This is an update to an earlier blog post I wrote on rules and OSR games, which was published in the zine Mixed Success, which you should also check out.

Playing four sessions of Thor Olavsrud & Luke Crane’s Torchbearer had me thinking about how we engage with the rules of the games we play. Torchbearer is a machine that produces a story of grotty dungeon exploration. Its rules are highly procedural. Torchbearer’s mechanics will push the story of your session towards death and dismemberment. Smart players will work together to avoid this grimdark fate. There is no playing this game without understanding its rules, and there is no playing the game effectively without understanding them deeply. This isn’t a game where you can just ‘wing it’—both as players or as the game master. Torchbearer stands in contrast to the games I normally play: games so rules-lite you might describe them as rules-optional.

Torchbearer is a modern ruleset for playing a very old-school sort of game: dungeon crawling adventures most commonly associated with Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). That’s what originally drew me to the game. I’ve been playing RPGs on and off since the 90s, but since returning the hobby a little over a decade ago now I have been most drawn to the games coming out of the Old School Renaissance (OSR). The OSR is a gaming movement focused on player agency, problem solving, and simple open-ended rule sets inspired by old editions of D&D and games from that period of time. Torchbearer is a very different take on a genre I love, it’s a game that is far more baroque and that feels more purposeful. I’d argue the messy games you may remember from your youth are purposeful in their own way.

My favourite edition of D&D is the original version of the game published in 1974 (OD&D). In OD&D, players start the game with a single d6 of hit points, and weapons in the game typically do a single d6 of damage. Hopefully you can see that your heroes won’t be long for this world if you end up in a fight and simply start rolling dice: your dungeon delving adventure will trend towards death and disappointment as your character is cut down by goblins, kobolds, and orcs. The odds aren’t in the player’s favour, so play becomes about fictional positioning to avoid leaving things to chance. Clever play is all about stacking the odds in your favour, and your best odds occur when you aren’t rolling any dice.

This style of play will only work if there is a shared understanding between the players that the person running the game will do so in a fair and impartial manner. In Torchbearer the rules force this impartiality: players will push and bend them to create the advantage they need to succeed. In an OSR game this is usually accomplished diegetically: there are no mechanics for dropping chandeliers on your enemies, tripping colossal monsters, etc. The players need to convince the game master their actions are meaningful, and collectively decide what the benefits should be. In both cases the savvy player is trying to manufacture certainty.¹ While you might be able to get far in an OSR game being completely oblivious to its rules, you won’t get far if you don’t attempt to play smart. Your games will likely feel boring or flat as your character is cut down again and again.

Games like Torchbearer have rules and mechanics that drive the action of the game. They are active participants in producing a story through play. The rules of OSR games can feel more passive in this regard. It’s easier than you think to play sessions of D&D where you don’t roll any dice. The rules found in OSR games are often focused on modeling failure states. In other words, they come into play when you fuck up.

In this way, OSR play feels like it’s about engaging with the negative space of the rules. The rules layout the guardrails for play: “this is a game about exploration and adventure.” You might need to Save vs. Magic, it’s written on your character sheet. You might need to fight a monster, you have hit points and to-hit bonuses. The game tells you what it’s about, where you need to worry, and play then is about trying not to worry. OSR play isn’t simply playing pretend because the game frames what your pretend looks like—like all good role playing games.

