004. Off to the Printers | New Tools | Is the screen the enemy of the table?

Howdy.

Well, what can I say? I'm pretty excited!

what's new

The playtest period for my new tabletop roleplaying game, The Chaos, is now over. The game is completed, and it's now off to the printers along with the two new encounter decks for The Caverns.

I want to thank absolutely everyone who got involved in the playtest of the new game. All in, the playtest pack was downloaded over 1.5k times, and the feedback I received was instrumental in refining and polishing up the mechanics and look & feel. I've been truly inspired by the amount of interest shown in it, and it really is a testament to the ttrpg community that, when you come up with an idea for something, with a little effort to push yourself off the ground, ultimately you stand a great chance of being carried up on the wings of those happy to support you, to inspire your development, until you land back on your nest with something you have real hope might spread some joy to others.

I love my little game. I can't wait until it's out there!

Although the playtest pdf and the free rules on the website have been getting lapped up, the underlying hope for the game, as it is with all the decks I release, is that it'll end up being something that's pulled from pockets and bags, and spread out on tables across the multiverse, creating utter havoc, and yeah, chaos for everyone who plays it.

What I fear, of course, is that whilst the playtest period's been brilliant, ultimately I lack the marketing skills to ensure that more eyes end up seeing the game. The market out there is pretty saturated, and whilst a card deck ttrpg is fairly unique, I'm up against it. So if anyone has any ideas to help me spread the word, to get the game more into the community consciousness, then please pipe up. You've already given me more support and inspiration than maybe you realise, and I can't thank you enough for that, so let's see how we can drive this forward.

I'll let you know, of course, once the game's out there, and also once the new decks for The Caverns are available.

new tools

As you might've seen on the site as it's developed more in the last few weeks, aside from the random generators already on there which I aim to expand as we go on, I've also worked out the code to sprinkle in some nifty spinning wheels for the likes of mishaps, encounters, wild magicks and the like. Basically just another way to inject chaos into your game. You just click to spin the wheel, and what you end up with is hopefully a spark of inspiration to lead you forward into the next scenarios around the table. Have a look at the site and give them a whirl!

But as I was creating these, something important did cross my mind...

is the screen the enemy of the table?

There's a certain pride in the 'OSR' tradition. The pride of the physical object. The graph-paper dungeon. The dog-eared rulebook. The dice rolling across a wooden table at two in the morning. These things are real, and the feeling they produce is real. Nobody's here to argue otherwise.

But somewhere along the way, I think a false idea might've crept into old-school play: that using a screen at the table is somehow cheating. That reaching for a phone or laptop to roll on a random table, or to pull up a generator, is a betrayal of the spirit of the game. That truly dedicated GMs hand-craft everything in longhand, consult nothing digital, and have the whole of creation committed to memory.

This is, to put it plainly, nonsense. And it's the kind of nonsense worth unpacking, because it can actively make your sessions worse!

what old-school play is actually about

The Chaos ttrpg is inspired by old school play. I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise, but to me, the OSR revival at its core was never really about paper. It was about procedure. About consistent rulings over rules. About the referee as a creative participant rather than a rules arbitrator. About improvisation, surprise, and the genuine unpredictability of play. The dice roll results neither the GM nor the players expected. The wandering monster that turns the whole session on its head.

The pencil-and-paper aesthetic is one expression of those values, not the values themselves. The value is speed. Accessibility. The GM being able to respond to the moment without consulting three different binders. And on that measure, to me a well-designed online tool absolutely serves the spirit of old-school play, because it gets out of the way faster than any printed table.

the real problem with slow resolution

Think about what actually breaks the spell at the table. It's rarely a player's phone. It's the GM flipping through pages looking for the right table. It's the three-minute silence while someone calculates encumbrance. It's the session that grinds to a halt because nobody can remember what the weather generation procedure was.

When a GM has to stop the fiction to consult a reference, there's a cost. That cost is momentum, and momentum is the most precious resource a game session has. Anything that lets you find a result in five seconds instead of forty-five is serving the game, not undermining it.

