PbtA vs OSR - Is there something in between? - Making a TTRPG From Scratch [Episode 41] 

I'd forgotten about that! Thanks! I'm still a little wary about games that are written in 6 pages. It feels like there's something missing😅 But I could maybe try it out sometime soon, as it's probably easy to get into.

makes sense, from what I heard it would make sense for it to be the other way arround? Since PBTA is more of a core way of working then something that has a big body of work that you "plug in" Rather, it tries to make things easier for GMs and players by simplifying rules and making things have narrative effects. A lot of older OSR content is older D@D derived. OSR cares more about the gameplay approach then the precise mechanic. Although, being close enough to an existing OSR ruleset to allow borrowing of adventures easily is common. Alterantively they tend to make some starter dungeons. They generally also have plenty of tools for GMS to make dungeons, hexcrawls, etc. But the OSR feel comes from the "game structures" or the scenarios it tends to use. As well as generally having crunch but taking a more flexible interpretation of the crunch. Since OSR tends to focused on problem solvings. It tends to give you a tool set and asks you to use it. If you have too many tools it is overwhealming. But too few makes things confusing and such. I think your approach is interesting. It seems to be fundamentally more of an OSR game that is using PBTA style mechanics to manage NPCs, and the worlds reaction to the players. Managing the reaction of the world is an old element of more "sandboxy" games. And OSR often leans towards sandboxes. (Although, you can do a dungeon of the week OSR. Or a megadungeon one. But the best megadungeons are ones where the dungeon morphs over time using a set of GM tools. And where the player interacts with the same area multiple times and watches it change. @@simplywyvern

That's a good point! Thanks for the insight! I do think it's more nuanced than that though. I wrongfully said in the video that I was playing Savage Worlds, but I meant Dungeon World. And I'm currently GMing Servants of the Cinder Queen. The adventure pretty much spells out where to go and what to do, and uses moves to trigger certain things to happen in the dungeon. I'm not saying that the GM and players should follow the adventure as it's written. But there isn't much incentive in the module to go outside the boundaries. From a game designer perspective, I can see why. There's not much reason to buy an adventure module which says "This adventure focuses on trolls. But it could be about birds if you want to. Or something else." It's not worth buying if the module doesn't provide content, but expects the players to do it instead. This is maybe the hardest thing for me as the game designer is how can I encourage GMs and players to play my game? Do I just provide mechanics and let them go loose on it? Or do I provide adventures and settings that provides content for them to play with?

@@simplywyvern I holestly think providing rules and setting elements, and specially mutually enhancing rules and setting elements is a great strategy for PBTAs, and for any ttrpg, in fact. I also think some "bottle chapter" PBTAs, with some pre stablished routes/events, can be really cool for one shots or short stories. But for longer campaigns or to fully use the improvisational heart of PBTA games, I don't think traditionally structured modules are a good option. For giving more coherence or retaining more control when facing highly emergent story systems, I prefer to take a "sandbox" approach: many setting elements do exist and can be discovered or altered by the players, but there isn't an specific route or direction to them, and they are not "fixed" until they are discovered. This allow the narrator some degree of preparation, and time to integrate the stuff created by the players between sessions. I reccomend to look the "iceberg structure" proposed in City of Mist for creating mysteries. IMO is a great way to stablish a grounded set of events, setting elements, clues, npcs and conflict, without going against the "play to find out" principle of PBTAs.

Thanks! I'll look into that! I agree that campaigns and larger stories have to be run by the players/table. I've never found those large settings like curse of strahd good, because they're extremely rigid in how things are handled. I actually want to aim for module size or smaller. A module which outlines the direction of a story is good, but maybe even just a group of various encounters could be fun to make. That way the GM can just plop something down if it suits the situation. I'll try to find the City of Mist book and see if I can get something useful out of it. Thanks!

