Thoughts on the British Old School

I first shared this post to the OSR subreddit seven years ago, long before I had a blog. It garnered some very interesting discussion in the day - I even inspired an entire blog centered around the subject that offered some great insights but sadly no longer appears to be online. It's still a topic that I'm interested by. I consider the Lunar Lands to be, spiritually, a setting in the British old-school RPG tradition, as it draws consciously or unconsciously on much of the same ground - and perhaps for that reason, I've felt more of a resonance with British fantasy of the era than with the stuff from across the pond. So I figured it would be helpful to have an archive on my blog.

Some trends in the OSR community that I cited back then aren't quite as relevant these days; the OSR hasn't trended so heavily toward weird fantasy since...what, 2019? But I still think it's helpful to outline the qualities I find a consistent, and identifiable, thread across British fantasy gaming from the 70s to the 90s, and in a place I can easily look up and link to. Besides, I think it's a subject that's still ripe for exploration.

I follow both the OSR and Oldhammer communities - although I regretfully wasn't around to see the heyday of either game, I must say I found myself drawn to the people and communities that keep the rules and spirit of their early editions alive, and in many ways I find the ways they approach gaming more compelling than their more modern iterations.

However, in doing so I've also seen the legacies of the old school roleplaying scene on either side of the Atlantic, and in many ways it seems that the world of British fantasy gaming was its own beast. Looking at the different products to come out of the hobby during the 80s, most notably Warhammer, the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, the Dragon Warriors RPG, and the D&D modules put out by TSR UK, there are certain themes that seem to come up frequently, and ones that stand in contrast to those of American old school gaming. Namely, I've identified:

Grounding in reality. Compared to American settings, magic in British settings is typically rarer, or at least it doesn't impact society as much. The Old World of Warhammer is what most people will think of if envisioning a low magic, low fantasy setting, and Dragon Warriors' Land of Legend is similarly down to earth. Likewise, there's less emphasis on "the weird" in British games, and the settings tend to look, feel, and operate like what we're used to. Lankhmar, the City-State of the Invincible Overlord, and Vornheim have mazes of spires, colorful temple districts, and populations of all sorts of strange creatures; Saltmarsh, Middenheim, and Brymstone have town councils of craftsman guilds. Even when the supernatural appears, it's just as likely to all be a cover for something more mundane; a seemingly haunted house could just be a ruse to hide a smuggling operation in plain sight.

Influence from history. Many British settings more or less faithfully depict a medieval world, often with a greater commitment to accuracy than the theme parkish, modern-culture-in-ren-faire-clothing worlds of typical fantasy (I didn't have a term for that yet) or the gonzo settings of Blackmoor, the Wilderlands, and most OSR material. The Old World and Legend both are warped versions of Europe, in the early Renaissance and the time of the First Crusade respectively, and it isn't hard to identify which culture is a stand-in for which. Feudalism and historical social customs tend to play a more important role.

Influence from folklore. Along similar lines, it's not uncommon for British games to hew closer to folklore and mythology in how they address the supernatural. Fairy beings play a greater role, and mythological weaknesses of certain monsters may be represented in game mechanics. It's as though the Appendix N for the British gaming scene was more Morte d'Arthur than Weird Tales. This is perhaps most evident in Dragon Warriors, where belief in the True Faith is enough to ward one against supernatural threats, but it can be seen in other places - look at the role that the Leshy and Vodyanoy play in Something Rotten in Kislev, for instance.

Moorcockean cosmology. Compared to the good-versus-evil of modern popular fantasy or the Lovecraftian tones of Smith and Raggi, cosmic conflict in British games tends to be between Law and Chaos, and the influence from Moorcock's mythos is palpable, if not ripped off entirely. Of course, often Chaos tends to be boiled down to simply another word for evil, as with Fighting Fantasy and Warhammer, but occasionally Law will be shown to be just as alien and destructive.

Less emphasis on combat. Of course, this is something the OSR in general defines itself against modern gaming with, but you can see it especially in the British old school. This isn't universal, of course - look at all the dungeon crawling combat-centric Fighting Fantasy titles - but many British works are particularly keen on investigation and political intrigue, like the legendary Enemy Within campaign for WFRP, or exploration and atmosphere, like Night's Dark Terror. Even in U1 and some of the adventures published in White Dwarf can this be seen. Furthermore, combat tends to be avoidable by quick wits and alternate courses of action, as in Fighting Fantasy, or it's so deadly it's not worth using as anything but a last resort, as in WFRP. Again, though, this could just be the greater old school ethos speaking.

Dark humour. This isn't universal - Warhammer is the only concrete example that comes to mind - but I'm listing it here because it's very much part of the greater British culture of the time. Puns like "Baron von Saponatheim," demons with silly names disguised by foreign languages, and a sinister cult that keeps getting confused by its secret hand gestures are all in the vein of Python and Blackadder.

Obviously, these things aren't exclusive to British products, nor is every theme I've listed seen in every British game or module. But together, they constitute a particularly British flavor that can be seen across the different games, settings, and accessories put out in the UK while B/X and 1E were in their prime, one that feels different from the American old school.

Now, my question is, why don't we see more of this in the OSR? The OSR scene is keen to play in the spirit of Gygax and Arneson, but what about that of Priestly, Morris, and Livingstone? WFRP has Zweihander, and Dragon Warriors has the wonderful new adventures put out by Dave Morris on his blog to this day. Then there's Lion & Dragon, Midderlands, and Dark Albion, which tick a lot of these boxes (Were I writing this today, I'd also put Dolmenwood here). And Death Frost Doom does make use of a monster from a dungeon published in one of the very first issues of White Dwarf. But I'd love to see more works follow suit. The British old school gaming world is one that I've found particularly fascinating, and I have to wonder if anyone else has noticed the same patterns I have and brought a bit of the UK to the OSR scene. Or am I just seeing things where there aren't?