The OSR and My Horrifying Lack of Products

"The OSR is less about the rules and more about the products you use those rules with."--Tenkar's Tavern post, ENWorld Article - Is the OSR Dead?

Given the empty space on my single gaming shelf and my almost complete lack of use of purchased gaming products when I am GMing, it appears that I am somehow aberrant. Does this lack on my part exclude me from the OSR? If one takes Tenkar's ad hoc definition of the OSR to an illogical extreme, then yes. It is a good thing that stuff like this causes no loss of sleep on my part.

I am not going to quibble with Tenkar's definition because I think it is captures where the OSR is today. It is interesting that the focus of the self-identified OSR has shifted not-so-subtly from "process" to "product." It seems we have gone from rulings, not rules to products, not rules. Certainly there has been a desire from the beginning by many to create OGL-based rule sets that would, in turn, serve as platforms for other published products. 

I have good friends who are avid producers and consumers of gaming products. I am happy for them and excited to watch them benefit from their creativity and hard work. Technology has provided marketing and distribution solutions for both producers and consumers. Oddly enough, instead of jumping in myself, I find myself becoming almost Amish in my approach to gaming. No fancy cars or electricity for me.The more there is out there, the less I want it. I have purchased only those items (mainly rule sets) that I knew I would have to use for gaming sessions. But that has been it during this past year. No Kickstarters. No Patreon. No adventures or supplements. 

The funny thing is that I buy far too many books. I have thousands of them. Despite this, I am always buying more of them (mostly cheap used ones through Amazon). With music, I am both a consumer and a producer. I make money playing music but it just results in more musical instruments in our house. But when it comes to gaming, I just need my dice and a pencil. 

Improvisation

I have the feeling that when most people hear the word "improvise," they think of something that is the opposite of planning, as in "I didn't plan for it, I just improvised." In other words, improvising is the same as winging it. Following this logic, improvisation doesn't require work or planning; in many ways it is the opposite.

I think of improvising differently, perhaps because I have been playing music since I was a young child. As a musician, improvisation is an activity that takes skill and practice. To be good at improvisation requires an understanding of music theory (intuitive and cognitive), a good ear, and enough chops (skill on the instrument) to create the appropriate musical sounds on the fly. Each musician develops improvisation skills a bit differently. For me, it comes from time spent mastering various kinds of scales, rhythms and chord progressions (building on the blocks of melody, harmony and rhythm)--that it what I call "practice." It is very similar to drills performed by athletes. And it is different than learning and playing songs--I consider that "rehearsal." Important and necessary, but it doesn't develop me as a musician in the same way that practice does.

Disciplined Practice & Preparation: A Key to Improvisation

I am able to improvise as a musician because I prepare and practice. The musicality of my improvisation is a result of my understanding of music, a trained ear, and enough skill/muscle memory with my chosen instruments to create something interesting in the moment. When I do not put time and effort into practice, I quickly lose my creative edge and I have a harder time playing something interesting when I improvise.

I find the same thing is true when I am running a gaming session. I am able to improvise best when I am well-prepared and I have put in the necessary time to plan. I am able to draw upon the complexities of the world I am creating and the vast resources of gaming community to respond creatively to player activities during a session. That to me is improvising. I am not smart enough to run a good session by winging it any more than I can create an interesting guitar solo without practice.

I relearn this every time I run a session without preparation, as I have done the last few weeks in our Montporte Campaign. I have been run ragged by work and have nothing left in the tank to devote to preparation and planning. The less I prepare and plan and am forced to improvise, the less I am able to improvise effectively. I just end up drawing blank after blank. I notice myself struggling; it is probably not apparent to the players in any given session. However, there is a cumulative impact on not preparing that makes the sessions less interesting and challenging for players.

Like any analogy, there is a point where the analogy between playing an RPG and playing music breaks down. However, because both music and RPGs have elements of performance art to them and they are also typically group activities, there are a number of analogies that can be drawn. Improvisation is one such analogy.

Design It To Run: How I Am Designing & Running the Montporte Dungeon

We are closing in on Session 30 of the Montporte Dungeon Campaign and I feel like I can now speak with a bit of experience about designing and running a megadungeon. Back in the 1970s, I started with a dungeon-only campaign as my Holmes D&D set came with dungeon geomorphs, rather than a module. None of my fellow gamers owned modules, just lots of graph paper. So running a dungeon was our default. But that was a long time ago and I hadn't really attempted to run a megadungeon since.