Games that work well provide support for play through their rules, GM advice, player advice, etc. This is true regardless of the model of play as described above. When making a game, especially a rules lite game, you should think about how players will approach the rules of play, and if there is enough there to encourage forward movement and interest. It’s easy to look at a game like D&D, realize you always ignore encumbrance rules, and drop them. And in that way keep stripping things back till you’re left with a system that is some variation of “just roll high on a d20”. Or conversely build a game up with the bare minimum you need to play, not realizing it all works because of the years of context sitting in your head. If you inadvertently create a game missing key rules needed for play, or leave these rules as an exercise for the reader, you veer into the world of Fuck You Design.²

Many OSR games work because they rely on their players having internalized all the norms and tropes of the game. Torchbearer tries to encode those tropes into the games rules, producing a game that is far heavier, but more self contained. I often play games with people who don’t know the rules of the game we’re playing. When they need to roll dice someone else will let them know. This works because on some level they do understand the goals of the game, and are navigating its edges. The games I enjoy are simpler, for me. If they fall flat for you, i’m sure there are several blog posts you can read, movies you can watch, doorstop-fantasy books you can consume, and new friends you can make to help get you up to speed. It’s simple.

Work was mind numbingly busy, and then I hopped on a plane to the East Coast. I saw people posting about the Ennies and realized those assholes hosted their awards before I announced the winners of the Ramanan Sivaranjan Awards for Excellence in Gaming. What’s up with that?

This is the 10th year for the Ramanan Sivaranjan Awards for Excellence in Gaming. While these awards improve like a good scotch, the Ennies continue to be … well, the Ennies. There is nothing wrong with being the Teen Choice Awards of the RPG industry, of course. Someone’s got to do it! I just want something different. Maybe you do too.

As always, there is only one rule when it comes to these awards: the books in contention must have arrived at my doorstep, or digitally in my inbox, during 2023. As I noted last year:

… while Trophy, which arrived at my home in January, should clinch some awards at the Ennies this year, it will need to wait till next year to fight for its spot as The Ramanan Sivaranjan Award for Excellence in Gaming winner. If I had backed it digitally, I’d have included it for contention this year. Simple, right?

In the business, we call this foreshadowing. I hope you enjoy my picks.

Best Gaming Supplement: Hull Breach , brought to life by Ian Yusem.

Hull Breach is a fantastic anthology of material for Mothership: adventures, monsters, advice, etc. With its fanciful layout and polish, its closest analog might be the popular zine, Knock, from The Merry Mushmen. Hull Breach goes a little further in its approach to anthology. Ian has tried to tie various articles together to suggest their use for campaign play. Everything is neatly indexed and cross referenced. You can see he wanted this to be the companion to Mothership 1e: unfurl the mission accomplished banner.

Best Necromunda RPG: Gangs of Titan City by Nick Spence, Ben Brown, and Zachary Cox.

Gangs of Titan City is the Necromunda RPG no one was asking for, but clearly should exist. Like Zach’s other works it is an odd amalgam of RPG ideas. You can see the influence of powered by the apocalypse games and the OSR to produce something new. This game feels so weird and niche I would love to see it find a wider audience. There is a strong emphasis on tools for the GM to use to make a session of gaming go. Some of that story game influence, I suppose. The only thing this book is missing is advice on playing with your Necromunda minis. A real missed opportunity. Finally, Dai Sugars did the layout so you know this book is hot and good.

The Ramanan Sivaranjan Excellence in Gaming Best God Damn Books of 2023: Trophy Gold by Jesse Ross.

I have already enumerated the ways I think Trophy Gold is amazing. Everything I picked up during the rest of 2023 was really in a battle to unseat this champion of a game. It was all my friends and I would chat about when it came to RPGs for a good while. Jesse Ross has made something compelling with Trophy Gold. The game really manages to be this impressive amalgam of OSR and Story Gaming. It doesn’t feel like it should work, but does! The book itself is beautiful. The Gauntlet, aka Jason Cordova, did an amazing job turning the small digital zines that were Trophy from the Gauntlet Codex into something special. The three Trophy Books: Dark, Gold and Loom are some of the nicest RPG books I own. Jesse did the art and layout as well as the writing: the triple threat! ¹

Honourable Mentions

Keeping this list of shout outs short this year was a challenge: there was a lot I loved, and a few games here were real contenders for awards. Much love to Brindlewood Bay by Jason Cordova, Sword Weirdos by Casey Garske, The Doomed by Chris McDowall, The Black Sword Hack by Alexandre ‘Kobayashi’ Jeannette, CY_BORG by Christian Sahlén and Johan Nohr, NooFutra by Scrap Princess, Barkeep on the Borderlands by Prismatic Wasteland, and Warped Beyond Recognition by Quadra. I am annoyed at myself for not having played Brindlewood Bay yet: what did I even do with my time off? Be better than me, check this game out, and give it a go!

