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I wonder if adapting Cthulhu Dark might work, with insight representing both how much they know and how close they are to being found out?

I have a some very specific question about your 5e game what do you do about the plethora of darkvision races and the light cantrip? Or is light not an important resource in your game? does the fact that characters regain all HP and abilities on a long rest ever obviate challenges they may...

I would agree that for me 5e obviates some of the need for player skill, partly through mechanics and partly through the play style evident even in adventures like the Lost Mines of Phandelver. Mechanics such as cantrips are extremely powerful relative to what OS characters can do, and come at...

Then yes! Many people find that 5e's mechanics get in the way of at least some of these principles, and that in many cases the best answer is on your character sheet rather than something that emerges in play. But given that 5e was in part inspired by the OSR, I see no reason why a 5e game...

I'd highly recommend reading the whole thing, but just to quote this one section.

I do wonder about the internal politics of how much of the game they wanted to change given the OGL situation from the beginning of the year. Around that time, it did seem like they wanted break compatibility with existing 5e material (especially 3rd party) and optimize the rules for use with...

Spells certainly, but it does feel that when a good answer is on your character sheet (like a Knock spell), it is a rare moment and opportunity, its use carefully considered. This plays into the risk/reward structure. If you lose that (e.g. at high level play) then the OSR style becomes less...

I think "the adventure" is a pretty classical story construct. The motivation might be knowledge or wealth or fame. The journey can be a metaphor for internal change. etc

When I ran Winter's Daughter I had a bit of a revelation. There are these magical faerie mushrooms that the characters can take that have random effects. I loved the randomness it led to some great moments later.

It makes sense if you look at the genealogy of the OSR via OSRIC, which was initially just to do with keeping the AD&D ruleset still alive and legally publishing for it. It wasn't about other 70s-era games. The series of retroclones of different editions, the principles, the more expansive...

What I found is that in systems that put a lot of content into combat options, those options tend to be the best thing you can do. In other words, the best solution is on your character sheet. I enjoy that sometimes; the creativity is in figuring out which of the options on your sheet is best...

Totally agree. But this is what I mean by focalization. The initial act of noting those things (friends, rivals, etc) down in character creation is pretty superficial, as it would be in a traditional game. The difference is the the GM should keep those things in mind and bring them forward...

I mentioned it above, but I think the key thing is that the solution is not on your character sheet. Now granted, you do have stuff on your character sheet, mostly equipment, that can help you. But otherwise you need to engage with the environment in conversation with the GM. And the role of...

The fighter in my OSE game found...cursed armor.

But wouldn't a Blades in the Dark game disintegrate in a similar way if a character wanted to, say, hang out in cafes and find true love? Meaning, to what @Manbearcat said (or rather my reading of what they said), it seems less about the presence or not of dramatic need, and more about the...

So I took my initial few weeks of this project (after which I gave up and moved on), and decided to reimagine it a bit. This (incomplete) module is set in a near-future London. Transport for London had maps of the stations; I didn't draw them myself. Really I used this as an excuse to start...

That makes sense, in terms of the distinction between those two sorts of play. But the part at the end does make me think again that the differences are less the result of "dramatic need vs setting" and more about the premise of the game as they arise through character creation and play...