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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9569768" data-attributes="member: 8461">I just finished reading Eero Tuovinen's 2022 book <a href="https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/413382/Muster?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">Muster: A Primer for War</a> (affiliate link), which is a collection of advice and insights on playing D&D in the "wargaming way."I've been on a years-long kick to read nonfiction about tabletop gaming, ranging from histories on the design and development of the most notable TTRPG companies to memoirs from people who use the game as a foil to examine their own lives. And while I've eased off of the gaming-related nonfiction in recent years (after thirty-odd books on that topic, I wanted to cast a wider net), I haven't abandoned it entirely. Hence my having picked this up (in a physical copy, of course; as always, I much prefer print to screens, and usually forget that audiobooks even exist).Tuovinen's book is very much an OSR how-to, explaining not only the processes by which D&D is played in what he calls the "wargaming way," but the philosophy behind it. It should be noted that he doesn't advocate for playing this way per se; he's not throwing stones on other play-styles. Rather, he's explaining what the appeal is of this particular style, and how to go about actuating it.In this regard, I think that Tuovinen does a remarkably good job. He exhibits a remarkably straightforward, almost conversational style of both what he's trying to achieve and how to achieve it. For instance, he forthrightly states that this style of play is unconcerned with narrative structures or "rule of cool" conceits; the GM functions both as an "opforce" (i.e. they run the opposition that the PCs encounter) and a neutral referee, adjudicating the results of the PCs' actions in a way that best simulates the nature of the world that their characters inhabit. If that means the characters die (and, he makes it very clear, they will almost certainly die with great frequency), then they die, and the players roll up a new character and move on.In many ways, this doesn't break much in the way of new ground. The idea of players having multiple characters which they cycle through as appropriate to a particular adventure, GMs using location-based design rather than scripted-scenarios, "dynamic balance" where the PCs decide their own level of engagement (e.g. they fight an enemy, sneak by an enemy, run away from an enemy, try to befriend the enemy, etc.) rather than having the enemy artificially adjusted to match their threat level, etc. are things we've heard of before. But Tuovinen does an excellent job explaining both their virtues and their methodology.Likewise, praise is merited for the wider gaze this book casts in examining D&D in terms of how well it does (or does not) facilitate this style. Tuovinen outlines three schools of D&D products, with the old school being everything from OD&D to the advent of Dragonlance (though TSR's Basic D&D line kept the old school going until the mid-90s), the middle school (concerned with overarching narratives) being AD&D from Dragonlance to the fall of TSR, and the new school (bespoke characters and intricate rule sets) being everything WotC has done to date (though he notes that how much the present day falls into the latter category and not some new designation is for later historians to parse, since an era is only ever defined after it ends).Similarly, Tuovinen is notable for how, despite referring to D&D consistently, he isn't actually advocating that you play products under the D&D brand. In fact, while he does speak fondly of the "old school" D&D products, he doesn't mince words about their faults, and more solidly recommends contemporary OSR products such as Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, or Lamentations of the Flame Princess.Now, having heaped so much praise on the book, I do have to note some areas where I think it fell down. Not in terms of its main topic, but in some fringe areas that it touches upon. For instance, fans of "free kriegsspiel" games might be a bit miffed at how Tuovinen (after recommending free kriegsspiel for beginners in order to get a feel for the "wargaming way") characterizes it as "a kind of ultimately stripped primitive D&D." Likewise his declaration that "D&D is at the end-point of the free kriegsspiel journey, not the beginning."Another area where the book wasn't entirely satisfying (though here it openly acknowledges it) is the lack of coverage for domain-level play. In this case, Tuovinen remarks that this area isn't so much outside of the "wargaming way" as it is (and I'm paraphrasing here) beyond it. Given the high rate of character lethality, most players are going to become more and more risk-averse the longer their characters survive. The result is that most of the time, they'll either die or be retired right around the point where they'd cease dungeon-delving and take up politics. It's not that you can't have domain-level play in this style of gaming, just that it's rare enough that it's still an "open frontier." (Of course, the strong adherence that new characters should always start at 1st level is a big part of that.)But these few areas of dissatisfaction on my part notwithstanding, this was very much a good book for anyone who wants an accessible, easily-understood guide to both the practical aspects and philosophic nature of (this particular style of) OSR play. Given that the PDF for this is free, and the print book is remarkably cheap, I'd recommend it to anyone who's curious.</blockquote>

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