PbtA vs OSR - Is there something in between? - Making a TTRPG From Scratch [Episode 41]

World of Dungeons is an RPG that is PBTA but compatible with OSR material. Very fun.

PBTA doesn't remove the narrator authority or involvement with the world events and reactions. It removes the predefinition of such events and reactions.

It makes both players and the narrator to create facts, events and consequences on the spot. Prefabricated plot and worldbuilding are super limited by this, while overly unexpected concepts, challenges and conflicts became the fundamental way of interaction.

The players become proactive while the narrator becomes reactive, but this doesn't mean you stop creating stuff, making choices or guiding the story. You just have to do it without preconceptions, with minimal preparation.

Narrating PBTA requires constant improvisation and being able to integrate the most crazy stuff your players will propose. Its a feast of creativity, and super, super exhausting.

Since you stated BEFORE EVEN STARTING PLAY how your adventure can end, I'd say PBTA it is not a good fit for it.

What would you do if your players lean their creative drive towards a story were Trolls not only are evil, but they are also inhabited by an advanced civilization of intelligent birds? And then the Trolls stop being relevant because the interaction with the birds is much more fun? This kind of stuff can and will happen in fantasy PBTAs like Dungeon Worlds.

Don't play PBTA with a story already defined. Play to find out how the story goes.

This video has made me think of so many design concepts in the last hour or so lmao.

The concept of a game that lets players do the mechanics-first tactical/puzzle-solving game and the GM do the easy-to-prep fiction-first approach is basically the ideal design for me personally. I'm guessing the reason it isn't done more is that it requires building 2 seperate but interdependent game systems, which is potentially a lot of work. You need to be able to convert the GM's soft, narrative-centric notes into a hard, mechanical problem for the players to solve, and you need to know how to do it in every interaction. It's an interesting design challenge.

GM moves could be a good way to streamline combat preperation. Instead of discrete stat blocks, the GM has a list of moves that they can take which are modified by circumstances. On the players' turns they take actions/make attacks etc. On the GM's turn, they are allowed to make 1 move, but the move determines what all of the enemies are going to do that round. If implemented well it could make combat really dynamic, where each round the situation the players face is a different.

the core mechanic of PBtA games is originally based on the Charisma Reaction Table of the ORS.

it's worked to give you a range from total/disastrous failure, partial success at a cost, total success, and outstanding success.

the Moves codify each action that they outline but. you can very easily generalize the results.

super easy to work into ORS play.

want to do a thing?

roll 2D6+Stat (as per situation)
6 under... your fucked.
7-9 you can succeed but it comes at a cost per GM
10-12 total success
13+ outstanding success

you could add additional layers by saying something that a character is good at (thieves doing thieves stuff, Bards doing lore or charm stuff, etc....) you could let the character roll 3D6 using two best... and if you need skill but don't have it 3D6 using two lowest (ie advantage/disadvantage)

this allows you to create degrees of expertise or to also easily modify the roll without out trying to figure out a bunch of bonuses. (ie if you would give a player more than +2 to the roll just give them Advantage) this system doesn't really need a bunch of +/- and too many of them will fuck with your math so best to just generalize.

depending on how you want to play... for example PBtA games use this roll for everything.... you could just use this for skill type stuff... and leave combat alone (way easier for conversion)

I think Dungeon World is a good mix between the feeling and flow of an OSR style game but with a PbtA heart beat.

Relized that I somehow missed this episide when the new one came out. The idea seems good. I have no PBTA games at this time but I am looking at the Avatar RPG as my first as they seem fun.

Thanks for your reflexions on a system between OSR and PbtA, I'll be curious to watch how your own system will be developed. At 7:16 you show some clipping from a Savage World scenario (very short, bullet point elements which remind me The Lady Blackbird scenes descriptions) : what are the references of this Savage World supplement ? Thanks and keep good working.

In my experience, Dungeon World (and PbTA) are what people think they are getting into when they ask me to DM DnD5e for them, since portrayals in the media i.e. Stranger Things, are basically PbTA and not DnD.

So I just tell them I will DM a session using Dungeon World, and if they like it we continue - and if not we can switch to the snooze fest (5e).

Will have to give OSR a go, sounds interesting.

I've had or even have similar issue with my RPG from scratch, and also came to conclusions, neither suits me well enough to stick only to one solution. I've mixed them both, but not like you. I didn't take both, only some parts of them. Did you made a mechanic for that? I sure did 😉

OSR

I'm trying to put together a home game that uses both of these styles together. I love the easy to underatand narrative focus of Dungeon World's mechanics, but I also love the random tables and emergent storytelling of OSR, because it makes game prep a borderline non-issue. Just roll up your characters and go somewhere to see what happens.

