One- Round Combat Playtest report!

The first playtest has been completed. And here are the notes for how it works. Please see the previous post, but a quick recap is as follows:

The game is #OTC, or One-Turn-Combat, or OTCrpg, and honestly, bolting in the combat resolution mechanics from WHFB into another game ended up being a pretty good idea.

Scenario-wise the game we ran was actually "The Trial" from Heroquest, complete with a double-sized hallway map and a very small, hireling-free party. The roleplaying was decent(they had this whole lore thing with the two characters that rolled up background that don't start with shit weapons were prisoners who were fighting to gain freedom) and they generally acclimated to the concept well. They still played as tactical, looked through keyholes, etc. I picked the heroquest map(it was altered to double the size of the outer and inner hallways, so they could "rank up" without having to worry too much re: flanks. It also has stuff like weapons racks and an altar with a magic book which gave me a cheap excuse to attempt some of the other mechanics - players learned really quick that having better weapons/armor is good.

They liked the mechanic of the turnover - and I do think that the Turnover mechanic helps break up the meta that dominates the B/X-ish/adjacent dungeon game - said meta is hiring as many hirelings as humanly possible and winning in sheer numbers - but hirelings in Aketon and more importantly, OTCrpg don't really guarantee amazing results with the turnover. It's less about having lots of attacks and being able to throw as much combat dice as possible and more focusing on having quality combat dice, because enemies having a free-counter attack means you want to be careful.

It also had some niggling bits here and there - from this point on I won't be adding wounds that get removed every round but kills remain, instead we have a thing called Doom, which just sounds nicer than "points" and it was much easier. All Doom is removed after combat resolution(and I made some notes to experiment with having certain things cause Doom is be carried over, like poison or magical curses or amputations and such). 

All of them liked the concept of the banner, and there was a lot of questions about cheesing the system, like if there's one guy in the "front" and the rest are in the "back" and we concluded that while that means your ability to deal hits is quite limited(unless you're absolutely stacked to the gills in plate, at which point enemy turnovers are common), it's very badass to hold back the line yourself, and should count as a banner bonus. 
There wasn't much chance to test bard mechanics, even though I honestly believe their Tale Worth Telling ability is extremely useful - the ability to grant levels outside of kills and break ties is really good. 

Otherwise, the general conclusion is that the system needs work, it's got the ghost of a good idea in there, and with further testing has a good chance to speed up games in a way that's tactically interesting and fun.

Next game will be Sailors on the Starless Sea, a combat and trap-heavy affair which from my reading will provide made opportunities to fix this up nicely. This may or may not be after the game on April, but one way or another, the system must be tested with larger enemies and the terrible opportunity for attacks on the side and rear! May Byzan never fall! 

- Klang

Schrodinger's Tactician//I hacked a game to try out one-round combat.

I've not been much of a fan when it comes to dungeon game combat, because if it's all theatre of the mind, then combat becomes really weird, difficult to picture, and starts to resemble an old final fantasy game where nothing matters, especially not positioning. You just trade attacks and spells and such until the battle ends. The biggest issue for me is that there's not really much in the way of tactical thinking from the players, until the GM introduces some kind of complication, at which point, it's now extremely important. These conversations tend to go like this.

"Oh, and now a goblin is approaching from behind."
"Whoa whoa whoa. I was watching our backs."
"Okay but you never said that, all you guys have done is attack the orc boss and his men, which I said were gathered up by the north wall."
"Oh I was watching our backs. :^)"

This is, I dub, as the King of the OSR, "Shrodinger's Tactician": A player that typically is disinterested in tactical RPG play but wishes for the benefits of said style of play, usually expressed in asking for actions they aren't willing to accept happening to them.

For example, if you're a DM, you've probably had this happen:
"The Kobolds win initiative and charge!"
"Can I uh, like, uh, set up a free attack for when they come?"

While this seems like a decent thing to ask, they wouldn't accept this:

"You win initiative."
"Okay, I charge the nearest Kobold."
"Okay, uh it uh like holds up its spear for a free attack."

Shrodinger's tactician.