Totally agree! I'm playing Dungeon World right now, and it's tons of fun😁

That's a curious observation😁 and I feel the same. I've never run 5e with new players. Last DnD-like game I taught new people was Pathfinder, and they became really bored of how limited the rules are in terms of creativity. After that, I've either done Dungeon Worlds, or something similar, or just winging it with the rules

That's an interesting idea! I definitely agree that the design challenge is to codify the GMs ideas. What immediately comes to my mind is a sort of "stacking effects" system. The GM has a list of moves or effects that describe the encounter. "Swarm" just means that the enemy doesn't have a HP and you cannot flank them, because the enemy is just a large number. "Organized" means the enemy hits harder if you can draw a line between three enemies. There's tons of these effects you can have. You can even make cards for them and lay them on the table. Oh! You can even choose if you want them to be face up or down, to hide from the players what the effects are You build the encounter by choosing a set of effects.The GM then describes how the battle is interpreted. Say an "Organized" "Swarm" could be the players being ambushed by a bunch of hobgoblins. The effects play out, the players react. If the players "win the round" (don't know what that means yet) they get to remove an effect. If they choose to remove the "Swarm" effect, it's interpreted as the players having killed so many hobgoblins that only a handful are left. Now, the GM doesn't just sit there and let the effects play out. They get to swap effects during their turn. So they swap out "Organized" with "Savage" which is narrated as the remaining hobgoblins becoming furious and attack the players with full force. And also, if the GM "wins" the round, they get to add new effects. I don't know how far you want to take this, but it could potentially turn into a full Yu Gi Oh battle map, where the GM swaps and activates effects, maybe even effects that activates effects, or generate action points or whatever. But I think this could be a solution. The GM narrates the encounter at will, which is codified into effects. The players then try to remove effects during their turn, while the GM narrates the consequences, which is in turn codified into swapping effects. I don't know. Let me know what you think

@@simplywyvern I really like the idea of running it like a card game from the GM side. Cards are nice and tactile and make it really easy to tell how many options you have. They also stop you having to look up rules mid-encounter because they're on the cards themselves. So the GM is basically building a deck of effect cards to represent the encounter, then playing a card game against the players and narrating the result. Instead of having definitive winning/losing rounds you could treat the effects themselves a bit like monsters and let players actively target them. Give every card a win condition that takes it off the board. For example, a Darkness card might severely reduce accuracy for a ranged attacker. In order to get rid of the darkness modifier, the players just need to find a way to make some light. If a player uses their action to light a torch, cast a light spell, set a goblin on fire etc. then the Darkness effect leaves the field.

Exactly. That's a good approach. I really like the idea of having specific win conditions. In fact, you might even have specific win condition cards that you can apply to effect cards to not make each win grow stale. I'm not quite sure how to resolve win conditions though. If you, like you suggested, have a darkness effect that is removed by light, the player perspective goes away from the crunchy, tactical play and more over to a fiction first focus. But you could of course have some sort of "damage type" or something, where a torch would deal a certain amount of fire/light damage.

@@simplywyvern Having multiple "damage" types would be pretty cool, it'd be a good way to differentiate character archetypes. If your party doesn't have a reliable way to "damage" certain types of effects then they really have to improvise when faced with those situations. If you give every effect a hard win condition then there may be situations where the players don't have the ability to win, but you can get around that with "rulings not rules" creativity (sure, you didn't bring any torches but you can try to use flint and your sword to set your spare rations on fire to deal some light damage to the darkness). It might also help to give multiple win conditions. You can defeat an enemy with attack damage and kill it, or you can target its resolve with intimidation, scaring it into giving up peacefully. Some enemies are much tougher physically but have low resolve and vice-versa. You could have a "pacifist" archetype that can barely attack but is really good at talking enemies down. Potentially, you could use it to model things other than combat. Exploring through a thick swamp? The GM puts down a Mire effect card that halves your party's movement speed. If the players have abilities that let them "damage" the Mire effect then they can remove it from play, otherwise they're gonna arrive a week late to their destination.

This reminds me of some of the ideas I had for my Orks! game. As a GM you would use cards to make an encounter. Each card represented a unit, an enemy, an effect or the surroundings. Basically, anything that had an effect. Each round, the GM would just apply the effects of the cards. Either it was an attack, add support, damage nearby targets, etc. Each card also had an HP, sometimes an armor, sometimes some particular criteria to reduce the HP. Also, bosses would be just multiple cards on top of each other. Such as I had a dwarven steam engine tank, with a drill, a flamethrower and a crew of spearmen, each with a corresponding card. The drill would let the tank be a le to drill through walls and floor, so it could basically teleport. If you "killed" the drill, it wouldn't have that option anymore. That way, every boss would slowly get knocked down over time. It was still a rough sketch of the encounter, and everything is just HP, so it was very simple. The game itself is meant to be set up and run in like 10 minutes, so simplicity is good. But I can't see a problem in extending this and giving it multiple layers to make a full game out of it.

