I trashed a draft about OSR Maxims and Misconceptions after being informed of Gus’ post. Only one aspect remained of interest in my draft, which was about “OSR doesn’t develop characters.” Before I get into it, I must remind those that simply don’t have fun with deliberate character identification in any roleplaying experience: this isn’t directed towards you, and you probably know who I’m actually talking about. I hope this also helps some people to experiment new play approaches, and perhaps lessen worries people have about conciliating OSR with other interests.
In that draft, I quickly explained that OSR play has a specific philosophy regarding developing characters and acting. To understand the preached philosophy, one must know the gameplay factors that supposedly lead into it: if the focus is on the world, then PCs function as game pieces the player uses to interact with the simulation strategically. Portrayal of strong personality is fine and safe during downtime, but tactically ignorant character choices based on imaginary personality are a hazard for the group, whose efforts of virtuous tactical play you subverted. They are in harm’s way through those actions. Quick character generation invites avoiding backstories besides the bare minimum and tied to the game focus on the present world it leads to the principle that characters are only discovered, and that backstory are the first adventures. OSR, then, develops characters, but under a different emergent model than other play cultures to privilege collective smart play, low GM interference through plot codification, and focus on metaphorical discovery of the game pieces as much as the game world.
The above describes is the OSR philosophy about it, at least as commonly related, and it leads to interesting games in its own way, as any game philosophy can. I think it’s a decent summary, meant to clear up the misconception. The OSR does explore characters. However, the thing about clearing a misconception is that the effort focuses on neutral description of information to correct external perspectives, not my opinion on the philosophy. Different from the trashed draft, I can say it now:
The above philosophy is bullshit.
I don’t mean it’s a bad game philosophy, or that the conclusions related to play style aren’t sound. I mean it is bullshit, b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t. It’s a lie. The justifications for it are a posteriori to the philosophy, which was developed for one specific reason (two, but one is related to the other).
Play Style and Character
The major elements of the OSR play style is ultimate player agency expressed through simulation and problem-solving. This is in no way incompatible with separate character psychology and “play-acting,” especially in a genre where troupe play, character rosters and the possibility of portraying hirelings are encouraged, bringing many opportunities for different personalities.
“Backstories are your first levels” can be true if we narrow down – intentionally as red herring – the definition of backstory to violent accomplishments, in which case most of us in real life don’t have a backstory. Characters in D&D – let’s pretend OSR play is only based on D&D and its derivatives, since Traveller and Runequest break these apart simply by existing with the mechanics they have – are not, in fact, random people who picked up weapons after farming for a bit. There’s a reason Dungeon Crawl Classics presents these as Level 0 instead of Level 1. Look at the starting money roll and compare it to the equipment list. Those characters are all comparatively loaded.
They are likely minor nobles or well-to-do or came across that money in some other way. Did they steal it? From whom? Did they take all the money from their family and ran into the night? If they are nobles, from where? Why can’t they rely on more money from it if they need to adventure? Are they adventuring simply to dominate and increase profits? Fighters are named Veterans. From which war? What do they feel about it? Perhaps they went down a dungeon once? How did wizards learn magic? Which denomination Clerics come from, and how they started? Keep in mind the Church usually received the sons of nobles, as well. How did Thieves turn to a life of crime? Any guild? And don’t pretend any of these and other questions impose the player’s backstory over the world. Show me an adventure setting without a past, recent, or present large-scale conflict a Veteran could have participated. Any setting that collapses over these questions is already blowing in the wind. A minimal gazetteer handed to the players before the campaign, perhaps with questions (Beyond the Wall’s adaptation of PbtA Playbooks does this well) and you won’t worry about shit.
“By interacting with the world, one is roleplaying” is true and the hobby shouldn’t take dramatic acting and character psychology as the only aspects of roleplaying a PC, but I’m positive this answer is often applied in a disingenuous manner. That’s not what is being talked about. It’s about the character being a part of the world beyond physical existence before play starts, part of material contexts and emotionally affected by them. Look at the examples for backstory, which don’t require any strawman “the character saved forty villages and married the goddess of death before level 1” description. Extremely long backstories are a practical problem if the other players must know it or if it overwhelms the referee, but not necessarily incoherent with OSR play.
