Misdirected Mark Forums

I had a dream where someone was running wildly successful kickstarters to publish OSR versions of Urban Shadows, Monsterhearts, and other popular PbtA games.

I, unfortunately, didn't get see how they were converting the mechanics that actually make those games work.

How would you do it? Could you take your favorite PbtA and rewrite it as an equally good OSR? What bits would you have to remove? What bits would you have to add?

Does it have to be OSR? Or can this be just a trad game?

First you'd reintroduce the GM rolling for things. Monsters hitting etc. You'd have to figure out how to model defense. The main thing (imo) that pbta does is to combine the effects of opposition into one roll. You'd have to rebuild that somehow.

Other than that it doesn't sound too hard.

I think I would meet the problem half way and go with a D20 based PbtA. That way all the old school values and such would still apply to the rolls. You then have the GM act on failure as per PbtA.

Which parts of the OSR styled games are you looking to emulate in a PbtA styled game?

chrismmp wrote: ↑Tue Sep 03, 2019 11:25 pm Which parts of the OSR styled games are you looking to emulate in a PbtA styled game?

I don't know that I'm capable of answering that. What really is OSR? It's long since grown beyond just republishing early D&D rules while dodging copyright law. I can generally recognize the tech that defines PbtA (playbooks, moves for players and GM, 2d6 with outcome bands allowing for partial success). I'm not sure I can do the same for OSR but I'm sure that's a deficiency on my part.

I think it also depends on which PbtA you were trying to hack. I think I can imagine an OSR version of The Warren or Epyllion but they'd be very different. But what would OSR Pasion de las Pasiones even look like?

I don't have the answers but I thought it might be a fun idea to kick around.

It’s the problem with trying to un-PbtA a game to an OSR styled game. If we don’t know what parts we’re trying to design into it we don’t really know where to go. I suppose the first thing to do would be to figure out which parts of non-PbtA games are we looking to put into a game to make it that game without the PBTA mechanics.

Sure. I think there are 3 parts here.

1. What are the hallmarks of PbtA. These need to be removed.

2. What are the traits that make the game distinctive. These need to be preserved.

3. What are the hallmarks of OSR. These need to be injected (and married to the game's identifying traits).

So pick a specific PbtA game and let's speculate wildly!

Let's do Dungeon World

Oh. Wait. It's Basic D&D

Lol. Yeah, not the best choice for generating interesting discussion.

Pick again?

Monster of the Week

• Episodic

• Hunt down and kill monsters that are killing people so very much like a serial killer situation

• In the modern world

• Monsters should be puzzle like

• Gathering info and dealing with locals is a thing

• Getting harmed by the monsters isn’t any kind of joke

• Hunters are generally lucky at least for a while