So I decided to hack the hell out of a game called Aketon(pronounced ack-tawn) and add my attempt at having some small measure of tactical combat while not requiring the rigors of something like 4e. If you want a truly tactical game with gobs of interesting options and very interesting encounter building, run 4e. It's great. 

Rank and Flank is not that. It still retains the simpler gameplay of OSR combat, life is cheap, henchmen are definitely the meta, etc. It adds the most important thing to cutting combats down as many rounds as possible: the combat resolution step - ironically taken from a game where resolving a battle in three real-time hours is extremely good. There's no actual ranks, by the way, just a very nebulous front and back as you fight in a type of formation that isn't just rushing pell-mell into a melee like a hollywood film, and as a DM, you need to make sure players know if their flanks are exposed and if their rear is exposed. And it works! You fight a single round of combat, tally up how it went, and then, my friends, you see who won. Bards actually contribute to the fight, by breaking ties during the combat resolution step! There's banners(although this is an abstraction, a banner can be anything from a reputation to a famous sword or armor set or just a knight of good repute) that assist in combat! 

If you lose, that side tests fear. If less than 2/3 pass, they break - they run screaming a lot of feet away, choosing directions at random, attempting to break into doors they come across even if its a dead end. The winner can choose to pursue - and if they catch their quarry, that group is destroyed ( or captured, or eaten whatever it doesnt matter). Even if you win, you have to give ground, and if you can't give ground, you automatically break. You basically want to make sure when you do commit to battle you are ready to go. Fighters matter, because in this game, a pack of wizards isn't going to be able to do jack shit, and fighters past level 1 aren't hireable. 

So yeah, troupe play and tactical play without needing minis, battles that resolve quickly but require planning, and high stakes combat. 

Take a look.

One round combat resolution using WHFB in OSE (weird playtesting stuff)

 Generally, I find that most combat in OSE and other games ends rather quickly, the longest I've seen is around 3-5 rounds, and the record for longest was 9, which was a massive pitched battle and lengthened by the advent of a player-character going insane from being possessed by an evil sword.

I always want it shorter, and I generally call for morale checks immediately after the first round.

I've also been playing WHFB(The Old World) and I decided to try using the Combat Resolution Step in games. The first test of this was in the game Aketon (review coming soon) and I have some thoughts, but first, a quick explanation.

As Aketon is a quick game where you start with 1 hit before you die, this was a great place to test this.

The general idea is this:

After one round of combat, run the Combat Resolution Step: Assign points/marks to each side based on the following;

+ 1 Ambush

+ 1 Outnumbered at end of combat round

+ 1/per Banner items (famous/magical weapons and armor)

+ 1 per wound (kills)

If there is a "Skald" or "Bard" character, win ties. If both sides have a similar character, ignored.

Loser must test morale, the typical 2d6 and try to roll under, but they add the amount they lost by. Loser must then flee, running half of their max walking movement speed, blind with terror, they will roll random directions at intersections in the dungeon. Enemies may attempt to pursue (slow moving undead, stationary enemies, and enemies locked to rooms like guardians or something will not be able to pursue). Catching a fleeing group means they are immediately and promptly destroyed or captured. 

Players really liked chasing people, they learned that sometimes it's good to not pursue, because in the final combat, they pursued into a larger room with even more enemies, and promptly ended up booking it, running into a dead end, and being slaughtered by rats. 

More testing to come.

Byzan Setting Primer #2: The Gods of Byzan

Note: This is a living document, subject to changes as I see fit/need. It is currently (March 11, 2025) incomplete.

The Gods of Byzan are extremely interested in the affairs of mortals. Many of the races in the world of Byzan were put there by the Gods, and they have vested interests in getting their "people" ahead, but intervention is costly and makes you vulnerable. They love using Champions to carry out their will.

The Rings:

The Gods are organized into three rings. This doesn't imply alliance or anything, it's mostly an organizational model for mortals.

