The Destined Heroes Play Style

Samuel from 3×5 Arcana usually plays OSR games and reads OSR blogs, and wanted to know about the theory of “trad” gaming, a style that I follow blogger Kreggar in calling “Destined Heroes” gaming1. This is a hugely popular style, and however you entered roleplaying games, you’ve probably run across it. Samuel was looking for a manifesto or at least a description, so I’ve attempted to do that here, at at some points I contrast it to OSR. Also there’s another style that I should mention because it intersects with destined heroes style quite a bit, and that’s an optimiser style, which celebrates system and mechanical mastery. I don’t live in that community, so my comments there are brief. In terms of references, for game masters, key references are the 5.0 and 5.5 D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide, and I would also say the Daggerheart Core Rulebook has lots of campaign advice. I would also highlight Sly Flourish’s widespread and popular advice. For players, a lot of advice is found on YouTube…