Hi there,
I was wondering if there are resources in development that help the Game Master doing their job. Having never played a real OSR, I don’t have a real good understanding what my role as a GM is in this game. It is quite obvious that I don’t play adventures that were planned beforehand, Luke made this clear in some posts on this forum. But what are my tools then, to push my players, to encourage them to play their roles, to hove some great moments at the table?
It seems like you the game plays a lot like the Burning Wheel. ‘A lot like’ is not the same as ‘exactly like’ - so what are the differences?
Unlike D&D, it has a robust skill system that we can use to create diverse challenges. And it has a mitigation system that all but guarantees success.
Unlike Burning Wheel, you have fewer options in character creation, fewer subsystems to toy with and, most important, you’re given your entire allotment of mitigation (artha) at the start of the game. So the game isn’t about earning, it’s about spending wisely or desperately.
What I’ve found is that you can challenge most 3rd level characters with dangerous or seemingly impossible tasks right out of the gate. As the GM, you want to build mood with some atmospherics and roleplay, but once the action starts you cannot shy away from difficulty and danger. Throw the players into the fire and see what happens!
The very first roll of our current playtest involved three bravos firing a fusillade of lead at three of the player characters. No exploration, no initiative rolls, no investigatory skill checks, just three muskets spitting death! If this were a Burning Wheel or D&D campaign, at least one of those characters would have been dead in the first moment of play. Can you imagine? But the stakes are different in Miseries. Avoid danger now, pay the price later.
Honestly, I’m still learning how to play. The systems we designed are still teaching me what they want to say. I’ll hopefully have more insight when I publish the next book, 1648.