The Answer is Not on the Character Sheet

Player Skill and Character Skill
There are two types of character record sheets in the hobby of role-playing games.  The oldest, White Box and OSR type sheets have very little information on the character sheet, often just Name, Class, Level, Ability Scores (six), Hit Points, Armor Class, Alignment, Saving Throws, and equipment including a list of spells if appropriate and can fit on an index card. Newer game sheets may also include a whole list of skills, feats, special abilities and things the character may do which often sets them apart from other characters who have a whole list of different things they can do.
White Box and all other RPGs are basically a conversation between the referee running the world and players who control the movers and shakers - the player characters whose adventures make up the stuff of the stories being collaboratively created at the table through play. The referee (who goes by many different names depending on the system used) describes the situation and the players say what their characters will do. Dice are used to determine the outcome of any risky action which may result in significantly altering the situation.
When that question comes from the referee, "What do you do?" - meaning what would you like your character to do? - where does the player look for answers? In White Box the answer is not on the character sheet, so the player may have to ask questions to know additional information such as details of the surroundings so as to generate ideas regarding a creative solution or course of action. The player may draw upon their own experiences, things they have read about or seen in cinema. They may "talk among themselves" if in-game time allows. Looking at the character sheet will only tell them what equipment they have which may be useful if creatively employed. There are few other answers on that sheet of paper, however...maybe a utilitarian magic spell if they are lucky. In general the White Box player must rely on skill and information to address an in-game dilemma.
What about the player equipped with a detailed, multi-page character sheet with lists of special abilities which may or may not be useful in this particular situation? The player so equipped may spend considerable time pouring over their sheet, looking for a skill or ability which seems to promise a positive outcome if used successfully. What if none of their character's specialties seem to apply? It is easy to conclude, "There is nothing I (meaning my character) can do." That long list of skills, feats and special abilities may suggest to the player that if something does not appear on the character sheet, it would be outside the realm of possibility for their character, but play doesn't need to be that way. In an Old School game such limiting thoughts could not be further from the truth.
The fact that White Box places so few answers on its brief character sheet suggests there are lots of things the character can do competently which are not listed, written down or maybe thought of yet. It is left to the player to do the thinking. Can the referee running the game with lengthy multi-page character sheets not also make the statement, "Don't assume that if it doesn't appear on your sheet, that you cannot do a thing.  Many of your character's abilities are not written down. Now, what would you like to do?"
We may be in agreement so far, but what if you find a listed skill or special ability seems to perfectly fit the in-game situation, such as Find and Remove Traps? A roll of the die produces a success or a failure. Perhaps the referee requires two separate rolls against the success of the skill, one to locate and another to bypass said trap. Quick, simple application of a character feature...and boring game play.
Without the listed skill Find and Remove Traps a player may still state, "I (my character) is looking for a trap." The referee rightly asks, "How do you go about this?" The player may give a number of detailed actions the character may perform such as tapping the floor ahead with a pole, running the pole back and forth along the floor in front of them, occasionally swinging it up through the air in the space ahead so as to contact any trip wires. The referee may tell the player, "The floor ahead sounds hollow - there may be trap. What do you do?" The player may describe any of a number of  possible attempts to get around the trap, harmlessly spring it or disarm it. The solution will frequently require a number of questions by both parties and perhaps a die roll. This is how trap finding was done prior to the introduction of the Thief Class.
Does this "talking it through" approach take longer than a die roll or two? Does it add anything useful to your game? I suppose each of us must answer these questions according to our own preferences, but it does mark a significantly different way of playing the game.

