Planning for Mosaic Loose (or table focused play)

 My next campaign is going to be Mosaic Loose. What is Mosaic Loose?

In February of last year Michael Prescott, of Trilemma fame, introduced the idea of Mosaic Strict. Rulesets that are modular, optional, short, attested, independent, and coreless. Right away I was intrigued. The idea of building a “hack” from parts is an idea that I have been obsessed with for some time. 


The problem is that Mosaic Strict is fundamentally a design movement. The points laid out in Prescott’s article all describe how one should go about writing modular rulesets. And while I have recently been experimenting a bit with being a game designer, Mosaic Strict, in particular, seems really hard to write well. 


What really intrigues me about Mosaic Strict is this: 


“Mosaic Strict RPG texts are meant to be used together with other RPG texts…”


“ Each play group will decide for itself which one(s) they are using… There's no central document or required rule at the heart of it all, only free-form play, role-play and whatever assumptions a particular group brings with it…”


“This means that if a bunch of people get together, grab three Mosaic Strict documents (one for being a wizard, one for stealing things, another for driving too fast in a jalopy) but bring along their 5th edition play assumptions and experiences and use a d20 for everything, the criteria of Mosaic Strict have nothing to say about their play experience”


“All play experiences incorporate elements from the players that are not in the rules. Mosaic Strict only applies game texts, not play experiences.”


HELL YEAH!


I don't really want to to join a movement about designing within a framework… I want to play the mosaic!


Luckily for me I'm not alone Liche’s Libram has been putting together their own ruleset taking inspiration from Mosaic Strict that they have dubbed Mosaic Loose. Awesome!


New Year, new me. I run Mosaic Loose now.


So what is Mosaic Loose according to Liche’s Libram?

  • In Mosaic Loose all of the game mechanics are treated as modular rather than core.

  • Mosaic Loose takes inspiration from some parts of the OSR movement specifically GLOG and FKR

  • It’s “rules light, procedure heavy” (I think this comes from Errant)

  • It uses the FKR procedure of “player describes actions → GM describes consequences → player describes actions”


That’s cool! But I want to lay out what I am trying to do with my Mosaic in a bit more detail. This isn’t a manifesto necessarily but you might see me cribbing from some of those sources (EVERYTHING IS MODULAR)


So here are MY tenets of Mosaic Loose play:

  • Play worlds not rules

  • But also system matters (at least a little)

  • And rolling dice is fun

  • Good thing game mechanics are modular

  • Use mechanics that support the shared fiction

  • Remove any mechanics that are not supporting the shared fiction

  • This means that “crunch” and playstyle might vary throughout a campaign or even a session

  • And it’s okay to be inconsistent sometimes

  • Because there is no difference between rulings and rules

  • GMs are game designers

  • And all play is playtesting

  • It is the GMs job to ensure all procedures, mechanics, or rules are clear to their players

  • And to ensure that players should enjoy those procedures, mechanics, and rules

  • This is a high-trust playstyle so communication is key

  • The players need to trust the GM to create the game they want to play

  • And the GM needs to trust the players by allowing them to bring their playstyle with them

  • And listening to their feedback

  • If these criteria are being met then you are playing “correctly”

  • Because the play drives the system rather than the other way around

  • And the best game is the one you like to play the way you like to play it


Basically I just want to be free of trying to follow a specific system. I want to work together as a table to determine what is fun for us. I want to design games without having to be a game designer. I don’t want to buy more books that make more promises, I want to just let it happen.


That is the experiment.


Comments

  1. Magic MagpieDecember 31, 2021 at 1:22 PM

    This is awesome! I am very much looking forward to trying this out, soon I hope. The more I think about games, the more I realize that communication is the number one rule. To that end, using Stars and Wishes can be a big plus here. Great write-up!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The OblidisideryptchDecember 31, 2021 at 7:38 PM

    Excellent elucidation.

    ReplyDelete

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