OSR-Style Challenges: "Rulings Not Rules" is Insufficient

I was a Pathfinder guy who got inspired by blogs, and then spent some time trying to figure out what the fuck the OSR was.  I read stuff, like Matt Finch's Quick Primer for Old School Gaming, which is where I first heard about Rulings Not Rules.

The idea is that the OSR encourages a sort of innovative, ad-hoc gameplay where players are always innovating and solving problems with outside-of-the-box solutions.  They're thinking with their heads, not their character sheets.

But saying Rulings Not Rules is merely a description of the system, which is only a small chunk of what actually contributes to gameplay.

What Contributes to Gameplay

1. The system.
2. The adventure.
3. The DM.
4. The players.

The DM and the players could be bundled together, because the DM operates by a social contract, sort of like a charter.

Anyway, it's not enough to have a system that allows for rulings and improvisation.  If you want OSR-style gameplay, you need to encourage/allow it at all levels.

System Level

Like Mr. Finch says, this is about getting players to stop thinking with their character sheets.  (This is why skill lists are potentially so poisonous--players thinking about solutions sometimes start and end by looking at their skill list as if it were a list of permissions.)

(1) And to do that, you need an incomplete system.  You need to have room for rulings, and that means that there have to be gaps between the rules.  To put it another way, if I wrote up a game system that included two pages of rules on how to attack tiny animals in your stomach, I've codified the acceptable options and excluded more esoteric solutions.  (I've also complicated the game by introducing a fiddly and highly-situational subset of rules.)

If a players is familiar with the game system, they'll think back to what they know about the rules as a first resort.  Only when they've exhausted everything they remember from the How To Attack Tiny Animals In Your Stomach page, will they start to innovate.

For an example of a more complete skill system, all you need to do is look at the skill descriptions from 3.5th edition.  The more complete a ruleset is, the more tempting (and valid) it is to say "well, it's not covered in the rules, so you can't do it".  Or worse "this is covered in the rules, and if we add up all the situational modifiers, you will do so at a -14 penalty even though I personally agree that this task shouldn't be that difficult".

This is why I like running games without Perception checks, Find Trap checks, and social skills.  It leaves more room for player innovation.

(2) You also need a system that supports rulings.  There are two parts to this.

First, the system cannot have too much interdependence between the moving pieces.  Some mechanics are isolated (XP) while others touch on many other mechanics (Ability Scores).  The more interconnected a mechanic is, the more knock-on effects you'll have when you modify it.  If you want to just make a quick ruling and get on with your game, you usually want to make sure that your quick ruling won't have any unforeseen consequences.  For example: 

DM: "Alright, you all manage to tread water for 18 hours, but the act was so exhausting that you've all lost all of your healing surges."

Player: "Wait, I can't use any of my class abilities without any healing surges.  In fact, I turn into a pumpkin without any healing surges."

DM: "Well, we've already established that exhaustion drains healing surges.  That's been a house rule for months.  And treading water for 18 hours is definitely exhausting."

Player: "But that was before I picked up the Pumpkin King prestige class.  It's unfair now."

A little caricatured, but you get the point.

Second, the system needs to have simple ways to adjudicate rulings.

My first resort is to just ask a player to roll under the most relevant ability score. 

• It's fast.  
• The player already knows what I'm talking about because their ability scores are written down right at the top of their character sheet.  It's an associated mechanic, so it makes intuitive sense.

If it doesn't seem tied to any particular aspect of their character (i.e. it's entirely luck-based or dependent on some external variable that the character has no control over), I usually just ask for an X-in-6 roll, which I make up on the spot.  I like using a six-sider for these, because even a 1-in-6 chance is likely enough that it'll happen every once in a while.

For more extended efforts, I like some variation of "you need to get X successes before some other limit is hit".  But I only use these extended rulings very rarely.

Bad rulings are ones that are slow or confusing.  But the worse rulings are the ones that are ultimately unsatisfying, in the sense that they don't give results (or chances of results) that mesh with the player's expectations of how the world works.  If your make some rulings, and the consequence is that halflings are more intimidating than orcs, that's (probably) a bad ruling.  If you make some rulings, and the consequence is that even the most untrained peasant has a 90% chance to track anything, that's a bad ruling.  Just as players use common sense to come up with stuff that requires a ruling, use common sense to make rulings (as opposed to precedent or some other analogous rule you saw somewhere else).

Adventure Level

You also need to give players problems that are best solved through innovation.