Getting Lost in a World

...Not Your Character
I am a fan of fantastic settings, fictional worlds of magic and wonder - the kinds that are encountered while reading adventure stories. Names like Lankhmar, Gondor and Bree, Zamora and Aquilonia, Barsoom, Tekumel, and even Arkham draw pictures on my imagination and fill my head with possible stories. I can easily lose my self in any of these imaginary places described as settings by various authors I have read and re-read.
White Box is a tool to explore the wondrous worlds of make-believe and adds an extra dimension to the term escapist entertainment. Using White Box and similar "games", we may further explore the fantastic places read about, or invent new ones, all the while taking part in imaginary adventures, often of a heroic nature. We can make our own stories set in these wonderful places of fancy where things can be very different from reality. For a time we can immerse ourselves in the imaginary world and escape our real situation, perhaps even pretending to be someone we are not - the hero of the story?
It is customary for one to play the role of a character in White Box and other RPGs - that is somebody imaginary, rather than to just play oneself. To take on the role of a protagonist native to the imaginary world or setting is part of the fun for which the game is designed. The challenge is to try to think like this someone else, this alien person, "not you", and to be entertained by the process of how well you can do so.
How the player's character is generated can influence how the player thinks about their character. Many games take a detailed approach to character generation, one which involves many steps and results in a character sheet full of data. This can be accomplished through optimized point-buy or by making decisions based on a pre-conceived idea of what type of character you would like to play or even random rolls of the die, allowing fate to determine details while embracing the challenge to play what you are given. Some character generation involves developing a backstory so that much is already known about the fictional game pawn before play begins - or did play effectively begin with character generation?
The goal of most games, RPGs included, is to have fun and be entertained. To this end I find the setting is more important to the game than the individual characters. The story which develops during play, which is born of the setting and situation as described by the referee, and given life through the decisions and dialogue of the various players through the characters they control, and with fate or chance being accounted for in the form of dice rolls, is often on par with the best written fiction, cinema or theater. It is full of surprises, humor and tension. Conflicts may arise and outcomes change the course of the world's future, for good or bad. At the end of the day, however, it is escapist entertainment and we can walk away from it, returning to our real lives. Through memory and talking about the story of our game, however, we may revisit these fictional events even while making our imaginary world seem a little more real.
It remains a game, and what the game is not is a way to explore what it would be like to be an elf, or a wizard or any other character used to play the game. There really is nothing I see to be gained from identifying with one's in-game character. Putting your own hopes and dreams, emotions and beliefs into the imaginary game pawn, a pawn designed as a tool to let you explore an imaginary setting, is in fact a distraction from allowing your mind to be fully entertained by the game and its emergent story. The story isn't about you, or me, it's about an imaginary place and some imaginary beings.
This is one of the reasons I prefer White Box and the OSR style games - they have simple character builds which require a minimum of character generation decisions on the part of the player. Decisions are reserved for what the characters will do during play. Who the character is and what makes them special can emerge through play and be a surprise to all. It also makes the character easier to replace when the fates of the dice, or bad decisions regarding risk, results in character death...a game event which itself can add to the story rather than detract from it.
So the next time we play our favorite version of the RPG, I propose we get lost in the world - immerse ourselves in the story, much as we would while watching a good film or play. Try to think about the character we control, our game pawn, as a person of that world and ask ourselves, what would that character most likely do in the situation? Don't look on the character sheet to find the answer. Instead, let's use our imagination and play to find out!

Maze Rats

OSR in 14 Pages
Maze Rats is a digital file/print-n-play game by Ben Milton (Questing Beast on Youtube) that I printed and stapled to make a journal sized booklet of gaming fun. Maze Rats is rules-lite, but heavily into creative thinking.  Mr. Milton has mentioned he is a school teacher who runs Maze Rats with an after school role-playing club, which I think is awesome. Creative thinking is something like a muscle, use it and it gets stronger. Assisting young (or older) people to think outside the box, to imagine situations and to devise creative solutions to problems using innovative methods is priceless. I personally can think of no better way to be having fun.
Mr. Milton has set Maze Rats up so it is easy to print either as a few sheets of loose paper or in this cool pamphlet that only requires a staple or two along the spine and you have an inexpensive, fun game for kids and adults. The pamphlet makes heavy use of a number of 6x6 inspiration tables, roll two six siders, one die gives you the column, the other the row and you have room descriptions, character characteristics, monsters, and spells.  Magic is one of my favorite aspects of Maze Rats which makes use of those tables to give you the name of the spell by combing a noun and an action such as Burning Hands, or Whispering Wall/Wall Whispering. Magic focuses on effects rather than damage and encourages creative spell use such as being able to "whisper through a wall". How each spell works is up to the player and referee, but again creativity is encouraged.
Rolling dice in Maze Rats is perilous and the game encourages players to address situations without resorting to chance. Combat and other risk taking behaviors such as attempting to jump across a chasm can result in injury and character death...it's OLD SCHOOL people...so finding a solution that doesn't require a "Danger Dice" roll is encouraged.
Maze Rats is a complete game. There is nothing else required except six-sided dice, pencil, paper...and a healthy imagination. The random tables can be used to create adventures on the fly and include monster generation, urban, wilderness and dungeon generators. The author includes a section on game master advice including how to prep Maze Rats, how to run the game and advice on world building. Like everything in Maze Rats, this section is brief, but to the point and right on target from an OSR perspective.
Maze Rats reminds me again how much I am amazed with the creativity and talent that is so evident in the DIY OSR community. Ben Milton has an even newer product, Knave, which is either in the works or just being released that I believe is written so that it is more compatible with the actual mechanics (not just spirit) of the original game that started it all and can run the old published adventure classics (and new OSR titles) with minimal adjustment.