What follows is descriptive, not prescriptive. I am attempting to describe how I am designing and running a dungeon, not how you should do it. Most weeks, I am scrambling to get ready for game night in between family, work, and my music obligations. So with those caveats, here is my approach:

Campaign Mindset: From the start, my mindset has been to run it as a campaign setting and not an adventure module on steroids (which is how most published megadungeons appear to me). Rather than focus on rooms, I focus on areas, peoples, etc and then fill in the details as needed (or as I have time), just as if I were running a typical non-dungeon campaign.

My Dungeon: The Montporte Megadungeon is designed by me for me to run. And I run it with people I know. I am not creating something for publication or something to even post on my blog for others. It is very specific to me and our Monday Night Gaming Group. I don't feel like I have an audience of gamers/consumers to please, just a group of friends to entertain.

As Needed: I only create the dungeon a little in advance of where the players might go. At the beginning, this meant a fair amount of mapping. But now, not so much. There are several reasons I do this: (1) I don't have the time or energy to create a 20 level dungeon all at once; (2) I don't always know what will catch the players' interest and I would rather have things be more open-ended and flexible; and (3) Inspiration comes to me slowly and if I try to do too much at once, the dungeon turns out bland. I need to give myself time to let ideas germinate.

Mapping Part 1: Fortunately, I love to draw dungeon maps. Unfortunately, we are playing online with a VTT (our group uses either Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds, depending on the GM...I opted to use Roll20). This means that I could either draw maps by hand, scan them, and upload them...or create maps digitally. I opted to create them digital in AutoREALM, which is a slower process for me, but it cuts out the conversion process.

Mapping Part 2: I usually start my mapping process of a level by creating a 5x5 grid in Publisher. Each square in the grid is 10", which means I use the custom setting to create a 52" x 52" page (allowing for 1" margins). I then place a text box in each grid, describing in as little detail as I can, what is in each square. In dungeon terms, each square represents 300" x 300", the same sized used in Stonehell. I then, as I need to, create the detailed 300' x 300' maps in AutoREALM, with a 5'/square scale. I convert it a JPEG and--Presto!--I have my map for Roll20. I can also drop the JPEG file into my Publisher grid and create level map, which can also easily be converted to JPEGs. By using blackened rectangles to cover unexplored areas, I can create overview maps for the players like the one below (it takes about 15 minutes):

Level 1, From the Players' Perspective

Seeds: I try to drop adventure or plot seeds into the campaign as we play (from this blog post by Michael Curtis {The Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope}). It is up to the players to decide what to do with them. This only works for me if I do not plan details too far ahead. I have had to let go of my inner-world builder's conceit of "this place exists whether or not a PC ever sees it." It should feel that way to the players, but that is not how I am operating behind the scenes.

Tropes Part 1 ("the lack thereof"): For the most part, I have avoided the OSR cliches and tropes--random tables, lots of slash and grab sessions, and traps for the purposes of having traps. It is not that I have a philosophical or ideological reason to avoid them. My reasoning is more pragmatic: It takes a surprising amount of time to create a random encounter table that might only be used 1 or 2 times. It is easier to just create the encounter than to create the table to generate it.

Tropes Part 2 (my trope): My one conceptual trope has been the computer game, Myst. I am not trying to recreate Myst as we play, but I like the idea of using interlocking clues and details so that the players gradually piece together the multiple back stories of the dungeon. There are a few chatty NPCs in the dungeon, plus lots of scrolls and documents. In fact, every encounter is a clue to the dungeon. Not all clues are earth shattering, but they all pile on one another to paint a picture and tell the story of the dungeon.

Improvisation and Planning: I only occasionally use set-piece encounters that are tied to specific physical locations within the dungeon. They are there, but there are not a lot of them. I do, however, improvise a lot. For a lot of people, improvisation implies a lack of planning or forethought, kind of like "winging it." As a musician, improvisation means something different to me. Improvisation means creating responding to others as you play, but it still requires as much planning, forethought, etc. I spend a considerable about of time planning for each session, but I look at options the players have in front of them and how they might respond, rather than planning specific encounters ahead of time. I am not sure if this makes sense to you, the reader, but I have found it to be my style of GMing...at least most of the time.

