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A character defined solely by mechanical ability will always remain that way. Pen a 1,000-page backstory, and Mr. Groh is still little more than “a third-level Fighter”—now with a tie-in novel! |
If it has no rules-related implications,
it does not exist.
This is,
of course, a bit of a hyperbola –character name is an obvious exception to this
“law”– and I do enjoy the loose approach taken by most old-school products. But
even if a dungeon is “solved” without any die-rolling or spell-casting, the
core frame of rules remains, presenting the basic ingredients of any true
challenge: risk and reward. Not once in my life have I been in a legal trouble,
but it would be foolish to claim the criminal law has not affected my decisions.
Rules are just like that—their mere existence compels certain type of action,
even if they are never actually enforced.
Story
elements and character personality, then again, rarely have any rules-related
implications. Alignment is an epitome of this. It is nothing but a single word
of vague meaning, sometimes accompanied by a blurb of kitchen-sink psychology. Yet
we are assured it is extremely important, and it is usually mentioned in the
same sentence with genuinely important statistics such as character class and
level of experience.
Save for
the Alignment, the Dungeons & Dragons
character creation is of extremely mechanical nature. The process generates
plenty of numbers and technical jargon—story, not so much. Some versions of the
game encourage backstories and character motivations, perhaps even containing guidelines for creating such. In the end, however, these are just a separate
form of yarn-spinning. The backstory does not communicate with those numbers on
the paper. It is the RPG equivalent of a video game manual explaining how you got marooned on a hostile planet, alone but with a backpack full of shotgun shells.
Many OSR
enthusiasts enjoy traditional character classes precisely because they are so
generic. I used to adhere to this school of thought. Being a “Fighter” or “Magic-User”
describes one’s ability in very broad terms, leaving matters such as
personality or background open to interpretation. A Magic-User can be anything
from a sage wizard to a hook-nosed witch to an insane scientist.
There is
certain elegancy to that approach, particularly so if the campaign is
challenge-focused, and a character is essentially just a chess piece who may be developed into a proper personage
should the player so desire. Describing such characters solely from the
point of view of ability is perfectly sensible; everything else would be gratuitous.
In
practice, though, most OSR campaigns have a clearly defined setting and focus.
Even the original whitebox Dungeons & Dragons,
while superficially generic, has an implied setting suggested by level names,
equipment lists, monster descriptions, and spell catalogues. Cleric in
particular strongly alludes to a faux-Christian milieu of the witch-hunting
vintage.
Assuming
an OSR product is not intended as setting-generic, I see no reason why its
existing elements could not be tailored to not only imply a setting, but to
generate backstories suitable for the world. This idea is standard fare in story-games,
but is rarely employed in old-school gaming. Even very setting-specific
(and generally well-crafted) games such as Warriors of the Red Planet and Lamentations of the Flame Princess are
usually content with nudging the existing archetypes slightly, rather than
tailoring the character generation to support the setting.
If the
rules define characters as “Fighters” and “Magic-Users”, then these definitions
will also be true in the game world. A character will not ask: “What is your
background? What kind of fellow would you describe yourself as?” He or she will ask: “Are you a
Fighter or a Magic-User?”
In fact,
the B/X tradition with its racial
classes partially supports this type of story-building. If all non-humans are
rules-wise characterized only by their quality of being non-human, then this
very effectively leads to settings where non-humans are viewed as the Other, an
exception to the norm, whereas humans are understood as individuals set apart
from each other by their profession.
Even
chess pieces are named evocatively. If a piece looks like a horse and is
called Knight, then a story of sorts will emerge when it leaves the
whereabouts of
the King and Queen in order to strike down a hostile Bishop. This story
would
not even exist if an “L-Jumper” defeated a “Diagonal Mover”.
In
short: rules-related definitions and concepts will also become de facto schemas inside the game world. Everything else will be forgotten as dictated by convenience and attention span.
Any ruleset should take note of this fact and tailor its terminology accordingly.