Mausritter, and OSR

Mausritter is a rules-light fantasy sword-and-whiskers game inspired by any number of similar stories, including Mouse Guard, Brambly Hedge, The Rescuers, etc. It combines a lot of rules and ideas from many games I’ve mentioned here, including the character creation method from Into the Odd, inventory management from Knave, layouts from Mothership, and other concepts from places like Goblin Punch, Moonhop, and Last Grasp Grimoire.

Stats are the simple three of Strength, Dexterity, and Will. HP and Gold are found by rolling 1d6 each. Inventory items are cut-out squares that you fit onto a small grid that is your backpack. Magic is used by wielding runes which can be used three times before being recharged by performing a unique task. The game is more about exploring than finding a single villain to thwart, and is a wonderful example of OSR gaming.

What is OSR?

Annoyingly, OSR is another one of those terms. Some people think that OSR games are any rulesets designed to be cross-compatible with the original first- and second-edition D&D rulebooks, using similar stats, traits, spell systems, etc. Others say OSR is a style or method of play, compatable with most any system. To some, OSR is a worldview devoted to re-examining the hobby from its origins, a kind of getting-back-to-the-roots to see what can be learned from our history. Some say OSR is a cultural battle-cry of rebel forces opposed to the cruel and conniving Red Wizards of the Coast. Others think OSR is less a type of RPG and more a style of GMing. Others say OSR is more of a vibe.

Even the name OSR is debated. I’ve seen Old Style Renaissance, Old School Roleplay, and Old System Revival — Pretty much the only letter that everyone agrees on is O stands for Old.

OSR is all about those old RPGs.

The OSR was born from people who agreed that “something happened” around the time that 3rd edition D&D was published. 3rd Edition was a major departure from the earlier versions of the game: Combat no longer relied on tables and THAC0 scores, and Armor Class was now a “larger is better” system. Races were no longer locked out of class choices, and Saving Throws were now dependent on your character’s stats instead of their class. Skills were added to allow for handling uncertain or risky tasks. Feats granted bonuses and diverse builds. Prestige Classes allowed for characters to branch out into a vast array of even more diversity.

And people hated it.

Not everyone, of course. Lots of people loved it, and still do; but enough hated it to support an industry of “retro-style” games, such as OSRIC, Castles & Crusades, and Labyrinth Lord.

Why? Why were people so adverse to the simplification of complex rules? Did they just love complicated combat math and the fact that a halfling couldn’t be a wizard that much?

Maybe. Or maybe they just liked AD&D and didn’t feel the need to change. Lots of people resent the cultural pressure to always update, upgrade, and spend money on something they like less than what they’re used to. I’m one of them, frankly. It’s nothing new; people like what they like. The same thing happened when 4th Ed was released: A bunch of players who loved 3rd edition chafed at the massive changes and created Pathfinder.

But it wasn’t just familiarity with the old rules that drove people to create the OSR movement; look for OSR games available today and you’ll find people calling The Black Hack, OZR, Cairn, Troika!, Durf, and hundreds more proudly and profoundly rules-light games “OSR.”

So if it isn’t just devotion to a specific ruleset, then what is OSR?

OSR is, to my understanding, an ethos about RPGs: Remember when I was ranting about the intelligence stat? If you want to search for secret doors, an OSR game might require you describe how you run your hands gently across the wall testing for give, or feeling the underside of the table for hidden catches, instead of rolling dice. This turns finding secret doors from testing stats to testing the player.

Remember when I talked about goblin-dice? OSR wants the players to engage with the established fantasy — the world-building and game-narrative — rather than rulebooks. The GM decides whether or not another player’s plan works or not, and then explains the consequences. If you perform a flying leap attack from a cliff onto an ogre’s back, the GM tells you what happens, not what pages have the “attack from elevation” and “leap attack feat” rules. These are the players who prefer GM’s rulings over rules.