Rationalization and Logic: The Montporte Dungeon has a series of backstories that provide an inner logic for myself and the players. However, it only works when we (our group) let go of (1) the question of why a big multi-layer hole in the ground would be there in the first place; and (2) previous preconceptions about megadungeon play (this has been a bit of a struggle as the cliches of dungeon play haunted us when we started).

Inspiration: I read a lot--close to a book a week--and while I do not plan my reading around gaming, I often read things that end up in the dungeon. A recent example are the small bottles of impossibly cold water (why did it not turn to ice?) found in Session 22. These were inspired by So Cold the River, a novel by Michael Koryta. My days with the Appendix N types of literature are mostly in the past, but I am finding inspiration in unlikely sources. This has proven to be a benefit as some of the guys in our gaming group have way more gaming stuff than me. I have thus far avoided the dreaded "You pulled this from B1, didn't you?" or "Hey, this sounds like Dragon #135."

Further Reading: John Arendt (Dreams in the Lich House) recently published two posts on megadungeons that present an interesting point and counterpoint: You Will Never Finish That Dungeon and From an Alternate Universe. I found them interesting and helpful. For me, Michael Curtis' (The Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope) post, With New Old Eyes, is my "go to" reading for running a megadungeon. Peter D (Dungeon Fantastic) wrote an excellent post, Megadungeon Play Reflections-The Immediate and the Cumulative, that lives up to "Fantastic" moniker. I have previously tried to capture a bit of my own thinking on designing and running megadungeons: Five Paths For Dungeon Design and Creating Meaningful Choices in a Dungeon-Centered Campaign.

Heisenberg's Dungeon

"Intuitively obvious to
the casual observer"
as my college physics
text book would note
(after a page of calculus)

James Mal (Grognardia) published a post back in October 2009, entitled Schrödinger's Dungeon. James' contention was that it is nearly impossible to publish a true megadungeon. Leaving aside the slightly sad irony of this statement in light of the Dwimmermount Kickstarter (unless he has used the Dwimmermount Kickstarter to prove his point, in which case supporters were really funding a research grant to prove his hypothesis...but I digress)...anyway, leaving aside the irony, I actually believe his point has some merit. But I prefer Heisenberg to Schrödinger.

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is simple to state (so long as one is not interested in the why, then you have to do math stuff...not so simple): When it comes to subatomic particles, we can either precisely know the location of the particle or its momentum, but not both. The more we know about one, the less we can know about the other.

In my mind, there is a certain analogy with megadungeons, the more we define it by maps, keys, descriptions and tables, the less mega it becomes. Mega implies something that is almost infinite in scope: Endless caverns, layers, an underworld of tunnels and rooms. Defining it with a map limits its size.

I have purchased a number of published megadungeons, including Stonehell, Barrowmaze, Anomalous Subsurface Environment, and Rappan Athuk. I love them (and shamelessly borrow from them) but they all seem like there is something not quite mega about them. Maybe it is just the experience of being able to see a whole dungeon level, just by opening the book and looking at a map, that makes them smaller. But I suspect it is something more. Putting a megadungeon in print is much like adding a butterfly to an insect collection. You have to kill it to keep it. You have to kill the megadungeon, destroying its growth and dynamic qualities in the process, in order to publish it. More than anything, the mystery and the sense of the vast unknown seems to get snuffed by the act of printing.

Maybe it is just me. I am not certain.

Random Gaming Thoughts

A wild week at work. After two years worth of work, our merger closed this week. In our neck of the woods, nonprofit mergers need to be approved by the state Attorney General Office. Things got stuck there for no other reason than they are understaffed. It postponed the merger closing by a day and meant that all of the insurance, banking and employee benefits stuff couldn't be completed ahead of time. So, now I am enjoying a second bowl of tempeh 3 bean chili and a second bottle of Harpoon UFO Hefeweizen.

Random Thought #1: Thinking back on my last 4 or so years of gaming, I see significant shift of focus. I used to spend a lot of time on world building. This goes back to my childhood. Going back to my elementary school days, I made up cities, worlds, histories and even a galactic empire. This has carried over to gaming. I was very much a top down sort of GM. I am now the opposite...bottom up. I create just enough to get a campaign started and then make it up as I go.

Random Thought #2: Another shift in focus is moving away from spending time on house rules, class creation, etc. My focus now is more on the encounter. This is where the action is for me.