Wow! That's amazing. The weird thing is that only a week ago, someone told me about this book www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/115917 It's maybe a bit heavy on the crush side, but I still want to have a look at it, because it heavily features the reaction tables. Now, with what you're saying, I should really look into how reaction tables are made. Thanks!! I posted on Reddit maybe a year ago that for each iteration of my game, it turned more into an OSR game. I thought this would be a different direction, but it turns out no matter what I do, I fall back to OSR😅

@@simplywyvern haha... yeah us old school guys thought of a lot of that stuff over the years. I've considered this for the skill system I want for older play as well cause a significant portion of the people I play with understand the mechanic from PBtA games... which I like for one shots and quick play. But I tend to like a little more meat on the bones

I recently started a new gaming group and started Dungeon World. And it's surprising how quick they understand the move mechanics and how to play. I've tried the same with both DnD and Pathfinder, but even after a whole campaign, they wouldn't know how their abilities worked. It wouldn't surprise me if OSR people are the ones behind every new innovation of game design. It's just a bundle of creativity and exploration and a willingness to try anything and see what sticks. I should really get into that community more.

Thanks! RU-vid sometimes just doesn't notify you of videos. The best way is to have the "always notify" on, but even then it could go wrong. The Avatar RPG looks fun. I generally don't like games with custom dice, but the balance mechanics and era mechanic looks really cool

I agree with you. But I'd say that OSR doesn't explicitly focus on combat. You don't even get XP from killing monsters, but rather from the loot behind them. It is strategic play, but not sole focus on combat stats. I'd say DnD 3ed and after, and similar games like pathfinder, you basically focus on math and stats for a 2 hour long combat. And they encourage power gaming and exploiting rules. But yes, OSR is focused towards strategy and players trying to outsmart the encounters. PbtA the story progresses regardless of how the encounter goes and is more about narration.

@@simplywyvern I would say that OSR tends more towards treating the character like a Pawn since the player's experience, skill, and choices matter more than the character's experience and skills. By contrast, in PbtA, a mantra is "to do it, do it." In other words, the PC has to first do something in the fiction before mechanics can be applied or decided upon. It's fiction first, and mechanics second. This leans more into Actor IME. A game, however, where the players occasionally jump in the director's seat would be Fate with invoking Aspects and Troubles.

That's some nice insight😁 I think that's why I want players to have a more OSR experience... Hmm... Well, I want them to have a fiction first experience, but also that they use their character as a pawn. Which might be closer to the OSR realm (but I'm not an expert). As I said earlier, I want the GM to be able to communicate to the players what they can/cannot do, or at least give them a few recommended options. And in my head, giving them a PbtA type of mechanic to interact with might be what I'm looking for. But I was also recommended to look into Reaction Tables from OSR, because they might also be similar to what I'm thinking of.

You're actually both right. OSR could be mostly combat based and strategic, coming from a wargames background, or it could be free flowing, rulings over rules, with a heavy narrative focus. It could actually be both. I started playing in 1981 and me any friends who played came from a wargaming background. We quickly realized Basic and Advanced D&D were not wargames...they were non competitive and had this cool element of role playing in them and we leaned heavily into that. The other thing that made D&D stand out was the flavor of its monsters and dungeons. At the time it was the only RPG that had such a huge amount of monsters, treasure, magic items etc. etc. That's a huge part of what makes a game immersive. We played Traveller and other games but found them dull because there just wasn't as much cool stuff to work with.

