BBEG, Borrow, or Steal

Greetings from my attic. This is episode two of my design diary for Oz in Ashes, and today we’re pondering a foundational game design dilemma: do you try to develop a completely novel mechanic for your tabletop RPG, or do you simply adapt an existing system and find a way to make it work?

Of Borgs and Beholders

Whenever I think about the mechanics for a post-apocalyptic Oz game, I can feel the specter of 45-odd years of Dungeons & Dragons looming over my shoulder.

To some degree, Oz in Ashes is a direct response to the crushing weight of that extensive history. I am frankly exhausted by the crunch. I don't want to do that much computation, and I don't want to ask it of my players. Sure, some players love sitting down with a three-page 5e character sheet, but the sad truth is they just leave half that shit blank or forget to tally up their skill points or whatever, and we lose time reverse-engineering the real stats at the moment they become relevant. The character sheet contains a buffet of luscious options, but most of us just keep eating the shrimp cocktail.

As a dungeon master, I have come to see that extensive set of rules as a prison—a box we need to work our way out of just to fully engage in the sort of imaginative play I desire.

So, I want a simpler game. But as I started thinking about an Oz Borg, I balked at the naked simplicity of MÖRK BORG. It’s amazing for improvisational play with willing players and a maximally caffeinated game master, but it doesn’t have a lot of meat on its bloody bones.

I love MÖRK BORG. I will always buy its supplements if I see them in a Brick & Mortar shop, and I’ve gobbled up a lot of them online. I respond to the smirking, gruesome, unrelenting bleakness of it all. But in actual play? The stripped-back rules leave a lot of problems for the GM to adjudicate on the fly. The lack of structure doesn’t feel like it points to anything. In a way the game solves all of its own problems and we found it challenging to find any momentum.

After all these years, I still want to run a campaign with big stakes and character development. A Borg doesn’t feel like the right fit for a game about interlopers exploring a bizarre, complicated world. The brute simplicity of it dampens the qualities that make a character instead of a caricature.

Threading the Tactical Needle

I want a system that bridges the gap. I want less tactical complexity than 5e, but more than a Borg. This led me straight to Chris McDowell's Into the Odd and its more specifically medieval-flavored progeny, Cairn.

Right now, I am heavily leaning towards an Odd-like OSR chassis for a few reasons.

Speed of action is a key component for me, especially considering my flight from the 5E universe. The mechanics of these games support the weird looseness of the narrative, and I feel like I can adapt parts of this ruleset to fit Oz. There is room in these systems for story beats that defy the easy, mathematical solutions a more crowded system would present.

This flavor of game feels like it promotes player agency without a total reliance on the precise operations that make heavier systems feel sluggish. I want the players of Oz In Ashes to take some chances without having to run a little statistical analysis, whereas 5E feels like it rewards system mastery as much as it does luck and ingenuity.

The RPG Menu vs. Mechanical Cohesion

This brings us back to the core question: what is to be gained from using existing rules versus creating a novel rule set?

It’s probably impossible to make a completely novel mechanic. Most of the available rules for this kind of game have already been formulated. Because I don't have a head for numbers, it's easier to look at the entirety of the RPG environment as this incredible menu of mechanics that we can modify for our own purposes.

But treating the universe of RPGs like a buffet could easily lead to a game that lacks cohesion. A TTRPG should have throughlines that create intuitive links between subsystems. (Think d20 + modifiers vs. static difficulty number.)

I want every character’s efforts to adhere to a single, fairly simple equation. That equation should be consistent but supple enough that it doesn’t feel like a broken rule if the gamemaster feels it should be finessed. NPC or adversary efforts should mirror those systems. Magic or weird science should be peculiar in concept but follow a similar, straightforward logic in its execution during play. There should be as few fiddly bits as I can get away with. Subsets of rules feel like an opportunity to break the flow of the game while someone flips through the book trying to find that one chart.

I don't want designing a tabletop RPG to sound like a choice between staring into the abyss of a blank page or stealing from somebody smarter than you.

We are lucky to be in an indie game community that isn't a walled fortress of corporate IP. Many creators encourage each other to find both inspiration and mechanical solutions in the games they’ve designed. Games are always informing one another. That’s part of the nature of the hobby, and an essential component of any creative endeavor.

Where Do I Start?

So, if I release myself from the burden of true novelty, and settle into some loose ideas around a basic OSR design, what is my point of entry into this game system? A game like this has many interlocking components, so we’ll start where a lot of RPG books start, with character creation. My hope is that working on that part of the process will help to shape the perspective I take looking at other game elements.

(If you prefer audio, you can find this episode on Spotify under The Dodgy DM. You can watch me work through this stuff on Youtube, as well, at @TheDodgyDM. Subscribe, like, and I wish you the best from up here in the attic.)