Signature Skills

Define Your Character
The first commercially available role-playing game, the game that started the hobby, is class based. That means each of the the player characters has a specialized role in the game, such as fighting man, cleric or magic user - just what the class name implies. In 1978, The Chaosium published RuneQuest, a skill based system using percentile dice and with no character classes. The system mechanics introduced in RuneQuest have become a popular alternative to the class based system and it its basics were boiled down into a short pamphlet titled Basic RolePlaying, which eventually became the basis for Call of Cthulhu and other popular role playing adventure games published by Chaosium.
A skill based system is wonderfully flexible and soon other games borrowed the idea and adapted the mechanics for there own unique take on role playing. Systems such as GURPS, which although abandons the percentile dice in favor of the bell-curve of rolling three d6 uses the skill based approach to character building. Players are bright folks and they quickly discover which skills give characters useful advantages and as a result, many characters are built with high skill competency in the desirable skills, making many characters very similar in that regard. Some players try to make their character equally good at all skills resulting in basic competency, but nothing exceptional.
The way to have a specialist, a character who stands out from the crowd as the go-to PC for a certain type of situation, is to build a small number of clustered skills up to an exceptional level, probably at the expense of neglecting other skills. In this way the character has a specialty, a role to play that is connected to their signature skill(s). Yes, this imitates the class system, but with a bit more flexibility because the character can potentially become excellent at any skill on the list.
Advanced skill system games such as the latest iteration of Chaosium's Basic RolePlaying (BRP) offer a number of ways to individualize a character. Advantages and disadvantages, quirks and passions, backgrounds and professions are all ways to individualize a character either during creation or advancement, but are often cosmetic and just offer color to role play, which can itself be fun. What defines your character's prime ability and principle role in the game requires being better at something than anyone else in the group of adventurers, however. This can take some work on the part of the player and frequently involves sacrifices in the form of not being very good at anything else. That's why there are other characters in the party. There is a certain satisfaction in being able to shine when it is your tun to do your thing. Being able to reliably succeed when called upon is a nice feeling. And for the rest of the time, that's when we have the fun of role-playing and being a supportive cast member.

Dice!

Why I Roll in the Open as Referee
Dice are random number generators. The tossing of dice is also an exciting event and games of all types include dice rolling for both reasons. The dice introduce an element of randomness, considered desirable for a couple of reasons. In any simulation there are known variables such as weapon training, armor worn, etc. and unknown variables, factors which are unaccounted for, but which may influence the outcome. The other reason is chance. People like games of chance. We enjoy feeling lucky. To many that is what "winning" is all about - beating the odds in a roll of chance.
Some popular games do not include dice or chance. Chess is such a game and its popularity goes way back before fantastic adventure games were thought of. The game of chess gives each of two players identical forces and a board with no surprises. It is a pure strategy game where each player may predict with absolute certainty the result of a game move - at least during their immediate turn. Thinking turns ahead is what the game of chess is all about. The only variable is what one's opponent will do.
White Box and the role playing games that follow use dice - funny looking polyhedral dice that are an interesting study themselves. The standard set of polyhedral dice is nearly synonymous with our hobby and display of such objects instantly brings the game to mind. Rolling the dice are fun and beating the odds is part of the excitement of the game. The use of dice allows for a degree of abstraction in the game's design. Enough details are accounted for so as to make sense of the action along with the tossing of dice to account for luck and all the other unspoken for variables that may determine a given outcome. This moves the game along quickly and arguably adds to the sense of verisimilitude as players immerse themselves in the moment, mentally picturing what the dice roll represents in the shared fictional space. Dice are therefore an important element in the creation of the emergent story that develops during play.
From the earliest days some referees have rolled dice in secret, some have "fudged" dice rolls - changing the results to make for a "better story". I am not a fan of either practice. By rolling my dice in the open where players can see the results, all the time, I believe I am helping to establish a fairness and degree of trust that what is happening at the table is not my personal agenda. I believe the open roll empowers the players by showing them their choices matter more than any expectation of desire on my part for the emergent story to develop along preconceived lines. The dice are impartial.
Open dice rolling can result in "losing" in the moment. The dice are random and sometimes the result is well below the odds as calculated by astute and informed players. Bad luck happens. As referee I try to be cognizant of that and my way of moderating the potential influence of "bad luck" is to not call for a die roll as the solution if I think that a single bad roll can ruin the game. The referee has the power to offer other approaches or solutions. Moving the game ahead can be achieved in many ways other than with the result of a simple die roll. Ask questions, provide additional information and help players explore a less risky way forward. Inform the player that a failure will result in a known consequences. Be open to bargaining in order to adjust the risk or reward of the outcome. If the player insists on taking the chance, knowing the risk and is willing to suffer the consequence, then let the die roll! Sometimes you just have to ask yourself, "Do I feel lucky?"




