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Bat in the Attic
A blog on 40 years of gaming and Sandbox Fantasy.Robert Conleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863009007381185340noreply@blogger.comBlogger1515125
Updated: 1 week 2 hours ago
Rulings, Not Rules: A Foundation, Not an Oversight
There's been a lot of discussion over the years about how Original Dungeons & Dragons handled (or didn't handle) the common situations you'd expect in a tabletop role-playing campaign. Things like jumping a chasm, climbing a wall, or fast-talking a city guard. The critique often boils down to: OD&D wasn't complete, it left too much out.
What people forget is that Gygax wasn't writing OD&D for newcomers to gaming. He was writing for the early '70s wargaming community, people already creating their own scenarios, modifying rules, and running campaigns. His audience wasn't looking for a complete, airtight system with exhaustive coverage. They wanted a framework they could expand on, the kind of framework that would let them run the campaigns they'd heard about, like Blackmoor or Greyhawk.
That mindset shaped the game. Gygax and Arneson distilled what worked in their campaigns into OD&D, trusting referees to fill in the rest. What they didn't anticipate was how quickly the hobby would grow beyond that core group, or how differently newer players would approach rules and systems.
"Rulings, Not Rules" Is a Design PhilosophyWhen people talk about "rulings, not rules," they sometimes frame it like it's a patch, something you do because the game didn't cover enough. I don't see it that way. I see it as a deliberate design choice.
A campaign that starts with just a dungeon and a village isn't "incomplete." It's a starting point. The assumption was that the referee and players would build outward together. The game wasn't meant to hand you a world fully realized and mechanized; it was meant to give you a structure for making your own.
OD&D Worked Because of the GapsBy modern standards, OD&D has "gaps." But those gaps weren't always accidental. They existed because Gygax knew his readers already had the habits and mindset to fill them. Wargaming referees knew how to adjudicate oddball situations, because that's what they'd been doing for years on their sand tables.
What looks like an omission today was often just a silent assumption: "Of course the referee will handle that."
That's why OD&D led to so many variant campaigns. There was no ur-text, no canon, it was a culture of iteration. Try something, tweak it, keep what works. That was the DNA of the early hobby.
The Problem When the Hobby GrewThis is where things broke down. OD&D didn't teach the process of making rulings. Once the game spread beyond wargamers, that missing guidance became a real issue.
Take the example of jumping a chasm. A wargaming referee in 1974 might've looked up Olympic jump distances, considered the character's stats, the gear they were carrying, the terrain, and improvised a ruling from that. That was normal.
But for a brand-new player or referee in 1977? That same situation could turn into a frustrating dead end. There wasn't a shared framework for how to think through it, so rulings felt arbitrary, or worse, like pulling numbers out of thin air.
Coaching and GuidanceThe early hobby would have been better served by teaching how to make rulings, not just listing rules. Coaching newcomers through the process of handling novel situations and coming up with rulings, both in general, and using the designer's own mechanics, would have gone a long way.
It's not difficult to do, and it doesn't undermine the open-ended style that made early D&D so creative. In my Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG, I wrote a chapter, "When to Make a Ruling," to address this very issue using the mechanics of the Majestic Fantasy RPG. I plan to expand on this and more when I finish the full version.
The Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG
Rulings Are Not a Stopgap, They're the PointHobbyists aren't wrong for wanting more structure. Games like GURPS, Fate, Burning Wheel, or Mythras provide extensive out-of-the-box support, and that's valuable.
But here's the truth: even those systems eventually run into edge cases, a weird situation, a new setting, or something the rules don't cover. When that happens, you need the same tool OD&D assumed from day one: the ability to make a ruling.
And that's why "rulings, not rules" isn't just a slogan or an excuse for missing content. It's the foundation of how tabletop roleplaying was intended to work.
What we need going forward is more coaching and less telling from designers. Hand a referee a Difficulty Class, and they have what they need for that one situation. Teach them how to craft rulings along with Difficulty Classes, and they’ll have a skill they can apply to every campaign they run from that day forward.
Because rules give you tools, but rulings give you craft, and that craft is what makes tabletop roleplaying campaigns truly come alive.