I sort of agree. But every time I run a OSR game, I often add PbtA mechanics because I lacks a narrative. Players have "too much" freedom, so the game doesn't go in the direction where I'm comfortable/inspired. And I often add OSR mechanic whenever I run PbtA games, because they feel very restrictive in the narrative and character development. So I'm definitely not settling in one camp😅

@@simplywyvern Oh yeah, as mentioned, despite it being two very distinct design styles there can be some middle ground. Though I warn adding simulationist stylings into a PBTA game as, despite how simplistic they appear, its very highly nuanced. Making a good PBTA style game is considerably harder due to the fact that you have fewer 'parts' to it, meaning each part must be practically perfect. While its easier to do so in the opposite direction. Also, in my perspective, the GM shouldn't have a narrative for the players. I kind of think of it as the players playing a game, the GM is the PC that 'operates' the game, and the game rules are the software that tells the PC (the GM) how to 'run' the game. The GM basically operates the world around the PC, and adds stuff to it that engage the players, but the players are the ones that are driving the story. The GM can add some seeds, big bad evil guy here, missing person there, raiding monsters in the distance, but its much easier to take what the players did and build off of that. It's why after every session I basically ask the players what they plan to do next so that I can spend an hour building out the world in the direction they are going. Thing is, I imagine if you were to make a game that kind of 'helps someone GM', you could codify that concept, that "end of session round up" in which the players kind of 'pre program' the first actions they commit to of the next session, so that they cant backpedal.

I agree in practice, but philosophically disagree 😅😂 so, yeah... I agree fully about what you mean about PBTA vs OSR. PBTA can be very hit or miss and there's sometimes I've played for instance Dungeon World, where it just feels clunky because the game want us to move on, but we want to stay and explore. But where I philosophically disagree is with the GM. Now, I say philosophically, because I know there's nuances, and that we probably agree on a practical level, and we would probably have similar ways to GM, etc. Etc. Anyways. I don't think the GM should be just a game engine. If so, you could play a videogame or at least pay the GM for their service. If it's not expected that the GM should also have fun, then it's a job. But, more importantly, the GM is the game. If you play a videogame, it dictates the outcome. It does not dictate if you have fun. A book dictates the story, not if you had fun reading it. And in the same way, the GM dictates what happens, whether you like it or not. It's just that you're in reach to punch them in the face. The GM can say "You had a heart attack and died" or "I don't wanna play anymore. Session over." They decide the rules, they can roll the dice in secret and fudge everything. If a player rolls in secret the GM can say "The result isnt valid. I didn't see it." The whole game, story and everything is dictated by the GM. Now, being a dick-tator makes you have no friends, so you have a social contract, etc. But the point is that if the GM is the game, they also force a narrative. Even if you ask your players what they plan to do next session, it's still you that google, write notes and prepare. And its you that describe the rooms and doors. The doors you don't describe are the doors the players can't open. Sooo... Too long answer. I apologize😅 And of course, I agree on a practical level 😅 but to conclude. I think an rpg should design the rules so that GMs make good choices. Choices that benefit the players so that they have fun.

@@simplywyvern Oh no no, your good. And I also 'agree in practice but philosophically disagree' with your statement. The GM 'should' have fun of course, but the advantage to a TTRPG as opposed to say, a video game, is that there's no limits to how players interact with the 'game world', AKA you. I've talked to someone else basically saying that the GM's 'player character' is literally the environment. That and I've told players that "your not making a story, your making a history", where they need to attempt to look more outwards and influence the world and add narrative to it themselves, and I as the environment react to it. Means less work for me because story wise, the players are pulling the sleigh and I'm just nudging them a bit left or right. If something distracts them and they take a hard left turn, thats the path they want to make and I just have to follow them. I think the big thing is, your saying the GM is a 'force' of Narrative, I disagree. The GM is a narrative catalyst. The main difference, forces act on their own, catalysts react. Because If I were to be disingenuous, I could say, if you want to be a narrative force, then write a book. Obviously I add 'some' initial narrative push right at the start, general antagonizing force or goal for the players, "Big evil king here"/"Lich there"/"Players have given me some NPC's that relate to their character so... X killed this player's mom, school bully is part of the villain's guard". But after that, there's not too much 'narrative planning' to do after that. Does the player decide to outright kill their schooltime bully, or convince them that what they are doing is wrong? Afterwords how does that react to the big evil villians plans? Do the players decide to undermine the villian's plan by literally buying all the villian's assets and causing em to go bankrupt? I'm reacting to their narrative contributions. And even with my more 'player pushes narrative' approach, the GM still has control of the flavor, and as mentioned earlier, can nudge them. GM has a choice on creating the history 'before' the players, something grimdark, something fluffy and fanciful, have the world be ending. But even then the GM, like the players, are playing a 'role' as the world, and that role could be to be unforgiving and dangerous, or comedic, or mysterious depending on the world. Its why I view campaign settings as like... a pre made character sheet for a GM, all the history is there, the GM just has to play the 'role' of that world. As a side note, this is kind of my nitpick against games where 'only the players roll dice' because, as mentioned earlier, GMs are playing the game as well, and they too must follow the rules and interact with the game mechanics. With my preference to 'simulationist' mechanics, this kind of creates this solid groundwork of 'the enemies have to follow the rules as well' to some degree. So yeah, in reality, probably just a mix of it all. Obviously if I want to put a murder mystery subplot somewhere, I can add it to the world and my players may bite and investigate it. But really the fun I have in a game is just watching my players and going "how are they going to tackle this mess they've gotten themselves into" or "Oh, there's a possibilty that the paladin's mom might be the litch, lets see how he handles that revelation?".

