Does Setting Matter?

    

oh ok, post over then.

Howdy, Farmhands!

    For those of you who are fortunate enough to have avoided my ramblings on social media, may God continue to bless you and yours with sweet ignorance. Today's blogpost will have to temporarily expose you to TTRPG Discourse of the Bluesky variety, I'm afraid. I know, I know, you presumably choose to read blogs to avoid using such distasteful websites. There's still time to click off and go read something else. This preamble is mostly dragging out time for you to make your escape.

    Not terribly long ago, an individual made a series of Skeets (yes, we call them Skeets) about their experience bouncing off of some OSR products. Assuming you're not reading this in some far off future where said service has completely gone dark (which could be as soon as June, the way online services work in the year of our Lord, 2025) here's a link to said thread. This isn't a sub-post in the slightest, by the way, ACoupleOfDrakes is completely within their right to 1. Dislike a product, trend, or genre and 2. Skeet About It As They Will. The sentiment simply became a hot topic for all of five minutes among people term searching the phrase "OSR," and as such, many of us felt the need to post our Opinions. Naturally, I chimed in so I could feel like a special little boy for an hour. 

    To DRASTICALLY paraphrase ACoupleOfDrakes' words to quickly establish What my opinions are in reaction to, here's the key statements that caught my attention.

    One of the things that keeps me from becoming an OSR guy is how few of the worlds presented seem like a place I'd like to spend time exploring. There are notable exceptions....(source)

...I think the thing that makes me most interested in an OSR setting is its ratio of wonder to believability....(source)

...There are a lot of gonzo for the sake of gonzo settings that lose me because I can't imagine what you're supposed to /do/ there.... (source)

...Trying to put into words what divides the things that I like versus the things that I don't in the OSR space and only coming up with a Calvin and Hobbes meme about "OSR that's Maps" and "OSR that's Questions." (source)

1. No.

    I don't personally believe OSR as a genre needs a ton of cohesive settings, nor that picking out a pre-made setting guide is a necessary step in having an OSR-y experience. There's just something about a self-aware DIY elfgame that's charming all on it's own, y'know? You get your combat rules and your equipment lists and that's kind of all the System needs to do. Half the point of an Old School Game is coming up with your own bespoke fantasy land cobbled together from whatever interests you and your table.  You probably have an idea of Where you want to adventure anyway, and you'll purposefully pick modules and beasties that fit that vague impression you have in your mind. The turn to emergent settings being made during play that you see frequently these days (Questions instead of Maps) makes a lot of sense. 

    Sure, theres people wanting their Greyhawks and their Spelljammers and whatnot, but a large swathe of OSR systems are either compatible with those older works out the gate or stupid easy to convert.  Any setting with a travel system worth a damn is basically already an unofficial osr setting, as far as I'm concerned. Get Neverland by Andrew Kolb. I don't care that it's statted for 5e. You can do basic math conversions probably. Make everything a Bear.

2. But Actually, Yes.

    And I'm going to immediately go back on what I Just Said. Remember those charming, self-aware DIY elfgames? A large chunk of "The Setting" is found in what exactly the author puts in the basic rules and equipment lists. If a system features Swords and Spears, the implication inherent in the text is that your game will take place in a world where such weapons are reasonable to have around. Imagine one includes Laser Pistols and Bags of Doritos in the list of gear to buy at character creation - Suddenly, your gaming experience is distinct from most others. This comparison is a little exaggerated for effect, but you get what I mean, right? A system with simple access to Magic Spells implies a different world to one with none at all. The choice to include or exclude options is as much a world-building exercise as it is an editorial one. In this manner, there isn't a single OSR game out there that is truly without it's own Setting, even if the Author never names it. You can blur your eyes and come up with some Proper Nouns for Places that would have that shit in it. You're a smart cookie.

3. -Well, Now That I Think Of It, Only Maybe?

    What I think individuals are ACTUALLY looking for when they go shopping for the perfect setting is a sense of verisimilitude, a through-line of tone from which their idealized fantasy can be extrapolated. In a previous post, I discussed a series of Pamphlets by Seba G.M., which use a Tri-fold to succinctly offer guidelines and mechanics for running Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft using the Knave system. These are purposefully mere snippets of the full setting guides one can find for these worlds, but in their brevity, I still find the flavor I'm looking for to run a game within them. The mechanics they add or change are adjusted so as to create a feeling at the table, instead of just giving you a list of locations and names to memorize. I could look at one of the many grimdark fantasy settings released over the decades, only to find what I desire is closer to the free zine-size booklet version of Mork Borg. I could decide the exact reverse too! I don't need to invest in becoming a Greyhawk Scholar, but if my personal ideal of a Grimdark setting requires that deep an understanding, it might be to my taste.

    All of this is to say, I suppose, that one of my favorite elements of The OSR is the freedom to pick and choose what is necessary for Your Game. Not All games, not The game, just Your game.  

4. So, No. lol 

Until Next Time,

    - Farmer Gadda 

looking for a new OSR setting
ask exalted funeral if the setting is maps or questions
they laugh and say it's a good setting
buy the setting
it's maps

- Ty, Mindstorm Press (source)

Things on my Grocery List

 

Don't you Wanna go Apeshit?

    Howdy, Farmhands!

