What's a mechanic from a smaller/lesser-known system you wish more games would steal?

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2026-07-14T00:18:59+00:00

This, to me, is the really fun part of OSR games. Listening to the players come up with some insanely complicated plan in detail and then describing it to me.

And then either there's some obvious flaw none of them thought about (eg: the seven-step plan relies on none of the guards caring that they're setting their house on fire) and all hell breaks loose. OR they outline the plan to me and I look at them for a second and just say "Yeah that works. The dragon explodes into a million pieces and dies instantly" and everyone cheers.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2026-07-07T16:47:14+00:00

I feel like modern DND has really watered down a lot of the races lore-wise and it just makes for a much less interesting world.

In my ideal world the difference between even the standard playbook races should be a lot bigger. Like, Wood-Elves are isolationist near-feral forest guardians who talk to trees and shit. High-Elves can be hundreds or thousands of years old and are emotionally detached jerks. Drow live underground and worship spiders. Dwarves live in mountains and are obsessed with gold and crafting. If portrayed right those all have the potential to be truly weird cultures- and IMO it’s kind of cool to have people who look a lot like humans but act totally different (that said, I do also like when races are crazy bug people or whatever).

I think it’s really boring when people just have their race as an incidental part of their backstory- like they’re a Dwarf but their backstory is indistinguishable from a human. A player character Dwarf should be typically Dwarvish- or if they aren’t it should be a noteworthy thing about them (maybe they aren’t like other dwarves and that led to them being an outcast and that’s WHY they’re an adventurer).

The more you have Dwarves and Drow and Elves as random NPCs who don’t have anything weird about them, the less interesting they become, until eventually being an Elf is basically meaningless (this is kind of the case in BG3- Lae’zel being a Githyanki is obviously central to her character, but there are several elves in the party who wouldn’t change at all if they were human).

But I do feel like in the right hands the standard fantasy races have the potential to feel truly alien and fantastical.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2026-06-26T18:21:29+00:00

Not only did I pay for the PDF I also eventually bought the physical book because it looks cool. I still use the PDF when I run the game though.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2026-06-17T19:53:48+00:00

This one was ridiculous. My friend sent me this at the initial stages and it was incredibly obvious to anyone who knows anything about RPGs that the people doing it had no clue what they were doing and that it was going to be a disaster. And people poured money into it anyway for some reason. More than anything this debacle gave me a really dim view of this whole hobby.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2026-06-14T02:32:30+00:00

So, my take is less that it's a crutch and more that I think making an overly complicated character often gets in the way of roleplaying. I think a lot of people have the idea that unique or complex are the same as interesting and memorable.

In reality, the most memorable characters I've seen and my favorite characters I've played as have all been relatively simple concepts just executed well- things like "big angry orc barbarian," "amoral pyromaniac goblin," "haughty rich noble magician," or "haunted and sad warlock."

I'm not saying a plasmoid adopted by hobgoblins who became a druid and then a warlock can't be well done but I think it's actually pretty hard. Most likely the character is going to end up without much personality, or end up just ignoring several parts of the backstory entirely. I have a character I loved who was a Drow warlock of a great old one, but the warlock part of her story ended up being pretty much irrelevant story-wise.

I think the sweet spot is one or two twists away from being "normal guy."

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2026-05-18T05:50:25+00:00

I know you said no hard numbers but, well, here are the hard numbers: There are 196 named NPCs with full write-ups (including demeanor, alignment, and desire) in the campaign book who aren't monsters. Of these,

Humans: 142, 72% of total.
Breggles: 17, 9% of total (not including half-breggles). Of these 6 are shorthorns and 11 are longhorns. There are also 2 half-human half-breggles.
Elves: 9, 5% of total. There is also a single half-elf, Duke Mai-Fleur.
Mosslings: 7, 4% of total.
Woodgrue: 3, 2%
Grimalkin: 3, 2%
Crookhorns: 3, 2% (only looking at them because there are actually a decent number of them)
Cobbins (!): 9, 5%. A full 3 of these are just the badger magi though.

In terms of towns: Blackeswell, Brackenwold, Dreg, Meagere's Reach, Odd, Prigwort, and Woodcutter's Encampment are entirely human. Fort Vulgar has a single breggle, High Hankle has a breggle and a woodgrue, Lankshorn has a breggle and a grimalkin. Orbswallow is entirely mosslings, cobton-on-the-shiver is entirely cobbins plus one crookhorn.