The Calamity Ring:

Dagalur - The Great Betrayer, The 7-Eyed God

The Flenser - The Cruelty

Drjha - Lady Chaos

Govegh - The Ashen Whore

Bharraghur - Shatterer of Monuments

GhaitenGyaz - The Drakelord

Pax - The Desert called Peace

The Co-Operative Ring:

Rhia - Nature

Drjho - Lord Order

Radegh - Guardian of Oaths, Rememberer of Curses

Molly - Lady Luck Herself

The Feasters of Kheev - Patron God of Kheev

GirDaga - The Roadmaker, the Bridgebuilder

Yodhzt - The Nobless Oblige

The Wretch - Empire

The Mysteries:

Dagatmyr - Life, Cycles, Rebirth

Halci(Nergal) - Lady Death Herself

Sol - The Unconquered Sun

Lund - The Unstoppable Night

Dagnyala - ?

Control - Homes, Hearths, Eternal Mountains, Promised Lands

Catche - ?

Byzan Setting Primer #1: The Empire

Note: This is a living document, that is always subject to change.

The Kharmlund Campaign continues. It's been going for almost two years now, and there's not much in the way of any indication that the players are getting bored. It helps enormously that my players aren't boring people to run games for, but that's another topic for another post. Today, I just wanted to get some of the 'lore' down, something I've kept loosey and goosey for the purpose of being able to slot in things that are and aren't needed. I like to use miniatures in my game and I pick and choose as I please what to include. 

However.

The setting is meant to 'feel' very Greco and Roman, and I've massively increased my reading load since then, I am in fact reading The Illiad, and will continue with The Odyssey and The Aenid and various other things alongside many many many history books. For all of the hatred towards Dr. Beard, she has written Emperor of Rome, which is easily one of the best books about the Emperors, what the position entailed, etc that I've ever read. Mind you I've only read around ~15 books on Rome so who knows, I may be ignorant. There's more great books on Rome than I will ever read.

Anyway, let's go.

The Empire: 

The Empire is Rome, for sure, and meant to feel like it in all but name only. However, it isn't called Rome, and doesn't have an official name besides Byzan which is kind of a word for cattle in the name of the Vosdht, the people that rule the Empire and benefit the most from it's conquests. 

Byzan is ruled by the Khulmar, an Emperor-figure, and they are, in my current campaign, reaching the end of what can be fairly called the princeps model, a citizen-Emperor who is meant to seem(but isn't) accessible to the common man. Myths are put out about this all of the time, and there are overtures to being willing to listen to what you'd call a senate, however the Khulmar does whatever it wants and only needs to fear reprisals from assassinations and usurpers and uprisings and such, the Khulmar more or less just needs to balance the anger of the citizens versus the anger of the nobility and their own personal wants and needs. Not every Khulmar is a selfish bastard, but make no mistake, these are autocrats, and even the kindest Khulmar is a monster by most standards. 

The Vosdht are orcs. In a pinch, Orcs are a great visual short-hand, however I sort of just designed them to be like the Aumaua from the Pillars franchise. They are very tall, averaging 6-8 feet. Large sharp teeth. Boisterous, deadly in combat, and deeply arrogant. Not as a racial trait mind you, but when you have the largest empire ever seen, well...

Byzan has managed to spread with a rapidity that impresses most, and they do so due to a mixture of slave labor, and the Dorfngir, or the Dwarves. As per my previous post, Dwarves are weird peoples, and care little else for anything but finding their bazngir and then working at it forever - they also live forever doing this, so like ant colonies, they eventually reach a critical mass of work to be done, and then future Dwarves born are sent out to the wide world to find work to do. The Vosdht are very okay with this, since to them, many of their infrastructure acheivements are just done by Dwarven hands. The Dwarves, toiling endlessly and happily has given the Vosdht a strong philosophical basis for the justification of slavery - look at the Dwarves, that's an entire people that exists to be a slave for others. The fact that Dwarves typically don't consider themselves slaves, and will do this work for basically anyone they come across isn't openly acknowledged, and Dwarves rarely bother to speak with other peoples except to place orders for materials, tools, bitch them out for erecting scaffolding incorrectly, etc. 

So the Empire conquers. It spreads, and each successive Khulmar is required to be more aggressive, violent and conquest-lusty to stay in power. Where will it end?

