"Played Og Tonite" Topic

I run a regular roleplaying group, and tonite for something different I tried "Og (Unearthed Edition)". This is the latest incarnation of a 10 year old rolepaying game where you play cavemen, the trick being that your tribe knows only 18 words (which are listed on your playsheet). But then – you, as a caveman, know only about half a dozen of these words. And they're the only words players can use to communicate to each other with!

So the words include big, small, shiny, hairy, thing, rock fire, smelly, bang…… you get the idea… thus a sabretoooth tiger becomes a "Hairy Thing"… a T Rex is a Big Big Smelly Bang Thing".

I'd highly recommend the game, its a cheap pdf at
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What came out out of the game, and the point of this post, was that:

1) using miniatures would be very useful for conflict situations (which are 90% of the situations cavemen end up in)- apart from anything else, it would cut down on the amount of "out of game" talking that went on, like "How far away is the T Rex? can I throw a rock at it?"

and 2), I can see that further down the track my players will want to get into serious wargaming conflicts with other tribes and creatures, and thus this lighthearted roleplaying thing could end up a serious wargaming thing.

To which I say: Og good thing. Games good thing. Tribe bang other tribes with big stick big good thing.

That sounds a pretty fun game. Did the players get penalties for using words not on the word list?

Ooh, that sounds like fun. I may just check it out….

Well, there's no 'official' penalty, its up to the GM to encourage the players to stay in character.. and the players know that its the "fun" premise of the game, and should respond in kind. The main problem I had was that my players did a lot of "out of game" talking to me, as GM, to ascertain information ("How many monkey men are rushing towards us? have I enough time to throw a rock before I run away? Is there anything between me and the nearest tree?" etc….). In a regular rpg, this isn't a problem, in Og, it did dilute the comical effect of speaking as cavemen. And I must take some of the blame for allowing it :)

But it was still a fun game – the other highly amusing aspect of the rules is the fumble – all actions are resolved on 1d6. If you roll a '1', you temporarily forget how to perform the action … with whatever humorous results the GM can come up with. And our game was rife with '1's. For example, the group was being pursued by a pteodactyl trying to retrieve an egg the group had stolen. One of the group decided to hide , and rolled a '1'. As she was in open ground at the time, I decided she was standing there with her arms over her head and eyes closed, thinking she couldn't be seen. Instant pterodactyl bait.

And as i said in my original mail, thats why miniatures would be a good idea for this game. It would cut down on the out of game talking, and help keep the players focused on banging big hairy things.

Sticks and Stones (by Jeff Valent Studios) is a similar miniatures game, with some roll playing aspects. You may be able to use some of the mechanisms from Sticks and Stones in your Og game. One I like is you use your hand to measure distances ranges. Since folks have different sized hands it adds a cool "I evolved with bigger hands and can throw my rock further" factor.

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Jake

My friend Burney is famed for picking his words as various 'official' ones like 'big'… plus 'antidisestablishmentarianism'.

"Since folks have different sized hands it adds a cool "I evolved with bigger hands and can throw my rock further" factor."

Typical. A game that discriminates against us people with small hands ;-)