Themes - Quicker Game Prep for The Sanic Hack

Oh, the places we'll go

This post is part of a series of Blogs where I work on my home-ruleset, 'The Sanic Hack.' You may or may not gain better comprehension from reading the other posts in this series.  

PREV/NEXT

 This post directly follows after both Kludgebuckets and Costumes. You may wish to skim those first to understand where my head was at when writing the initial bluesky thread that then became this post. I love regurgitating my old skeets into blog posts. it is my favorite activity

    Howdy, Farmhands!

    A major draw of the media I intend to emulate with the Sanic Hack is their fantastical world design. Mario has his Mushroom Kingdom, Klonoa his Phantomile, and Sonic his various Zones on Planet Mobius. Earth. "Sonic's World." They've retconned a lot about Sonic's setting in the past, don't think about it too much. Unlike video games though, Tabletop Roleplaying is not necessarily a visual medium. This leaves a lot of the heavy lifting to the DM to properly describe with words, and as much as this project has been "Gadda Complicates An Odd-like", I do still want there to be simple solutions to the problems I'm inventing. How do I make the act of preparing a wacky video-game level setting for players to imagine their blorbos running around in easy for the DM? How do I keep them from feeling rote, without needing to write a full on Gazette for hyper-specific examples? OSR is no stranger to Gonzo settings, but there's a difference in mouthfeel between, say, The Dark of Hot Springs Island and Donkey Kong Country's Jungle Japes.

 

I'm FAIRLY certain Jungle Hijinks doesn't have any sex slaves in it. 
I could be wrong; they never clarify the relationship with Rambi the Rhino.

    The first draft of this idea is something I'm calling "Themes." In theory, during prep, a DM would draw 2 and combine them into the core premise of the location. "Rainy" and "Jungle" would have overlap but still be distinct from "Rainy" and "Woodlands", for example. Each component Theme would then include a list of resources, lootables, and key items for the DM to populate the bespoke location with. This template would, theoretically, be just enough for the DM to run that location quickly and inspire on the fly npcs and adventure sites without the Theme prescribing those parts of play. Preferably, these would each fit on a single page, allowing for one's personal collection of available themes to be added to or removed from to match the table's needs. A table with an arachnophobe would remove the "Webs" Theme, for example, and play could continue with no hiccups. 

    For each location theme, you'll need the following:

• 3 Costumes: +1, +2, and +3
• Accessories for the +3 Costume to be craftable, plus 3 unrelated.
• At least 1 of each category of weapon: Light, Heavy, Ranged, etc. 
• Core Kludgebucket Parts: Between 1 to 3 should do.
• Auxillary Kludgebucket Parts: I would prepare at least 3, though these can be bs'd in the moment if needed.

    My running tally puts this at 16 items per theme at the low end. This seems like a lot, but keep in mind Themes will be reused and no one location should contain every possible option for the theme. A Jungle/Carnival Island might only have 1 Costume from the Carnival List, and the Core Parts from the Jungle List. Part of the DM prep involves determining what from each theme your location will pull from their lists and what will be saved for later. There's no harm in deciding that an item you hadn't planned on including was there all along, should your players take an interest in seeking them out. Alternatively, if players spot a doo-dad that was there for flavor and want to take it with them, DMs can just quickly slot it into one of the item types. 

    Let's make an example-

buzz buzz the posts must flow

Theme: Beehive 

Weapons
Light Wp	Bee Stingers	(1d4, Dual)
rMed Wp	Bear Claw Gloves	(1d6)
Heavy Wp	Giant Honey Wand	(1d10)
Light Range	Pollen Arrows	(1d6, blast) Creates a Pollen cloud on impact, works as smokescreen
Heavy Range	Beezooka	(1d8, blast) Fires a cloud of Bees, 3 Charges, must be placed near an active hive overnight to repopulate

Accessories
Honey Pot Lid	(+1 AMR)
Striped Dungarees	(+1 AMR)
Buzzy Bee Slippers	(+1 AMR)
Suspender Bee Wings	(+1 AMR)
Antenna Headband	(+1 AMR)

Costumes
Honey Bear Suit	(1 Armor)	(A Fuzzy Ear Headband and a Red Pullover)
Apiarists Suit	(2 Armor)	(Beekeeper Helmet, Gloves, and a Thick Coat)
Hive Knight	(3 Armor) (Craftable)	Giant Honey Wand Honey Pot Lid Striped Dungarees

Core Kludgebucket Parts
Bee Nest (0 Star)	(-3 STR)
Box Hive (1 Star)	(+1 STR, -2 SPD)

Propulsion Parts
Large Bee Wing (0 Star)	(req manual flapping)

Random Guff
Honeycomb Hex	(It's very sticky)
Pollen Pod	(Hope you're not allergic)
Empty Honeypot	(Careful, it's ceramic)
Saxophone	(Do ya like Jazz?)

