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Ceci n’est pas une “old school”

This is the grognardpunk manifesto. It’s a bundle of design goals, principles and concepts meant to guide me in the creation of a Modern rpg: a game that, through its rules and mechanics, shapes Player/GM behavior. This is not that game. These are not finished rules. They are a manifesto to guide the design of rules resulting in a future grognardpunk game. Players need not read this to play well. GMs need not read this to run the game well. Still, on the off-chance that others might find it curious or inspiring, I’m bringing it forth for the world to see, hoping it might be useful to someone trying to craft their own grognardpunk game.

The Punk What?

Words have meaning. But meanings change and get made up. Therefore the expression “Something-punk” has come to mean “a modern (re)imagining of Something”.

Beyond the aesthetics, most something-punk fiction presents themes of social critique, usually from the perspective of underdogs struggling under a dominant status-quo. This is where the “punk” bit comes from. Increasingly, the social critique ends up being partly or completely eclipsed by the cool aesthetics, but that’s a story for another time.

Steampunk is thus a reimagining of a Victorian future-past. Dieselpunk is a reimagining of a post-WW1 past-future. Cyberpunk is a vision of a techno-capitalist near future dystopia. Solarpunk is a vision of a post-capitalist far future utopia. Cottagepunk is an idealized take on unplugged rural life. Etc..

This stuff exists, I’m not making it up. What I am making up is...

Grognardpunk is a modern reimagining of a type of play experience from the yonder days of our hobby. It takes something dear to grumbly olden gamers and their grumbly youngun heirs (the titular grognards) and messes with it big time, because stick it to the Man, because we are fresh and punk, because we want all of the fun, none of the baggage, and nostalgia be damned!

Legit Knowledge

Sources of inspiration and information about ye olden rpg days come from, among many blogs and games, a few key documents:

• Hann, 2021. Simulacrum: Exploring OSR Design
• Lumpkin, Milton, Perry, 2018. Principia Apocrypha
• Finch, 2008. A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming
  

Quick note on Finch’s text: he talks about “modern” to mean “modern D&D” which in broader terms falls into mainstream “Traditional” rpg design. What I mean with “Modern” is post-2000 indie/forge game design.

Structure

The manifesto is organized in a few broad categories, mostly for ease of use. Likewise, the individual points are listed and numbered in no particular order. They are just easier to reference.

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Core Ideals

01 - Life Before Death

Characters will die easily, repeatedly, by the handful, like flies. The game is never cruel, but always mercyless, and often unfair. This is no heroic fairytale. Survival is earned. Learn, try again, strive to overcome.

02 - Cleverness Before Strength

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. It’s a tool, but a messy and unwieldy one. Find alternatives. Rise above it. Sneak below it. Cheat your way past it.

03 - Journey Before Destination

Exploration is the game. Story is an excuse to go exploring. The tense voyage through a wondrous and terrible environment, the learning of ways to delve forth, the scrambling to improvise an urgent solution... these are not means. They are ends.

04 - Fiction Before Numbers

Imagine your character. Imagine the environment around them. Imagine their interactions. Rules will mediate this, present costs, opportunities and outcomes. But the game is about imagining imaginary stuff, not about crunching numbers.

05 - Culture Before Baggage

Rules should distill the culture. The culture should see itself mirrorer in the rules. Those who learn to play the game shall only need the game itself, not years of experience, the wisdom of a thousand blogs or the esoteric advice of veterans. The game should propagate the culture, not depend on it to work.

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Structural Principles

06 - Rulings Around Rules

Rules shape play. They structure how Players interact with each other and, by extension, with the fiction they share. Around this core, Players are trusted to handle everything else by way of spontaneous rulings: What makes sense? What seems plausible? Questions, answers, descriptions, choices, judgments, specifics. Common sense and creativity are the living flesh and blood giving substance to the bones of rules.

07 - Play The Players

The game is a challenge for the Players to overcome. Characters are tools at their disposal. Quests are the context of the problem at hand. Game rules define how it all works, teaching Players the skills needed: to think like adventurers, to ask questions, imagine, describe, make hard choices, face harsh consequences. And for the love of Gosh, to help them stop from plunging their noses in their character sheets.

08 - Dice Are Evil

When a Player rolls dice, they have already screwed up. Odds are ugly. Outcomes stink. Unless the roll was a desperate Hail Mary or a carefully calculated risk, possibly boosted by their (scarce) resources, relying on luck will lead characters to an early grave.

09 - Honesty Is Danger

No lies. No hidden rolls, no hidden info, no cheating. No hidden rules. Everyone knows how the game works. Surprise and peril come from surprising and perilous content, input and choices. Everyone faces equally unfair odds and relentless adversity.

10 - No Prep Is Good Prep

Playing the game takes preparation, and preparation requires effort: creativity, time, materials, expertise. Prep is a barrier to play. Lower it however you can.