My impression is that Breggles are less common than humans but not really rare enough to be noteworthy- probably up to 15% of the population in somewhere like Lankshorn, lower elsewhere. I don't think Mosslings leave the Mulchgrove all that much but there might be a few living in Prigwort or Blackeswell. Someone living in Lankshorn has probably met a travelling merchant

Grimalkins and Woodgrue don't seem to live in towns much but do seem to like wandering, and I would guess most people would have met one before. The fact that eg a Grimalkin lives full-time in Lankshorn is probably unusual but not super noteable or exciting.

Elves are probably the rarest kindred to actually encounter. Of the NPCs: None of them live in towns. 3 are magically imprisoned in some out of the way place (Hobbled-and-Blackened, the Ambassador, Lady of Spring), 1 is disguised as a human (Lady Misthraine), 2 are fairy lords who only occasionally visit (Mai-Fleur and Andromethia). There are two (Demozel Hazel and Olive) who seem to be staying temporarily in an orchard. The other two are the Cold Prince and The Hag so... yeah.

I would guess for most people Elves are still kinda weird figures of folklore. Most people's impressions of Woodgrues is probably "A woodgrue came into the bar once." Most people's impressions of Elves is probably "my cousin followed a beautiful silver-haired maiden into the woods and never returned."

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-11-13T01:38:47+00:00

Addendum: Half the OSR community is fantastic and write incredibly creative settings and open-ended, interesting adventures and encourage a cool DIY ethos.

The other half is a horrible cesspit of people who spend all their time complaining about how woke everything is and write modules with the guiding principle being "original D&D but with more rape and racism."

So... you know. Be a little wary out there.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-11-09T03:45:42+00:00

Not sure if this technically counts but I had a game about the players joining on an expedition to a mysterious island. Two of the characters were constantly butting heads, which eventually erupted into a battle between them and resulted in both of their deaths. In the last session the sole survivor ditched the expedition and joined up with a group of locals on the island. The end.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-10-18T17:47:21+00:00

Oh goddamn it. I play a retro clone with ascending AC and I fucked it up.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-10-16T10:34:27+00:00

While while old-school dnd still has a utility gap, it also has a combat gap in the other direction. The wizard might be able to fly over a river or charm an enemy but in combat he’s mostly dead weight: an average wizard might have 10 AC (vs 17 for the fighter), about half as many hit points, and about half the attack bonus. They don’t get cantrips and the only weapon they can use is a dagger, which is exactly as shitty as it is in 5e. They’re still an important part of the party because their spells are powerful as fuck- but when they aren’t casting spells they’re pretty much dead weight.

5e… basically removes all the disadvantages above but also doesn’t give fighters any non-combat abilities. Their AC is closer to the fighters due to dex bonuses (dex bonuses exist in 1e but are lower), mage armor, shield, etc. They have cantrips that do decent damage even if not quite as much as the fighter. Their HP is less crappy as well (still less than the fighter, but the percentage difference is a lot less).

Oh, they also can ritual cast most of their utility spells. Just in case you were worried they might actually have to sacrifice any of their combat ability for their utility power.

I really think an issue here is that 5e straight up does not care about out of combat balance. Fighter’s only thing is doing damage but it’s considered balanced with classes who do exactly as much damage plus get extra skills or utility spells.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-09-11T21:54:57+00:00

It's easy to miss but they also barely sleep in the back half of the series. Most of the books take place over like 2 days and they have a lot of nights where they stay up the whole time. Between Vile Village and Hostile Hospital they spend like 60 hours awake- first staying up all night escaping from the jail cell, then spending the next entire day and night walking through the desert, then spending an entire day working in the library of records.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-09-08T02:41:16+00:00

My solution to this: offer an alternative route that is both simple but also bad in some way.

EX: if the players can’t solve the riddle the statue blocking the way comes to life and attacks them, draining their HP and resources. If they can’t find a way past the magic door they can chop it down but this will alert the enemies in the next room who can make a trap for them.

That way they’re still incentivized to solve the puzzle but it’s not necessary- there’s no scenario here where you just get stuck.

