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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 7769367" data-attributes="member: 85555">One thing I would add to my post is Brevity of text and books having an ease of use in play. This is why you often see OSR products that front load or backload tables in one location (which some people consider messy to the eye, but in terms of finding and using them in play, this really is a lot easier). My own text descriptions often are a bit too lengthy for your average OSR gamer. But I do think on the whole the focus on brevity makes greater sense, because it really is a lot easier to run the material if you only have a short paragraph of text to read rather than paragraphs or pages. Personally one downside I find is it can sometimes leave setting material feeling a little thin, so I prefer a majority of text to be on the short side, with some text being more lengthy as needed or as an extended example of how to elaborate. I think a big part of this too is the OSR has a more optimistic attitude toward Gamemasters, and trusts them to be creative enough to use and flesh out material more fully in play. The same applies to the OSR emphasis on rulings. As you can see from me and Hussar's respective experiences, our attitudes toward GMs are quite different. Personally I think most GMs can learn to be fair, impartial and creative enough to run a pretty good game. But optimism will shape the experience. If you are very skeptical of a GM's abilities, your going to notice the flaw. It isn't about them achieving a pure state of objectivity. It is about whether they are striving for it adequately and delivering rulings that feel sound. So I think taking the Siskel Ebert approach of arriving rooting for the game to be good, is the way to go if your playing OSR stuff. Also, even though each GM will do things differently, they tend to be consistent with themselves. If Bill is running a game, his sense of what is plausible remains the same, and over time that creates a pretty consistent experience of a world. If I play in Rob's game, his sense of the plausible may be different, but over time playing in his game will feel like a consistent experience of a world as well.</blockquote>

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