Deadly, Not Frustrating: Keeping OSR TTRPGs Fun & Fair

A common reason I hear for folks being turned off from OSR games is their perceived or real deadliness. Most folks getting into the TTRPG hobby these days are the children of Matt Mercer, and following Critical Role as their primary example, so it’s natural they're sold on the idea that TTRPGs are supposed to be a long interactive story with traditional structure, and deep and satisfying character arcs.

When they hear about OSR games and start to understand their deadliness, they get to thinking: “How can I get invested into the story of a character if they die so frequently? This sounds terrible”.

I'm not going to try to tell them that they're wrong, that would be ridiculous, their fun is as legitimate as anyone’s. But I do want to see if I can open a new door for them.

So that got me to thinking, can the OSR come meet this new generation of players in the middle, to make sure that the game is not frustrating and remains a fair and enjoyable experience for them?

Of course it can. I have thoughts on the matter.

How Players Can stay alive in the OSR

My first suggestion is to the players

From the perspective of an OSR player looking in, games like 5e prescribe your characters a set of abilities and optimised choices. The gameplay focuses on providing balanced encounters, and the rules come with a plethora of elements (open Death Save rolls) and abilities (Healing Word) to ensure that player death is highly improbable. The designers want you to buy their long, and event driven story campaigns, and those can easily fall apart narratively if characters start dying.

Contrasting this, the OSR swings the opposite way. Generally speaking any notion of balance or pre-game solutionising is thrown out the window, and cheap ranged spells that you can fire off to heal people and get them back on their feet whilst still performing your main action are typically non existent. These games tend to lean more towards sandbox style play, which means that character death doesn’t have to be woven awkwardly into some pre existing story, because there is no pre existing story.

So the first thing you have to do as a new OSR player is adjust your playstyle. The answer to whatever encounter is in front of you is not on your character sheet. Instead the onus is now on you to use your personal ingenuity to try to shift the dynamics of whatever threat is in front of you, to push the odds in your favour before you engage.

What do I mean? I mean pay close attention to the descriptions given out by the GM, ask questions, fully engage your imagination and start dreaming up wild solutions, ask questions, make a point of being an active participant in the games narrative - ask more questions! Seriously, ask your GM about the situation to gain better understanding, suggest possible additional elements in the world that you can use to form part of your solution.

A good GM should be gratefully receptive to this - they should be rooting for you after all, and when you ask questions it gives the GM opportunity to fill in the gaps of your knowledge!

Of course, it should go without saying - if all else fails, be prepared to run away and fight another day.

Best GM practices To Ensure a Fair Game

Telegraph danger

Be liberal with information, even meta information about the dangers ahead. This will avoid those foul tasting “gotcha moments”. Remember, you are the player character’s eyes and ears in this world, it is unfair to expect the players themselves to be able to act in their best interest if they are unaware of of things that their characters would be very aware of.

For example, everyone in town knows about the dangers of the swamp at night, so the townsfolk stay clear. When you are explaining this to the players, why not show them the swamp random encounter table so they understand exactly what can happen? It would be common knowledge that the swamp was full of giant crocodiles and that there are ghostly lights in the water that try to lure you into peril. Also, lets not forget about the rumours of a nasty old lady who sets traps and kidnaps lost folks too.

Kill your darlings

You know that encounter that you think is going to be epic and you've been really looking forward to bringing it to the table? You need to be able to take joy in allowing the players to come up with ways to circumvent it entirely. Encourage this line of thinking, and when you sense that they’re trying to do this, make sure you equip your players with everything they would know in order to complete their strategy.

The best way to stay alive in the OSR is to play smart. Smart players don’t pick fights when the odds are against them, instead they find another way. Let them, that’s your side of the deal.

Also, keep that encounter on the back burner. The players may have circumvented it this time, but there’s probably going to be another opportunity to recycle it later on. Of course, you should let them avoid it again if they can!

Mothership: Telegraph monster attacks

I wrote a piece a couple of months back. Ostensibly it was about Mothership combat, but there’s this nifty GM style that the game promotes which really helps. Applied more generally to the OSR, it would look like this:

When a combat encounter is potentially devastating, at the start of every round of that combat, tell the players quite openly what the monster is going to attempt to do.

