Storygames and OSR are not the same thing. I lied to you to get you to click on the article. But hear me out.
This article stems from my current play experience and the expectations I observe in players and GMs around me. I don’t have the ambition to outline the history of RPGs and how different cultures of play developed. I would like to point out two different approaches to tabletop RPGs I find to be the most prevalent in my circles. I’ll call them “play to find out” and “play to play out”.
Play Out a Fantasy
“Play to play out” is the approach in which you sit down at the table with a predetermined idea. You use the medium of RPGs to give shape to a story you already formed in your head.
On the GM side, this is expressed as predetermined scenarios for players to explore. In its pathological form, it’s the infamous railroad where the players’ participation doesn’t really change anything in the story. For most, players still have significant agency but their agency needs to be relevant to that preset story. A friend GM of mine tells his players point-blank that their freedom will be restricted to the events of the scenario.
On the player side, this is expressed as “actualizing a character idea”. It’s the so-called “OC play culture”. You bring a character concept to the table and play to express it at the table. This is where novel-length character backstories come from. In this approach, it’s common to expect the GM to read your character concept/backstory before the beginning of the campaign to incorporate your desired character arc. After all, both the campaign and the character are designed before play actually begins. We play to play out a vision we’ve already established.
I would argue that this is the “mainstream” approach to RPGs. It’s the style modeled on novels, TV series, and other media. It is structured around key characters and events: a plot.
Play to Find Out
The other approach is coming into play more or less without predetermined notions. You draw a starting situation and see how it will develop. It is the “watch the ant farm” or the “play Crusader Kings” approach. The driving idea here is observing how the fictional world changes as a result of actions the players take.
For GMs, this is your sandboxes and your procedural generation. It is your low-prep and no-prep GMs who mainly improvise in reaction to player actions. But it is also GMs who meticulously design factions, cities, and dungeons and then watch in glee as the PCs set fire to them.
For players, it is looking at the tools on your character sheet and in the fiction, and pushing the buttons to see what happens. It is trying to beat challenges set by the environment. It is about discovering the character’s story as it happens, however it happens. This play style is more accepting of character death, as it is yet another possible development to be observed, participated-in, and enjoyed.
Can you now see the parallel between story games and the OSR? The former literally have “Play to Find Out” on their banners. They tend to explore the emotional space, and encourage sharing the narrative power between the GM and the players. The OSR may feel very different, as it focuses on the physical space: the environment is set out as an objective thing to interact with. But the mentality behind it is very similar: you go in not knowing what will happen, and you’re happy to find out.
Play Out, Find Out, Speak Out
In my experience, an expectation mismatch in this area is an exceptionally common source of frustration in RPG groups. My mentality is firmly in the “find out” camp. As a player, if I land with a “play out” GM, I often feel constricted and ignored when they try to gently steer me toward their intended plot. As a GM, I feel pressured when my players want me to manipulate the fiction in ways that will allow them to realize their character concepts.
What we need to do first is speak out: be clear about what we want out of the game. And find people who look for similar things. I hope this article can be of help to someone in better understanding their needs, and those of their groups. Like they did for me.