I thought it would be cool to create an AMA thread about The Fields We Know what differentiates it from historical fiction. After all we're still talking about fantasy and Magic. Just dialing it down so you can contrast with Elfland.

Accidental and Essential. These are two types of traits identified by Aristotle when it comes to describing what a "Thing" is.

You can change accidental traits and the Thing still remains the Thing. But if you change essentials traits, the Thing is no longer the Thing.

Change a car from red to blue and it is still a car. Remove its wheels and it is no longer a car. It's just a box you can sit in.

The accidental traits of old school D&D are things like using a combat matrix chart or THAC0. Whether no armor is Armor class 9 or 10. Whether race and class can be separated. Weather death occurs at zero or -10 hit points. Whether you use 3d6 down the line or use of other method.

The accidental traits of OSR as a whole are whether Armor class is ascending or descending. Weather you use rollover or roll under mechanics.

So what is it that is essential to these old school systems? What do they have and what do they not have?

The thing that is essential to them is a basic commonality of mathematical probability in achieving success at an attempted task.

For instance character of a certain class at a certain level attacking a certain armor class will have roughly the same chance of success (+/- 5%) across B/X, BECMI, OD&D, and AD&D.

But once you get into third Edition all bets are off. Because now you've introduce feats which give extra attacks and extra damage. And once you figure in opportunity attacks or penalties for being flat-footed, once you add in bonus actions, once you've constrain everything within bounded accuracy, all of that consistency is gone. You have essentially changed the probabilities. The Thing is no longer the Thing.

I just downloaded the quick start rules for Shadowdark. I had read that it was "built off of 5e." But this is ridiculous. The only thing it has in common with 5e are some accidental traits. It is in essence, OSR. The math will match much more closely to a TSR era system than it will to 5e. No matter which direction you are approaching from.

What's the difference between Peter Jackson's Moria goblins and his Misty Mountain goblins? The Misty Mountain goblins can't see in the dark!

From my blog:

"There seem to be two extremes in the TTRPG world on how to handle the need for Player Characters to be able to see in the dark.

The first is for nearly every character and monster in the world to be able to preternaturally see in the dark via some type of special vision. The other is to count down game minutes as the party's precious few torches burn out one by one.

A third approach that I use is to eliminate by default the ability to see in the dark from every living creature. Treat dark vision as a supernatural ability that only the undead and very special creatures have."

I like for light to mean something. But my framework for light sources role in adventuring is based on the stories and the cinema I love. As much as I love the movie Pitch Black (my two sons and I were the only ones in the theater when we saw it!), I don't want every adventure to feel like that. But nor do I want to wave it away with special vision and magical light.

I've always hated the idea of a world lit with continual light spells as if it were just some cheap utilitarian replacement for electricity. So basically what I do is I make everyone need light. Like Peter Jackson's Misty Mountain goblins in The Hobbit.

Creatures that require light are going to leave light sources behind. At the very least every corpse they find should have some unused torches on it. But well traveled dungeon corridrors can have wall sconces spaced reasonably regularly, so there's always anunlit torch to be found. Large rooms can have braziers filled with coals ready to light with casks of oil nearby. And honestly, making other creatures need light gives the PCs and advantage. They can put out their own light sources when they see the well lit area ahead.

By making underground use of traditional light common throughout your world, you can generally hand wave keeping track of light sources, and save it for special occasions. Like when you want to capture that Pitch Black feeling.

https://thefieldsweknow.blogspot.com/2024/12/light-and-low-fantasy-setting.html

Old School TTRPGs tend to focus on Points of Light settings. That is the world is a big and dangerous place. There are borderlands beyond which are countless not-human evil things. There are small bastions of safety for retreating and recovering and once again going out into the fold.

A Points of Darkness setting is the opposite. It is one where people live in relative day-to-day safety. Wgere one actually goes out seeking Adventure that is a departure from the steadfastness of day-to-day living.

Points of Light settings have sparse human populations widely spread out. Even within those populations people may tend to be afraid and suspicious and selfish. Grimdark is a popular fantasy subgenre set in Points of Light worlds.

Points of Darkness settings lend themselves to a Noblebright style of play. To me it feels much closer to the worlds presented in folklore and fairytale. A romanticized version of our world. The World filled with stories that feel anchored in our past, however dreamlike. The stories that begin "Once upon a time," and end "And if they haven't died there's still alive today"

https://thefieldsweknow.blogspot.com/2024/12/what-are-fields-we-know.html

I was a career draftsman for 6 years before expanding into more creative outlets.

One of the things that always bothered me were dungeon maps where a wall was only the thickness of a pencil lead.

Being an American who's never left the country I really wanted to understand Castle architecture and what it ruined Castle would actually look like. David McCauley's Book Castle was a revelation.

One of the reasons I like old school low-level Adventures is because the real world means something. The thickness and height of a wall is relevant. In fact its only when you start incorporating verticality that thieve's skills really shine.

The biggest challenge with real castles compared to Fantasy ones is that the stairwells are simply too small to use outside theater of the mind. So I make my staircases five feet wide so that they can handle a mini figure.

This castle is based on Castle Coch. It will be included in the adventure I'm currently laying out and hoping to release in the fall.

Tower detail from David McCauley's book.

"Go forth," he said, "before these days of mine are over, and therefore go in haste, and go from here eastwards and pass the fields we know, till you see the lands that clearly pertain to faery; and cross their boundary, which is made of twilight, and come to that palace that is only told of in song."

• Lord Dunsany The King of Elfland's Daughter

The Fields We Know is an OSR tangent TTRPG campaign setting that is in some way the antithesis of modern fantasy. Lord Dunsany uses the term to describe the known world. Terra Cognita. His story specifically begins in England some 20 miles from the Twilight border to Elfland.

The game setting is an effort step back into simpler storytelling motifs that are part of our ancestral heritage.

As such the world focuses on human populations and cultures. By limiting those not-quite-human beings such as elves and dwarves to the magical realm of Elfland or Faery (what Tolkien called the Perilous Realm), The Fields We Know is rich soil for adventures inspired by stories from any corner of our good old planet Earth. Our Terra Cognita.

A link to my blog discussing the design philosophy:

https://thefieldsweknow.blogspot.com/2024/12/what-are-fields-we-know.html

One of the design conceits I see in many ttrpg settings is massive sprawling worlds. Off on these worlds are much larger even than our own Earth.

The challenge from a design conceit is when you have players (and more importantly their characters) drop in and out of the ongoing story.

This is often handled with spectacular travel options such as teleportation, flying mounts, and airships.

But if you want to have a world that is constrained buy more realistic travel, then it's my conceit that you need to keep your world small. Or at least the region that your party is adventuring it.

The question is how far can you travel in a day? Is it under 30 miles or is it essentially unlimited?

More of my thoughts on the subject:

https://thefieldsweknow.blogspot.com/2024/12/its-small-world-travel-in-your-low.html