PRINCIPIA APOCRYPHA
Apocalypse Engine-style Principles and Advice from
Ben Milton • Steven Lumpkin
for running RPGs in the Old School Style
curated, butchered, and amalgamated by David Perry
with miscellany from Bryce Lynch • Chris McDowall
PRINCIPIA APOCRYPHA
Lost Principles of Old School Gaming
Version 0.9ish
September 17, 2017
Statement version, formatted for printing as a booklet
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Source Symbol Key
✦: Ben Milton
Maze Rats - drivethrurpg.com/product/197158
☆: Steven Lumpkin
Agendas for Old School Gaming - roll1d100.blogspot.com
✻: David Perry
The humble additions of a fan of both Old School and New School gaming
NOTE: Some principles have their title changed, and some editing, trimming, and recombination has been done to the original source text to better fit context. The symbol indicates the source of the majority of the text in the paragraph preceding it.
Cover artist unknown
Fonts used: IM Fell English SC, Averia Serif Libre
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Introduction
World of Dungeons is ostensibly the first system that attempted to emulate an OSR-style game in the Apocalypse Engine. However, I felt like the lack of GM Agenda and Principles tailored to this style was an unfortunate omission. I imagine new gamers looking at World of Dungeons and being quite lost, and even (especially?) if they are familiar with Dungeon World, they may be quite thrown off track by the lack of context.
Likewise, many OSR rules-light systems(such as The Black Hack) lack advice for how to run the game as a GM, and most of those that do (such as Whitehack) provide very basic practical advice, rather than the codified stylistic and procedural framework that I find so useful from the Agendas and Principles of Apocalypse Engine games(Maze Rats being a welcome exception).
So, I decided to compile and piece together some of these principles. They are primarily pulled from two sources that are excellent in their own right: Maze Rats by Ben Milton (PWYW on DriveThruRPG), and some posts and vlogs on Steven Lumpkin’s blog, roll1d100.blogspot.com. These sources are attributed using the symbols noted in the frontmatter. I’ve taken some liberties to edit them for context, trimming, rewording, and combining some, to produce a more cohesive whole, as well as adding a few pieces myself.
If you’re familiar with Apocalypse Engine games and are interested in playing The Original or another Old School game, not all the principles may be applicable, but they should help distinguish how they play differently from Apocalypse Engine games.
If you’re familiar with Old School gameplay and want to bring that mindset to an Apocalypse Engine or OSR rules-light system, these principles may help you identify where your ingrained GM habits might clash with the system, and get a handle on how a set of principles can aid in running these games, especially if your players are new to Old School play.
If you like the Old School play paradigm and want to instantiate them in an Apocalypse Engine or rules-light system, or want to run pre-written Old School adventure modules with them, these should make a perfect Agenda.
It should go without saying, of course, that the principles may not all apply equally to your game or a certain adventure, depending on its style, tone, scope, etc.
Here are some Old School style games to consider using these principles to run, and other sources of inspiration and advice. I would not recommend simply switching out Dungeon World’s principles with these. If you want to run a PbtA game with them, I highly recommend Freebooters on the Frontier or World of Dungeons.
The Original Fantasy Adventure Game:
● Dungeons & Dragons, particularly the Basic & Expert sets (“B/X”) Closely inspired by early D&D:
● Adventurer Conqueror King
● Basic Fantasy Role Playing
● Dungeon Crawl Classics
● Labyrinth Lord
● Lamentations of the Flame Princess
● Microlite81
● Swords & Wizardry
Apocalypse Engine Games inspired by early D&D:
● Freebooters on the Frontier
● Funnel World
● World of Dungeons
OSR Rules-Light Systems:
● The Black Hack
● Into the Odd
● Macchiato Monsters
● Maze Rats
● Whitehack
● Searchers of the Unknown
● Many others!
Old School Principles for GMs
Honor the dice
Divest yourself of their fate
Build responsive situations
Ponder the next chapter
Embrace chaos...