What people forget is that Gygax wasn't writing OD&D for newcomers to gaming. He was writing for the early '70s wargaming community, people already creating their own scenarios, modifying rules, and running campaigns. His audience wasn't looking for a complete, airtight system with exhaustive coverage. They wanted a framework they could expand on, the kind of framework that would let them run the campaigns they'd heard about, like Blackmoor or Greyhawk.
That mindset shaped the game. Gygax and Arneson distilled what worked in their campaigns into OD&D, trusting referees to fill in the rest. What they didn't anticipate was how quickly the hobby would grow beyond that core group, or how differently newer players would approach rules and systems.
"Rulings, Not Rules" Is a Design PhilosophyWhen people talk about "rulings, not rules," they sometimes frame it like it's a patch, something you do because the game didn't cover enough. I don't see it that way. I see it as a deliberate design choice.
A campaign that starts with just a dungeon and a village isn't "incomplete." It's a starting point. The assumption was that the referee and players would build outward together. The game wasn't meant to hand you a world fully realized and mechanized; it was meant to give you a structure for making your own.
OD&D Worked Because of the GapsBy modern standards, OD&D has "gaps." But those gaps weren't always accidental. They existed because Gygax knew his readers already had the habits and mindset to fill them. Wargaming referees knew how to adjudicate oddball situations, because that's what they'd been doing for years on their sand tables.
What looks like an omission today was often just a silent assumption: "Of course the referee will handle that."
That's why OD&D led to so many variant campaigns. There was no ur-text, no canon, it was a culture of iteration. Try something, tweak it, keep what works. That was the DNA of the early hobby.
The Problem When the Hobby GrewThis is where things broke down. OD&D didn't teach the process of making rulings. Once the game spread beyond wargamers, that missing guidance became a real issue.
Take the example of jumping a chasm. A wargaming referee in 1974 might've looked up Olympic jump distances, considered the character's stats, the gear they were carrying, the terrain, and improvised a ruling from that. That was normal.
But for a brand-new player or referee in 1977? That same situation could turn into a frustrating dead end. There wasn't a shared framework for how to think through it, so rulings felt arbitrary, or worse, like pulling numbers out of thin air.
Coaching and GuidanceThe early hobby would have been better served by teaching how to make rulings, not just listing rules. Coaching newcomers through the process of handling novel situations and coming up with rulings, both in general, and using the designer's own mechanics, would have gone a long way.
It's not difficult to do, and it doesn't undermine the open-ended style that made early D&D so creative. In my Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG, I wrote a chapter, "When to Make a Ruling," to address this very issue using the mechanics of the Majestic Fantasy RPG. I plan to expand on this and more when I finish the full version.
The Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG
Rulings Are Not a Stopgap, They're the PointHobbyists aren't wrong for wanting more structure. Games like GURPS, Fate, Burning Wheel, or Mythras provide extensive out-of-the-box support, and that's valuable.
But here's the truth: even those systems eventually run into edge cases, a weird situation, a new setting, or something the rules don't cover. When that happens, you need the same tool OD&D assumed from day one: the ability to make a ruling.
And that's why "rulings, not rules" isn't just a slogan or an excuse for missing content. It's the foundation of how tabletop roleplaying was intended to work.
What we need going forward is more coaching and less telling from designers. Hand a referee a Difficulty Class, and they have what they need for that one situation. Teach them how to craft rulings along with Difficulty Classes, and they’ll have a skill they can apply to every campaign they run from that day forward.
Because rules give you tools, but rulings give you craft, and that craft is what makes tabletop roleplaying campaigns truly come alive.
Categories: Tabletop Gaming Blogs
Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms, Last Day!
My Kickstarter for Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: the Northern Marches is now in its last day!
Random Party GeneraterEverybody invited to tonight's Random Party Generator when the kickstarter will end at 10pm Eastern Daylight.
Random Party Generator Link
Overview
Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: Northern Marches is built from the ground up for sandbox play. It’s a fully detailed hexcrawl formatted setting with dozens of lairs, dungeons, and adventure hooks, designed not just to be read, but played. Every location, encounter, and faction was refined through actual campaigns using classic rulesets, then polished for publication. Whether you’re running Swords & Wizardry, Shadowdark, AD&D, Old School Essentials, GURPS, or adapting for 5E, you’ll find the Northern Marches easy to run and rich with potential. It’s a World In Motion, where player choices matter and nothing stays static.
