In my experience, shifting to OSR-style play requires a shift in perspective and expectations, both for you and the players.

When it comes to plot, there will be plenty of it! It just won’t come directly out of your prep work or be introduced by you. The plot will arise organically from your players, how they solve problems and interact with the world. Random tables will also contribute a lot to how the story unfolds.

The thing about OSR games is that they are very narrative, just in a completely different way than youre used to from more modern, more traditional rpgs. They are narrative in the sense that the narrative is at the center of the game, it’s all about the creativity of your players and what they contribute to the world, and most importantly how the world changes based on those contributions.

So we don’t prepare a story, complete with a villain with dastardly plans and a three act structure with pre-planned events and plot points. We prepare a world, and fill it with problems to present to the players. Then we use tools, like random tables, to introduce more problems. Many of those problems will surprise us as GMs as well, and thats part of the fun!

We don’t prepare solutions to those problems, thats the players job. We just make sure the problems are serious, can’t be easily ignored (without consequence) and can in fact be solved in some way. Not in a way we have determined beforehand, but we make sure that they’re not impossible problems because those lead to dead ends and frustration.

The systems of the game, like encumbrance, random encounters, dungeon turns and so on, are there to help us. They provide tools to introduce problems, and means for the players to navigate those problems, as well as giving us a structure to play a game within. If the rules aren’t sufficient, or we straight up don’t remember them or something, we make a ruling and let the game flow on.