Merchants, Looters & Ghosts is a collection of influences and ideas about adventure games. D&D, TTRPGs, RPGs, adventure games—whatever you call them, I'm interested in creative, dynamic games that encourage me to use imagination. The OSR and its related communities emerged in response to modern versions of Dungeons & Dragons. In contrast to heroic, high fantasy (or, at least, superheroic) design, the OSR emphasizes themes of morality, exploration, emergent storytelling, problem-solving, and critical thinking.
My blog is named after an entry from the soundtrack of a 21-year-old video game. Eve Online is an online space game, where players are immortal beings in a shared universe. If you’ve heard about it in the media, you probably heard of vast battles or deep treachery between its players. The notion of conflict and risk—what you're willing to tolerate—has been the game's essence, and it informs players’ motivations, goals, and engagement with the persistent world. My interest in the OSR mirrors this. "Merchants, Looters and Ghosts" captures the feeling I want to evoke in my writing.
I want to digest the myriad of resources within the OSR and NSR as I work on an idea for a setting that has remained with me since 2010. The blog might help a project emerge from fits and starts. Maybe it could be inspiring to or gameable for you?
The Idea
The supernatural frays reality’s edges. Survivors of apocalypse, PCs are adventurers tempting fate amid the world’s ruins; they search for something that can only be found in the new wilderness. Who they are, encounter, and become shapes what this new world means.
The genre is somewhere between speculative historical fiction and low fantasy. The setting inspired by Mediterranean and Balkan countries where the events of the 1300s—war, plague, and famine—are condensed and exaggerated. West Marches meets ravaged settlements and barren hinterlands, where humans are the monsters.
In creating this setting, my challenge is to
generate ideas beyond endless bandit encounters and incorporate
social interactions to the idea of "wilderness." Similarly, how I weave in the finest threads of the supernatural in a "realistic" world is crucial. I've found myself reacting negatively to most tropes of fantasy, so I wanted to explore what something else might look like. I expect that it'll help me appreciate the expected fantasy trappings—and help me use them to greater effect!
This blog will help organize that journey of discovery and, I hope, build my confidence as I do so. I'm searching for something that is in the landscape of my mind, so I should get comfortable with the wilderness.