Online generators, when they are well designed, are the fastest random table in the room. A single tap. An instant result. You read it aloud, you interpret it, you move on. The fiction barely pauses. That is as old-school as it gets.

how to use digital tools without breaking immersion

The concern is legitimate, even if the conclusion is wrong. Nobody wants a GM hunched over a laptop for five minutes while the players sit there waiting. The problem isn't the tool. It's the habit. Here's how to keep a device at the table without it becoming a distraction.

• Front-load the session. Try to use your online generators before you sit down. Maybe spend twenty minutes or so the night before running the encounter tables, rolling up a few rumours, seeding some curiosities. Then, you'll arrive at the table with material and can spend the session presenting it rather than generating it live. The tools do their work in advance; the table time is all play.
• Keep it open and ready. If you're going to use a generator mid-session, have it open before the session starts. Tab open, loaded, waiting. The delay that kills momentum is loading times and searching, not the tool itself. A generator you can reach in two seconds is invisible at the table.
• Read the result aloud immediately. The moment the generator fires, say the result out loud. Don't process it silently, don't stare at the screen. Take the result and run with it verbally. That's the GM's job. The tool gives you the raw material, you give it meaning. This is faster than any printed table because a printed table requires you to find the right page first.
• Treat it like dice. Nobody calls dice a distraction. Nobody says rolling a d6 breaks immersion. A generator is dice with a built-in table. The ceremony of rolling physical dice can stay, absolutely, but if the result of that roll needs to be cross-referenced against a table, a generator that does the cross-referencing instantly is simply faster dice. Frame it in your mind that way.
• Finally, don't let the generator take priority. Remember that it's just a tool. You're playing a game where the narrative and the dice should be held as the most vital elements, and so online generators should merely be an aid to that.

tools built for the chaos

The generators on thechaosttrpg.com were built with exactly this philosophy. They are fast, pointed, and designed to give GMs immediate usable fiction rather than raw numbers to interpret. Some of them simply take the tables that are already there in the game, and condense them so that all you need to do is click a button for the results. Here are a few of the ways they can fit into a table session without disrupting it.

for players too

It's not just GMs who benefit. Players creating characters, rolling traits, or working through the gear and weapons sections can use the online tools to speed up session zero considerably, or where you're mid-session, a character kicks the can, and you need a new one fast without holding up play. The same principle applies: if it would take you ten minutes to work through a table by hand and three seconds to use a generator, the generator is doing you a favour. The character you end up with is no less yours for being produced faster.

Solo players in particular should feel completely liberated here. When you're your own GM, every second spent looking something up is a second of interrupted immersion. A fast generator is the difference between a solo session that flows and one that keeps stalling while you find the right card or page.

the tradition is not the tool

Old-school play inherited its love of physical objects from the era in which it was created, because in the 1970s and 80s, a printed table was the only option. Those tables, those procedures, those habits were adopted not because paper was sacred, but because it was simply what existed. The GMs who built those traditions, and I include myself in that, would have used generators if generators had been available. What they cared about was keeping the game moving, keeping the fiction alive, keeping the players engaged in the moment.

That is what The Chaos is built for: responsive, fast, surprising play, wherever you're sitting. If you're around a table, a device nearby isn't a concession to modernity. It's an extra GM's assistant who never takes up a chair, never needs a drink, never eats all the snacks when you're not looking, and always has the right table ready at exactly the right moment.

So yeah, use the tools. Play faster. That is more old-school, not less.

thanks so much!

for your support & inspiration

Please share the game with all & sundry, spreading The Chaos into every dark corner its flickering torches haven't quite reached. My aim is for the game to grow like an invigorating fungus on the minds of the OSR community and beyond, and I can't thank you enough for being a part of this.

Meantime, if you've not yet joined The Realm discord, here's the link for that, and I look forward to seeing you there! Be sure to let me know any suggestions you have about what to include in the next issue, or about the game itself, and enjoy the rest of your day. :)

Best,

Scott