    Actually, now that I'm looking at all this, it DOES feel a smidge overkill, especially as I'm meant to mix and match this with a second, equally long list. The hope, though, is that once these Themed lists are done, they will pay for themselves as quick and easy reference sheets for multiple sessions of play. 

   This draft obviously is focusing on lootable items, but the vision for this includes descriptors of flora, fauna, and weather for these themes. I think that's probably best saved for the post on the second pass, as I've whacked at this post long enough.  

Additional Thoughts: 

    I'm playing with the idea of Costumes innately containing a weapon as one of their component parts. This slightly alters the math, making a comparable setup for +3 AMR with a lower level Costume + Weapon 1 card more? I don't know if this would be that noticable to a player. I'm also considering codifying a rule where a player can only have 1 Costume in their inventory at a time? Changing your costume entirely on the fly feels easily abusable, and I KNOW we're not supposed to design while assuming the worst of our audience, but it's still a concern. The only real balance I can think of is in the possibilty that if you have to drop the Costume for whatever reason, it's component parts go with it. insert gif of mario 3 losing a suit power-up here 

    Perhaps changing costumes in the middle of an adventure would require a Bulky "Costume Closet" item that can hold multiple Costumes and a turn to "Quick Change" into a different one. Then I'm not really removing the ability to do so, just locking it behind a little extra effort on the player's part to seek out the means to do so. How Delightfully Devilish, Seymour.

    Until Next Time,

        Farmer Gadda 

Gadda's Blog Crash Course: What is the OSR (And Why Do I Care?)

 You can read this post and find links to my other works over on my static site!
Likewise, you can gain access to blogposts early by pledging $1 or more over on patreon!
Free will is great, isn't it?

    Howdy, Farmhands!

    My blog is very young. While I've been posting various ttrpg design hot takes for years, it wasn't until mid 2024 that I started to produce long-form essays and found that I really enjoyed the experience. Trying to get your entire thought out in a limited format is a good exercise, but some posts just need the extra word count to properly convey their merit. The unfortunate side effect of this switch being that I can no longer assume my audience has passively absorbed my opinions over years of Poasting, and thus a lot of terms I consider fundamental to my understanding of games are new and inscrutable to my readers.

    Basically, my discord server politely but firmly asked me to pause and explain what the fuck I'm talking about, please.

    So here we are, with the start of a series I'm calling ' Gadda's Blog Crash Course.' While these posts exist to educate my handful of weirdos, they aren't meant to be the definitive word on anything. This is TTRPGS As Explained By Gadda, and I have my own biases and incorrect assumptions as does anyone. I strongly urge anyone with different experiences than I to comment or blog their own additions or rejections of my posts, if only to deepen the pool my readers draw from.

    Today's topic seems simple on the surface, but is actually quite deep. 

"What is the OSR?" 

    To put it VERY simply, skipping decades of nuance to get to the core of things- "OSR" or "Old School Revival" is a genre of game that focuses on the trends and experiences people remember from the original years of Dungeons and Dragons. The term began in the year 2000, as a reactionary movement in response to the release of Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition. The play-style generally focuses on purposefully risking your character's well being for the chance of acquiring goods that will increase their chances of survival during future risks, with a game master remaining as neutral and impartial as possible, neither helping nor hindering the player in their quest to overcome those risks and acquire those goods.

    Nothing I say after this point will be nearly as simple.

    As time has gone on, and both Dungeons and Dragons as a game and the very online spaces people use to discuss it and it's history have gone through drastic changes, the target and purpose of "The OSR" as a community has changed, splintered, and become incredibly muddled. This is because different people like different things, you see. And also because people dislike people who like different things than themselves. Thus, the term "OSR" has evolved in separate corners of the internet to refer to multiple movements, overlapping play-styles, and as shorthand for an out-group of DnD role-players who aren't currently interested in the ongoing thing WOTC is printing. 

