Idiomdrottning

Idiomdrottning Idiomdrottning demonstrates a new and often cleaner way to solve most systems problems. The system as a whole is likely to feel tantalizingly familiar to culture users but at the same time quite foreign. https://idiomdrottning.org/ Sat, 17 Oct 2026 21:55:28 +0200 Sat, 17 Oct 2026 21:55:28 +0200 Rules, not rulings The <cite>Quick Primer for Old School Gaming</cite> was a huge influence on me when I first started playing blorbily but looking at the 2024 edition of that primer now I can see how far we’ve drifted apart. Sure, someone overhearing our tables wouldn’t hear a difference. The “moose head example” would sound the same. Players describe how they are looking for treasures and traps rather than rolling for it. <aside>(I saw someone on Reddit saying at most actual tables the players wouldn’t look behind the moose head and be like “another boring room, let’s leave” leave the GM would impatiently blurt out “you think there’s something weird about the moose head”. I don’t do that. What they don’t find, they don’t find. Sometimes they’ll come back a dozen sessions later and find it, or another party will if I run for multiple players West Marches style. DMs, you’ve got to keep the secrets secret! <a href="/dm-secret-knowledge" title="Secret-keeping is the DM's most important job">That’s your one job!</a>)</aside> I call that style of play “diegetic mechanics” and for me it definitively came from the old school primer. It’s so awesome. I definitely handle as much of the game as I can that way. But the difference is the “improvisational” part. “Rulings, not rules.” The primer has an example of a DM deciding on the fly that a particular rogue has a 1d6 chance of finding traps (in addition to pouring water and knocking with poles I guess). That isn’t my jam. If there is something behind the moose head it’s because it’s written down. Not because “oh the players are messing around with a moose head, I want to reward that and making up a secret compartment behind it”. Playing that way would not be blorb. When I say “rules, not rulings”, <a href="/new-dm-advice" title="New DM advice">new DMs</a>, please do not be scared! By all means, start small and with a simple ruleset! I want new DMs to take up the shield and go for it and not be overwhelmed by having to read a thousand books! But when you make a “ruling”, write it down and make it a rule instead. You can polish and revise it between sessions if you want and consult your players too, knowing it’s <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/what%27s_sauce_for_the_goose_is_sauce_for_the_gander#English" title="what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander - Wiktionary, the free dictionary">goose&gander</a> and things you let them do, monsters might be able to do too. Creating new mechanics and new rules is an amazing way to keep a blorb alive, a blorb that’s bigger than what you could manually track or create. We made the <a href="/looking_for_stuff_outdoors" title="[D&D] Looking for Stuff Outdoors">“looking for stuff outdoors”</a> rules when it became impossible to in detail prep every single flower in every single square foot. But when doing so, I want to be guided by the <a href="/blorb-principles" title="Blorb Principles">blorb principles</a>. No fair picking paper after seeing them choose rock, and no tier three truths if I have a tier two truth and no tier two truths if I have a tier one truth. Wed, 07 Oct 2026 12:29:02 +0200 https://idiomdrottning.org/rules-not-rulings https://idiomdrottning.org/rules-not-rulings texts rpg DMs don't know what players want There’s generally this theme I hear whenever I talk to other DMs online or in person, and I get frustrated with my fellow DMs for not understanding this: the kinds of games DMs love are not the same players love. Not every DM, but some forever DMs are all about super minimal games and they really love constraining the players and taking options away from them. My players love crunch and options. Classes to pick from and build out and test. I hate that and prefer way more open-ended and creative games like Fate or OSR where there’s only a few options that you can flavor as you wish. I love the blank canvas, they want the menu of options. DMs love minimal games because there’s less rules for them to have to remember and fiddle with and adjudicate and they can just <a href="/rules-light-prep-heavy" title="Rules-light, prep-heavy">concentrate on the prep</a>. But there are many things that bring a player to the table. For some the game system in and of itself is the appeal. Getting to pick some actual abilities with actual crunch and tangible in-game effects is like Christmas for them. A mindset I don’t have to share in order to understand and try to provide for. My own brain was messed up by the <a href="/chasm-width" title="The Chasm Width Problem">chasm width problem</a> early on so I could never really care about these player abilities knowing that the DMs were likely holding the finger on the scale the entire time. (As in, <a href="/atomic-encounters#the-flagging-dilemma" title="Atomic Encounters">what good is a +2 to picking locks</a> when the DM could just make all locks be two harder.) But then the <a href="/blorb-principles" title="Blorb Principles">blorb principles</a> solved the chasm width problem so now all of this crunch is actually real and there’s something pretty nifty about that. Sat, 03 Oct 2026 10:18:24 +0200 https://idiomdrottning.org/dm-want https://idiomdrottning.org/dm-want texts rpg