So far, I have released 5 previews covering the major regions of the Northern Marches.
Preview #1
Preview #2
Preview #3
Preview #4
Preview #5
This isn’t just another fantasy setting; it’s a tested framework for long-term play, a living world that supports real agency. I’ve built this to help referees run the kind of open-ended campaigns I’ve run for decades. If you want a setting where exploration matters, choices have consequences, and players carve their own path through the unknown, then Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: Northern Marches is ready. Back it now and make this sandbox setting yours.
Categories: Tabletop Gaming Blogs
Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms, Final Three Days
My Kickstarter for Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: the Northern Marches is now in its last three days.
Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: Northern Marches is built from the ground up for sandbox play. It’s a fully detailed hexcrawl formatted setting with dozens of lairs, dungeons, and adventure hooks, designed not just to be read, but played. Every location, encounter, and faction was refined through actual campaigns using classic rulesets, then polished for publication. Whether you’re running Swords & Wizardry, Shadowdark, AD&D, Old School Essentials, GURPS, or adapting for 5E, you’ll find the Northern Marches easy to run and rich with potential. It’s a World In Motion, where player choices matter and nothing stays static.
So far, I have released 5 previews covering the major regions of the Northern Marches.
Preview #1
Preview #2
Preview #3
Preview #4
Preview #5
This isn’t just another fantasy setting; it’s a tested framework for long-term play, a living world that supports real agency. I’ve built this to help referees run the kind of open-ended campaigns I’ve run for decades. If you want a setting where exploration matters, choices have consequences, and players carve their own path through the unknown, then Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: Northern Marches is ready. Back it now and make this sandbox setting yours.
Categories: Tabletop Gaming Blogs
The Old School Renaissance
Debates about what the OSR is have been going on since at least the late 2000s. Lately I seen more rounds of discussion on this topic on various forums and on youtube like this panel discussion.
What sets the OSR apart, from the beginning, is that, unlike most corners of the hobby, it hasn’t been driven by a single author, company, or creative vision. While it grew from interest in out-of-print editions of D&D, its creative output quickly became rooted in open content under open licenses. That foundation created not a canon, but a commons.
And from that commons emerged a kaleidoscope of creative visions: rulesets, zines, hacks, adventures, philosophies, and play styles. The movement thrived not because it had a unified voice, but because it didn’t. It was, and remains, a productive chaos of competing, overlapping, and deeply personal creative visions.
Digital publishing supercharged this. The barriers to creating and distributing game content collapsed. Suddenly, anyone with the time and drive could turn their vision into a PDF, a print-on-demand book, a boxed set, or a full-blown system, no approvals required.
The OSR is shaped daily by those who publish, those who share, those who play, and those who promote. You can see just one slice of this activity on DriveThruRPG, with nearly 15,000 titles tagged OSR. Itch.io adds another 5,000+ projects under the same banner, each one a different take on what an “old school renaissance” can mean.
Many have tried to define the OSR. All of them fail, because definition implies boundaries, and the OSR has none that aren’t self-imposed. At its core, the OSR is an invitation. If you have the interest, the ideas, and the willingness to build, then it’s yours.
That’s the point. The OSR is what you make of it.
Categories: Tabletop Gaming Blogs
Into the The Majestic Fantasy Realms: The Northern Marches is now Live
I'm excited to announce the launch of Kickstarter Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: the Northern Marches
A Sandbox Fantasy Setting
What if your players could shape a world that remembers them?
From the frostbitten ruins of the Wild North to the magical storms of the Ring Islands, The Northern Marches is a massive sandbox setting built for classic fantasy play.
Created by Robert Conley, the author of Blackmarsh, How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox, and Points of Light, this 200-page hexcrawl expands Blackmarsh into the Northern Marches and briefly describes the larger world of the Majestic Fantasy Realms for the first time. With new lands, factions, mysteries, and rules for overland, sea, and underwater travel.
For the Table of Contents and a Preview, please click on this link.
This Kickstarter will fund:
- A 200-page guidebook
- A travel and encounter system
- 5 referee maps (12"x18")
- 5 player maps (12”x 18”)
- A Creative Commons SRD for open use.
Explore. Discover. Change the world!
Find Adventure in the Majestic Fantasy Realms and the Northern Marches.
Categories: Tabletop Gaming Blogs