What would an OSR video game look like?

This post is primarily the result of a long hot shower.

Anyway...

This is entirely based on my understanding of OSR principals and design. Feel free to disagree. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. I also have no idea how to make videogames so this is just theory-crafting.

From Elder Scrolls Online

Big Idea:

Let's make an rpg videogame using OSR principals. A lot of OSR design easily cross-applies to video games though it will demand a few changes. We are looking to create a game like Skyrim: a first-person rpg, though in our case we want it to be optionally multiplayer. So what design principals/ ideas cross-apply?

• Deadly Combat
• Gold to XP
• Noncombat Problem Solving
• Tight Design
• Emergent Narrative

Deadly Combat:

I'm thinking Chrivarly. You could do skill-based combat where fighting multiple enemies is a pretty hard thing to do. Death is pretty immediate. You can get good at this combat system if you like and pursue problem-solving that way, and this will be possible through the Fighter Advancement Branch, but Combat will not ever be strong enough to not use some kind of strategy, combat-based or otherwise, because it will be very easy to die.

Gold to XP:

With combat nerfed, the importance of gold to xp is amplified. The point of defeating obstacles will be to get gold and take that to the town trainers to get them to level you up on one of the four advancement trees: Fighter, Thief, Wizard, or Cleric. You can mix and match these as desired. People will naturally tend towards specialization when more than one person is playing but the single-player experience will require people to build as they like so a single person playing the game doesn't get locked down in a class that is not useful for their situation.

As per usual what Gold to XP does is that it encourages problem-solving over bashing your way through enemies. There will be many ways to approach interactions with enemies even perhaps to make them friends so combat will just be one tool out of many.

These advancement trees would give more tools to solve problems rather than just stacking up DPS, although the Fighter will naturally have some of that, as will the Thief for Sneak Attack. I figure a good Fighter power would be able to know the stats of a creature when you look at them, the more a Fighter levels up their Tactical Eye, the more they know about the creatures they are fighting just at a glance which will be a huge benefit to their allies.

The Thief could also advance Deception so that they could have dialogue options that others don't. Fighters could learn the language or parlay for humanoids. Wizards could know command words for extra-planar entities so they would have more dialogue options for demons and whatnot.

Noncombat Problem Solving:

You ought to be able to talk to anything. In a world full of magic why not just be able to chat with all monsters? There might be a few that just attack but there ought to be ways of being able to make them talk as well.

Gold to XP means that even if you aren't going to talk to enemies and be their friends then tricking them or getting around them ought to be an available option. To this end, I think it would be helpful to have more interactions options featuring the hands of the character. Walking into a possible combat situation? Raise up your hands in a gesture of peace. If you have weapons out and at the ready, NPCs ought to react to you differently than when you have them sheathed. Tossing a rock ought to make noise that enemies have to go and look at. You ought to be able to hold a ten-foot pole and poke at things from a distance. You ought to be able to yell if you like whenever to attract enemies or call out for surrender or that you surrender. Interactions with objects and enemies ought to be the priority. A physics-based game engine would be good for this.

Learning about enemies by asking about them in town or traveling to meet people that ight know about them ought to be crucial. These could unlock dialogue options or reveal weaknesses that the player could use to their advantage. A light crafting systems would be good to be able to use like holy water or garlic oil on your weapons to face enemies that might be vulnerable. Simply holding items could scare creatures like in Hellboy where the Troll is scared of the canary. Holding a holy symbol ought to sting the undead. That sort of thing.

Tight Design: 

This ought to not be that big of a game. Lot's of games have these sprawling worlds but they are empty just like how lots of mainstream rpg books have so so so many words but very little of any use. We want a compact open world where at every step along the way, there should be new things to discover. This will cut back on realism but it will be so much more fun than some of the walking simulators that we get. This map should be just a single region, not even an entire continent. I'm thinking a single town surrounded by some forests with lots of overworld encounters and things to discover, a fair few small adventure locations, a handful of small dungeons, and then one or two really big multi-level dungeons

The big dungeons ought to have secret entrances that could be found across the map so that understanding the dungeon can begin to happen as the player begins to prepare themselves for the endgame.

Emergent Narrative:

There is no right way to go, no main story, no exposition dumps. Make your own story. The first NPC you meet, if you want to talk to them ought to be a trainer. They say: "Ho ho ho traveler, welcome to our town! You've arrived at a bad time. There are monsters besieging us from the forest. I hear some ancient tombs have opened and now they are abominations on the loose. They also say there is gold in those places for those brave enough to claim it. Say, if you should ever come across some, bring it here. I was an adventurer back in my day, and I can show you the ropes for a fee."

Short simple and sweet. It tells you everything you need to know. This guy is a trainer, bring him gold to level up. There are monsters. They have gold. Get it and you can level up. Why are you here in this town? Where do you come from? Have your headcanon if you want but the game doesn't care.

There can be lore, but the lore is something you opt into trying to understand rather than being forced upon you by obnoxious cutscenes. Read the books if you want to. The story can also be easily implied by game environments which reward players looking for it with clues about the backstory. That or go watch a Vaati Vidya video, whatever.

There's no grand quest, your journey is your own do with it what you will.

So anyway, that's the idea for a game. I would play it, that much I can tell you. I think a lot of people would love this kind of game, but the industry is in love with big stories and cinematic moments. For someone like me, the great part about a fantasy world is getting lost in it and discovering it for myself and handholding games that try to push their story on you are just getting to be obnoxious. Minecraft's popularity owes in large part to its absolute openness. No one tells you what to do or how to play. It is a process of discovery and exploration and people love it. 

Create a hand-crafted world and let people do whatever they want in it and you will make a game that people really love.