However, I'm hitting a bit of a bump because I'm finding the narrative focus of PbtA lends itself to story cohesion in such a way as to make the characters much closer to the protagonists of a novel right from the start. This isn't bad design. Far from it. It's great design for a narrative-focused game.

It's just that once the characters are seen as the main characters, and not just people, it makes it harder as a GM to "let the dice fall where they may." The design of Dungeon World facilitates the mindset that the GM is a fan of the characters, and it does this very well. It's just that I don't want to see the PCs die due to a string of bad rolls or because the players are missing information about the situation at hand. The latter is pretty likely to happen, if only because players will latch onto random aspects of the game world and inevitably ignore others.

Walking this line between two seemingly opposed game systems is hard. lol

>the trolls are just misunderstood and its humans who are the real monsters

A bit trite, don't you think?

If the focus of PbtA game is "storytelling", then it is a "storytelling game" by definition.
OSR is "Roleplay game" . Players asume the role of their characters in the situation stablished by the DM.

I would love to see a PBTA/OSR rules mix

How do i expand the popularity of my ttrpg if it's ok to ask

I don't really agree with your analysis. For me OSR was (literally) born out of old school table top wargames. OSR Play tends to gravitate towards combat. The highlight of the session is a big battle with a boss and everything else is effectively foreshadowing. In OSR everything has a skill test and character development tends to mean point balancing and power gaming. The 'character' of our characters doesn't matter because in the end it will be a dice roll that beats the boss.

PbtA ( Especially games like ironsworn ) are explicitly narrative driven. Stats are less important than story, and character development actually means roleplaying. Point balancing and power gaming are kinda pointless because most rolls tend to a success with a complication, ( ie rolls tend to generate narrative twists ).

In my analysis OSR encourages strategic players ( and the gm handles the narrative events) while PbtA encourages narrative player ( and the gm handles the strategic events)... both are fun and it kinda depends what mood I'm in.

OSR vs PbtA is very easy to describe.
OSR is 'rules for the world'
PbtA is 'rules for the narrative'
Where an OSR game concentrates on simulating a world in which the players have full freedom of exploring that world, knowing full well that if they do A + B, C will happen.
As opposed to PbtA, all the rules are based around simulating a 'story' with arcs and so on. Manipulating the 'story narrative' that the group is telling. This is why PbtA games have more 'meta rules', like the 'Flashback' system in Blades in the Dark, its not that the character is a chronomancer in the game, but its just a narrative slight of hand for perceived pre planning.

So, in an OSR style game, you can very much have a game that ends up as a dungeon delving rom com, a wolf on wallstreet style economic exploitation story where things just spiral out of control, a "Catch me if you Can" crime thriller. While in a PbtA game, or at least, good ones, have a very specific theme to them that players are NOT allowed to deviate from. Thus why in an OSR game, 'classes' are more like jobs, they dont define your character, more that they define your abilities, as opposed to PbtA games where the Playbooks can be summarized as 'pre made character sheets' as they label your 'role' in the game's 'story'.

And frankly, these two game systems are so different they shouldn't both be called TTRPGs (though its also a spectrum as some games mix both simulationist and narrativistic rules, like Call of Cthulhu, Paranoia, and to a degree Dungeon World). Would basically be like having a dog and a cat and giving them the same name.

This is the first episode I watched, so I don't know the state of the game now...
I'm working on something with a weird mix too... OSR, PbtA, FitD... but mainly FATE and Year Zero.
Funny enough, I got the opposite conclusion... I think OSR is better for the GM and PbtA for the players xD
But I understand why some people would disagree... I think narrative control is fun... If I'm playing, I want to leave my mark on that world... if I'm GMing, I probably have a story and a world I want my players to experience... I have a very hard time having fun "playing to see what happens" as a GM.

Check out Vagabonds of Dyfed

I really like OSR games but I HATE the binary resolution mechanics. So I thought why not combine the both with one basic minimal change - non required double roll. First roll is binary (yes/no). If the player is not happy with the result they can roll again BUT with consequences. First FAIL/FAIL is a fail with consequences. FAIL/SUCCESS is a success with consequences. SUCCESS/SUCCESS is success with bonus. This is a fun way to move the story on (because FAIL always drags, but SUCCES WITH CONSEQUENCES moves narrative forward) and players can challenge their luck for bonus success.