...But uphold logic
Make them think
Player ingenuity over character skill
Cleverness rewarded, not thwarted
Oblige fictional positioning
Ask them how they do it
Give them tools to manipulate the world
Make tools unique
Don’t mind the fourth wall
Note: I’ve gone back and forth on what term to use for the person running a game, to which these Principles are addressed; many Old School games use Judge or Referee. But I finally decided that none of them have quite the right connotations or truly align with all the Principles. So, I will default to the most commonly used term, GM.
Challenge them
Offer tough choices
Build challenges with answers...
...And challenges without
Subvert their expectations
Instill fear, deal death
Deadly but avoidable combat
Telegraph deadliness
Let the dice kill them
Keep up the pressure
Fill their senses
Reveal the world
Layer environments
Bring the world to life
See your world as real
Make your details matter
Honor the dice
Divest yourself of their fate
You are not an antagonist to the players or characters. Honestly portray the world and its denizens as they would react to the characters’ behaviour. Don't intend to orchestrate the characters’ actions.✻
Be fair and impartial. Do not fudge rolls, do not roll in secret. This keeps the game honest and dangerous, and prevents any accusations of favoritism or railroading. It also encourages the players to manipulate and engage with the fictional world, rather than with the GM.✦
Build responsive situations
Don’t detail a plot to be played out; rather, establish situations with multiple actors pursuing their own ends. Let the players’ actions affect this environment, and have those changes affect the players. Let the situations worsen if the players don’t address them.✻
During open sandbox play, create a number of nearby situations that contain a reason to get involved, some problems to overcome, and optionally a threat that will worsen the PC’s lives if not dealt with.✦
One way to create interesting situations to draw a grid that maps the relationships between the elements of a situation and how they relate, interact, or how the party might intervene.✦
Ponder the next chapter
Don’t prepare a plot for the players to follow. During the game, observe how the players deal with a situation, and extrapolate the effects of their actions based on what you know. Don’t plan the results ahead of time; players rarely do what you expect them to.✦
Don’t overdo the preparation! Keep your situation ideas loose enough that they can be adapted to the PC’s choices and the flow of the game. Remember that unused prep can always be recycled in later sessions. After each session, ask the players what they plan on doing next and prep a few situations related to that. The direction of the game should be guided by the player’s decisions, not the GM’s.✦
Embrace chaos...
Listen to that capricious muse, the dice. Relying exclusively on your own imagination can be exhausting, predictable, and feel less like an objective world to the players. External inspiration lets you divest yourself of responsibility for the party’s fate.✻
Use random tables to keep the game fresh. The surprising twists that random tables add can bring an energy and mystery to the game that is hard to improvise.✦
Collect random tables. NPCs, names, items, plot hooks, complications, relationships, locations, etc. Some great sources of tables: Maze Rats, Perilous Wilds, Dungeon Dozen.✻
...But uphold logic
If there is an obvious reason for a particular wandering monster to be here, that's why they're here; don't bother rolling a random activity or reaction. This can help maintain verisimilitude and let players make reasonable plans, as well as emphasizing the surprise and interest of the instances of randomness when you do use them.✻
Make them think
Player ingenuity over character skill
Old School PCs are very minimalistic because the character sheet is mostly there for when players make a mistake. Players are not meant to solve problems with die rolls, but with their own ingenuity. Therefore, present them with problems that:
● Can be solved with common sense
● Have no simple solution
● Have many difficult solutions✦
Examples: Cross a moat full of crocodiles. A door in the bottom of a dungeon will only open if sunlight shines on it. Retrieve a key from the bottom of a lake of acid.✦
Cleverness rewarded, not thwarted
Clever solutions to a problem should usually work, as long as they are within the realm of possibility. Be generous. If the action is unlikely or dangerous, call for a save or ability check, but only forbid a creative solution if it is clearly impossible.✦
If players tend not to think this way, present them with situations that are nearly impossible to tackle head on, and strongly reward even slightly creative solutions. One of your goals as a GM is to encourage this mentality. Feel free to tell your players as well that cleverness will get them farther than brute force.✦
Oblige fictional positioning
Give them the benefit of the doubt when they’ve worked to give themselves the upper hand in the fiction. Don’t shy away from translating this into mechanical advantage.✻
Ask them how they do it