Random Thought #3: Gaming intent is important for group play. This is something I learned from decades in management and leadership and, more importantly, by playing music in a number of bands. Things go better when there is a common understanding of purpose and intention. Not that you need to bring in consultants and have facilitated touchy-feely pre-campaign sessions. I just think things go better when everyone at the table agrees with the premise and intent of the campaign, including style of play, etc. I have found this to be very true when playing music. If you want to make a group suffer for "your art," go play in an S&M dungeon with a group of masochists.

The Dungeon 3: Creating Meaningful Choices in a Dungeon-Centered Campaign

Tabletop RPGs can be thought of in many different ways. Simulation, Theater of the Mind, and Improvisational Fiction are just a few examples that come to mind. Besides thinking of it as a game and entertainment (mainly so I don't take it too seriously), I tend to thinking of role-playing games as cooperative decision making Making cooperative decisions implies having meaningful choices or options. In running a dungeon-centered campaign as a GM, I have found creating meaningful choices for players to be my biggest challenge.

"Meaningful" is the key word in meaningful choices. In a dungeon, options, choices and decisions abound as the players make decisions about doors, stairs, and corridors. Every section of map is a "Let's Make a Deal" of decisions to be made by the players ("Are you going to take Door #2 or what's behind the curtain?"). Player movement in a dungeon often reminds me of Brownian Motion (here is the cartoon version)...or for those with a more statistical bent, the Monte Carlo Method (here is the cartoon version). Or, to put it simply, movement and exploration is often a random exercise. It may be fun for a few sessions, but most players and GMs will tire of that kind of play.

The GM Side of Things
As I said, the my biggest challenge as a GM in running a dungeon campaign is creating meaningful choices for the players. I try to meet this challenge in a couple of ways:

• Design: I try to design the dungeon so that the physical layout invites thoughtful decision-making. I confess to having little expertise in how to do that, but I try anyway. I found Justin Alexander's (The Alexandrian) series, Jaquaying the Dungeon, to be particularly helpful.
• Information: The players need information about the dungeon...enough to engage them in exploration but not so much as ruin the suspense. I do this through role-playing (not every encounter is with an enemy), written documents, bits of architectural detail, and encounters. I have not been using random encounters, although a lot of encounters are improvised. I treat every encounter as a clue to the nature of the dungeon. Rob Conley (Bat in the Attic) has a neat blog post that I found helpful in this regard, Other Knobs to Play With. 
• "Campaign Mindset:" In running the Montporte Dungeon campaign, I have been thinking of it in terms of a regular campaign, not a traditional smash and grab dungeon of yore. There is a complex history, factions, geography, and an economy. Because the dungeon had been sealed, the players had almost no information going in so the campaign does include the usual dungeon exploration. But I am really trying to work in opportunities for role-playing and for getting involved in a more complex relationship with the dungeon denizens than I have had in the past with my other dungeon-centered campaigns.

The Player Side of Things
In a dungeon campaign, the GM has a lot to do and they are key to its success. However, players can make or break a dungeon campaign. The Montporte Dungeon campaign is my third dungeon-centered campaign and I found that dungeons can create ADHD in even the most focused players. Players can do their part in making a dungeon campaign a success by:

• Staying Focused: Whether it is a goal(s), a direction, a plan, or something else, players can keep things interesting for themselves by identifying a focus or purpose and attempting to stick to it. It is helpful for both the GM and players when the party has a purpose, even if it is short-term.
• Regular Review: Given the myriad of choices that the average dungeon level provides, players can help themselves by regularly reviewing what has happened and where they want to go. Given the time off between sessions, regular review is a must to staying focused.
• Organizing: Lots of things fall into this category...having a regular marching order, posting a guard while searching for secret doors,  and keeping information organized.
• Investigating: This includes geographic exploration, capturing foes and interrogating them, and questioning the friendly folk (if they can be found).
• "Campaign Mindset:" Think beyond killing stuff and taking the treasure. Not that this is a bad thing, but expand your character's motivation as you would do in a non-dungeon campaign.

If you have run a successful dungeon-centered campaign, what has worked for you?

Why I Blog

First off, I am really not sure why I blog. So feel free to stop reading at this point. However, lack of content has never held back before and it shall not do so now.