@@simplywyvern long story short. You prefer to GM like a movie director, I prefer to GM like a TV show director.

I learned through the comments that PbtA stems from OSR Reaction Rolls. So if you're not keen on waiting for my rules, there are probably many similar games out there😁

...yeah😅 but it's also a classic 😁

I thought you liked CoC🤔😁😎

Thank you! Well😅 kinda embarrassed, but I was meant to say Dungeon World, not Savage World. I've never played Savage World... But this adventure is Servants of the Cinder Queen. It's quite fun, and very well organized

I'd say it's more nuanced than that. "Storytelling" can be many things. Acting out a role is the same as telling the character's story, aka storytelling. The difference is who is in control of what narrative. In OSR it's mostly the GM who is in control of the overall narrative while players are in control of their own narrative, while in PbtA it's more flexible.

That's awesome! What mechanics have you made?

@@simplywyvern after the dice test, if player wants to take control, he can use some of his abilities (which match the tested situation) almost like mana or hp, temporary lowering it and using to his advantage (type of advantage depends how much ability points is spent, it could be even another added throw), and if it succeed, he takes control of the situation. It ain't much but it's an honest work of mine. Hope you got the rule

That sounds like a really good rule😁 "Take control of the situation" is very intuitive. And it's a fun twist that you get to use abilities after you've succeeded a roll. It opens up to a more flexibility rather than having to decide beforehand what abilities to use. Great work😁

@@simplywyvern thx 😊

I love the idea of Schrodinger's Gun. It's Chekhov's Gun and Schrodinger's Cat. It's when you place "a gun" in act 1 and force the players to use it in act 3. What does this mean? It means that in the beginning of the session (act 1), you show the players a locked door (gun). It incentivizes the players to move further through the dungeon to find the key. How do you ensure they get the key? It's in act 3. Say 2 hours into the session, or after they defeated the boss, or just when the players feel bored. The boss drops it, it's behind the next crate, whatever. Schrodinger's cat: The key is everywhere in the dungeon until you check. I've found that this is a nice balance with a narrative focus and "let the dice fall where they may". The players just do whatever they feel like, while you're able to nudge them forward in the story the whole time. Plus, forcing limited resources is a nice way of humbling your players to be "just people".

That is a genius way of doing it, and it solves the problem I face with two-axis mechanic: that you as a GM have to come up with twice as many outcomes. But with this system, you give it to the players to decide if they want the extra result. Genius

@@simplywyvern well this was not my idea ( I found it on a random reddit post one day) but I never saw it in any RPG that I know. I mostly play solo and binary resolutions are the worst for narrative because of the NO resolution. One other solution is that there is no NO/FAIL resoltution but just SUCCESS and SUCCES WITH CONSEQUENCES. This also a fun way to keep the momentum going and keep everything interesting. Maybe add a CRITICAL FAIL when rolling a natural 1 or something like that 🙂