Dice illustration taken from Adventures Dark & Deep - an excellent imagining of what 2e might have looked like had E. Gary Gygax  been involved written by Joseph Bloch.

Jeff Richard's RuneQuest

Roleplaying in Glorantha
The latest offering in the RuneQuest line of roleplaying games is variously known as RuneQuest 7e (following The Design Mechanism's RuneQuest 6), RuneQuest 4e (following Chaosium/Avalon Hill's RuneQuest 3) or RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Whatever you call it, this is a very impressive book. The art, binding and writing is all first rate. I would say it is the most attractive book I own.
Looks are great, but the real value goes deeper than appearances.
The content of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is up to the standards set by its appearance. The text is clearly written and serves to not only cover how to play RuneQuest, but also serves as a great introduction to Glorantha, perhaps the richest and most rewarding game setting ever devised. Glorantha predates RuneQuest 1e and is the creation of Greg Stafford, founder of The Chaosium and one of the original pioneers in our hobby. Mr. Stafford had already published two boardgames set in Glorantha prior to the original edition of RuneQuest, his original RPG for Glorantha. RuneQuest 1e broke away from character classes and introduced many a gamer, myself included, to skill-based roleplaying using percentile dice. The RuneQuest system became the basis for Chaosium's Basic RolePlaying which itself has been the engine for many fine games that Chaosium has published over the decades including Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer.
Although this isn't the only volume you will want if roleplaying in Glorantha is really your goal (there is no bestiary, no referee's guide or world guide/atlas included - those products are sold separately), it is an excellent players' handbook for RuneQuest and introduction to Glorantha. Lead author Jeff Richard and his team have done an excellent job bringing a new vision of the RuneQuest system to print. One of the stated goals Mr. Richard and company had was to build upon Chaosium's popular RuneQuest 2 system in a way such that older products for that edition, which are now back in print or available in digital format, would remain compatible. They seem to have accomplished that goal and many more while bringing a modern feel to an old classic. As a player with 35+ years experience with all the published versions of RuneQuest, I am very pleased with this edition and consider it the best to date. It loses nothing and adds a significant value to the game in terms of playability and immersion.
This book literally pulls you into Glorantha. The system and setting are intertwined so that by the time you have created your characters, the players have entered Glorantha and are starting to think in terms of its bronze-age heroic time of gods and goddesses who are active in character's lives. The many beautiful illustrations help us to imagine this unique world, so different from our own, and the game mechanics link each character to the mythology and magic of Glorantha through the power of  the runes.
I refer to this as Jeff Richard's RuneQuest because it has a different feel from previous editions of RuneQuest. (RQ 2 was Steve Perrin's game. Glorantha is Greg Stafford's world.) Whether it is the intent of the design team or due to the personal touch of Mr. Richard himself, this book takes me deeper into Glorantha than I have ever gone. There is no sense of observing something from afar, no "just touching the surface" here. Roleplaying in Glorantha pulls me in and surrounds me with the magic that is Glorantha. I believe the excellent way the writing blends together rules and setting (and makes it all believable), the illustrations and the innate power of Glorantha as a setting are all working together in this book to achieve the RuneQuest experience.