- 08 Dec, 2025 *
Discussion on Discord about just writing your ideas down has prompted me to get back to this post. I started writing it before in browser, got logged out and lost my progress, but there’s not much to it so here we are.
"Skills" in OSR games
I will be deftly sidestepping the question of the Thief, whether it was a good idea, and how it can be fixed. OSR systems have pretty much always had universal skill resolution mechanics, people just didn’t want to admit it for a while (some still don’t). Systems that aren’t directly based on B/X usually have "skill" systems, most commonly based around a "d20, roll under stat" method. Some of these games don’t have actual lists of skills, but to me stat check…
- 08 Dec, 2025 *
Discussion on Discord about just writing your ideas down has prompted me to get back to this post. I started writing it before in browser, got logged out and lost my progress, but there’s not much to it so here we are.
"Skills" in OSR games
I will be deftly sidestepping the question of the Thief, whether it was a good idea, and how it can be fixed. OSR systems have pretty much always had universal skill resolution mechanics, people just didn’t want to admit it for a while (some still don’t). Systems that aren’t directly based on B/X usually have "skill" systems, most commonly based around a "d20, roll under stat" method. Some of these games don’t have actual lists of skills, but to me stat checks fulfill the same purpose and therefore are still skill systems, sorry Yochai.
One of the difficulties that arises in trad style games as well as OSR games is the skill check that results in dissonance between player knowledge and character knowledge, these can be literal knowledge rolls which provide character knowledge unknown to the player (or indeed the Referee), or rolls that give the player knowledge of their success before consequences inform the character: bluffing and other social rolls, perception rolls, and stealth rolls.
Meta-Knowledge Skill Checks
A lot of digital ink has been spilled on the topic of perception rolls(see, all 4 of Rowan’s OSR principles sources), I’ll just say "I think they’re bad and you shouldn’t use them."
Social rolls often don’t factor into OSR play outside of the perfect thing that is the reaction roll. I prefer this. If a PC lies to Brandon Oatley Sheriff of Bingham, unless he’s particularly incredulous, I’ll just let it ride until the Brandon would naturally discover the truth. Maybe I’ll make a d6 luck roll and have Brandon be suspicious on a 4-5 and have contradictory information on a 6.
Which brings us to stealth rolls
Stealth Rolls?
There are a lot of situations where a PC will want to sneak through an area unnoticed, or ambush some enemies, or hide behind a barrel. What happens when a player makes a roll to determine success of their skullduggery and fails? If there are immediate consequences they simply happen, the character is spotted the ambush fails. What if there are no immediate consequences? Here are some solutions
- Trust your player to make the right decision. Either they’ll play out the character doing the action and failing, or they’ll play out the character realizing they won’t be successful and change tactics. This gives your player the opportunity to play the game in whatever way is most fun for them.
- Use the Mothership method: there are no rolls for stealth, the player describes the action they take and you make a ruling based on context.
- Or the method that I like to think provides maximum tension:
The player doesn’t roll until there are consequences. They say they’re sneaking. You say "OK, your sneaking." Perhaps there’s no one around, no roll needed. Say they round a corner and an ogre stands guard, now they must roll. The stakes are completely transparent, the drama is high, play isn’t interrupted by hemming and hawing over alternate approaches skulking. No unnecessary rolls are made. There’s a good chance that this already occurred to you, or you came across the method somewhere else (I’m sure I’ve stolen it without remembering), but if it hasn’t you should give it a try, I think you’ll like it.