Thinking Small: The Fictional World has a Surprising Amount of Detail

Probably a year or two ago I read a blog post from outside the DnD-sphere, Reality has a surprising amount of detail. It stuck with me all this time, and eventually the little worm in my brain that this post spawned crawled and ate its way through my neatly compartmentalized mind into my DnD brain. I haven't reread the article since my first reading, but the title is what really stuck with me. The worm has digested this idea, and the result is a little nugget of an idea I want to expand upon here.

The blog post talks first about how constructing a set of wooden steps, in a precise manner, is actually quite difficult. Figuring out how the pieces of wood should be cut, fit together, and secured take some planning and precision. This is all to make stairs that simply fit together. Bearing weight is another manner.

The OSR is all about having a "realistic" world - one that operates on consistent internal logic, even with fantastical elements. That means if you really wanted to construct a set of wooden stairs in a game, yes, you can roll or handwave it, but the actual construction of it involves some thought and design. It's possible, depending on your table, to offer the challenge of building a set of wooden stairs. It probably wouldn't be much fun, but it would offer complexity, realism, and adherence to realistic logic that the OSR is all about.

But again, building stairs isn't interesting game content. But maybe we can take that idea, that many realistic actions require lots of planning and prepping, and apply it to a different task. Let's try combat.

Combat is most often portrayed in the OSR as "combat as war" - a chaotic mess that hurts both sides, with only a few coming out on top. This is often contrasted with "combat as sport" - where the sides are balanced and its a matter of system mastery to be worn down in a predictable way. Maybe we could explore the idea of something different, maybe "combat as chess." 

Chess is not balanced - you can face off against better players, and you should to improve. You do risk defeat quite often. However, chess is far from chaotic: it is neatly organized and relies on player skill rather than permanent buffs. Every game of chess is exactly identical before the first move. There are no surprises to pull, being an open-information game.

Here is a scenario where I imagine combat-as-chess playing out.

The PCs are traveling along a canyon. They walk along the canyon rim, keeping an eye on the canyon floor for movement. However, they are quite visible and cast long shadows. A group of goblins on the canyon floor hides below an overhang, having seen the PCs approach and hearing echoes of their footsteps. The goblins would like to shoot their bows directly at the PCs, but shooting straight up a couple dozen feet really takes the power out of a shot. So the goblins decide to take a trail up from the canyon floor to the rim (climbing the sheer rock face would take too long).

When nearing the top of the trail, the goblins hide out and listen for the party to pass. The goblins are competent sneakers, and didn't make any noise audible to the PC party on their way up. The goblins were in good view of the rim on their way up, and any attentive PCs would spot them. Indeed, the PCs could see some movement along the canyon wall. The PCs aren't sure what they saw, so they come up with a plan. Half of the party walks forward past the trailhead as bait, and the other stay behind. The one who stay behind ready shots against the unknown foes.

When the half-party passes the trailhead, the goblins jump out and ambush them. The rest of the party takes shots at the goblins, and the walking half of the party quickly turns on the would-be ambushers. The goblins are quickly routed.

The level for play and counter-play in detail-oriented combat is quite high. This didn't even necessarily involve magic. This isn't limited to combat, however. One can imagine little microcosms of details inside every action: mapping, navigation, navigating treacherous terrain, binding wounds, even where you choose to strike on an enemy can have some complications associated with it.

I think none of this requires expertise in the performed activity. Though OSR likes a realistic world, the back and forth here is not on actual reality, but reality as the table understands it. If no one has a counter-argument for why a thing should not work as desired, then it should succeed. Let's try another example of counterplay: See Invisibility magic items.

The party is conducting a heist. They outfit themselves with some form of invisibility, and enter the to-be-heisted location. Upon entering, an alarm goes off and they find themselves visible. The quick-thinking party thief scratches a rune from a sigil on the ceiling, and they return to invisible, narrowly avoiding guards. Now the game is afoot: where can these sigils be hidden in a room, and can the party find them before they are caught? Some fair rules about the sigils must be adhered to by the GM, but this opens the door to some fun play...

I encourage those in OSR or even freeform games to orient themselves towards these details, if your table would enjoy it. It may seem contrasting with narrative play, and there are some decisions to be made with regards to that angle. But it can be fun to think critically about how a fictional world works.