I'm one of those players used to freeform, narrative dungeon delving who assumed that the procedural mechanics in OSR games were for inspiration moreso than actual implementation. Apologies if that offends any hardcore OSR fans! 😆
However I'm starting a campaign of Eco Mofos which has very procedural overland travel and ruin delving. You've inspired me to engage with the mechanics fully rather than just using them for inspiration.
Eco Mofos is a point crawl, so although there isn't dungeon mapping exactly how you described, it definitely has that risk/reward, push-your-luck element that most OSR games seem to have.
I’d love to hear how it goes! I’m constantly surprised how rich exploration becomes when there are the real stakes that are produced by time being a resource you have to manage.
Two things-1) OSR isn't and never was only TSR, so you are looking at a lot of games and 2) when considering just older versions of D&D it is important to realize that the original game is about adding narrative to a historical miniatures wargame that added fantasy elements.
That's a good point with (2) - I play a fair amount of boardgames which are all procedure and never really considered the similarities between boardgames (or wargames) and TTRPGs in terms of procedural elements versus roleplaying.
On point (1), I've not heard of TSR before - I just had a look and they were the original publisher of D&D?
Many people believe that the OSR is just old D&D, yet it grew from an earlier movement called TARGA that was a group of us that urged people to play older style games, not just talk about them. As simulacrums emerged and 'the OSR' formed many people began to think that the idea was just about TSR/older D&D when it is really about simpler styles of play.
Really useful article! I’ve been discovering this balance between narrative and turn based crawling approaches in my Shadowdark solo campaign. It’s the first time I’ve played in that turn based format and it’s definitely taken a bit of getting used to!
Great article! Growing up in the 70s and 80s my favorite part of playing D&D, Fighting Fantasy etc. was mapping the dungeon as we went. Those periods of turn-taking were filled with everyone drawing their own version of the dungeon according to the DM's descriptions. That became the main activity which would then be punctuated by hilarious attempts to avoid traps and monsters, plus periods of puzzle solving (which was done more as players, rather than rolling dice for the characters). It certainly was a very different hobby back then. It's great to see so many OSR and NSR games, these days, keeping those play-style traditions alive.
It seems that narrative exploration also allows for larger but more sparse structures to exist within the story. Ticking through time and space at set intervals seems to put a lower limit on the allowable "density" of a dungeon... there always needs to be interest points or else you run the risk of the "accounting homework" you mentioned (tick down, roll encounter, nothing happens, move, repeat). Though I understand that artfully crafting & populating dungeons is a big part of the OSR experience! Perhaps that's a draw for some folks to the more turn-by-turn style?
Whether you need to track the turn based on character movement attributes really depends on what rules you are using. If using a B/X clone, you really do need to keep track, because the PCs need to rest for a turn after 5 turns, and you need to track torch burn, and how often to check for wandering monsters. If you don’t really want to do any of that, you can use a system like Knave or Cairn or Into the Odd etc which is more rules lite and narrative. I would say if you are playing e.g. OSE, you should track turns carefully because that is an important part of running the game in the spirit it was designed
I'm one of those players used to freeform, narrative dungeon delving who assumed that the procedural mechanics in OSR games were for inspiration moreso than actual implementation. Apologies if that offends any hardcore OSR fans! 😆
However I'm starting a campaign of Eco Mofos which has very procedural overland travel and ruin delving. You've inspired me to engage with the mechanics fully rather than just using them for inspiration.
Eco Mofos is a point crawl, so although there isn't dungeon mapping exactly how you described, it definitely has that risk/reward, push-your-luck element that most OSR games seem to have.
I’d love to hear how it goes! I’m constantly surprised how rich exploration becomes when there are the real stakes that are produced by time being a resource you have to manage.
Two things-1) OSR isn't and never was only TSR, so you are looking at a lot of games and 2) when considering just older versions of D&D it is important to realize that the original game is about adding narrative to a historical miniatures wargame that added fantasy elements.
That's a good point with (2) - I play a fair amount of boardgames which are all procedure and never really considered the similarities between boardgames (or wargames) and TTRPGs in terms of procedural elements versus roleplaying.
On point (1), I've not heard of TSR before - I just had a look and they were the original publisher of D&D?
Many people believe that the OSR is just old D&D, yet it grew from an earlier movement called TARGA that was a group of us that urged people to play older style games, not just talk about them. As simulacrums emerged and 'the OSR' formed many people began to think that the idea was just about TSR/older D&D when it is really about simpler styles of play.
Really useful article! I’ve been discovering this balance between narrative and turn based crawling approaches in my Shadowdark solo campaign. It’s the first time I’ve played in that turn based format and it’s definitely taken a bit of getting used to!
Great article! Growing up in the 70s and 80s my favorite part of playing D&D, Fighting Fantasy etc. was mapping the dungeon as we went. Those periods of turn-taking were filled with everyone drawing their own version of the dungeon according to the DM's descriptions. That became the main activity which would then be punctuated by hilarious attempts to avoid traps and monsters, plus periods of puzzle solving (which was done more as players, rather than rolling dice for the characters). It certainly was a very different hobby back then. It's great to see so many OSR and NSR games, these days, keeping those play-style traditions alive.
It seems that narrative exploration also allows for larger but more sparse structures to exist within the story. Ticking through time and space at set intervals seems to put a lower limit on the allowable "density" of a dungeon... there always needs to be interest points or else you run the risk of the "accounting homework" you mentioned (tick down, roll encounter, nothing happens, move, repeat). Though I understand that artfully crafting & populating dungeons is a big part of the OSR experience! Perhaps that's a draw for some folks to the more turn-by-turn style?
Whether you need to track the turn based on character movement attributes really depends on what rules you are using. If using a B/X clone, you really do need to keep track, because the PCs need to rest for a turn after 5 turns, and you need to track torch burn, and how often to check for wandering monsters. If you don’t really want to do any of that, you can use a system like Knave or Cairn or Into the Odd etc which is more rules lite and narrative. I would say if you are playing e.g. OSE, you should track turns carefully because that is an important part of running the game in the spirit it was designed