“It interferes with the exploration flow.” Does it? A character doing a decision you wouldn’t do doesn’t necessarily ruin an expedition, and hirelings exist. If the decision is overwhelmingly destructive to desired play, that says more about the player – and they would be a problem in any culture – than OSR play specifically. If everyone agrees, narrating a conversation inside a dungeon between PCs doesn’t break anything. What is destroyed by describing your character’s thoughts and gestures in different moments? What does a voice change in efficiency at recovering treasure? Again, one shouldn’t do it if you aren’t interested, but it has shit to do with the playstyle itself, and moralizing desire like that leads to terrible game theory.
An argument towards such characterization as compatible with the presented in the stories of Appendix N (and related literature) doesn’t match those melodramatic works. What about Conan of “gigantic mirth and gigantic melancholies”? Has there been many fantasy characters as angsty, self-obsessed, introspective, and regularly willing to commit outlandish actions for no benefit as that proto-Drizzt, Elric? How many shenanigans and acts of passion before reason have those two who ill met at Lankhmar performed? Has John Carter not given into bloodlust and thrown himself at danger for honor? Jirel of Joiry didn’t love, cry and lament? Were not the characters of Vance and Smith mad and eccentric? Are not Earthsea, Gormenghast, Alice and others in B/X’s Recommended Reading? I would argue that taking inspiration from those stories also includes playing up the eccentric, the passionate and the introspective.
Mechanics and Character
I believe attempts to make players act and pursue personal objective through mechanics are of the same kind as attempting to promote good faith and table manners from them: a waste. But if we are analyzing the arguments that promote a specific character philosophy, those of mechanical nature should be addressed – one of them will await in the next section, as I discuss the actual reason behind the philosophy as I see it.
For starters, gold-for-XP, or experience systems in general, argue for the position that players will act optimally with a specific carrot dangling in front of them, and that a campaign’s progression into different states depends on such a system to make sense as aspirational (such as domain play being level-gated despite not making inherent fictional sense). Gold-for-XP itself influences the character approach by making them greedy in a variety of way, without links to the world that can’t be bought or introduced in the way of fortune and reinforcing the dungeon procedure and its tactical nature by the search of coins in varied rooms instead of a single specific treasure like, for example, Electric Bastionland advocates.
But that approach to characters, and to the “coldness” of tactical procedure, is ultimately a personal choice redefined as wide philosophy or a “difficulty.” Being greedy does not preclude strong passions, a variety of interests or personal relationships. Being in the cold, tense dungeon is an excellent opportunity to portray fear, doubt, angst, desires, wandering thoughts, memories, and companionship. While replacing gold experience with other advancement triggers is possible, the original system itself doesn’t prevent you from doing anything.
Its influence is not as deeply felt, in my vision, as much as the concept of leveling itself. Absent in games that aren’t D&D (there’s that Traveller and Runequest influence of character construction rearing its head, and I suspect the Post-OSR [un]conscious reference to those games through its tendency of levelless play, or smaller level caps, will better fit that kind of acting), the desire for ever higher levels serves as inhibition to commit acts of passion that can derail an operation and character survival, despite the focus on world-as-campaign instead of specific characters, troupe play and other OSR tools. The presence of levels by itself doesn’t deny opportunities for any of the things said so far but, if someone is dependent on experience to motivate play, levels invite the reluctance. Eventually, yes, the game piece becomes dear. Yet lower-level caps are dismissed as not campaign-worthy despite being just as open for faction play, consistently dangerous adventures, and firm character rosters, in the ever-developing settings with new stories – also keeping in mind campaigns rarely reach high levels anyway. I’d suggest John’s differentiation between Classic and OSR works as barometer for the relevance of levels between both.
There are of course many ways of introducing unique character types into a campaign without foreground growth, even outside a gonzo or fantasy cosmopolitan setting, following the spirit of the Three Little Brown Books or Holmes Basic, if it isn’t married to a strict conception of PCs. If necessary, one can even ask as pre-requisite forming alliance with some creature or NPC that allows their use as retainer or PC, as well as “unlocking” character creation by discovering the world. Regarding the argument for broad archetypes such as the original classes as enough and the player differentiating them from others through roleplay, I agree and don’t think mechanization of more character types by itself adds anything – but isn’t discussing manners of opening that roleplay space for differentiation beyond tactical problem-solving the topic here?