    To be completely fair to anyone who's confused about any of this- you're not wrong, it is fucking confusing! It's confusing to be IN the in-group that gets this sort of thing, and Homestuck levels of unbearable to parse for anyone outside it! Because there is no actual authority of what is or is not part of the movement, anyone can argue that they've involved, even if their actual circle is leagues removed from whatever older folks believe to be core to their hobby. This leads to some of the absolute worst offenders of online shitheads retreating to "OSR" as some sort of safe zone where they can regurgitate their unacceptable beliefs about sex, gender, and race unchallenged, having been driving away from the current generation of Dungeons and Dragons by a younger, more open minded audience. For many, "OSR" is a dog whistle; whatever takes on it's name is going to be gross and regressive, and is only attended by Bad People.

    I will take this moment to assure the reader that this is not my personal experience, and the vast majority of OSR players I engage with are Trans Commie Furries and the straight folks they've befriended along the way. I do want to stress that this hobby has a bright spot. 

    It is not hard to imagine a movement based on returning to a previous state of a game already rife with colonial and racial subtext (or hell, just Text) to be a haven for regressive politics and hateful ideology. The original DnD is notorious for pushing disgusting stereotypes, and the earliest years of The OSR was primarily about continuing to support that existing game. HOWEVER, I would be a massive dick if I pretended the worst of the worst was the entirety of the hobby during those original years. While is it historical record that many of the game's authors were shitty people with shitty opinions that bled into their work, DnD was a hobby filled with all kinds of people from every walk of life. Many were just as critical of the game's output at the time it was new as there are now that it's flaws have been well documented, discussed, and ultimately ignored by it's publisher. There are a number of individuals interested in an old school style of play who experienced a very different kind of Dungeons and Dragons than is usually spoken about online.

    "So... again, What is the OSR???" 

    OSR is a form of role-playing not dissimilar to it's evolutionary predecessor, Dungeons and Dragons, where you go on medieval fantasy adventures with a Game Master and 1 or more Players. However, it focuses on high risk scenarios and a neutral authority who describes the situations characters are placed in and details the results of said character's choices without favoring or purposefully hindering the player. Different tables and groups and corners of the internet will argue for more specific descriptions, and will continue to argue and debate and add and remove points until the end of time. 

"...Okay then, What is the OSR to YOU???" 

     A number of individuals have attempted to write encompassing descriptions of the hobby, most of which are still pointed to for newcomers to get a quick overview of what to expect. As the hobby and it's corner evolve, new descriptions and summaries are needed. The list of positive attributes I associate with OSR games is very close to Ben Milton's 2019 attempt to coin a separate name from the baggage of  "OSR", though it wasn't able to replace the term in common usage:

Adventure Game: The term “Adventure” does a lot of heavy lifting for a single word, and covers the vast majority of what I enjoy.

1. It implies authentic peril and the possibility of loss.
2. It implies strangeness, travel, the unexpected, and the confusing.
3. It implies variety and an episodic structure, a picaresque rather than a novel.
4. It implies cleverness, ingenuity, and cunning rather than a bloody slog.
5. It implies characters like Conan, Luke Skywalker, Elric, Hellboy or Fafrd.
6. It’s short, simple, and isn’t obscure. Episodic-high-stakes-open-ended-lateral-problem-solving-fantasy-game might be more accurate, but good luck with that catching on.
7. It evokes (in my head) a game that’s simple, unpretentious, and focused on fun at the table.

    However, the post that I repeatedly link to, is W.F. Smith's Posters, Posers, and POSR(s), which includes the argument that the current batch of OSR games in line with the online diy-dnd blogging scene largely is it's own beast, with a lineage connecting to the original OSR but without a direct through-line. It's also a significantly better historical guide through the OSR than the one I've made above, if only because he's very good at linking to other people who have posted further reading.

    This "blogosphere" of people posting and debating and creating answers to problems for others to maybe make use of is the backbone of the OSR as I experience it. There is no need to adhere to a specific vision of a lost playstyle, nor the necessity of keeping your math compatible with a game written by shitty people with shitty ideas. There are carried on elements of those products, for sure, but only after they have been inspected, dissected, and deemed worthy of carrying on. And just as the very term "OSR" itself evolved in different pockets of the internet, so too have different camps around specific mechanics and vibes formed as different people judge these smaller elements of a larger experience and find them worth keeping or something to discard. 

    This, then, is the "OSR" that I enjoy- not a dogged defiance of time, digging it's  heels in to remain in a space that was outdated before the 90's finished rolling through; but a culture of investigation, discussion, and recycling of the historical record of play by people who like pretending to be elves. There have been games that come out of this culture that affirm the principles of those original works, joss them entirely, or even invent new frameworks to emulate the vibes. 

    I just wish we could all agree on a different name for SEO purposes.

    Until Next Time,

    Farmer Gadda