Assume characters have common sense, but not their specific actions. Encourage or require the players to interrogate the fiction of the environment “manually” rather than eliding it via a roll or assumed character skill. But if they give up, let them roll for a chance at a hint.✻
Give them tools to manipulate the world
The focus of the game should be on creative problem solving, not brute force, so give players the tools to make that appealing. When you give players tools, you give them new ways to engage the world. For example: rival factions to manipulate, potions with weirdly specific effects, items that can be combined or repurposed, dungeons with shortcuts and back passages. Add elements that allow the players to bend the world to their will.✦
Make tools unique
A good tool doesn’t increase PCs’ damage or add an ability bonus; it does an odd, very specific thing that is only powerful when used cleverly. This turns every problem into a puzzle and encourages creative solutions.✦
Examples: A rope that becomes as rigid as steel on command. A coin that lands on any result you wish when flipped. A bell that produces a 1-foot sphere of silence around it. A ring that instantly grows you a different beard for each finger you put it on.✦
Don’t mind the fourth wall
Don’t worry too much about meta-gaming, or what the characters should know or realistically deduce about a situation. Favor player ingenuity over character embodiment.✻
Challenge them
Offer tough choices
Make the players weigh risk versus reward. The deeper players go into the wilderness or dungeon, the more perilous things should become. Whether because their resources are running low (food, health, equipment, light, etc.) or because danger builds the longer they linger, keep the players asking if it is worth pushing their luck just a little bit farther. The greatest treasures are always the hardest to reach.✦
Risk and reward are also at the heart of combat. The PCs’ low health is meant to push combat quickly toward the point where players ask themselves, “Should I retreat to fight another day, or do I risk it all to finish them now?” The thrill of that choices is at the heart of combat.✦
Look for situations where all obvious choices come with a heavy cost. These situations encourage unorthodox solutions and lateral thinking.✦
Build challenges with multiple answers...
Avoid singular chokepoints to progress. Give them an obvious and equally but differently-difficult alternative, but keep a third option (or more) in your pocket. Then, if they dig for it, give it to them. Maybe it’s obscure, but preferable. Maybe it’s just as difficult, but more beneficial.✻
"There's a magically locked iron gate the players have to get past... how could they? I guess one of the NPCs has a key... and there's a potion of Eat Metal hidden in room 12C." When you build your adventures, seed them with challenges that you know the answer to. Maybe the player characters have a core capability to get past the challenge, or maybe you've just placed the solution somewhere else for them to find. Use these to encourage players to dig into the fiction, and explore. If a challenge is critical for the continuation of the adventure, consider placing a few solutions. Three is a good number. "Okay, a key, a potion of Eat Metal... and if they befriend the Bisected Serpent, it can bore a hole through the stone."☆
...And challenges with no answer
"The deeps are stalked by a living maelstrom of ravenous psychic energy. If the players want to get the Golden Falcon they'll have to get past it, but I have no idea how they'll manage that." These are critical for old school gaming. These exist to force players to be creative in ways that surprise everyone at the table. Be cautious with placing these as challenges critical for the continuation of the adventure (unless you intend for players to retreat and come back later), but sprinkling them around can surprise everyone at your table.☆
Subvert their expectations
It’s inevitable that players will have knowledge about common fantasy elements from pop culture and other games. Inject common monsters, locations, and situations with your own unique twists for them to be surprised by. This encourages players to explore these differences and solve new problems that they don’t know the solution to already.✻
Instill fear, deal death
Deadly but avoidable combat
Combat in Old School RPGs is neither balanced nor fair, and PCs should encounter foes far more powerful and numerous than they are. Players should learn to treat combat like real-world warfare and use ingenuity, preparation and underhanded tactics to rig the results in their favor. Encourage the players to outsmart and out-plan their enemies if they want to survive.✦
Megadungeons especially are not about endless combat encounters or “clearing the dungeon”. Megadungeons constrain and focus possibilities, so that (while difficult to choose between and difficult to face,) they are easy for both the players and the GM to identify, reason about, and plan around. This ensures that clever solutions can be discovered and rewarded.✻
Telegraph deadliness