I mainly blog for the social aspect of it. My initial connection with our Monday Night Gaming Group came to me via blogging; in the person of +Tim Shorts (Gothridge Manor). Yet, despite the social focus, I am content with blogging to a small audience (this usually includes my wife, one or more of our cats, and my Mom...she is so proud to see where my two graduate degrees have led me).

I don't have products to sell, a soapbox from which to preach, nor an axe to grind. For me, it is mostly about  the joy of gaming, the social connections, the laughing with friends while at the gametable, the creativity, and the stress relief. Blogging is merely an extension of those things.

More recently, I have found it useful to use my blog to post campaign information as I GM. Our Monday Night Gaming Group connects via Skype and some sort of virtual gametable (either Fantasy Grounds II or Roll20). It can be difficult to keep track of campaign information, so the blog comes in handy as I can send them links during gaming sessions rather than files.

This is my second go around with RPG blogging. I don't know that this second attempt is a whole lot different than the first, except that I am taking it less seriously. At heart, I am a casual gamer. I don't lose sleep over D&D Next, ascending versus descending armor classes, Kickstarters, a cinematic versus realistic approach to GURPS, or whose posted what on the various RPG boards. I just like to roll dice on occasion, laugh with friends, and blog about it.

The Dungeon 2: Comparing GURPS and D&D on Dungeon Design

My very first view of a dungeon via Dr. Holmes' edition of Dungeons & Dragons

I have been working my way through the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy material and I have also been following Peter D's Dungeon Fantastic and Patrick's Renovating the Temple. While I cannot speak from personal experience, it is clear to me that running a GURPS fantasy dungeon campaign is not only doable, it could be very groovy. That being said, it is also clear to me that Dungeons & Dragons is a hand-to-glove fit for dungeoneering while GURPS requires a few tweaks. Despite the need for tweaking, GURPS offers up an approach to dungeon adventuring that Dungeons & Dragons cannot readily duplicate as it allows the GM to set aside the most fundamental controlling element of dungeon adventuring in D&D.

Using GURPS Dungeon Fantasy and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1e as my points of comparison, I have made the following observations:

• GURPS DF characters start out tough (250 points) compared to AD&D 1e characters (1st level). 250 points is considerably tougher than the average low-skill militia guard whereas a 1st level character in AD&D 1e has only the slightest edge against a similarly armed 0-level human.
• GURPS characters do advance and gain in strength but this is nothing like the huge power increase that AD&D 1e characters experience.
• GURPS character advancement is gained per session for good play whereas character advancement in AD&D 1e is based on experience points gained through slaying monsters and bringing home treasure.
• Encounter planning for AD&D 1e is simple as hit dice are an accurate measure of power. In GURPS, the ability to move and attack is maybe the best reflection of power but it is much more difficult to assess and compare (at least it is a challenge for me as a GURPS newbie). While old schoolers often mock the concept of encounter balance, the basic design of an AD&D 1e dungeon is built around it. It is a basic necessity.

I have summed up this comparison as a visual (very much a handwaving exercise):

Hidden in plain sight is the fact that the design of a traditional megadungeon and the most fundamental aspect of AD&D 1e, character advancement, are mirror images of each other. Monte Cook made "Things get more dangerous as you go deeper" is #1 Assumption when creating his Dungeon-A-Day project a few years ago. That is not merely a dungeon design convention, it a reflection of the most intrinsic element of the D&D  game system (regardless of edition). It is really a necessity. 1st level characters have no chance against even the wussiest of creatures on the 10th Level Wandering Monster Table.

AD&D 1e character level advancement (the reflection of power) generally matches the encounter difficulties as one goes deeper in the dungeon because it has to. It is the way the developed and it is the way the game works. 1st level characters may survive an encounter with an angry elder titan, their survival is based on running and avoiding (not that this is a bad thing). My point is that the most basic element of dungeon design, Things get more dangerous as you go deeper, is not just an adventure design approach, it is a reflection of how the game system works.

A dungeon that is actually designed around GURPS can start with different assumptions. To be sure, GURPS characters do advance in ability, but it is their starting point that is the primary determinant to their toughness.  A 250 point character and the GURPS system provides the GM (and the players) with a lot more freedom for encounters than is really possible with AD&D 1e. As a consequence, there can be a lot more variety (and surprises) to dungeon design. GMs do not have to adhere so closely to Things get more dangerous as you deeper.

