at all what you expected, or have no idea how to resolve something.

Slow down, tell the players what is going on, and work it out together. The game and group will be better for it.

Not Having an Answer

Let's face it, you can only keep so much in your head at once, and little nuggets are bound to fall out. Those nuggets could be the rules, the name of the NPC the party is interacting with, or ideas for what comes next.

Don't panic.

You can always take a moment if you need to. Running games is hard work. You can also bring the situation to the table and ask them. They'll know or find the rule, know the name of every NPC, and have a lot of ideas about what could happen.

Appendix

NPCs

Roll D20 for each column or roll once and read across. You'll need to add to this table over time or swap in new entries. Using this table can help you quickly create NPCs that are found randomly and give you enough detail to create someone interesting to interact with.

# First Name Last Name Physical Description Profession
1 Mira Quell Brown hair in tight curls Cooper (Barrel Maker)
2 Jor Hallow Pale shining blue eyes Charcoal Maker
3 Elen Voss Large limp Woodcutter
4 Sable Tern Scar across eye Coal Miner
5 Rook Vire Missing right thumb Gem Cutter
6 Nima Solen Captivating smile Jeweler
7 Toren Grey Musty smell Tanner
8 Kira Wynth No shoes Weaver
9 Bex Carn Multiple ear piercings Farmer
10 Hald Mire Visible tattoo Cook
11 Lysa Fen Never makes eye contact Courier
12 Oren Vauk Large beauty mark Gambler
13 Vea Harrow Long dirty nails Town Crier
14 Puck Rill Yellow-brown teeth Guard
15 Juna Arc Gorgeous Hunter
16 Sorn Kett Burn scars Bowyer
17 Merek Dol Hazel eyes Fletcher
18 Fay Noll Constant scowel Blacksmith
19 Cor Lys Dirt smudged Armorer
20 Ivi Stroud Slouching Merchant

Reaction Table

For each NPC, either roll to see their starting disposition or simply assume indifference. If there are key moments in the interaction, you can roll again and modify the roll based on whether things are going well or poorly in the eyes of that NPC.

Roll Disposition
1 Hostile
2 Suspicious
3 Indifferent
4 Cautious
5 Helpful
6 Friend/Ally

Resources