Firstly, this removes any gotcha’s, which is a good thing. Secondly, this creates an exciting feeling of existential dread and panic in the players, knowing what fate lays just ahead of them. Thirdly, it gives the players opportunity to play smart and change the future. Circumvent it, dodge it, whatever verb you like :)

Honestly, this lands a hell of a lot better than the anti climax of just smashing your players into dust out of nowhere.

GOZR: Death or Debasement

Did you catch my piece on GOZR perchance? It’s another OSR game, but it has a rather clever rule. JV West calls it “Death or Debasement”, and when your character would die, you as a player get to make a choice:

1. Death. You can accept that the character has died and get a bonus to the stats of your next character.

2. Debasement. You can say that your character survived on 1HP, however his stats have been permanently degraded in some way that does not break verisimilitude.

It’s cool, because as a player, only you know if you’re ready to draw a line under a characters career or not, and this empowers you to do so. However, it’s not a free pass, taking a hit to stats is a narratively satisfying major setback. Possibly even more so than death would be.

If I was to port this to something like Shadowdark, I might say that the consequence for Debasement is that you drop a level. That feels good to me, but you could go with all sorts, so figure it out with your players.

Conclusion

Alrighty, that’ll do pig. Let me know if I’ve managed to convince you. Also, lemme know if you think of anything else I’ve missed. If it’s good, I’ll add it to this article.

Hey, thanks for reading - you’re good people. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, it’d be great if you could share it on your socials, and maybe think about subscribing to the Mailer of Many Things! Either way, catch you later.

The Rusted Colossus: 01 | Concept, Structure, and WIP Cover Art

Oh hi there, fancy seeing you here…

I’m deep in the guts of my latest project: The Rusted Colossus, a GOZR one-shot adventure. Planning to publish it—probably as a zine, definitely as a PDF.

I figured that some of you folks might be interested in self publishing your own content too, so I’m gonna do a little irregular series on the journey documenting all my missteps for educational and entertainment purposes.

Also, if you have experience of this, please get in touch if you have any advice!

Concept

I knew upfront that I wanted to do a one shot, and design it with GOZR in mind. I really like GOZR, but I do think it’s popularity suffers from a lack of published adventures which is something I can help with, and in terms of project size — doing a one shot seems much more achievable than trying to design an Event Based Campaign or a Sandbox (Besides, GOZR itself has a pretty good sandbox generation kit in it’s own rules that’s ready to go).

Armed with this knowledge, I brainstormed a few quick ideas brazenly inspired by a lifetime of consumed nerd culture and came up with 5 basic concepts:

1. The Shattered Gozspire – A broken tower of ancient Gozr technology pulses with unstable energy.

2. Flesh Carnival of the Ooze King – A living fairground of writhing meat and grotesque amusements.

3. The Wyrm That Burrows the Sky – A sky-eating mega-worm carves a tunnel through reality.

4. The Rusted Colossus – A giant, dead machine-being lies half-buried in the wastes.

5. The Halls of the Forgotten Gozr – A tomb-city of long-lost Gozr elders, now ghostly echoes.

Of these, the Rusted Colossus spoke to me the most, I love me a big robot, I do. I could picture this giant mech from the before times being uncovered by the shifting sands of the Ghost Dunes, with the pilot still alive but twisted inside. Why is the Mech there? Who is the pilot? What does he want? Juicy.

Structure

A dungeon is the perfect setting for a one-shot. But in TTRPG terms, a "dungeon" doesn’t have to be stone walls and torch-lit corridors. It’s just a closed adventure space that says, “This is where the action happens”.

But what type of dungeon? Well, it’s a one shot, so I don’t want anything large, or complicated that would hinder the completion of the adventure in one session. That rules out a Megadungeon then!