The Forges: 

Byzan built these all over their Empire, with the help of their Dwarven subjects. They are massive towers and approaching them is forbidden on pain of death. Important: they are generally assumed to be cursed by anyone that discusses them with the Empire, and nothing wipes a smile off the typically jovial Vosdht than bringing them up.

The Races of the Empire:

The Vosdht are the first and primary citizens of the Empire. They live everywhere, populate the regions they conquer with colonies, protection from their legions and so on. The second largest demographic is the Dorfngir, or Dwarves. They're anywhere they're a public works/engineering project, and they tend to form colonies around them. The average "inn on the road" is actually just a Dwarven colony that also services travelers while being built around servicing and maintaining several miles of road. These colonies are called kharmgir, or, "home for work" or "work-house" whatever you want. The Epigones(or Elves) are smattered everywhere. They will get their own post soon, but needless to say, the 'race' of Elves insert themselves everywhere. Halflings are more rare, and generally despised by other races, as most acknowledge them as being the 'children' of the moon, the evil god Lund. However, they are often enslaved as jesters and pets and other things. There are still some places here and there the Halflings simply live normal lives under the Imperial yolk, but their future is in doubt. 

Finally, there are the Men. Men are wandering tribal bands of nomads. They have a shared language, religion (worshipping Radegh, the Keeper of Oaths) and generally find themselves doing merc work if they're not farming for the Empire. In many battles in these ages after several devastating plagues, some note there's more Men fighting in and against Byzan than anyone else! 

The Eastern Provinces:

The East is a smattering of major cities and other provinces. Well developed Vosdht cities, many men live here, and the Empire is often called a different culture entirely. There's meant to be parallells here to the East of Rome, and they do have easterner allies that are constantly causing them problems, but there's no worshipping of the culture and philosophy of the people here. The Byzan did not write an Aenid which exists to prop up the legitimacy of them as some kind of super-successor state that also functions as a literal sequel to famous eastern poems. The East will be developed later, but that's the general idea. 

A Review/Critique of Dragonslayer (2024 TTRPG)

Once again I emerge from the depths to begin the year with....*waggles fingers* a review! One that is quite late, as it's delivery was delayed by the canadian post office worker's strike by about six weeks. The wait is over! Kharaz! Bazngir! It's time to inform people about this game, that I think is pretty damned good.

Dungeon Crawl Classics:

I don't like Dungeon Crawl Classics. It's a fine system, but a fairly incomplete one, more interested in writing lengthy spell entries that spill haphazardly across pages and has the absolute audacity to put "dungeon crawl" in the name, and then have no actual dungeon crawling procedures and rules, mostly just muttering that you already know what those are and how to do them. 

Dragonslayer feels like an RPG written by someone who set out to write Dungeon Crawl Classics but had a bit more thought and care into how exactly how the game would play for lengthy campaigns and be a good, nostalgic DnD-esque game without quite being just, well, ADND or B/X. 

Funions:

The game has a very good approach to writing a TTRPG I haven't seen in awhile, and I am going to sound insane when I type this, but it actually attempts to teach you how to play the game and offer best practices. A lot of these games don't. Some are well meaning but not great (play examples that offer a generic battle and/or dungeon crawling procedure) some are neutral (a list of procedures, random outcome tables with no real context to string them together) and then some are just worthless (anything that tries to write vibe-based poetic language, ie "How to run a DarkMurder RPG game? Be the call in the dark, the laugh of a harlot, the grin of a killer slitting throats for copper", garbage like that). Dragonslayer isn't really doing any of that, and instead provides some humorous and useful advice on how to play and run the game.  It comes up in a variety of sections, the first being it's own admonishments:

 DnD as War:

There's an interesting idea that the purpose the GM is supposed to kill you and as a player, its specifically your job to prevent yourself from being murdered. You are flat out told to set yourself up in ways that make it hard for the GM to kill you, like you're playing a strange wargame. Dragonslayer is part of the "DnD as War" school of GMing, in the sense that learning how to conduct a war intelligently is as useful as reading the manual, so denying engagement when you can, scouting correctly, supplies/logistics etc are all equally as necessary as being able to pull off a good tactic. Tricking orcs into blundering into their own traps, making alliances with various factions in the dungeons and making sure that at the end of the day, your characters are assuming the least risk and shooting for the most reward is what you want to do. 