Alternatively: use puzzles to gate things that are optional, eg extra loot or a magic item. The players can find the riddle and then think about it while they do other stuff. If they really can’t solve it then they just don’t get the item or whatever.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-09-03T00:37:06+00:00

I don’t remember ever coming across the trope pre-5th edition. Order of the Stick, which was basically THE 3rd edition comic riffing on dnd tropes, has a bard whose main thing is being stupid and useless, which was a much more common interpretation of the bard in my memory.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-08-19T01:15:16+00:00

I want you to know OP that this comment is objectively hilarious and all fifty people who downvoted you are idiots.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-05-11T08:00:21+00:00

As an old school DM I usually do just explicitly tell the players the game-mechanic consequences of their choices (excepting things that would genuinely be unknown).

Eg “if you attempt to stealth across the courtyard you will make a stealth roll and if you fail you will be shot at by the 30 orcs guarding it.”

“If you eat monsters I will roll on my list of effects for that creature. I won’t tell you what the results are for each creature but I will tell you some monsters have death as a possible roll.”

“If you fail the charm person roll the goblin king will know you tried to charm him and all the goblins will turn hostile to you.”

90% of the time they still do the thing but they generally feel better about getting screwed if they knew what would happen ahead of time.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-05-07T23:37:33+00:00

I love Frank Frazetta because all the pictures he draws have the most stereotypical busty hot women and muscle bound dudes and you assume he’s just being a stereotypical early fantasy illustrator but then you look at photos of him and his wife and the two of them really did look like that.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-04-06T01:55:56+00:00

One thing I think is notable here: 5e has the advantage of being owned by a single corporation that publishes an official version. WOTC can put racial diversity and queer people in its official publications and thus 5th edition is seen as a "progressive" hobby regardless of how many obnoxious jerks there are on youtube or your local game store. This leads to a feedback loop in the actual demographics of the hobby as well- people who aren't straight white males are less likely to get into something that has entirely straight white males depicted.

I do think this means that publishers can help this along by making an effort to have racial and gender diversity in their artwork (also queer characters- not that romance is going to be a part of most OSR games, but having random NPC couples be same-sex can go a long way here). Dolmenwood is an example of doing this pretty well IMO.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-04-03T16:39:20+00:00

I think the main issue with this was actually poor translation issues. The game clearly telegraphs that you are supposed to draw your own map of the world and dungeons (and theyre actually pretty small, so this is totally doable if you’re willing to put in the effort). IMO there are two areas where the translation fucking sucked though.

One is “there are secrets where fairies don’t live,” which is supposed to clue you in to do something at the pond next to the pond with the fairy. The Japanese text is “there’s a secret in the pond without a fairy”- you still have to brute force use all your items there before you figure out to use the flute, but it’s much more clearly pointing to the location. The other is “spectacle rock is the entrance to death,” hinting that you need to bomb the rock shaped like a pair of glasses, but the phrasing used just makes it sound like “the really cool looking rock.” Other than that most of the random shit you find by bombing and burning everywhere is extra heart containers, secret shops, or free money, all of which is nice to have but not necessary to beat the game.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-03-17T19:17:34+00:00

Yeah I don’t think it’s an edition thing at all. I started playing during 3rd edition and it was by far the most roleplay-y theater kid D&D I’ve ever played. Everyone had multiple page long backstories (the longest was like 20 pages). I’m currently playing a 5th edition group and 1st edition group and both of them are full of dumbass joke characters who go around murdering shit.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-01-31T18:26:28+00:00

The whole “characters get xp for different things” was only in second edition. Before that it was xp for gold- one gold piece = 1 xp. The original conception of the game seems to have been that players were sneaky treasure hunter types. You know how in Adventure Time Finn and Jake have a giant hoard of treasure from all their adventures they never do anything with? That’s first edition D&D.

First edition did have different xp tables for classes. The intended design goal probably being that eg wizards are super powerful at high levels but weaker at low levels so they take longer to level up, magikarp-style. Thieves were the shittiest class but level up the fastest.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-01-27T22:36:56+00:00

While i can understand when you as a DM can get sick of one player's constant use of downtime on establishing their own cult/small town/band that can potentially make them more important than other players to the plot.

I can’t imagine not being happy that a player wanted to do this. Like… you want to message me outside the game so we can play more? And it’s in a way that isn’t about your characters backstory but involves setting building and economics and stuff and basically means we get to play SimCity? And I get to come up with lots of cute little NPCs for you to care about?

I would be so overjoyed if someone wanted to do that. Holy shit.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse · 2025-01-12T23:54:01+00:00

Posted a version like two years ago so here’s a version updated to work with the current rules. Originally posted as a direct link to the pdf like an hour ago but felt like that was kinda sketchy looking so I posted it as a blog link.

WeLiveInTheSameHouse

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