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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gus L" data-source="post: 9510911" data-attributes="member: 7045072">Agree completely with the idea that conceptually a good chunk of 70's/80's RPG design, including Tekumel were interesting in setting that had "mythic" undertones.The distinction I'm aiming at is one of formal dungeon design - as in the form of the dungeons these folks were designing.  The "Mythic Underworld" was an early OSR proposal by Philotomy/Jason Cone about the nature of dungeon design in OD&D. What he suggests is two part: A) The mechanics of the design, the form and B) An in world justification.The form is a that of a sprawling "underworld" style mega-dungeon, with minimalist keying.  It is quickly produced through using random tables.The justification is that the underworld is "mythic" and weird, a break with the rational overworld and inherently hostile to the players.  These two ideas work together well, as the scale allowed by A reinforces the concept of B, while the concept of B covers up for the lack of coherence in A.I don't disagree that this was the goal of many early designers, especially the West Coast style stuff, but ultimately TSR and Lake Geneva as well. They didn't seek to do it using the techniques I just described though.  Instead they increasingly created a dungeon design form that had maximalist keys and relied on player engagement with those fictions.  The "Mythic Underworld" of the OSR is a rather closer to a board game or hack n' slash computer game, it's a way to get maximum dungeon size efficiently and relies on emergent narrative rather then the built up layers of fictional history and secrets that TSR and West Coast adventure design start moving towards. I hope the distinction is clear, because obviously the term mythic can have a few meanings. I'm trying to use it to describe a design style that I am pretty sure is invented in the late 2000's and ultimately produces things like Stone Hell. The closest original sources for this type of design would be something like Palace of the Vampire Queen.Here's a link to Philotomy/Cone's Musings if you are unfamiliar.[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.grey-elf.com/philotomy.pdf[/URL]</blockquote>

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