Willfully ignoring OSR as a label for marketing purposes, here’s my take on whether OQ is an OSR game, which I intend to be the last word on the matter.
Short Answer Yes, but with what video gamers call comfort of living changes.
Long Answer
D100 fans leave its systems outside of OSR, because they see D100 as one continuous line of games, that they always played even when the major systems were fallow or out of print. They carried on playing them in one form or another.
I used to think this myself. D&D has and needs an OSR, not so good old BRP/RQ, etc. I can just dust off the old rulebooks and play the same game I played with my mates back in the 80s, which I know off by heart is so simple. Except that’s not the case after 30 odd years of game design innovation in the RPG sphere.
Thinking critically, I’ve concluded that OpenQuest is an OSR game using this definition.
Old – foundations of OpenQuest go all the way back to the 70s and RuneQuest. There’s also a good bit of British 80s TTRPG DNA in there via Fighing Fantasy Gamebooks (the first three books are my ur-texts for fantasy gaming), and Games Workshop – both thier presentation of RQ III/CoC/Stormbringer and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay first edition. It’s also very much a traditional roleplaying game.
School – It is a school of D100 gaming, related to but distinct from its peers.
Renaissance—or Refresh, as I prefer. OQ takes the opportunity to move on from some of the clunky aspects of 80s D100 rulesets firmly with two hands. This is where the comfort of life changes come in. These are mainly things I picked up from Indie Narrative games I was exploring in the 2000s when I first wrote OQ. Burning Wheel was a big influence here.
System-wise, the addition of modern concepts like.
- Fortune Points, which give the players a chance to grab narrative control at key points of the game
- Motives, which are narrative, hooks for the character’s personality and goals.
- Roll-once skill tests, the results of which carry forward until circumstances change.
- Failing forward is where you fail, but your character can pick themselves up and try again with slightly different conditions after waiting some time.
Setting-wise, D100 is now quite infamous for having Lore-heavy settings, something that recent releases for the current RQ I was happiest during my RQ 3 years (the 90s) where I was filling in the blanks or discovering the setting through play as the indie game designers would call it. So that’s what I’m aiming for with my publishing OQ settings. I’ve not got the time or inclination to write big tomes, but I’ve enough craft from my RQ3 days to present settings full of exciting game ideas, concisely and effectively 🙂
So there you have my take on the matter. OpenQuest is an OSR game bringing tried and tested old-school design into the future and making it fun again 🙂
Originally published back on my Fantastic Odysessys Patreon back in March. Read posts like this and more over
