How Into the Odd is like Chainmail

I’ve previously mentioned my goal to run a materialist RPG campaign. I’ve argued that Old School gaming (the OSR) seems aligned with materialism, in its prioritisation of the game-world over the character. Wanting to understand why this is the case has made me interested in the roots of the OSR and leads me to take a closer look at the Chainmail rule set. 

The 5e Dungeon Master as Pennywise

My previous post argued that the rule system of 5e D&D seems to encourage certain dramatic principles in its gameplay. I referred to these as idealist poetics, where outcomes in the game-world are determined by the characters in accordance with their personality traits. Here I will look at how this can play out in 5e campaigns.

I’m going to focus on a very character centric, high fantasy, approach to running campaigns. Of course, this won’t correspond to everyone’s experience of 5e. But as discussed in my previous post, the high power level of characters in 5e seems designed to encourage this style of play, where the fate of the kingdom hinges on their actions.