Give players the chance to think their way around threats and obstacles by telegraphing them ahead of time. No one likes their death to be random chance. When a PC dies, it should be their fault.✦
Let the dice kill them
Remember, we're not antagonists to the players- but their survival is on them.☆
If the dice say that someone is dead, they’re dead. Protecting the PCs from death results in games that lack tension and players who only solve problems with brute force. When a PC dies, tell its player to roll up a new character and have them re-enter the scene as soon as plausible.✦
Absolute and unambiguous character death is essential for both the risks and rewards of play to have weight. Character creation is simple and quick in these games for a reason. Don’t worry about players not feeling attached to their characters; they will once they gain something to lose.✻
Keep up the pressure
Whether it’s through random encounter rolls when time passes, or because the dungeon is filling with sand, or because a PC will die in 10 turns from poison, keep the players desperate and on a clock. Maintain a tension between the desire to explore and loot, and the terror of remaining too long.✦
Be their senses
Reveal the world
Don’t hide important information from the players. If the PC could reasonably know something, tell the player and move on. The game is about making decisions, and players can’t make good decisions without good information.✦
Layer environments
What are the PCs aware of already? What do they notice at their first glance? Which of those "first glance" things hides information on closer inspection? How would players get that information? Does that information lead them somewhere else, or deeper? What's obvious, what's subtle, what's hidden, and what's invisible? Create layers of information for the players to peel back and explore.☆
Bring the world to life
Old School RPGs shine with improvisation and extrapolation, not rigid plots. During the game and in between sessions, think about how the other characters and factions would respond to what the PCs are doing, and develop them accordingly. Your guiding principle should be “What are the logical consequences?”✦
Treat NPCs like real people. Think about what NPCs want, especially in combat. NPCs want to stay alive, and will rarely start fights that they don’t have a high chance of winning. Only fanatical NPCs will fight to the death; most will try to retreat or surrender if they are losing. Also, remember that enemies and allies can be made to switch sides if given the right motivation.✦
Give the players a stake in the world. As the game goes on, players may accumulate a lot of money from completing jobs and looting treasures. Encourage them to use this money to buy property, hire retainers, or found factions. Playing at this level can open up new ways for the players to interact with the world and affect its history.✦
See your world as real
This place you've created, or are reading about- it's a real place. It exists! You could go there, if you had the technology! You don't, though, so it's up to you to communicate it to others. What do you see, when you're there? Hear, smell, taste, feel, sense? What do you know about that's hidden, and what subtle signs are there? The players will be probing your vision of this place for useful information. Put your mind into that world, explore, and bring back what's valuable. Likewise, apply a real world logic to populations and challenges, rather than building a carefully balanced sequence of fights. If an encounter is too tough to fight, it's up to the players to deal
with some other way.☆
Make your details matter
When you're seeing your world as real and building layered environments, also remember to keep details of your world gameable. Players should be able to act on the information you're telling them: "Her eyes are a shifting mottled green" helps players remember the NPC, sure- but "... and you notice she never stands more than one long step away from the table and its contents" gives them information they can act on. "The pillars are ornately carved marble" - "... the furthest one is crossed with a latticework of cracks." Your details should allow players to make informed decisions and take effective action. You can hide these details within your layered environments for players to discover, but remember to make them matter.☆
Old School Principles for Players
Your sheet has no answers
Rules and mechanics are only triggered by the fiction. To do something, describe your character doing it; if you need to roll anything, the GM will let you know. When presented with a problem, instead of “using” skills or abilities on it, look to the environment and investigate the situation by asking the GM questions.✻
Heroism is proven
Unlike many modern RPGs, your character doesn’t start a hero. Your meager means and abilities at first (or zeroth) level encourage lateral thinking to get you out of trouble. And rising to challenges mean something when their life is on the line. ✻
Live your backstory
Don’t put too much work into establishing a backstory for your characters. Their experiences at Level 1 (or 0) will feel much more real. Their likely early death won’t sting quite as much, and the survivors truly have tales to tell, and levels to cherish✻