Yeah. For solo play, fail/succeed is just bad. It completely disrupts the flow. Ironsworn (haven't played it) has a momentum mechanic if I recall, which can sway failures. And in that case, failure becomes a resource drain, which also works. But still. Your mechanic (or random guy on Reddit mechanic) is a very smooth solution

I agree with you actually. And thanks for watching my videos! There's a lot of rambling and indecisiveness to watch🤣 As a GM I also have a very clear idea about how the world and story works. But I also have a hard time communicating that to the players. And then I think PbtA is able to communicate that. Take the example in the video, where the players acquire the services of a merchant. If I just ask "what do you want?" They'll spend 2 hours discussing what to do, try to haggle, threaten to kill if they don't get what they want, whatever. They'll just try out stuff at random. If I instead make the service into a PbtA move, then the players have a clear understanding of the rules and limitations of the merchant, and they can (hopefully) make better choices. They still have the option to threaten the merchant, but I'm able to guide them better by presenting moves that show how I intend the players to interact with the merchant.

@@simplywyvern Sure. When I was writing I realized I only disagreed with 1/2 of the statement. I have more fun as a player in PbtA as I have more narrative control. But what you said is actualy that PbtA is easier for the GM, not more fun. I "kind of" agree. It is easier some times and it is easier to not screw up the game or to not get lost in infinity possibilities... but some moves also demands some improv. skills that not every gm has, and altough many people have argued with me about it, I, personaly, fell kind of restricted by some PbtA games. Of course this is easily overcomed with the Golden Rule... follow the moves most of the time, and ignore them when you think they are harming the game. Anyway, in general, they are easier, specialy considering the prep. aspect of GMing. I will subscribe and try to follow the series from the start as any inspiration is welcomed in game desing.

As a GM, I agree. I'm currently GMing a Dungeon World campaign, and I skip many moves that just breaks the flow of my game. But as a game designer, I feel I need to contribute something to help GMs. Making a game where I just tell GMs "Just do whatever you feel like" gives them little to hold onto. At least if I make a move system, or some other thing, then GMs can choose to use it or not. I wont force GMs to use my system, and I'd even love if GMs came up with something better. But as I've talked about in one of my previous videos, I feel RPGs often neglect GMs and I want to provide tools for them. I'm so glad you subscribed. I hope I won't disappoint. And please feel free to comment in any of my videos, talk about your own game, even promote it if you want to. I love talking RPGs 😊

play it at stores with other people, go and run at conventions, there are some in NJ just for playtesting your games, start instagram/twitter/fb sites for them. pretty much the same things that any company would do to advertise.

I honestly don't know😅 in my case I find something I like and just go for that. In my experience though, any rpg nowadays need to have something special. Something that makes it interesting. But most importantly, something you find interesting. If you are passionate about it, then people will follow your passion. It also helps to build a community. Someone who playtests your stuff, give feedback or help you with new ideas. May I ask what your RPG is about?

@@simplywyvern It's basically my attempt at a ttrpg that is super easy for beginners, I call it Bonk, so far I've playtested it and everyone liked it so I've just been receiving. It's kinda like d&d but it's a classless system. You have a power level that determines your bonk point, or HP, which can be increased by some traits and other traits grant abilities, monsters and characters are created the exact same way as to balance them out too

@@DiscoBarbarian alr cool, thanks a million

That sounds like a cool system. I would probably spin it as something other than "similar to DnD", because there's thousands of games like that. It's not a problem that it is similar to DnD, don't get me wrong. But you maybe need another edge. Like the setting is that you are all goblins and the only solution you know is to Bonk enemies in the head, or it's set in a cyber punk city. Idk. Something you find interesting If you've already playtested it and people like it, then you're already on your way to making a good game. You should try to go to a convention or local game store or something to get new people to playtest. It's the best way to get the first impression from multiple people. Then you iterate on the feedback. To gain more popularity, it's the same as what was said earlier. Make an instagram account or a subreddit. Find people to join, promote your stuff, etc. Advertising doesn't hurt either, but posting something on Reddit might be equally effective as buying an ad on Facebook. It really just depends on what audience you're looking for.

Thanks! I skimmed a little through it, and it looks really interesting 😊