• Zero prep techniques shift the effort needed from before-play to in-play, and then lighten it up. Use rules and procedures to remove the need for prep. Imagine a prep-less structure.
• Lazy prep techniques convert small amounts of before-play effort into great in-play results: chop and cannibalize ideas, tables, settings and modules. Grind them down to easily snortable inspiration powder. Feed it all to the prep-less structure.

11 - Reward What Matters

Above all, reward:

• survival and bringing your character’s skin home.
• exploration and the discovery of secrets and treasures.
• hope, the honoring of a quest and the achieving of a mission.

Everything else should be its own reward. A means to an end. Not the end in itself.

12 - The Unbearable Lightness Of Bookkeeping

Abstract bookkeeping away. Forego “realism” in lieu of usability to highlight the core pressure points of adventuring: the passing of time, the dwindling of resources, the state of a character’s body and mind, the cost of actions and choices, the weight of Every. Single. Step. But abstract. Lightweight. Functional. Tense.

13 - Maps For Days

Maps are cool. Players need to map their adventure. Use rules to make it so. Mapping can be a chore and not particularly useful. Use rules to fix these sins against maps and nature.

14 - Under Their Die, May The Table Open

Characters come and go. Some return, most will only be remembered. Players too come and go. Some reprise old characters, others will try new ones on for size. To facilitate this, resurrections shall not exist and play sessions shall focus on self-contained one-shots. Stringing together multiple sessions featuring recurring survivors shall be allowed, but not be the focus.

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Coded Playstyle

15 - Problems Not Solutions

No predetermined plot. No railed story. No branching options. Only procedural exploration, the emerging challenges it fosters, and the Player’s drive to survive and overcome them.

16 - Embrace Chaos

Chaos is dice rolls and oracles. Chaos is other Players and their ideas and inputs. Let chaos relieve you of decisional work, let it fuel your imagination. Chaos keeps the game alive and surprising.

17 - But Uphold Logic

Causality is an illusion, we are making stuff up that does not exist, there is no A leading up to B. But if there were, what would make sense to us? What would feel coherent and satisfying to us? Use rulings to foster verisimilitude and common sense, or to unleash wondrous impossibilities.

18 - Cleverness is Life

Dumb solutions lead to dice rolls. Head on solutions lead to dice rolls. Risky solutions lead to dice rolls. What did I just say about dice rolls? Clever ideas, careful actions, well laid plans, alternative solutions: these can avoid dice rolls entirely. Be clever. Choose life.

19 - Metaplay Is Goodplay

The game is playing you. Hard. It’s only fair that you, in turn, play the game. Ruthlessly. Use what you know of the rules to help against the odds stacked against you. Use what you know about real life to make sound rulings. Use what you know about stories and narratives, movies and novels and media, to make rulings that not only make sense, but are cool as F.

20 - Play Is Description

Players need to describe stuff. What does your character do? How do they go about it? What do they hope to accomplish? 

Players need to listen to descriptions. What does the door look like? How high is the ceiling? What’s the expression on the merchant’s face? Is the oil flammable?

Players need not perform. We are not thespians, poets nor storytellers. We are Players playing a game. And a ruthless one at that. We describe to survive. We can be artsy about it, if we feel like, but practicality is the only thing required of us.

21 - Description Is Play

Description should be the only way to engage with game mechanics, or at least the best way. Make it as effortless and effective as possible. Make it everything. Make it tactics, strategy and planning. Make it danger and consequences. Make it opportunity and reward. Minimize or remove numbers and fiddly mechanics. What Players describe and how they describe it is what makes the difference.

22 - Agency: The Linchpin

The game is about making meaningful choices. Run, or fight, or talk, or do a funny dance. Your choice, your responsibility. For this to work, info is key: highlight danger, advertise consequences, mention alternatives. Describe what’s obvious, as anyone can tell. Describe what’s subtle, as the characters are alert and competent. Describe what’s hidden and invisible, if proper effort is made.

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Peripheral Considerations

23 - Make Magic Mundane

Magic should be a tool like any other: useful but limited. Players need to figure out how to take advantage of a length of rope, a bag of teeth or the knowledge that the Oroken chieftain fancies mushroom wine. Likewise magic should be the same: a specific and quirky tool with some obvious but limited uses and the potential for creative exploitation.

24 - Make Magic Wondrous

Old School magic bears an aura of mystery and prestige that has less to do with arcane power than with powerfully pretentious naming conventions. And a tendency to be as dangerous and unpredictable as the problem it is conjured to solve. Lean on the archaic aesthetic. Lean on rules to keep magic risky and mysterious.

25 - Frame Aggressively

Skip the intro. Cut the long tail. Get to the good stuff as fast as you can. Everything else is window dressing, is story, is secondary, is an excuse to get to the good stuff. Be bold and confident, don’t make excuses, go straight to the heart of play.