Easily some of the best advice I've ever read on how to play lower levels. None of this is actually new, but it's rarely codified.

However, for some reason, there doesn't appear to be a reaction table provided, so there's a breaking here from older-schools of DnD: you are expected to get a lot of killing done. I will be running with reaction tables, but it's a baffling omission, especially since the game tells you this: 

I firmly believe that DnD simply cannot be a good dungeon crawling game without reaction tables, they are the lifeblood of the Dungeon Game. You can argue that you can simply roleplay as the Maze Controller and such, but I mean, come on.

Despite this, a reaction table is easily added in. Still. Why? Why why why why? 

"Hardcore":

The game isn't that brutal, despite it's as-war philosophy. Scores are 3d6 - but not down the line, arranged as you please, and with seven generated and the lowest discarded, making character creation somewhat easier. No race-as-class, but also no "reroll your character if their modifiers are terrible". Greg gives you more chances to make a better barbarian, but would like you to at least try to roll with the crappy guy you got if you do roll one, as he says, there's always the fighter option, and he is pretty damned good:

That cleave ability, seen in other games like ACKS really does give the fighting/martial classes an extra punch, and make it so that, alongside incredible saves, they're genuinely valuable in the in early, middle, and late game.

There are 'fast packs', which are just objectively good ideas for starting equipment, something I noticed in 5e and don't really have an issue with. You don't need to do this but it makes making new characters easier. Some other things are that the new race provided - the cyclopsman, is a pretty interesting idea. Not great for archery - their lack of a second eye causes depth perception issues, unsurprisingly, they have other things to help with it - darkvision, immunity to poison gas but drop dead from drinking booze(with a save, as is right). Otherwise, the races provided do the 'standard' - Dwarves are hardy with huge boosts to saves, Elves are quick and good with magic, and humans can do everything. Again, it provided a "role-play" quick guide on how a member of that race would act - not new, but useful to the new. 

Magic users are much more different than I expected, with them starting with six possible spells(!), three of the same spells that are useful spells, then you roll for the other three in offensive, defensive and utility categories. You still only get one spell/day(higher int gives you an extra) but still, you get much more stuff to think about when memorizing your spell for the day. There's a hard limit on spell memorization - without magical items, you may memorize one(1) spell of each type for the day, so you must bring a varied toolbox, and not multiple casts of sleep or magic missile. I like this. It makes for varied play.

Onward: 

The adventuring rules are pretty standard b/x procedural play, they even come with an adorable pinwheel time tracker if you so wish. The game incorporates a critical hit and miss system, but it's very restrained:

 

I dunno guys, maybe this should have 1d30 entries, each less usable at the table than the last!

Otherwise, combat is not that punishing: there's an optional death + dying table a lot of these games add in to make the game less about the meatgrinder and there's a wound-binding mechanic for after battles, so again make healing much easier instead of the normal taking multiple days to heal oh later game. There are miniature rules. They're fine. They get the job done, but this is not a miniatures game, and while I plan to personally use miniatures for occasional big setpieces and such, these are merely competent miniature battle rules. Still, it's nice to have them at all, if I recall correctly, certain companies have written similar rules then charged full price(!) for guidance on how to use them. 

The tl;dr is you basically already know how to use them.

Now to finish up there's some generally useful GM stuff in here - there are great rules for stocking dungeons, generating dungeons, placing dungeons, a quick and dirty tutorial on hexcrawling and how to design your own small adventuring zones. Very telling this is not ACKS - you are shown how to generate a 5x5 hex zone and given the same general guidance that Gygax did - put a hamlet or base or castle or village for the PCs to rest and recuperate and sell loot in, and then put the dungeon a hex or two away. It's good advice - again, not new, but useful for the new - and that's a problem a lot of these B/X clones struggle with. The worksheets provided for the dungeon are especially fantastic - but that leads me into the final observations of the game...