I decided to do a bit of research and ended up reminding myself of the Five Room Dungeon by roleplayingtips as well discovering the Dungeon Checklist by Goblin Punch. Both of which have helped me to think about how the dungeon breaks down into creamy chunks. I’ll start covering the specifics of those in a later post, but for now, the overview:

Five Room Dungeon

The 5RD says that your one shot dungeon should contain five rooms (o, rly?!) and should follow the narrative story structure of the hero’s journey, with each room representing a step on that path:

1. A Guardian - The reason no one already cleared this dungeon out. Often a combat, but not neccesarily.

2. A Puzzle

3. A Setback - Usually a trick or a trap that forces a strategic adjustment

4. The climax - Typically your BBEG, but not necessarily a combat.

5. A Reward, or Plot Twist

You don’t have to approach these in this set order, and you don’t have to approach these as a linear path either. Nor do you have to treat these 5 rooms as literally 5 rooms, rather as five zones? Does that make sense?

Dungeon Checklist

Goblin Punch’s checklist here is pretty detailed, so I’d encourage you to check it out yourself for deep details. Here it is, cross examined against the 5RD framework:

1. Something to steal - This straddles the idea of “a reward” from the 5rd.

2. Something to be killed - The “guardian” from 5RD, and any other baddies would seem to fit this.

3. Something to kill you - A difficult combat encounter or trap, I think this is covered by the BBEG in “the climax” and potentially the “plot twist”.

4. Different paths - Interesting one for a 5RD, the idea is that the players experience the full five zones, so I’ll need to consider how to make the path the PCs take have actual consequences.

5. Someone to talk to - I think this could be covered twice, with the “guardian” and “the climax” with the BBEG, with both allowing combat to be avoided.

6. Something to experiment with - This would work with the “puzzle” room.

7. Something the players probably won’t find - This exists outside the 5RD structure I think, but I do quite like the idea of tucking a hidden secret in there that only the most cunning players will find for some extra reward.

The Front Cover

Wow, that was some hard thinking. Who’s up for some pretty pictures?

My vision for the front cover is to provide support to the adventure hook, so an illustration from the POV of the PCs with the Colossus looming over them from the distance, half covered by the Ghost Dunes. I love JV West’s evocative verse at the start of GOZR too, and I had to do something similar, handwritten and raw.

One problem though: I’m not a particularly gifted artist, but it’s not for a lack of enthusiasm or enjoyment :) My process here was to sketch out some stuff in pencil drawing from references, like carefully posed toy robots, and Battletech and Gundam art for details. Unfortunately my neuro-spicey super powers do not extend to being able to see and hold mentally generated images in my minds eye with sustainable clarity, which definitely puts a crimp on my artistic aspirations!

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, make sketches from references for the individual elements on different pieces of paper, pen over them with black POSCAs, then scan them into my PC. From there, pull them into a super old version of photoshop as individual layers, adjust the thresholds to restrict the image to pure black and white, delete the white and add the colour. Things like the hand-written text can be coloured, stroked, drop shadowed, resized, and repositioned too which is super helpful.

These are my penned over sketches:

And here’s a low res couple of photos of my monitor showing how the front cover is looking right now. I’m trying to decide if the Gooz in the foreground should have red or white highlights. I’m leaning towards red, what do you think?

The other thing I did was reach out to JV West and ask him about his 3rd party license for GOZR, which he’s kindly directed me towards. Following the terms of the license lets me put that cool little badge in the bottom corner of the work, and lends the work a degree of credibility.

Also, I think it’s polite right? To let the original creator know what you’re doing and get their blessing?

Conclusion

Phew, long one this. Sorry about that, I normally like to keep it concise. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this, you’d be doing me a massive favour if you could share this post on your socials - see if we can build up a bit of hype, and keep me motivated to continue through engagement!

I’ll be posting another one of these as and when I’ve got something to report, so the posting schedule will exist outside the usual weekly cadence of posts.

Hey, thanks for reading - you’re good people. If you’ve enjoyed reading this and want to make sure that you don’t miss any future updates, maybe think about subscribing to the Mailer of Many Things! Either way, catch you later.

Tension on a Timer: How Progress Clocks Keep Your Game Exciting

Word up my homes.

Today we’re going to talk about “Progress Clocks”. I think these were first introduced by John Harper with Blades in the Dark. (Correction 2025-03-12 I'm reliably informed that they were introduced first in Apocalypse World!) They weren’t the first solution to the particular problems they address, but I do think that they’re perhaps the most elegant.

You’ll understand in a bit.

Why Use a Progress Clock?