If you give them a problem with three orcs in it, they're probably going to solve it through an already-established method: initiative and attack rolls.

Here are some good examples of OSR-style problems.

• Get over this moat.  It's full of crocodiles.  (I think I first heard this example from Zak. S, and it's been stuck in my head ever since.)
• There's a circle of mushrooms with a girl inside it.  Everything inside the circle of mushrooms will do everything in their power to get more people inside the circle (no save).  The girl is already their thrall.
• There's a tiny octopus inside your stomach and it's biting you.
• There's a bowl built into the ground.  It's lined with gold but full of acid.  (From ASE.)
• There's a smooth glass sphere, 100' high, with an opening at the top.  It doesn't roll easily.  Inside is something you want.  (From some LotFP product, I forget which one.)
• The bad guy cannot be hurt by any weapon forged by mortal hands.
• This glass sphere (3' in diameter) is filled with gems and horrible undead snakes.
• Pretty much all of the dungeons that +Chris McDowall writes.  He's like a laser pointer when it comes to writing interesting problems.

Writing a good OSR-style problem is tougher than it sounds.  It needs to be something that. . .

• has no easy solution.
• has many difficult solutions.
• requires no special tools (e.g. unique spells, plot devices).
• can be solved with common sense (as opposed to system knowledge or setting lore).
• isn't solvable through some ability someone has on their character sheet.  Or at least, it isn't preferentially solvable.  I'm okay with players attacking the sphinx (a risky undertaking) if they can't figure out the riddle, because risky-but-obvious can be a solution, too.

The fun thing about OSR-style problems is that they often require rulings-not-rules.  (Try to solve the tiny octopus in 4e with RAW.)  So there's a benefit in having a system that's easily hackable.

But at the same time, OSR-style problems aren't dependent on system.  You could plop them into any system and then players will still have to innovate to solve them (and probably have a lot of fun in the process).

It's also important to give your players OSR-style tools.  (This is an idea I've half-articulated before.)

The anti-examples of this are going to be things like a sword +1, or a cloak that gives you +4 to stealth.  Anything that gives you a numeric bonus is not an OSR-style tool.  Anything that gives you a known, established ability is not an OSR-style tool (like a potion of healing).

These are tools that allow for innovative problem solving.  They stretch the brain.  Good examples include:

• Immovable Rod.
• Polyjuice Potion.
• Ring of Cadaverous-but-Reversible Sleep.
• Love Potion.
• Psychic Paper.
• Sovereign Glue.
• Cursed Wand of Enlarge, only enlarges one part of an object.
• Bag of Infinite Rats.
• Some of these items.
• And some of these items, too.

I especially like to make these types of items single-use or limited-use.  It prevents the item from becoming a known solution to an established problem (which is pretty much the antithesis of OSR-style problem solving).

DM Level

There's two things you gotta do.

First, talk to your players like adults.  Tell them that this game will have problems that aren't obviously solvable, and that some of these problems will have solutions that aren't on the character sheet. 

Actually, if you're dealing with complete newbies to tabletop RPGs, the less stuff that is on their character sheet, the better.  A level-0 funnel can help get new players thinking about common-sense solutions to problems.  Adding skills to the game after one or two sessions can also be a big help (if you ever add skills at all).

Second, you need to reward creativity when you see it.  When players ask you if something is possible, say yes.  (Or "yes, but".)  When you are devising a ruling for some ridiculous player shenanigans, lean in the player's favor.

I'm not advocating that you should allow stupid ideas to succeed, but solving an OSR-style problem is usually going to involve some kludgery, so be lenient when deciding how likely crocodiles are to eat a bomb disguised as a pig.

Player Level

I'm writing this article with the assumption that everyone enjoys the same types of game that I do.  This is not always true (unfortunately).  Talk to your DM and each other about your expectations.  Give feedback.

When it actually comes to solving these problems, I can't really help.  It's just you and your brain.  Here a few pointers, though.

• Think about all of the resources at your disposal, including resources in other rooms.  
• It helps to take notes.
• Make the hireling do it.  
• See if any of your magic items can do cool stuff if used in combination--sometimes the answer is spread across multiple peoples' inventories.  
• Take it to someone who knows more about it.  
• If it looks like it might do something horrible, pick it up on the way out.  
• Come back later with the right tool.  
• Experiment, experiment, experiment.  
• Before you do anything, ask the DM lots of questions.  
• Before you touch the dangerous parts, learn as much as you can about the non-dangerous parts.