    Have you ever heard of "Free Will?"

Kludgebuckets - Customizable Vehicles for the Sanic Hack

You wish your ride was this cool - (Source)

kludge: something, especially computer hardware or software, that has been put together from whatever is available, especially when it does not work very well 

rustbucket: An old, neglected vehicle, usually a car, a freighter, or a truck. 

Ergo; They're called Kludgebuckets.

    "Kludgebucket" is the colloquial term for any non-standard watercraft cobbled together by an enterprising Islander. While capable of functioning as transportation, they act as more of a home-base for their crew, and are iterated upon over multiple voyages. It isn't surprising to see a Kludgebucket with multiple pieces of completely unrelated vehicles; land, air, or sea, stapled in varying configurations, with radio transmitters, gatling guns, and even multiple vending machines installed.

    Kludgebuckets are managed via a Grid System, similar to Mausritter Item Card Inventory Management. (For the purposes of this blog post, we are going to assume a specific size for these grids, but know that I'm writing this with no balance testing whatsoever. Let's say they're 4 by 4 to start and we'll revisit the specifics later.) To facilitate this, I will be introducing a new card type- Normally, cards come in 1 Slot or 2 Slot sizes, with the latter being for Bulky objects. For Kludgebucket Core Parts, new 2 by 2 cards are to be added, taking up the same space as 4 single slot cards. These cards are intended for overly large items; Chassis, Wings, A tree house uprooted WITH the tree, etc. While a character COULD carry one of these in their regular inventory,  they're intended to be Kludged onto their bucket. However, if a player wants to spend 4 whole inventory slots to equip the cab of a bus as a battering ram, I'm not going to stop them.

     Core Parts are labeled with Stars, ranging from 1 to 3. These Stars are an approximation of size and buoyancy, but are mostly there to estimate the number of crew it can safely keep afloat. 1 Star can hold 2 to 3 people before capsizing, doubling to 6-ish at 2 Stars and 12-or-so at 3 Stars. A Ski-doo, for example, would be a 1 Star Core Part, while a School Bus would be 3 Stars. Anything larger would arguably no longer be a Kludgebucket, but rather a regular sailing ship with some weird stuff tacked on. For every Star added by a Core Part, there must be Propulsion and Power of an equivalent Star. That Ski-doo's Whirly-gig Copter Blades (Propulsion, 1 Star) could be powered by a single set of Foot Paddles (Power,1 Star) for example, but you'd need at 3 times as many of both to move that 3 Star School Bus. Conversely, multiple parts of lower Star value could be used to power a single Propulsion part, as long as their values align. 

    Auxiliary parts, like radio transceivers, sonar or fuzzy dice, are regular sized item cards with the 1 x 2 Bulky cards used for valuable machinery. These are installed around the core parts, where the Kludgebucket's grid will allow. Any free space can hold any item, instead of having a dedicated hold.

    Core and Auxillary Parts are meant to be found as rewards for Quests or by scavenging wrecked Buckets found as you travel. Similar to Fits, a DM should only need to invent a handful of Thematic options based on the Island they've prepared, the players will pursue what interests them.

Star Rank	Core	Propulsion	Power
☆	Canoe	Paddle Wheel (Small)	Foot Paddles
☆	Jet Ski	Whirly-gig	Oars
☆	Motorcycle	Cloth Sail and a Fan	Large Hamster Wheel
☆☆	Smart Car	Airplane Wings	Steam Engine
☆☆	Tugboat	Single Turbin	Magnets
☆☆	Tree House (w/Tree)	Sea Creature (Tamed?)	Carrot on a String (For Sea Creature)
☆☆☆	Submarine	Rocket Jets	Gasoline Engine
☆☆☆	School Bus	Paddle Wheels (Large)	Coal Furnace
☆☆☆	Blimp Cab	Hot Air Baloon	Cola and Mentos

How Tricked out is this Ride?

Oh, boys~!

This post and others like it are made possible by members of my Patreon, where you can see Game WIPs and Previews of future blogposts a week early! Thank you in particular to Nebula Bash for your continued support!

Howdy, Farmhands!

    Among the many ways I "failed" at traditional masculinity as a child, (as much as any one can do so, mind. Gender roles are bullshit!) I never became A Car Guy. While many a youth saw the wheels and hubcaps and fenders and was overcome with a desire to get behind the wheel, I couldn't really care less. I consider motor vehicles to be not unlike horses. Mysterious creatures I am to respect from afar, but never understand. The primary difference is that a car isn't born with hatred in it's heart.

Of Dice and Men - Opinions about Rolling in OSR Games

 

Well? They ain't gonna roll themselves. - (Source, no affiliation)

This post and others like it are made possible by members of my Patreon, where you can see Game WIPs and Previews of future blogposts a week early!
Thank you in particular to Backyard Critter for your continued support!

Howdy, Farmhands. 

    I am a newcomer to NSR/POSR game design. I spent the majority of the early 2020's being staunchly and loudly against anything even slightly resembling an elfgame! For all intents and purposes, I "don't go here." Being new to a community slash movement slash corpse that's been fractured into multiple sub-branches of design for about as long as it's exiswted means that I have a lot to catch up on. A barrier I keep bumping into is how much of the OSR's Wisdom is shared in maxims.