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The OSR and the struggle for power

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I. The unstated assumption at the core of the OSR is that the PCs are engaged in a struggle for power; or, to put it another way, the players' goal is to dominate the fictional setting in which the game takes place. I think this is fairly obvious to people at the micro-level; players understand that moment-to-moment dungeon-crawling is about killing monsters, taking their stuff, and in that sense "taking power" over the dungeon. But the macro-level, faction play, also depends on the assumption that PCs are struggling for power. We stack up factions in opposition to each other so that PCs can tip the balance one way or the other and hope to come out on top of the new social situation that results. You can dress up the struggle for power in nicer clothes — the PCs want power to help the innocent townsfolk, or they need money to pay off a colossal debt — but, at the bottom, you’re still indulging in the same power fantasy. II. In the early, massively-multiplayer days of Blac...