A Rosetta Stone for Old School Play: What Does That Mean?

 Over the past few years, many of our fans have heard me describe O.G.R.E.S. as a "Rosetta Stone" for old school play. What exactly does this mean? How does O.G.R.E.S. relate to other games in the old school community, the OSR, and other forms of this tradition of play? Let's take a dive into the long evolution from the earliest days of gaming through to O.G.R.E.S. and the future. 

Please understand that I'm not trying to claim some pretentious or arrogant lineage unlike that anyone else can claim. All of us in the old school community are presenting our own take on gaming, all of which connects to decades of scholarship by thousands of gamers and game designers. O.G.R.E.S. isn't presenting anything particularly new or unique in terms of play or rules. In fact, I've been on record many times that I disagree with the very concept of "innovative" rules systems, that all too often they create overcomplexity to no good end except so the designer can (often falsely) claim that they've done something different and unique. That's quite the opposite of what O.G.R.E.S. does.  

The Rosetta Stone

Most folks know what the Rosetta Stone is, or have at least heard of it. It is, at its heart, one of the most important translation codices and matrices in history. It's a stone tablet dating to roughly 166 BCE and rediscovered by archaeologists in 1799. Today it resides in the British Museum. What makes it so important, however, is that it included inscriptions of a Royal edict in Ancient Egypt, and it's written in three different languages/alphabets: Hieroglypics, Demotic, and Ancient Greek. At the time, Demotic and hiegroglypics were a complete mystery to archaoeologists. They had no idea how to read these ancient scripts. This stone, due to its Greek inscriptions, allowed archaeologists and crypto-linguists their first foray into decrypting these long-lost written languages. 

That is, of course, a grossly simplified explanation of what the stone represents and is, but it will do for the purposes of this blog; other scholars have written more and far better than I ever could. 

Old School Gaming

What we call old school gaming today descends from a long tradition that began with a minitaures wargame and evolved through collaboration between two visionaries into the original 3 little brown books, later to evolve into two separate and distinct branches of the single most iconic role playing game in history. These two separate branches would evolve and change over the ages, but all the way up until they "re-merged" with the so-called third edition, they had the same root DNA and so many inarguable commonalities that the various games which we call 0e, 1e, 2e, Holmes, B/X, BECMI, and RC were compatible enough that you could literally use an adventure module penned for any of them with any of the others with little to no work needed whatsoever. 

So what's missing? The root DNA and commonalities of these games, codified in a way that's easily readable and understood. Even within these games, the same mechanics are used over and over again, but not codified as such. They just sort of "appear" and it takes some analysis to pick up on them. 

That's where O.G.R.E.S. comes into play. 

The Mechanics of Old School Play

The O.G.R.E.S. system has three mechanics that drive the entire system. They are all simple and straightforward. 

The first of these is the d20-based mechanic, and the one around which almost every subsequent iteration of this famed RPG was based. This mechanic covers combat and ability checks, and it's very straightforward: roll a d20, add applicable bonuses, and try to get 20 or better. Some systems change the "add bonuses and try to get 20" to the adoption of a sliding target number, but in the end, that's just a different expression of roughly the same math. 

Even the second edition mechanics which used the number you need to hit AC 0 as the benchmark for your target number, in the end, were substantially the same. The O.G.R.E.S. mechanic simply changes this so it's all addition instead of subtraction. It flips the script, so to speak, so you're adding the opponent's AC to your die roll and trying to get 20 instead of subtracting from 20 to get your target number. 

The second mechanic is the percentile mechanic. This is another straightforward mechanic that covers all class abilities from the lore knowledge of the Sage to the tracking ability of the Veteran. There's again, not much mysterious about this: you have a percentage chance to accomplish a task. That base percentage is modified by the difficulty of the task at hand. You throw percentile dice and try to get under your score. Simple. Even in old-school versions of the game, thieves had their move silently skills based on percentile scores. Rangers tracked using percentile dice. It's always been there, baked into the system. 

"But wait!" you're saying. "O.G.R.E.S. uses percentiles for spell casting rolls. That wasn't part of the old school mechanics!" No, it wasn't. That is something a bit different O.G.R.E.S. brings to the table, though skill-based spellcasting isn't anything new by a long shot. We'll get to that in a moment, however. 

Finally, we have the Rule of 2. The Rule of 2, as I call it, is another rule that's baked into every iteration of old-school gaming, but is never expressly codified. Whether this is a coincidence or an oversight I don't know (and without access to the original creators we may never know, but let's look at three of the most common instances: 

1. In 0e, 1e, and other iterations, whenever someoene without the Thief's "Hear Noise" ability attempts to, say, listen at a door, the GM throws a d6. On a 1 or 2, they hear something, assuming there's something to hear. 
2. When an elf attempts to search for secret doors, they find something on a 1 or 2 on a d6 (a 1 on a d6 if not actively searching. 
3. When rolling for surprise, the GM throws a d6. A result of 1 or 2 indicates surprise. 

The Rule of 2, as I call it, is present throughout old-school fantasy gaming, at least in the lineage of that original iconic game. It's just never actually codified as a proper system. It's my general theory that it was used as a "go to" mechanic because it was easy and didn't require a lot of thought. Does something happen? Just throw a die, look for a 1 or 2, and voila. You've got your answer. I adapted this for general GM use in O.G.R.E.S. along those exact same lines. You can alter probabilities by altering die types, just like how the original Ranger was only surprised on a 1 on 1d8 instead of a 1 or 2 on 1d6. 

Applying the Universal

The one major change O.G.R.E.S. makes to the old school lineage is to universally and consistently apply these mechanics to the entire game, across the board. That's why spell casting in O.G.R.E.S. games uses percentile checks instead of the (rather random, in the grand scheme of things) so-called "Vancian" system of other old school games. If every other class ability uses percentiles, why then shouldn't spellcasting also use percentiles? That's why this change was made to the old-school style in Night Shift: VSW Powered by O.G.R.E.S. 

The only place this concept isn't universally applied is in random tables. That's largely becuase it felt a bit artificial trying to ramrod every single table into either a d20 or percentile mechanic. It's more natural to simply create your list of options, and then fill in the results. Theoretically we could've used percentiles across the board for tables. We just didn't. We opted for the most simplistic range of possibilities possible for any given table and just ran with it. Perhaps in future printings I will reconsider that, but for now, random tables are the sole exception to the three-mechanic rule. 

O.G.R.E.S. and Old School Games

That's really it. That's how O.G.R.E.S., as presented in Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars serves as a translation codex, or Rosetta Stone, for old school play. Once you really get a grip on how the three mechanics of old school gaming work, you can easily apply them to any situation in any old school game you like that has a direct lineage from those 3 little brown books, from 0e through RC, 1e, 2e, and others. 

1. If it's combat- or ability check-related, it's a d20 roll, adding modifiers and trying to get 20. 
2. If it's a class ability, it's based on percentages and uses percentile dice.
3. If you're not sure what mechanic to use, fall back on rolling a d6 and looking for 1 or 2. 

Old school gaming is really not as complex or arcane as people think it is. It's just that it hasn't been properly broken down and illustrated. 

If you're curious as to how O.G.R.E.S. works in practice, and how a game that is Powered by O.G.R.E.S. can run in a modern setting, check out Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars today!