Workshopping Combat Heavy OSR

Apologies for the meme, it popped into my head and I had no way to ignore it. Anyways, this post is about combat-heavy games and the OSR, and how those two things are not necessarily as opposed as they're generally assumed to be. Essentially, I see a place for really cool combat-heavy OSR or OSR-adjacent games, and I think that shadowy little corner would be cool to explore.

 

Defining the OSR (for the purposes of this post)

To start, let's take a look at the core tenets of the OSR. They aren't static, they aren't the same for every GM, and they're not written in just one place, which all in itself may be a central tenet - that the OSR is horizontally and loosely organized, more so a shared concept than a set of rules to be bought and sold.

 

I prefer this list when it comes to defining the OSR. For reference, I'll re-type it here:

1. This is a game about interacting with this world as if it were a place that exists.

2. Killing things is not the goal.

3. There is nothing that is "supposed" to happen.

4. Unknowability and consequence make everything interesting.

5. You play as your character, not as the screenwriter writing your character.

6. It's your job to make your character interesting and to make the game interesting for you.

7. If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.

8. The answer is not on your character sheet.

9. Things are swingy.

10. You will die.

Adding on to this, for the purposes of this post, I'd add "combat is war, not sport." It's repeated fairly often around OSR circles, and pretty relevant when talking about combat-heavy games.

Overall, this whole thing can be summarized as a type of game where you use a character as a filter by which you interact with a dynamic and realistic world. This is specifically in opposition to story-heavy games, where you roleplay a character and collaborate to make a dramatic story. This is also specifically in opposition to monster killing power fantasy games. The goal of an OSR/NSR game is not to kill monsters and be super powerful, and it also is not to tell a really compelling narrative. The game's about exploring and problem-solving through the medium of a small character in a big (and weird) world.

Rewarding Combat With XP

As a general rule of game design, you should reward the behavior you wish to see. I want to see thrilling, intensely strategic combat in my games because I think it's fun. I'd play a wargame, but I want some amount of roleplaying still (and also I'm broke).

Since I want combat, I should reward it! Possible options for rewards include abilities (expanding your options and growing in power), experience (by which to acquire abilities and grow in power), and tools (by which to expand your options).

While I do want to motivate characters to fight monsters, I specifically don't want to do the following:

• motivate characters to pick fights with NPCs, innocents, or generally murderhobo through life
  
• motivate characters to battle tons of weak enemies and avoid challenging fights

These are two things I've seen by playing D&D 5e with its xp-for-monsters-killed approach. Players determined that the best way to get xp was to avoid challenges (like fighting a dragon) and instead just kill a lot of goblins. Additionally, when the only tool in their toolbox was a sword, the answer to every problem became extreme violence. Violations of the Geneva Convention and the UN Bill of Human Rights were commonplace. Intimidation was the answer to every social encounter, and environmental challenges were ignored or avoided, since the only way to solve them would be to stop thinking with your sword.

 

In that regard, I came up with the following concept:

• Players get 1 XP for each battle won in which the sum of the foes HD was greater than or equal to the sum of player levels.
• Gain 1 more XP for every 3 HD greater than the sum of player levels
• Gain 1 more XP for battles which were overcome with cunning and strategy

 

A battle would therefore become a central part of the game. Players want to engage in battles, they want to engage in hard battles, and they want to win them with strategy.

While this is great, I might add in other XP triggers for non-combat situations, just to shift the focus away from solely violence and discourage thinking with your sword. Players might gain a point of XP for: exploring a new region, completing specific quests, moving towards their convictions, etc.

 

Rewarding Combat With Equipment

Combat can also be rewarded with equipment, tools, craftable supplies, and more. In Tears of the Kingdom, half the reason I fight hard monsters is for the drops. Harder monsters have better loot, and better loot is a better reward.

These rewards can be monetary (some amount of coins, or rare gems or monster parts worth a lot of coins), they can be tools or weapons (like lizardfolk crafted javelins, which fly extra far when thrown), or  they might be monster parts (the horns of silver monsters in TotK, or dragon scales for shields and armor).

These rewards are secondary to the core xp rewards, since they can be better suited towards rewarding specific things (like battle strategy or difficulty). They're still nice to keep in mind though, as they can supplement xp rewards and provide additional motivation to get into hard fights.

Bringing it Back Into the OSR

Ok, you say, that's great. But point number 2 in the OSR Commandments says "killing things is not the goal." And now you want to make it the goal, it's not OSR anymore!

I'd be inclined to agree, at least a little bit. We're leaving the OSR and heading towards the NSR, though it's all very weird and vague anyways.

However, I think that one of the main points the OSR tries to make with taking the focus off killing things is to provide a less game-y and more exploration and world driven adventure. Adding to that, the change in focus helps set the tone of small adventurers in a big world. You can't kill everything and fight your way through life in the OSR. You have to negotiate, problem-solve, and be smart.

This can all still be done in a combat-heavy game. Fair fights (monster HD = player level) aren't fights you can win. The monsters will try and get the high ground, cover, and advanced weapons if they can. They'll attack at night when they have darkvision and you don't. They'll use tactics and spells and they will win if you don't do the same.

Combat can be an adventure in problem-solving too, and a combat-heavy game with deadly battles being the only opportunity to grow makes for a whole lot of problem-solving.

Player Skill vs Character Ability - Providing Options

Tenet number 8 says that "the answers aren't on your character sheet." This has often been stated as "player skill vs character ability" elsewhere, and that phrasing is the most useful for this part of the workshop. We don't want the players to be using a ton of abilities and magic powers to win their fights, we want them to use strategy. That is, player skill (strategy) is more important than character ability (powers).

Plenty of OSR/NSR games don't have levels, or they might have more diegetic/foreground advancement. We don't want this, or at least, I don't. I want players to get rewarded for getting out of tough fights with xp and loot (probably in terms of monster parts or specific "drops"), and I want those rewards to funnel themselves into a leveled system by which players feel like they've advanced.

Rather than give the players more powers or just beefing them up, I want to give them more options. With options, the core gameplay experience (strategic and difficult battles with monsters) becomes more interesting rather than just being more easy. These options may include battle maneuvers for fighters like parrying, disarming, and called shots, and they might include spell variations for magic-users, like the ability to invent spells or inscribe them into exploding glyphs (a personal favorite).

Ultimately, the goal of advancements would be to give players more options to engage with combat in unique ways. How does combat play out when the thief can appear behind enemy lines? How does it play out when the fighter can disarm their opponent? Rather than just giving the fighter more damage or more attacks, they now have more options with which to make strategic victories.

Rambling Back to a Conclusion

We've gone a little bit off topic from "can an combat-heavy OSR be done" to "how I would make one" and that's ok. In total, we've shown that combat-heavy OSR is possible (though it's becoming less OSR the deeper you go) with strategic and deadly combat being the rewarded experience. We also went a little into how abilities would work in a strategic combat RPG by focusing on increasing options rather than power.

All of this is going to go to use in my current GLOG hack, and as I keep working on Jangli, it'll factor into that too. I want Jangli to simultaneously give off the vibes of Tears of the Kingdom, Lord of the Rings, and India's medieval-era war dramas (like Bajirao Mastani, Tanhaji, etc.). This kind of stuff will fit perfectly into that goal.

In the next few posts I'm probably going to start looking at monsters like ogres, goblins (and gretchlings!), lizardfolk, etc. and examine their tactics and environments. I also want to make a post about what makes a monster a monster, and the ethics on monster killing. We'll get into all that later.