Random character generation gets in the way? I wouldn’t say so. A player asked to roll some characters before the session and with access to random tables will have personality and mannerism for each down pat, given time. Nobody is afraid they will present false stats. The value judgement of “discovery in play” characters as superior is also personal and arbitrary, and not inherent to random generation. Personalities will already be developed if the PC needs to be replaced.
Speaking of which, let’s arrive at the mechanical aspect left which relates to the core of the issue.
On Cowardice
I’d be remiss to not mention the patriarchal and reactionary aspect in OSR – check Marcia’s posts – as an element against the approaches and that asks for that philosophy as false justification. The recurring use of “amateur thespianism” terminology as derogatory shows it (and it’s historically incorrect to boot). That’s the elephant in the room, which can be called a rejection of playstyle based on being “queer” in all senses of the word. To complain about Tieflings is less likely to be about not fitting the world or human-centric games (valid complaint) and quite commonly with an implication that Tieflings have blue hair and pronouns. The genuine pleasure of watching the character become stranger during play is forcefully tangled with a rejection of already personalized and strange characters, “queer” characters.
This motivation is too self-evident for going in further detail, and in any case it, like it’s standard for reactionary thought, is related to the motivation I want to talk about:
People are taken by the fear of being hurt by character death.
Many feel deeply uncomfortable with the idea of granting intentional psychological development and identification to a PC who can suddenly die or suffer an unfortunate fate by a single moment of carelessness. If the PCs are in constant serious risk from the most minor mistake, investing emotionally in them from the start and their separate psychologies will lead to repetitive emotional discomfort and wasted effort. Therefore, the mechanics and their proportional danger, meshed with the process of adventuring, supposedly discourage deliberate character psychology.
Eero Tuovinen’s Muster discusses it as The Nihilistic Void (also applicable with the level concept as to why players won’t risk passion), although he’s more focused on the affection developed for a character due to accumulated experience instead of specifically emotional complexity. Even that positions the pain as later result, presuming unpassion for the piece until much time has passed. The piece struggles through challenges to win cautious bleed from the player, much like a neglected child “must earn” affection from the distant parent. The PC is the Ikari Shinji to the player’s Gendo.
Avoidance of pain ties back to a masculine attitude, a stoicism that is false and not as genuine as sincere acceptance of circumstances (a major psychological reward aspect for conservadorism). “We explore dungeons, not characters”, the maxim that leads to the misconception, is itself a macho platitude. “I don’t enjoy the acting or character’s separate psychology elements of roleplaying as much as investigating and interacting with the simulation as myself, and with a challenge perspective” is a quite different assertion from desperate philosophy and self-moralizing.
But what other choice? How else to remove the sting? How to not fall so early in the Nihilistic Void, repeatedly? How to solve the conundrum?
Of course, there is no conundrum. All one needs is to get rid of their own cowardice. In a recent conversation with my friend Halloween from Underground Adventures, she stated provocatively that people who avoid bleeding in OSR characters and investing in them emotionally from the start are cowards. It made me think if the fact they can die at any second and making that investment null is in fact a feature, which makes the effort of investment itself more meaningful and enjoyable, and the pain of it is exhilarating in its own way, making the triumph more powerful. That the moment of identification stands tall by itself regardless of the character’s fate. It recalled me of bleed in investigative horror games. The pain, losing the character’s voice deep within one’s throat, is the point and the fun.
With this shift in perspective and appreciation for the present and emotional labor of the gaming process itself, there’s no need for a change of mechanics like suggestions to start on higher levels or with more survival guarantees – although obviously that can be done for other reasons, and of course if the player wants to do deeper deliberate introspection but can’t quite make the jump, that mechanical change can prove helpful (the term coward is jocular provocation), as changing the referee style would take away the aspects of player agency adventure gaming celebrates. The point here isn’t to change the elements of OSR as much as destroying myths that were as propagated internally as “OSR doesn’t develop characters” was outside the bubble.
