Why I consider Errant to be OSR

Errant Alpha is being rapidly revised up towards Beta status. It should be available as a beta pretty soon. I wanted to take a moment to pontificate why I consider Errant to be a part of the Old-School Renaissance (OSR). I think that there are common theoretical underpinnings of the OSR games that can be defined and judged. I believe James Raggi is wrong in saying that OSR is simply anyone playing games from a certain time period. I believe those games have a common theme that can be defined, thus allowing for forward innovation along those lines.

The below characteristics represent my attempt to define those principles.

1. Simplicity of design. Modern games have become expansive in both character design and system design. Just look at the size and complexity of character sheets and GM reference charts for obvious evidence. Beginning with 2nd edition but really taking off with 3rd edition, D&D became hyper-complex. The days of making a new character in 5 minutes became something of the past. There were no more simple choices and you had to almost map out your character at 10th level to make sure you were making the right choices at 1st level. One of the things that had held me back personally is that growing up with complex games, finding appreciation for the simple was hard for me.

2. Low magic. Magic used to be really rare and really mysterious. In 3rd edition and beyond, it is almost mundane. You have people buying and selling +3 longswords. You have the Red Wizards selling magic everywhere. You have the descriptions of priests and wizards turned into magic item menus and on-demand spell casting lists. Older games progress slower and when you find a magic item, it is a BIG deal. This creates a style of play that encourages guile over brute force, of thinking instead of charging in.

3. Harsh World. People die. Injuries are serious. Going into a dark cave should be scary. As D&D evolved over the years, it has moved away from this. You can measure it directly in terms of stat inflation, but you can also look at the desire to create "appropriate challenges" so that characters are rarely threatened with serious death, healing surges, and other similar issues. As with video games, RPGs have had their difficulty lowered over the years and people long for the days of a real challenge.

4. Centrality of GM authority. One thing that becomes evident when comparing with older editions is how much GM control was taken away to make these complex rule systems. As GMs became more dependent on the game, they became less improvisational, less able to govern the table on the fly. Everything became codified and this weakened the GM. OSR. Games restore the power to the GM and place tools at their disposal to govern.

5. Reliance upon improvisational adjudication. This is related to #3 but deserves it own point. The primary method of adjudicating the game is by making judgments about what attribute applies. Want to climb something? Roll against Strength. Want to do something nifty with your hands? Roll against Dexterity. These decisions are made at the table without having to consult a giant rulebook about what applies. As the amount of rules grows, the amount of improvisational judgment declines. Maintaining this element is important.

I am very interested in what people think about this definition of the OSR.