Dig into the fiction
Discard your assumptions about D&D, and be curious about the game world. Pay attention to details- about characters, the environment, social situations, and more. Take notes on them! Make maps of them! Those details can save your life. When you write your notes, write questions for yourself too- What do they eat? Do they have any social rituals? What's that smell? Why is there a breeze in this room? Is there an empty space where a room should be? Information is leverage, my crafty friend.☆
Engage the fantasy as real
If you were in a room with a heavy vase in one corner, and you wanted to know what was behind it, what would you do? Probably drag it to the side, right? Looking for an air current? Lick a finger and hold it up. Judging the slope of a floor? Spill a little water on the ground. Engage the fiction of the game world as real. Describe the real actions you take to achieve the effect you're looking for. Remember, other games may have dice rolls to do this for you- many old school games don't, so engage!☆
Dead ends are opportunities
That dead-end hallway may hide a secret door, or maybe there's another passage to investigate. The gargantuan monstrosity in the courtyard? Maybe you can get around it, or negotiate. A recalcitrant noble? Maybe someone knows how to get some leverage. Couldn't pick that iron door? Maybe one of those unidentified potions will help. Old School games have lots of hard blockers. When your first attempt fails, change tactics- the dead end is just the beginning of your solution. Often, digging into the fiction and engaging the world as real will open up new and unexpected avenues.☆
Let your creativity flow
Your class and/or race can do some unique things the other folks can't. Learn to recognize when it's your turn to shine, and when it's someone else's. When it's your turn, really go for it. Outside of the game mechanics of your character, what are your unique inspirations and ideas? Do you see a clever use for a magic item? Do you want to try negotiating with the ferocious monster? Do you see a weakness in the defenses the others don't immediately recognize? Could you combine a few of these opportunities in a unique way? Open up your brain, and let in the weird and the creative. The world is so bizarre... it just might work.☆
Combat is war, not sport
Don’t expect encounters to be “balanced”. Approach combat with as much trepidation and preparation you might in real life. Nor are encounters self-contained. Think outside the box, outside the encounter area, outside the dungeon.✻
Know when to run
Old school adventures often present encounters that, to a modern gaming eye, look like fights- only, if you fight them, you'll just die. Learn to dig into the fiction to see the relative power of what you're facing, and don't be afraid to cut your losses. A party that drags away one dead body is a party on their way to a Cleric, instead of on their way through a monster's digestive system.☆
Play to win, delight in loss
Everyone wants to succeed, and certainly everyone wants to play with friends they feel are aiming to succeed- but that may not always happen. Your characters may get turned into frog-people, lose limbs, be stricken by leprosy, turned into stone, cursed to burp up slugs, entombed in the earth for 10,000 years, or just die from being stabbed in the gut by a farmer with a pitchfork. Learn to love the disgusting, horrifying, shocking, surprising, and even disappointing ways your characters are set back.☆
Miscellaneous Addenda
A Procedure for Play
Chris McDowall - Into the Odd
When you're Refereeing Into the Odd and the players do something, look at the list below. Work from top to bottom, and when you find a solution to what you're trying to resolve, don't go any further down.
1. Can you make this into a Dilemma? If so, do it. Give a clear choice between two desirable outcomes. The players pick one or try to come up with a way to get both, usually by expending a resource or taking a risk.
2. Does it make sense for it to just happen? If so, go right to the Consequences. Make their action matter in the world and push things forwards. Give them information about the new situation they find themselves in. If the consequences can ripple out to effect the world, all the better.
3. Is it still uncertain? If so, call for a Save. Saves always carry a risk, so explain what's at stake before the players commit to their action.
4. I guess it was impossible; give the players more Information to help them come up with reasonable action. If in doubt, give the players more information and ask them frankly what they're actually trying to achieve with their actions. Don't be a distant referee, get down in the mud with them and discuss the situation.
30 Principles of Adventure Design
Bryce Lynch, summary by Jon Miller
I. General Tips: The 5 C’s
1. Color: The referee should give brief but evocative descriptions of locations, monsters, NPCs, and treasures. Avoid the vague or generic.
2. Context: In order for their actions to be significant and purposeful, players must generally have some information about the likely consequences of their actions, such as likely reactions of monsters or NPCs.