I will say that the argument that OSR aesthetics contribute to it – let’s ignore the variety of OSR aesthetics and assume that gritty and horror are its nature – is, if not incorrect, at least incomplete. That perspective reads most of so-called “grim” settings and “serious realism” as rather adolescent fantasies (without admission of being such; I will take more below) that don’t follow through its implications and try to justify themselves as a return to the serious adult wargaming origins of D&D rather than its transformation in children’s and young adult pastimes with the publication of Basic. However, the usual immature approach to it doesn’t imply the aesthetic itself curbs character psychology, and assuming so strikes me as absolute value judgement of similar nature as the one I criticized in the OSR, taking their own aesthetics as more mature and meaningful by default (such as the hopelessly liberal and pretentious Hopepunk).
This is not to say that the variety of OSR setting possibilities doesn’t increase the variety of character psychologies and stories to be explored, as much as it shouldn’t be seen as a pre-requisite. Indeed, settings influenced by my generation’s interest in JRPGs, cartoons and such offer many opportunities. It also ties in to how the table, through setting, may restructure the possibilities of play meaning itself, such as why to recover gold and from where (perhaps returning them to their rightful owners), but most of all to dilute the separation between why players have to game and why characters explore, despite separate psychologies: because adventuring is exciting, it’s gameful, it’s enriching to life beyond hyper-capitalist acquisition. A motivation for adventuring joy is certainly more understandable in a setting that, while containing danger and horrors, doesn’t present itself as such at all moments. Luffy from One Piece goes after the treasure because it’s a convenient excuse to see the world and live adventures, and in one instance refuses to hear what it is before he finds it. A similar spirit to this is welcome at the table. Halloween herself runs games without levels because to the players, the joy of playing and discovering should be enough, otherwise why would you play?
My favorite kind of adventure gaming, if I’m honest, despite an admiration for whimsical and Ghibli-esque fantasy, is grim comedy, far from horror or high drama. The dark aesthetics turned up to eleven so it can’t be confused with any serious study of intellectual interest beyond problem-solving for fun and absurd madness, narrated as deadpan as I can. Doom-laden, irony-poisoned dream association the surrealists would have adored. Titus Andronicus drinking baptized Coca-Cola, King Lear portrayed by manic puppets, Macbeth if the throne was King Ubu’s and the witches were the characters of Beckett’s Endgame. Nihilistic with a grin. Violence and ambition in an overdrive that speeds past the ideological conservatism that upholds them as ideals of life straight into the clear revelation of unlife. A gonzo skull smiles at you and reminds that, under the skin regardless, your own skull always smiles back. Adolescence divorced from the adolescence of seeing adolescence as serious. And, if my players didn’t get into the eccentricities, the jokes, the enthusiastic mad people, without caring if they will die or fail, it wouldn’t be nearly as fun.
Nobody needs to do a funny voice, but it’s nice to describe the character as having a voice.
Roll to Doubt 
All the little taglines are responses to disruptive players. Ranting against amateur thespianism because someone wanted to stop the game for pretend emotional crises, or telling players not to get attached to their characters because modern players can not handle even the idea of PC death. If you engage with a mainstream RPG community these statements are fresh air from the endless talk of combat vs. roleplay and metagaming and what to do about GMs who kill PCs. So when you run or join a new OSR game that’s what you say, don’t get attached and don’t waste time on theatrics. That shouldn’t have meant that you can never ever care about characters or engage with the game in an actor-like way but if you repeat something enough times it just loses meaning.
And of if a fictional character dies before you get to know him, it’s usually not emotionally engaging. So of course nobody cares about characters until they’ve gone through hardship, because going through hardship is the game! Where else would a character develop?
Those are my quibbles. The important message is to be brave enough to be earnest, dangerous, maybe even risking a little emotional pain? Maybe even brave enough to let thespians come to your OSR table. And I’ll drink to that.
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Wonderful read! I definitely will re-evaluate my need to mitigate character backstory.
One think I would love to hear you address, is how for me and I feel for many, the need to mitigate backstory of new characters is a reaction to the overwhelming assumption of modern TTRPG culture that characters are “blorbos” with plot armor. People *do* put hours into backstory I find, and from personal experience can be quite put off when they die.