It's What Worked Already:

Dragonslayer isn't doing a lot of very new stuff, just being good and decent at what it is. A lot of the great rules I really enjoyed are just rules that were in his megadungeon projects already. Runestones, spellstones, etc are all there from Dwarrowdeep and they were a good series of ideas, and wouldn't you know they're good enough to add in here. The dungeon generator is fantastic but it's just a buffed up crypt generator from Barrowmaze. This isn't a critique, by the way - these are just good things that are already out there. It's not the ur-OSR, it's just Gygax codifying what Arneson had already written, but it's Greg doing it for Greg. I guess that's a weird comparison, but this feels much more...authentic than some other games. I guess that's probably why it came out and people just gave it a big shrug. It's good stuff but this Good Stuff isn't new, the stuff that is, is the tips and tricks stuff peppered throughout the book. The Wizard 101 section is good enough that I'd honestly be willing to pay for a booklet of these for every class, and honestly, it's refreshing to see people provide, well, a lot of concrete examples on how to correctly adventure in an adventure game. 

Final Thoughts: It's good. It's not super new, but very reliable, and will provide a deeper game than something like OSE while not being as punishing. An excellent game that really only suffers from missing the reaction table (????) and 'suffers' from being a really good game with decent art. I guess people were wanting more fanciful layouts and such. Oh well.

Mike Mearls does not understand B/X or OSE

 

I was merely enjoying a proper mountainous lunch of cheese, meat, bread, cheese, meat, beer, beerr cheese and meat with some bread on the side when upon scrolling the ol' timeline I happened upon the X account of a man named Mike Mearls, of some repute or disrepute. Please understand goin' forward that I'm not interested in commenting on his pre-pandemic reputational woes and curious associations with some people, but rather this completely horrific post he made about adding complexity to the best of the old 70's Dungeon Games, the basic/expert rules (and OSE).

I've been running OSE bi-weekly, with very few stops except for being sick or holidays that supercede the important Dungeon Game, and even though I stopped writing battle reports (they were too much work, and thusly, I renamed this blog), I can tell you we're at session 30~ and are taking a quick break, as the domain play stuff requires a lot more work and the players wanted to try some Mork and Borg, a simpler game with less procedure. The reason I tell you this, umgi, is because I don't really mind what type of DnD you play. I play various versions of the Dungeon Game, and this single-page-of-rules game is a good palette cleanser for the next chapter of the Kharmlund(now call Lunaralia) campaign, because we're full on into domain play going forward: leading armies, handling diplomacy, and finally - to my horror - leaving the starting hex as the spider-god worshipping half elf Ildaberd prepares to make good on his plan to march on the Capitals and claim the Empty Throne, becoming the 9th Khulmar and assuming control over the crumbling and in disarray Byzan Empire!

Uhh, what was I talking about? Oh right - Mike Mearls. Let's talk these tweets.

 

I'm already worried. Maneuvers. Continue Mike.

Ah.

These are horrible, horrible ideas for Basic/OSE. The mechanics themselves are fine - they are good mechanics for the kind of game that Mearls wants to play - which is not BOSE. Mike wants to play something more akin to 4e, or maybe Dungeon Crawl Classics, since he makes this baffling comment about the "chaos" of OSE/B/X:

So let's just make something clear - in terms of raw chaos, there's very little inside the intended play session of BX/OSE, it's just not there. Spells are largely deterministic, with set and specific outcomes (some spells have random tables, but this is not dungeon crawl classics or WFRP where random effects are rolled on a table frequently). Combat is very tightly ordered and despite my proscription against telling players stats of monsters, you can immediately tell, especially until level 5-6, exactly what an encounter is going to do, most of the time. Lots of low-level monsters are bugs, beasts, humanoids with no special abilities(maybe 1) and there's no chaos there outside of the normal play.

So, with adding "maneuvers" from more modern systems into BX: you can do it, but it defeats the point. With zero irony, just play something like 4e or maybe one of those RPG/Wargame hybrids(they are fucking awesome), since you don't really seem interested in playing a game without combat. I've run 30 sessions of this BOSE campaign, and it has happened that we've gone months without actually rolling initiative - the players commenting on how long it's been since they had to actually, uh, fight someone despite plundering tombs filled with monsters. How weird! 