You’ve all felt that, right? That anticlimactic feeling that comes from presenting your players this mountain to climb, only for them to simply roll Athletics and pass. “Well done, you’re at the top, well that was dull”. Extreme example I know, but I’m trying to illustrate a point here :)

Experienced GMs might have other techniques for circumventing this problem, but Progress Clocks are for turning a single mechanical success or failure event into something that matches its theme. They’re for showing players exactly what the stakes are, and for managing their expectations regarding how they’re currently performing.

They prevent a couple of failed rolls from completely derailing the players’ current plan.

How does a Progress Clock work?

You draw a circle, and you divide it into a number of pizza slices. 3-6 slices is common, but you can go higher or lower to taste.

You then label that circle with the event that WILL happen once the clock is filled in, and you put it out in front of the players so that they understand what’s at stake.

Then as relevant in game activities take place, you colour in those pizza slices, representing the final event drawing closer. Depending on the sheer influence of the activity that has happened, you may wish to fill in more than one slice. You should also be open to the idea of filling in the entire clock in one go if the situation justifies it (or even disregarding the clock entirely) - You might have thought that something is quite big and complex and worthy of 8 slices, but your players might come up with something that deals with it in one swoop. You’ll know when it happens, don’t impede this.

I should note, it’s not just in game activity that might fill a clock, it might literally represent the passage of time itself.

When do you use a Progress Clock?

You know when you’re running a game and the players want to do something, you might call for a check, and if they succeed, happy days? Well, Progress Clocks are for when the action is too big or significant that it’s success or failure should fall down to a single mechanical event like a dice roll.

Likewise, imagine your players trying to break someone out of jail and there’s this really cool stealth session. Unfortunately they just failed a stealth roll and tripped over in front of a guard, so now the guards are alerted to their presence, and unless you the entire place to come down upon them over a simple misstep, you’ve got to tie yourself in narrative knots trying to justify why the first guard hasn’t just raised the alarm.

Or imagine if your players are trying to accomplish something before this other thing that they cannot affect happens. You might have two clocks here, one for the players progress and one for the other event.

What are the Types of Progress Clock?

Ticking Bomb (or even it’s inverse)

The Ticking Bomb Progress Clock represents how long until something terrible happens. In that time, they need to find a way to circumvent the problem or to prepare for it. This is the classic heist Progress Clock, representing how many mess ups PCs can make before the guards are alerted - in the meantime the PCs want to be in and out.

Competing

Competing Progress Clocks are used to show the progress of two separate events that do not influence each other. For example, the PCs might be trying to evacuate the village in the valley before the Dam breaks. The PCs might advance their clock by sounding the alarms, and guiding people across the bridge, and the Dam’s clock might advance as you roll a check to see if the crack in the damn wall is growing.

Tug of War

Possibly the most complicated to explain, there are two possible event outcomes, and you don’t start these clocks empty. Tug of War Progress Clocks represent two outcomes that DO influence each other. So if the PCs were running away from a monster, as the PCs succeeded in their checks they might fill the clock, and as they fail, then the clock empties. The outcomes in this case would be either a successful escape, or the Monster catching up to them.

Multiple

Not technically a type of clock, but there’s no reason why you can’t have a string of clocks together to accomplish a bigger thing. For example, if we go back to that heist example - The big picture might be “steal the gemstone” but you might present the players with the following clocks (again, allowing them to circumvent any that they reasonably find a work around for):

1. Deal with the guards

2. Make a route inside

3. Get past the traps

4. Evade the security investigating the alarm

5. Get back to the hideout

Conclusion

Nice, hopefully that makes sense to you. If you could use more information, checkout Sly Flourish’s video for extra guidance, or reach out to me on Bluesky.

By the way, I’m currently making a one shot adventure for GOZR called The Rusted Colossus, about a giant old mech that’s been uncovered in the desert. I’m planning on referencing this post, so that if people need pointers on Progress Clocks, they’ve got them. If you’ve come from there - this is time travel. Hello future people! I hope my adventure came out well :)

Hey, thanks for reading - you’re good people. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, it’d be great if you could share it on your socials, and maybe think about subscribing to the Mailer of Many Things! Either way, catch you later.

Random Encounters, Not Random Chaos: A GM’s Guide

Word up my peeps.

