Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
So, at the suggestion of several folks here, I've read the free version of Errant.
And it's definitely interesting.
The big hook for Errant is that it's full of procedures for doing things.
A lot of it is very interesting and it fits together very well, using if not a unified system, variants of a pretty simple system used throughout.
But it adds up to being a lot to handle and remember. And while the systems are nominally modular, a lot of them refer to other systems, so in some cases, they're pretty well emmeshed into the core of the game. (If you decide you don't like how spells work in Errant, it's going to be hard to replace the system without a bunch of other stuff being impacted, by my read.)
This would work great as the basis of a computer game, where a computer runs all these procedures. Overall, it's a pretty clean system, as long as you're not expecting a referee to keep it all straight in their head without a ton of game-delaying page-flipping.
When Shadowdark was first announced, we had a ton of angry OSR bros showing up at ENWorld, sneering that the game didn't have enough procedures, and how could it really be an OSR game in 2023 without them, but I am skeptical that many people are running Errant as written, versus marveling at it as a beautiful clockwork design -- which it definitely is.
Errant seems like a good system to steal from for other OSR games, although even there, conversion is going to needed to make many of them work with other systems. (Attack rolls by mounted combatants are enhanced by one step for an ordinary mount, or even more for an especially large or ferocious mount. What "enhanced by one step" means in other systems is going to have to be worked out by the GM.) Procedures for super-specific things, like the PCs spreading information throughout a community, are certainly skippable, though -- and this nicely illustrates how detailed some aspects of Errant gets.
Character classes, monsters and spells don't really work like they do in other OSR games, making Errant more of an inspirational text than something to lift from directly in these cases:
I have long felt that there were RPG products meant to be played and RPG products that were meant to be read. Errant, to me, feels very much like a game that only author Ava Islam may be capable of running well, although as a list of ideas -- particularly of the OSR Google+ style of "hey, this is a cool idea for a subsystem" type -- it's extremely interesting.
And it's definitely interesting.
The big hook for Errant is that it's full of procedures for doing things.
- Travel has a procedure
- Exploration has a procedure
- Initiative is a procedure
- Downtime is a procedure
- The duration of resources, including rations, ammunition and magical effects is a procedure
- Light sources have a procedure
- Inflation has a procedure
- Item rarity is a procedure, tied to settlement size
- Item quality and breakage has a procedure tied to item usage
- Creating spell effects via grimoires or miracles is a procedure
- Chases are a procedure
A lot of it is very interesting and it fits together very well, using if not a unified system, variants of a pretty simple system used throughout.
But it adds up to being a lot to handle and remember. And while the systems are nominally modular, a lot of them refer to other systems, so in some cases, they're pretty well emmeshed into the core of the game. (If you decide you don't like how spells work in Errant, it's going to be hard to replace the system without a bunch of other stuff being impacted, by my read.)
This would work great as the basis of a computer game, where a computer runs all these procedures. Overall, it's a pretty clean system, as long as you're not expecting a referee to keep it all straight in their head without a ton of game-delaying page-flipping.
When Shadowdark was first announced, we had a ton of angry OSR bros showing up at ENWorld, sneering that the game didn't have enough procedures, and how could it really be an OSR game in 2023 without them, but I am skeptical that many people are running Errant as written, versus marveling at it as a beautiful clockwork design -- which it definitely is.
Errant seems like a good system to steal from for other OSR games, although even there, conversion is going to needed to make many of them work with other systems. (Attack rolls by mounted combatants are enhanced by one step for an ordinary mount, or even more for an especially large or ferocious mount. What "enhanced by one step" means in other systems is going to have to be worked out by the GM.) Procedures for super-specific things, like the PCs spreading information throughout a community, are certainly skippable, though -- and this nicely illustrates how detailed some aspects of Errant gets.
Character classes, monsters and spells don't really work like they do in other OSR games, making Errant more of an inspirational text than something to lift from directly in these cases:
I think we have differing opinions of what "little modification" means.Errant said:
I have long felt that there were RPG products meant to be played and RPG products that were meant to be read. Errant, to me, feels very much like a game that only author Ava Islam may be capable of running well, although as a list of ideas -- particularly of the OSR Google+ style of "hey, this is a cool idea for a subsystem" type -- it's extremely interesting.
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