I had a game with veteran 5e players where they were told going in on many occasions that character death was a real possibility. Before they engaged a large group of bandits, I told them they will probably die if they do so. They all died, even eschewing the chance to run (I communicated) after a few comrades had fallen. The experience was clearly soured for them, and as a result for me. When I asked them why they didn’t listen to me all the times I told them death was a possibility, they said “every DM says that!”. So, since then, I’ve put a lot of effort to increasing starting disassociation, because in that experience the truth is I don’t think the players found anything positive.
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Thank you! Well, the issue of how deal with the play culture shock is tricky (I briefly mention that dissonance when I talk about the long backstory strawman, but it is an actual thing that leads to the strawman being sometimes evoked, it didn’t appear out of nowhere). I could give the lazy answer (even if true) that every table will find their way of negotiating assumptions and such, but I will try my best to say something concrete.
So the first thing is that backstory expectations must be set in. Instead of trying to work from the “blorbo” backstory tendencies and strip back, we can attempt to go from the “you are a nobody chess piece” backstory assumption and work from there. Going from personal experience with players who had never done OSR stuff, I told them the following, more or less:
“Okay, so. Your characters can die. As you learn the game, it is likely they will as part of apprenticeship. So, I recommend that, when writing a backstory, keep it to a few impactful bullet points about who they are, any noticeable beliefs, and why they are doing this.”
I also handled a lot of random tables of physical details, quirks, previous occupation and the like. They did create characters with pretty consistent backstories, but they were pretty hyper-focused in a way that it didn’t take much time and energy while giving them material out of the bat to portray mannerisms and the like. Yeah, those characters died, and there was the sting, but I think going from OSR backstory assumptions towards what they expected instead of the reverse helped. Indeed, they create new characters, with new personalities, using the same method and life moved on.
I had a similar experience to what you said with one player who was instructed about adventure gaming potential lethality but didn’t internalize it (I do believe it was from “every DM says that” bias) and therefore death, and being handled a hireling sheet, was a much bigger shock than to the others who believed my assertions and were mostly shocked from seeing it actually happen than thinking I was exaggerating. There was a moment where he started playing more distant as a result, but as play went on and he observed the other players acting despite it and how they portrayed their characters, he got into the groove and started having fun with the new model. I was pretty lucky in that regard, and noticed that newcomers respond to other players’ behavior as they settle in the table culture. It was a bummer when he was uncomfortable about it, and I realized I had fucked up in not searching better methods to communicate the play style.
So I think the most actionable way of dealing with the instinct to “sterilize” characters to prevent discomfort from carried assumptions is thinking the backstory procedure for the table. I do suspect actually using a backstory procedure such as “use bullet points, roll in these tables, maybe roll many characters and keep the sheets close” can help new players understand the risks more clearly than simply explaining it to them, because they are doing something instead of just listening. I think specific prompts like that (or even more specific, like a few questions about the character) mixed with a serious conversation on why character creation is like that can help people adjust to thinking backstory and character safety different while letting them get a clear picture of who the character is and what’s fun about portraying them.
That is at least my suggestion. I’m busy with stuff for the month but maaayybe I can put together an article with minimal backstory methods, prompts and questions when I’m free? Perhaps it’s useful to someone.
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Thank you for the thoughtful response! I think providing a backstory structure, rather than just stripping it out, is a great idea. I love providing tables, because not only do they help players who just want to get started on playing and not think too much, it also communicates the setting and sparks ideas for those who would like to make something a little more personal. I’ll keep this post in mind when my open table starts up. If it interested you to write it, I would certainly love to read such an article on methods. You mention handing the player who was shocked at the death a hireling sheet: maybe discussing what a dungeon delve of totally new players would look like from your end of preparation and handling death would be a good example. For example, giving the party a few mercenaries to start with in case of death.
One method of character generation I really liked was from Darkworm Cult’s “OD&D, played as Free Kriegsspiel, re-redux” attributes and powers system. I think that, combined with a few bullet points of backstory, would provide ample attachment for the Old-School style of play I plan to emulate with minimal time investment.
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