I finally broke the other day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was sharing my (shameless plug) fantastic free Encounter Timer app online and I’d just heard the same myth being spewed out too many times by people that have misunderstood, been misinformed and consequently have mentally closed the door.

“I don’t use random encounters in my games, I like all my encounters to be woven into my story, and I don’t want to cause a TPK just because the BBEG turns up unexpectantly and wipes the party”

There are probably legitimate reasons for not wanting to use random encounters (“I am cripplingly terrified of improvisation” for example), but this one sucks, and I hear versions of it all the time online, and frankly it is toxic, because other people will read it and then a good chunk of them accept and internalise it and then they go on to miss out too.

Perhaps this goes without saying, but Random Encounters are chuffing awesome. They make your world feel proactive and alive instead of this stale place that only seems to respond to the players presence, we create a convincing illusion of greater activity without burning ourselves out prepping to the Nth degree. Random encounters drive action and interesting situations. Use random encounters, but use them properly, and don’t use them exclusively - there’s nothing wrong with some set pieces.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yea, So this objection is like an onion, there’s so many layers to unpack here, wish me luck.

D&D is not a story, it’s a game

The first part to address is the easy one: “I like all my encounters to be woven into my story…“.

GM’s, there’s no delicate way for me to say this: It’s not ‘your story’.

Two things, firstly there is no “story” until after the fact. The story is what happened, not what will happen. If you find yourself controlling what will happen to the extent that the idea of a random encounter ruins your day, then you have too tight a grip on your game. In fact, I’d hesitate to even call it a game at this point - it’s more like you’re asking your ‘players’ to act through your screen play. You need to chill my dudes, embrace a little bit of improvisation and give the players, and even the dice some agency, they will thank you for it (not the dice though, they’re gits).

Point two: If this after-the-fact story belongs to anyone at all, then it belongs to everyone at the table, not just the GM. The GM’s role is not to pre-write a story to control how the adventure pans out (this is video game mentality), the GM’s role is to present interesting conflicts so that the players can resolve them, and then the GM reacts to those resolutions with fair consequences.

Rince & repeat, this is the core gameplay loop of TTRPGs, and it is what makes them unique and special.

Honestly - understanding and accepting this is the key to solving like 50% of all your GMing woes: be a bit more loosey goosey and roll with the flow, baby.

How to use Random Encounters

Rather than worrying about random encounters not fitting into your Lizards-Ate-My-Toast approved, predefined story beats, consider instead the current zeitgeist, a mood, a vibe specific to what is going on this session. If the players are currently investigating ‘The Crypt of the lich king, Misinformedarex’, then it absolutely wouldn’t make sense if an Aboleth rocked up and bust down the door to interrupt a long rest.

So, what do we do about this?

Simple: the Obi Wan Kenobi’s of the GMing world curate their random encounters. We don’t just pick a literal random creature from the Monster Manual, or an online generator - No! In our prep for the session, we spend 5 minutes building a d6 table of encounters that makes sense, so now nothing throws us a curve ball and we’re calm like prescient Jedi Masters.

To Darth “I don’t want to cause a TPK just because the BBEG turns up unexpectantly“, I say, if you don’t want this to happen, don’t put your BBEG in your random encounter table! Rocket science, it ain’t!

Trust your Players to Play

My dear reader, I know I just said don’t put your BBEG in your random tables buuuuuut I have a curve ball for you. A Wrigley worm of a caveat that I’m just dying to wave tantalisingly in front of your snouts. Go on, nibble it.

You shouldn’t be afraid to put something cataclysmic in your random table. Why not?

Mines of Moria. You know what the coolest thing about the Mines of Moria was? It was when the Fellowship are all making a successful run for it and they’re almost home free, and then Peter Jackson rolled a 2 on his Random Encounter check, followed by a 6, and he whipped out a mother trucking Balrog. The players knew that they were no match, so they chose to retreat, but Gandalf rolled high on his insight, and knew they wouldn’t make it without him buying them some time…

He was all like “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!“, and the Balrog was all like “ROROAAAGAHGHAGHH”, one minor quake spell, followed by a bitch whip slap and we just had the best moment of the movie so far, son.

How cool was that?! Think how much weaker that chapter would have been if the Fellowship just escaped because Peter Jackson kept fudging hundreds of his To Hit rolls on those Goblin archers, just to ensure the sanctity of his precious story?