I recently attended a Horus Heresy tournament organized by local gaming group Hogtown 40K. This was a full day of gaming, the most warhammer I have played in quite some time. (My last epic adventure in Warhammer was playing a never ending game of 40K in Lexington, with my friend’s husband before their wedding.) I have been painting my Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness boxed set in slow motion since it was released, so playing in this tournament felt like a nice conclusion to that hobby project.

For those unfamiliar, the Horus Heresy is the galactic civil war that sets up many of the important elements of the 40K setting as we know it: a probably dead emperor of mankind on a golden throne, chaos space marines, demons, etc. The Horus Heresy takes place 10,000 years before the time period of 40K. The game Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness is essentially Games Workshops’ take on Napoleonics. There is an emphasis on treating the game like any other historical, except the history of this game is 100% made up. People will paint armies appropriate for particular time periods of the war. They will make sure their colour schemes are consistent and correct.¹ Compared to larger Warhammer 40,000 scene, there is a greater emphasis on the narrative side of the game.

Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness feels like a modern take on retro rulesets. If you played Warhammer 40K prior to its 8th edition, Horus Heresy will feel familiar. You’ll see universal special rules, vehicle facing, blast templates, etc. There are lots of niche rules, which makes for a very flavourful game, but also one that is a bit tricky to keep entirely in your head. You will need at least two (giant) rulebooks to play, with rules for your units spread between both. The game would have felt impossible to play if I didn’t create my army list on New Recruit, which collects all the rules for your units together in one place.

Most of Games Workshop’s games share a lot of DNA, and this game is no exception. You use d6s throughout. You roll to hit, then to wound, then make armour saves. Like all GW games, you often roll a fuck-ton of dice to accomplish very little. There are lots of small differences between Horus Heresy and modern 40K. Armour Piercing isn’t a modifier, you either ignore armour saves or you don’t. When a unit loses a combat, there is a chance they will rout and just be cut down by the opposing side. Similarly a unit that is routing can be killed outright by any unit that manages to charge into it. These changes will lead to faster game play: you just lift models. Some changes slow the game down, but make for fun situations. Melee combat happens in initiative order, like Mordheim: you might be able to kill a few dudes carrying massive thunder hammers before they 100% blow you up. Like most Games Workshop games, Horus Heresy’s turn structure is “I go, you go”. They have introduced a pool of reactions you can make during each phase of the opposing players turn, making the games feel a bit more dynamic, and ensuring both players are engaged throughout each turn. You might shoot back when shot, fire overwatch when being charged, etc. The number of reactions you can make is small and intuitive. It’s a nice addition to the game.

The format for the tournament was cute: each player made a list of 1250 points, a little under half of what is recommended for a full game of Horus Heresy (3000 points); players were paired up and played as a team against their opponents. I was encouraged to sign up for the tournament, even though I had never played a game of Horus Heresy before, because the format of the tournament lends itself to teaching and learning the game. My first partner was someone with a lot of experience playing the game.² That ended up being the case in subsequent games as well.³ Games that would have been a slog to get through if I was playing alone flew by with ease.

I honestly had no good reason to pick up the Age of Darkness boxed set, but i’m glad I did. Getting into Heresy has been a fun hobby project these last months and years. Getting ready for this tournament, painting my last few minies, was particularly fun. I always find it motivating painting for an event or game, trying to get a unit done under the wire. Up next is getting my Sons of Horus army up to 3000 points.