So while I say you can do it - it completely misses the point: combat is not something you really want to get into in BOSE, and more importantly, the fighter is already fantastically equipped to handle it if you simply must fight dudes. They get the best saves, the most health, access to any weapon, any piece of armor (and with these two, the highest amount of magic items), and rapid level progression - the fighter may not be fancy, but he is reliable. The hank hill of adventuring parties. He might be boring, but he's the one that gets you out of scrapes.

That doesn't mean you should fight dudes, most people that survived the adventuring profession in the Dungeon Game didn't survive it if they simply chose to Engage The Enemy at every chance - that was how you died. It's video game shit to shrug at 30 goblins attacking you, something that should immediately cause you to shit your pants and run screaming in the opposite direction. In modern systems, you just activate your turnabouts while making sure you have enough verse tokens while spending your hope and luck and fate and valor and fortune while making sure you fear and doom and rage and bane and disadvantage doesn't go too high. In BOSE, killing 30 goblins is, "I knew there was a reason I didn't use those two sleep scrolls and you call kept screaming at me to use it on the minotaur well look who is laughing now assholes" and in modern games it's a warmup. I don't even mind these kinds of games and I have played them and I like them. However. In a game where the reaction roll, the light of a torch, and the caution of a player massively change how the game is played and how encounters go out. My players have toppled bandit kings, screeching hordes of skaven and more by learning how to speak to - then manipulate them. The Skaven are self-defeatingly paranoid and stupid? That's a weapon. The bandits are so gold and glory hungry they'll walk into an obvious trap? That's a weapon. It makes monsters so much more interesting in BOSE - it's also a big part of the roleplaying.

I see a lot of RPGs that get advertised that basically just try to make you play more like BOSE by forcing stuff that seems fairly obvious and comes out naturally into mechanics. They'll go "in THIS rpg, monsters are MORE than just stat blocks, they have LINKS in a CHAIN that you can BREAK to make them FRIEND or FOE and figuring that out requires you to use your abilities, like your SLEUTH tokens" or whatever. That stuff was already there. The fighter is capable of pulling off some crazy shit with just "attacking and defending", and I would know, I gm'd a section where a single fighter (with a magic sword and set of plate) held off a teeming horde of Skaven off, backing up every time and buying the party time to make it to the teleport out of the dungeon with their stolen magic items (of vital importance to the ratmen). As he finally broke and ran, he picked up the poisonous gas bomb he'd found in their lair as swarms of rusty spears cut him up, and nearly killed them, tossed it, and teleported out, killing almost all of them. All of that was just him doing cool shit, but mechanically it was just a basic attacking and movement set of rules. Maybe I could have made that more possible by adding in Steer The Narrative tokens that allowed him to use the Gas Bomb ability, but he'd had better watch out because that moves the party up the Ruin track and they'll need to spend a Repose to Clear Down their Ruin or the GM will be able to spend that to unlock a Hefty challenge (rated such because it can cause three Surges worth of damage), thankfully he was able to Jaunt out of there as the Door to the Maze of Adventure was met and the players could simply declare the dungeon cleared as they'd gotten enough Keys from using their Scrutiny spends.

And again, listen, I don't mind those things, and I'm not offended by the silly games that do them. I've played many of them over the last two years and I like them - but they're not BOSE. Because my players also defeated a bandit king obsessed with power by convincing him to put on a cursed diadem that enslaved them to the party by playing their cards right. They've been not so keen on pitched battles but used an old plague-afflicted stone to drop it into the enemy camp's water supply. They've managed to broker alliances with powerful, dangerous, violent people, all through trickery and other things. And that's the kind of stories B/X was built on. Conan didn't just charge in and start killing people. He was a smart guy. So building games where a guy can kill 30 goblins with stupid extra, pointless mechanics just aren't the 1970's Dungeon Game. They're something else - and so is whatever Mike is trying to turn BOSE into. You can play them if you want, but...my dude? That's not BOSE. That's something else. Just play 4e man. It's a great game, and it's honestly where you seem to want to be.