I work to keep the setting consistent and play situations very much anchored in that setting. That puts me on the contiguous world end of operations. With that said, I think the use of dramatic tools to raise the feel of stakes in the game are useful, too. The questions I wrestle with involve how to present the use of dramatic tools while keeping play firmly grounded; I think I can do it at my table, yet I’m not certain I can explain it well via gamebook text.
My inclination stems from long ago discussions on Usenet. On rec.games.frp.advocacy, we hashed out the Threefold Theory –gamism, simulation, dramatism* – that focused on why decisions were made in play; the same decision could be motivated by different concerns. Most of my decisions at the table, as GM, are made for reasons of simulation or game. I’m not opposed to choices made for drama, certainly, I just don’t often choose for that reason.
So, I guess I’m trying to find my way into space more towards the middle of that range, a place where the setting remains the foundation for everything while dramatic moments can be in the spotlight as they crop up via serendipity of play. Still no plotted story, just dramatic tools applied to moments of play on the fly. The tools are based in GM narrative and operations instead of in player-side mechanics, as I still limit player influence on play to PC actions.
This, I think is one of the things that keeps me staunchly in classic style play instead of hopping into the OSR camp wholesale. What I design is not OSR (nor NSR), though those players should find a lot in common, and I find explaining the finer points of playstyle to be challenging.
*It’s my belief that Edwards read some of the discussion, didn’t understand the whole of it, and then spewed the GNS mess found on the Forge.
I really appreciated this post. It nails how fragmented the scene feels, with all these “pockets of reality” where people experience the hobby in completely different ways. In my own little pocket, the NSR label barely registers. I’m probably one of the few people actually using the term, mostly because I find it a clean way to describe anything that meaningfully diverges from classic D&D assumptions. To me, the most exciting parts of the OSR tradition actually live in what I’d call NSR territory. I’m just not that interested in D&D itself anymore.
That said, I’m still an OSR heretic by most standards: I almost always bend games toward a more narrative approach. Characters matter a lot in my games; immersion is the goal. I don’t want players feeling weak, useless, or expendable. At the same time, I cling to the rest of the OSR ethos that resonates with me: high player agency, true sandboxes, rules as tools not tyrants, prepping situations/scenarios instead of plotting stories, etc.
So yeah, this rambling is mostly to echo your point: there are probably as many distinct play cultures as there are GMs. Even the “D&D players” aren’t nearly as monolithic as online discourse sometimes paints them. Everyone’s running their own contiguous world (or window, or something in between), and that’s what keeps the hobby alive and weird.