Old-School Existential
A downloadable game
This project is submitted for "You Cannot Play This TTRPG Jam" by Michelle Jones on the itch.io page. It is a TTRPG game jam where the game itself will never exist and never be playable.
This book is created based on existentialism philosophy (nihilism, existentialism, and absurdism). The rules/guides from this book have no inherent identity or values. The game itself simply exists, without any clear essence of how TTRPG/TRPG should be played.
It means to agree/disagree with every game design playstyle, cultures of play, or any playstyle taxonomy.
- Cater to all playstyles; Trad, Neo-Trad, Storytelling, OSR/NSR, etc.
- Can be crunchy, complex or rules-lite.
- Rules that can simulate the fantasy world one-to-one with the real-world values according to existential philosophy.
- Can be played with dice or diceless mechanics.
- Can be authorial or non-authorial.
- Can be a problem-solving game or story-telling, or both.
- 130 pages that contains nothing but a page number.
Created By: Tevin Dean Ramadhan
FAQ
What can I do with this game?
The world has no meaning after all. You can either define, make, and invent whatever you want or just gaze into the nothingness with your friends and have an existential crisis
Why are the features not the same as the game?
Well. It's mainly for marketing purposes. There's no real meaning in those features after all.
Why does the game itself costs $80, even if I can download it for free?
Sarcastic and capitalistic. If you buy the game, then add consumeristic to the list.
Would there be any third-party licenses or incorporations?
No. there never will be.
Why did you bother making or playing this?
Why did you bother living at all, if life itself has no meaning?
Creator's Note
Inspired by
Various online discourses about "my playstyle is better than yours"
Philosophical inspiration
Myth of Sisyphus, Existential is Humanism, Metamorphosis, The Stranger, etc.
The REAL inspiration
The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of "Writer's Block" by Dennis Upper
So, no rules or mechanics?
Yes, create it yourself; or you can, as Camus described it, commit a "philosophical suicide" by incorporating other rules (e.g., rulebooks, hacks, homebrew, and article from the TTRPG blogosphere) into the page.
If you follow my advice, then you are also committing a philosophical suicide because you believe in my own personal beliefs on how this game should be played.
⚠ Content Disclaimer
This work is not associated with or endorsed by Necrotic Gnome or related to Old-School Essentials. But we recommend you to check them out anyway: Old School Essential (OSE)
Download
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