Not all Random Encounters are combats

Wait there’s more! (Holy cow, it’s a second curve ball!!) You should use Reaction Tables hand in hand with your random encounters (but only when it’s not patently obvious what the reaction should be):

d6 | Reaction

1 | I hate your face and will rip it off and wear it as a loincloth

2 | I am grumpy as chuff and have a short fuse

3 | Halt! Who goes there?!

4 | Ahoy!

5 | Oh sure, I can help you with that

6 | You have my sword! (And my Axe!)

The deal here is that the higher the dice roll, the friendlier the disposition on the thing you’ve encountered.

This way, all of a sudden not every encounter is a fight. Mixes it up, keeps players on their toes. If your curated encounter table tells you it’s a Banshee, but also you get a middling 3 on your reaction table, that’s where you have some quick thinking to do.

Maybe the Banshee is sad, inquisitive players might notice this and assuming they are cool with her, she opens up to them and tells them that she wants to be released from undeath to be with her lover, and the only way to do it is [insert clue about the dungeon boss here]. Wait - Holy smokes, did we just enrich the “Story” with a random encounter??!

Encounter Clues!

A triple curve ball! This post is like a whirlwind! Brace yourself, here it comes:

Not every encounter needs to be: “Bam! Thing, in your face, go!”

Good people of Earth, behold! I have a third table for you which modifies the encounter again, let’s call it a Perception Table:

d6 | Perception

1 | Shhh, they’re sleeping

2 | I can hear them talking in the next area

3 | I can hear them approaching, unaware of us

4 | Bam! Thing in your face, Go!

5 | They know we’re here and by the thunder of their feet, they’re coming!

6 | Ahhhck, where did they come from!

What’s the point of this? It gives the players options, they could hide, they could set up an ambush, they could reroute a different way, they could set a trap… I’m sure the list goes on.

The point is, it adds layers of interesting conflicts for your players to resolve - and remember, that is literally the game.

Conclusion

Random encounters are a powerful tool to create interesting conflicts, not something to be feared. Let go of your controlling grip, embrace improvisation. Oh, also, go back to my other post and checkout my Encounter Timer app!

If you still don’t believe me, that’s OK. I hope at least I made you smile. If I didn’t even manage that, then please accept my humblest apologies and maybe I’ve not lost you forever :)

Hey, thanks for reading - you’re good people. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, it’d be great if you could share it on your socials, and maybe think about subscribing to the Mailer of Many Things! Either way, catch you later.

GOZR: The Wacky, Wild, Weird, and W’excellent TTRPG You’ve Been Sleeping On

Angry sky bleeds upon a fallen world.

Sky Wyrms hunt meat.

Fallen towers radiate fading spells.

Pretty ones rot in the dirt. Lost.

The Gooz rise.

S’up dawgs. Today’s post is about GOZR. If you follow me on Bluesky, you’ve probably seen me post about it a few times already, including some of my fan art. If you love the OSR, gonzo post-apocalyptic settings, or still have that subscription to Heavy Metal magazine, you’ll love GOZR.

GOZR (presumably a portmanteau of Gooz & OSR) was released in 2022 after a successful Kickstarter, so you might be forgiven for asking why the hell I’m dredging it up now in 2025? Well, because it’s my blog and I like GOZR, and I feel like it’s massively been ignored by the world and that’s a damned shame. If little old me can make a smidgen of a difference and highlight the worthwhile work of an artist, and maybe persuade a couple of you good folks to part with a few pennies of your hard earned pocket money, then all’s the better I say.

If you like the look of GOZR and decide to pick it up using one of my affiliate links, I may take a small cutback from the sale (at no extra cost to you) which helps me to keep the light on around here.

What in the name of sweet baby medusa is GOZR?

It’s a bold, handwritten (as in, no fonts) TTRPG by JV West, of Black Pudding infamy, set in a totally wacky post apocalyptic world. Tongues are firmly in cheeks with this setting and it’s inhabitants, which makes for a nice lighthearted game at the table. As of right now, there’s only the rulebook, and a fill-in-the-blanks one page adventure that have been released officially, the rulebook is both available as a physical book and as a PDF, and the adventure is a free download from JV’s website.