Remember when I talked about railroading and how world-building, or even having a story at all, could restrict characters? OSR favors sandboxing and building a narrative in play over established world-plots and taking agency away from the players. Game-narrative should be focused on what the players do, not how reoccurring villains constantly come up with dastardly schemes.

Remember when I talked about Death? OSR embraces the idea that you need to be punished if you make a mistake, and death is the best punishment. If you don’t keep your wits about you, you’ll find yourself feeding the soil more often than not. OSR prefers Soulslike and Roguelike difficulty over the forgiving difficulty of more modern systems.

And then there was that last post, when I talked about balancing in games. OSR thinks balance isn’t a reasonable metric. Challenges aren’t “balanced,” they’re challenges. If your characters aren’t strong enough to kill a Dragon, maybe don’t try and kill it. Maybe look for a pit to tip the invulnerable golem into, or break the crystal generators powering the Lich’s super-zombie. Find a solution, don’t just run in and punch things.

So why am I only talking about OSR now? Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of OSR as a concept.

A small issue I have is its claim to be “old school,” when really its focus is entirely on recreating old school D&D. There were a lot of roleplaying games that came out in the late-70s early-80s, including Runequest, Traveler, Gamma World, Superhero: 2044, Rolemaster, Call of Cthulhu, Paranoia, and The Mechanoid Invasion to name a few. The focus on old D&D rulesets feels limiting to me, if not disingenuous.

Then there’s the worst parts of the original D&D monster manuals: Mimics, Living Walls, Piercers, Ropers, Lurkers, Gelatinous cubes, Nilbogs, Executioner’s Hoods, Gas spores, Doppelgangers, pseudo-undead…the manuals are full to bursting with not monsters, but tricks. Add to that the prevalence of illusions and mind-control and it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the goal of a GM in the olden days was not necessarily to challenge the players, but fool them.

This leads to you walking down a dungeon hallway, testing for traps every five feet, randomly firing arrows at both the ceiling and floor, looking for holes in the walls, sweeping for tripwires with a ten foot pole, and pausing every ten minutes to listen carefully for breathing or footstep sounds. You make up passwords with your party so you know if anyone’s body-snatched. You poke every chest, chair, and table you see in case it’s a mimic, and you try to disbelieve anything you see in case it’s an illusion. In fact, the only time you’re ever in danger is when the GM makes something up specifically to subvert your skillful planning.

This encourages a very antagonistic view of RPGs, GMs, and the relationship between players. While I refute this view quite strongly, I also must admit that it is, to an extent, a straw-man. A good OSR GM will be able to encourage their players to think critically, strategically, and carefully to avoid traps and solve puzzles without manufacturing “gotcha” situations, or allowing players to become “munchkin-strategists.”

But let’s be honest; all of the above is not my problem with “OSR” specifically, but questions I have about “testing the player,” “Combative GMing,” and “D&D ubiquity.” There is nothing in the OSR movement that opposes any of this.

Why do I really not like OSR as a term?

I suppose my distaste for OSR stems entirely from the pervasiveness of labels in our hobby. Yes, those terms. The ones that mean different things to different people. They can hard for me to track, and my brain is hypersensitive to ambiguous communication.

I personally find labels dangerous, because people create their own meanings. I’m sure there are hundreds of OSR devotees who would disagree vehemently with my representation of what OSR “means,” and so focusing on what OSR “means” is a distraction from the admittedly more complicated and verbose but immensely more important and satisfying question of what do you want to play?

As long as people disagree about what OSR means, OSR is a limiting label in a long-form medium like this. It’s the issues that are important, not the label. I’d rather talk about intelligence stats, the role of the GM, and sandboxing, than some amorphous “OSR” concept.

So I guess I don’t have a problem with OSR, really, nor anyone who enjoys or encourages OSR play. I just have a problem with using its name as a shortcut.

At least, that’s this cranky old man’s opinion. Your mileage may vary.