3. Choices: There should be more than one course of action available to players in order for the adventure to continue. Avoid choke points—both literal choke points in the physical layouts of dungeons and other locations, and figurative choke points which require a unique decision or solution in order for the adventure to proceed.
4. Consequences: Player actions should be allowed to make a real difference in the adventure and in the campaign. Avoid a set storyline or sequence of events immune to player interference.
5. Creativity: Related to (3) and (4), reward player creativity by allowing them to pursue unanticipated courses of action or to produce unanticipated consequences, rather than restricting player action and player creativity by setting up arbitrary constraints in the location layout or course of events.
II. Hooks
6. Don’t rely on a single hook; use multiple kinds (treasure; reward; magic; glory; political power).
7. Create a rumor table with hooks and color.
8. Hooks should appeal to the players (not just their characters).
9. Hooks can and should be made complex / nuanced; e.g., working for an evil NPC, or working for rival factions.
10. To support sandbox play, particular dungeon, town, and wilderness locations, monsters, and NPCs should all have hooks.
III. Locations
11. Location descriptions should be terse (not verbose) but evocative (not boring, obvious, generic).
12. Only include background info that affects gameplay. Avoid long descriptions of irrelevant info.
13. Rooms should have features that players can interact with to produce meaningful consequences. Give concrete descriptions of secret doors, traps, etc.
14. Floor plan tips:
a. Multiple routes (vs. choke points or linear, one-way paths).
b. Multiple entrances / exits.
c. Multiple stairs per floor.
d. Open spaces with balconies, galleries, and ledges at various elevations.
e. Pools and rivers that connect different rooms or levels.
f. Bridges and ladders.
IV. Monsters and NPCs
15. Create interesting, believable motivations for monsters and NPCs.
16. Create factions of monsters and NPCs (which lead to a dynamic, interconnected strategic situation).
17. Give players the choice of allying, attacking, or having other relationships with monsters and NPCs.
18. Create schedules, routines, tactics, and orders of battle for monsters and NPCs.
19. Wandering monsters too should be given motives, goals, hooks, and tactics.
20. Avoid standard monsters. Failing that, describe standard monsters in a non-standard way (e.g., don’t just name their species).
21. Give evocative descriptions of monsters. Give concrete descriptions of their appearance and activities. Go for the telltale sensory detail, rather than the generic abstract trait. Show, don’t tell.
Example: Instead of stating that “One of the guards in the camp is a cruel bully,” say that “The burly Manfred takes a leak on poor Tobias’s bedroll, and then he snatches Tobias’s roasted chicken dinner from his hand and quickly gobbles it down.”
22. Use truly evil monsters to evoke a Sense of Terror.
V. Treasure
23. Treasure should be valuable enough to motivate players and to make the challenges worthwhile.
24. Non-magical treasure should relate to the setting and give clues or information about monsters, NPCs, locations, etc.
25. Avoid standard magic items.
26. Give evocative descriptions of magic items. Give concrete descriptions of their appearance and how they must be manipulated to produce their magical effects.
27. Use magic items to evoke a Sense of Wonder.
VI. Format and Functionality
28. Include the following kind of references:
a. Rumor / hook table.
b. Monster / NPC table which lists their main traits, motivations, location, etc.
c. Room / building table which lists the rooms in a dungeon (or other keyed locations).
29. In published modules, put maps and monster stats on separate sheets (so they are easy to refer to in play).
30. On maps, use keyed symbols to indicate standard features (e.g., lit / unlit, locked / unlocked, secret, trapped, etc.), rather than a verbal description in the location key.
More Free Old School Resources
A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming
Matthew Finch
http://lulu.com/content/3019374
A classic introduction to playing Old School style RPGs for modern gamers.
Philotomy’s OD&D Musings
Jason Cone
http://save.vs.totalpartykill.ca/grab-bag/philotomy
Another classic collection of thoughts on Old School gaming. Half is specific to OD&D but the bits on dungeon design and the mythic underworld are widely applicable but often ignored in modern games.
Tomb of the Serpent Kings
Skerples
http://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/07/osr-tomb-of-serpent-kings-20.html
Excellent introductory dungeon covering many aspects of Old School play in action.
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