The general style of the game is OSR (which means rules-lite, fast, creative, and clever play), which is nice because it frees up player imagination and means that the GM doesn’t have to carry a small library’s worth of books around with them. Some people might prefer a much chonkier game that has explicit bespoke mechanics designed for various scenarios that barely arise, and a number of video-game like character abilities baked into a class system, but GOZR ain’t that, and that’s A-OK with me.

More than anything though, GOZR is a work of art, dude. It’s heavy on vibes, heavy on inspirational GM content (like tables), and very very heavy on illustrations.

Like seriously, if I had to guess, I’d say it was weighted at about 70% tables & improvisation cues, 20% art, and 10% rules!

You goad me wizard, I would have you speak of the setting, plain and true!

Much of the official cannon of the setting is left to the GMs imagination, but piecing together the snippets of text and other clues, this is what I like to think:

In the near future, humanity manages to create an extinction event for itself via screwing around directly with the Sun. This triggers erratic behavior in Sol, unleashing freakish meteorological events that scar the world.

Years later, in the wake of Humanity’s passing, a new humanoid species comes to dominate the planet. The Gooz: at first glance, an unworthy race—slightly diminutive, superstitious, Sol-worshipping, ingenious yet adventurous. They have the cunning of goblins and the foolhardy curiosity of a feline. Yet somehow, the Gooz have built a flourishing civilization. Many brave souls tread beyond the boundaries of GOZR City, seeking treasure, answers, or both among the ruins of strange 'magical' towers left behind by 'the pretty ones'.

This world is a dangerous place, not least because of the ever changing whims of Sol, but all the Robots, Sky Wyrms, M’rons, Ickmucks and more have spread unchecked, and would make a tasty treat of a hapless Gooz.

Does it play as well as Slash on a skateboard, casually rolling down the road outside a bar & grill?

The game engine is based on a familiar d20 roll over AC system, but unlike D&D, there are only 3 stats and all rolls are player facing. This is nice because the players get to roll more, and everyone loves rolling bones!

Additionally, the core engine also has a system built into it which codifies degrees of success, and failing forwards. This means that flat “no” is a rare occurrence, and instead we’re much more likely to see “No, but…”, “Yes, but…”, and “Yes and…” which are integral components of modern improvisation techniques, and more games would benefit from the same emphasis.

Gameplay is simultaneously very deadly and very forgiving. Damage dice explode and HP is low, but this is actually my favourite rule: When a Gooz “dies” (at zero HP) the player can make a choice between “Death or Debasement”. The latter means your Gooz survives, but at a cost to their stats or abilities. The former means that your Gooz did indeed die, but you get a bonus to the stats of your next Gooz!

Plus, rolling up a Gooz is such a joy, following JV’s step by step guide you end up creating this wonderfully weird little Jim Henson meets Heavy Metal crossover!

A flawed gem

It’s only fair for me to point out the two flaws I see with GOZR (albeit ones with solutions) - it’s not all love and sunshine. Firstly, while it’s a joy to behold as a work of art, the book isn’t the easiest to use as a rules reference. There’s just so much going on all over the place that you could spend a long time simply enjoying a single page without finding the rule you were looking for.

Luckily, your old buddy Jimmi has you covered, I’ve created a free comprehensive cheat sheet for you to print out at home. I’m too good to you all, I really am.

The other niggle I have with the game is that it lacks examples of play, or an included introductory adventure.

This is a shame in my view, as such things can be really valuable as tools to manage a GMs expectations and set them up running straight away. JV did write an adventure which is published on his website, but for me, it leans too strongly on the idea that GM’s can make adventures their own, and I’d have preferred it, as a starter adventure, to have had more specifics to save me some brain juice. For example, a more structured adventure might include a specific room layout, or pre-written NPCs.

This is not a show stopper by any means though, as there are many adventures out there on the internet that can be adapted quite easily to suit the game or you might even enjoy making up your own using the game’s innumerable world generation tables.

Conclusion

Go buy GOZR right now.

It ticks all the boxes - It’s made with indie love, packed with art, not expensive, easy to learn, fun to play, and a joy to read. Honestly I’d love to see more people playing this game, giving it the love it deserves.

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