This is a very elementary conclusion; one that is, in the words of my old physics textbook, "intuitively obvious to the casual observer." There are a lot of the observations that could be made and implications drawn. I am interested to gain a deeper understand and also have the opportunity to actually play GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. I have the thought of tweaking GURPS DF along the lines of my first dungeon experience with the Holmes version of Dungeons & Dragons, at least in terms of class and race, but I am not ready to be a GURPS GM quite yet but I am getting there.

Being the Cool Dad Once Again (Thanks, D&D Next)

I was a playtester during the opening rounds of D&D Next playtesting. It turns out that the best outcome of my D&D Next playtesting is that I am now the Cool Dad among my daughter's college friends (they are the Dr. Who crowd at her university).. I am well aware that the Cool Dad title lasts but a short while. I was the Cool Dad with my son's friends for span of time, thanks to playing in a couple of rock bands. But the coolness wears off quickly when you have to say Read Dad stuff like "Get a job" or "You'll put an eye out" or "Eat all of your brussel sprouts" or "Holy Crap, your girlfriend is hot!" or "The UPS man is your biological father, ask him to cosign your student loan documents." Yes, I know something will happen along the way that will bring shame to my children and I will just be regular Dad again. But I will enjoy the Cool Dad title while it lasts.

Combat Tactics (A GURPS Newbie Post)

Despite the difference in system mechanics, our current GURPS campaign in Rob's Majestic Wilderlands feels very much like our Swords & Wizardry campaign of a few years ago. Same setting, same GM, same players (with a few new additions), and same lousy weather.

GURPS is very different from S&W, yet the gaming sessions feel much the same. That makes it easy for a GURPS newbie like me. I have noticed, however, that GURPS does play differently in combat. Of course, the list of tactical options in GURPS is much greater than in S&W. However, even taking that difference into account, I have noticed a difference that I will illustrate by recounting a recent encounter in the Majestic Wilderlands. But, before I do that, I need to reference a recent post by Patrick at Renovating the Temple.

In his post, "Maintaining Encounter Balance", Patrick notes the following differences between GURPS and AD&D (and, by extension, S&W):

• AD&D is about managing resources (in combat, managing hit points) while GURPS is about managing actions.
• AD&D characters increase in defensive capacity faster than in offensive capacity. In GURPS, characters generally increase in offensive capabilities faster than they do in defensive capacity (I am not sure if that holds true for magic-users).
• In AD&D, one really powerful bad guy is a greater threat than several weaker bad guys. In GURPS, the opposite is generally true.

The above is my summary of Patrick's post and I could be misunderstanding his point, but as I never let facts stop me on this blog, I'll continue.

My epiphany came after reading Patrick's post and thinking about a recent Majestic Wilderlands session involving a fair amount of combat. Our characters are a group of low-powered mercenaries who most recently have been engaged in a series of border raids. As Tim Shorts puts it in a summary of one of our sessions, "Kill the lords, free the slaves." (or, for us, "kill the conquering Scanadians, free the peasants").

In this particularly session, our characters are attacking a small Scanadian manor house at the edge of a small village. The manor offered just enough defensive works to slow us down (low stone fence surrounding it, sturdy stone walls, and stout wooden doors). Our group attacked the few guards we could see posted on the outside of the building. As we overpowered the guards, I (Delvin the dwarf) took a peek over my shoulder to see what was happening in the village. Behind me, I could see about a half dozen armed Scanadians scattered around the village doing whatever Scanadians do in their conquered villages.

At this point, I had to make a tactical decision: Do I dismount and continue with my group on the assault of the manor house or do I turn my horse around and go after as many of the Scanadians in the village as I can get? In S&W (and AD&D), it doesn't really matter which I do, at least from a tactical perspective. I might be worried that a Scanadian will escape and get help, but that is a strategic worry, not a tactical concern. In AD&D, being outnumbered is not good, but it is not usually a significant tactical disadvantage.

In GURPS, however, being outnumbered is a bad thing. Although I didn't really know why at the time, I realized that we could be in big trouble if the Scanadians in the village were able to mount a counter-attack from behind us. Intuitively sensing the danger, Delvin wheeled his horse around and rode down the Scanadians, killing, wounding or scattering them as I traversed the length of the village.

That is one of the things I have come to enjoy about GURPS. Tactics matter in a way that they do not in some other systems.