Trollish Delver

I did a quick straw poll on BSky asking whether, back in the day, players of BX/Basic/OD&D actually saw combat as a fail state. This is the thinking that came from Matt Finch’s Old School Primer and has become the standard for OSR games or people playing older D&D.

The 20+ responses almost unanimously said combat wasn’t avoided and in fact it was often relished. Now, a big trend I found was that nearly everyone who responded was 12 at the time they were playing it so that’s just kind of what they would do.

But Basic was a game for tweens and teens, so if that’s how they played it then isn’t that the way it should be played?

Unless I’m mistaken there’s no mention of combat being something to be avoided in older editions. In fact, so much of the rules dealt with fighting so what would be the point in avoiding it? Especially if you splash out on a bunch of hirelings.

Wellll, that’s sort of where reaction rolls come in. The existence of this little table implies that not everything is out to kill you and talk can get you some advantages in the dungeon. Charisma is hard coded into reactions, so it seems desirable for players to try parlay or talk their way out if they can. Just like strength is the weapon of combat, charisma is equally the weapon of words.

Ultimately OSR games are about kicking down doors, killing monsters and nicking their treasure. It’s deadly by default and it’s better to stay un-decapitated than not. While it probably wasn’t how many played games back then the notion as combat as sport makes a whole lot of sense and reveals just how a ruleset that should be dead can evolve over the decades, and that’s pretty incredible.