What I Mean by BLUNT

There’s a blog post I see referenced a lot, Six Cultures of Play by the Retired Adventurer, that taxonomizes TTRPGs into traditions of play. It’s a useful broad look at the history of D&D and related RPGs and makes some interesting points about differences between Classic (early challenge-driven pre Holmes edition in 1977) and how later OSR retroclone games appear similar but often contrast in terms of challenge (balanced escalation vs. PC driven decision making where balance is not a main focus of challenge). I think it is a well written and thoughtful piece providing some definitions for what previously had kind of been nebulous or lumped together under a general OSR-as-not-Wizards-of-the-Coast-D&D umbrella. As the post states, “most individual gamers and groups are a blend of cultures, with that blend realised as an individual style”—these are large-scale trends, not rigid categories.

There is a specific grey area where Classic, Trad, and OSR styles overlap that is the particular niche I really like, and that I feel is lacking a distinct name. I’m not arguing for a seventh culture, but I’d like a term I could use as shorthand for “This module is like Against the Cult of the Reptile God” without needing a paragraph to explain what I mean, or using a term that’s completely useless to someone who hasn’t read it.

Because what I like doesn’t cleanly slot into these categories. It’s not pure dungeon as a challenge Classic. It’s not Trad in the Dragonlance novel railroad. And OSR at this point could mean literally anything from a BX retroclone to a zine that’s just a drawing of a windmill and a note that says “Witch, bone, moon.”

Against the Cult of the Reptile God is a great example. It’s not random rooms with monsters, but it’s not trying to tell a predefined story either. There’s a defined location, inhabited by people with various goals, and a problem. The players can investigate it, ignore it, or end up abducted and fed to an alligator. The cult acts on its goals whether the players are there to see it or not. There’s room for investigation, scheming, exploration, and dying in a flooding dungeon. The module even details the cult’s plans for expanding beyond Orlane, and the possible changes to the local area if the cult is defeated. The module is concerned with the state of the world, but not a personal story arc.

While it overlaps with some OSR stuff, the joke is people can’t even agree what the OSR acronym stands for, let alone what actually fits. (My personal suggestion: Oh Shit! Run!) So it loses the ability to communicate clearly. Some people say OSR and mean high lethality Trad style dungeon crawls. Others mean experimental one page dungeons without much beyond a basic structure and leaving everything up to GM discretion. Some are in it for fairy tale logic, or grimy horror, or just not being 5E. None of this is bad, and I like a lot of it too, but if I say something is OSR I still have to explain what that means. Depending on who you ask, Against the Cult of the Reptile God is a perfect OSR module (because it’s old school, lethal, and open-ended) or not OSR at all (because it’s AD&D, has a plot hook, and named NPCs).

So rather than argue, I am proposing my own term for this specific style: BLUNT.

It’s an acronym for module codes that I think fit this style: B10, L1, U1, N1, T1. But it also sounds like a weed reference, which makes me laugh. It’s not serious, and it’s not a term that already comes with baggage or expectations. It’s just shorthand for the kind of design I like: reactive, textured, and open ended. No deeper theory or rigid classification, just hopefully a term that can convey what I am talking about without needing several clarifying footnotes.