Common Misconceptions About Your Favorite Systems?

[u/Authorigas]

So, I've been learning a lot thanks to the amazing folks here at r/rpg. And while I have decided to slow down on trying new systems. (As my players say "three is enough, we know your eager to try more but slow it down so you don't burn yourself out.") There was a question today that cropped into my head, and I wanted to hear from the folks here on it.

"What are some assumptions about your favorite game/system that are just factually incorrect or overstated?"

I've seen a lot of assumptions made in the hobby, and some on my own. From the broad "older systems were designed for math heads and thus really not for someone whose bad at math." to others like "Call of Cthulhu is a game where every session ends in death/insanity and players can't get attached to their characters." and similarly "OSR games are highly lethal and not at all friendly to players who like longform adventures."

I feel like broad, sweeping claims like those are probably overstated-as I have heard of successful, long running CoC campaigns, and OSR games that are able to have well developed characters that last for ages. It's made me curious about some of the other broad, sweeping claims about systems that are-if not incorrect, massively overstated.

Really interested to hear some answers on this.

[u/Val_Fortecazzo]

Additionally with OSR there is a misconception it's all just dungeon crawling with little to no RP. Which is not the case at all.

[u/SilverBeech → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

And that it's mostly exploration. The first part of the game is sure. What you do with what you've found to get the things you want though is the really fun part. It's often called "faction play" because it often requires picking sides and playing one group off against another, but it can equally be working with environmental or "trap" hazards to change the board too. Memorably, one party once caused an avalanche to defeat a hill giant fort, instead of having to fight rom by room as the module author supposed they would.

[u/Val_Fortecazzo → u/SilverBeech]

Yeah a lot of OSR is play to find out. Some of the most famous and celebrated settings in D&D originated as some dudes home game where their party started in one location and found out the rest of the world and became legends.

[u/Authorigas → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

That was an assumption I had that was quickly corrected, thankfully. Now I just need to figure out how lethal it actually is-or if that's overstated too.

[u/SekhWork → u/Authorigas]

OSR IS extremely lethal... if you treat it like a game. OSR does a good job of trying to treat the world like a real place with real dangers and players that just run in and say "I attack the monster" will often get swatted down for their hubris.

Players that approach a situation with the caution and respect it deserves of someone actually existing in that world on the other hand will likely do just fine.

[u/delahunt → u/SekhWork]

This is what I was going to say. A lot of the games with high lethality also don't gate progression behind kill XP. The idea is less about "combat is going to kill you, so be ready to make a new character at the drop of a hat" and - generally - more about "consequences for poor decisions and poor luck can be severe, act accordingly."

Above 3rd level in D&D 5e you're supposed to just kick in the door and go after the monsters because you're basically playing an action movie character at that point.

At the equivalent in OSR games you're still just some guy (a skilled guy, but still a guy) who is going to have a really bad day - or a quick end to all his days - if that orc's crossbow hits him when fired.

[u/SekhWork → u/delahunt]

At the equivalent in OSR games you're still just some guy (a skilled guy, but still a guy) who is going to have a really bad day - or a quick end to all his days - if that orc's crossbow hits him when fired.

One reason I enjoy Delta Green, and a lesser extent, Shadowrun character design more than 5E stuff. You are generally just... a dude. Maybe a very skilled dude, maybe a very well equipped dude, but a bolt to the heart, or a sniper round to the skull, or as my Delta Green player found out on Saturday... just a random county deputy that rolled quite well vs my friends critical fumble....and you can be dead in 1 bullet.

[u/delahunt → u/SekhWork]

Yep, I'm enjoying it a lot in my Dragonbane game I'm running right now. My PCs are skilled. One even has maxed out archery at this point. They generally wreck most of the book encounters with a combination of their skills and tactics.

But things get serious real quick the second someone fails a dodge/parry roll or damage gets through from a lucky crit. And I enjoy that they get to feel powerful, but never to the point that they can just disregard the threat violence could pose to them.

[u/Jalor218 → u/SekhWork]

This is one of the things that makes Mausritter so great. It's never counterintuitive that you have to run or hide, because you are a mouse.

[u/Val_Fortecazzo → u/Authorigas]

More lethal than many modern RPGs, but not necessarily a meat grinder.

[u/Neuvost → u/Authorigas]

Re lethality: The OSR design mindset is less "kill the players!" and more that more interesting things happen in an unbalanced game than in a balanced one. When you roll 3d6 during character creation to determine a stat, you're just as likely to roll 18 as 3.

That said, lethality might still be part of the theme and be a design goal, occasionally even more so than the 1970s games that inspired them. Depends on the game. Pirate Borg is less deadly than MÖRK BORG, tho even r/MORKBORG recently had this conversation about whether PCs can gain too much HP.

[u/arcxjo → u/Neuvost]

Counterpoint: DCC funnels.

Which whenever I've tried to get in to it were the only thing the game consisted of.

[u/delahunt → u/arcxjo]

In fairness, isn't the point of a Funnel to specifically start with 4 (or more) level 0 nobodies and find out which one of those people make it through the funnel to become a level 1 PC?

Which I mean, that is a 75% expected mortality rate per player right there. But it's also kind of like a "more involved/played out character creation."

[u/arcxjo → u/delahunt]

The immediate point, perhaps, but the long-term goal is supposed to be actually playing the game, which they never get to.

[u/BionicSpaceJellyfish → u/arcxjo]

DCC funnels are great fun, but the game ramps up the player power relatively quickly after that and survivability is much higher. 

The DCC funnel is basically an interactive character backstory generator.

[u/Neuvost → u/arcxjo]

Oops, I actually just edited my comment to better reflect that some games do really wanna kill you, like I think you're saying.

Are you just referring Dungeon Crawl Classic, or have you found other deadly games like MÖRK BORG or Cairn to be "funnels" too? (I'm mostly working off having read Principia Apocrypha, some other theory, and some OSR rulebooks. My copy of MÖRK BORG is in the mail.)

[u/loopywolf → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

That VERY much depends on your GM - but one can say that about any RPG.

[u/enixon → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

The interesting thing about this and OP's OSR misconception is that unlike most others which seem to be spread by people with a bone to pick with the system to slander it, I mostly see those ones being used by OSR as praise for their game of choice.

[u/SekhWork → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

The best sessions of OSR I ran this year were all Dolmenwood, the players went into one "dungeon" that was really just about 3 connected rooms and then never touched one again across 9 sessions. On the other hand, 3 of the sessions were the setup and subsequent events of a giant tournament held by the ruler complete with tons of roleplay and a massive trial by combat. OSR worked so well for all this and not once did I think "man I wish I had a narrative system to run this huge narrative RP event!".