The Keys to My Heart

My day job consists largely of reading adventures and providing feedback. And while I've read hundreds of OSR modules by now, I still don't have a good way to refer to all the standard ways we write adventures! Outside of referring to a particular "house style" (which isn't unique to any publisher) I haven't really come across a relatable way to refer to all different approaches to keying. Yes, I'm going to taxonomize a bit here. But it's for a good cause! Frankly I find it strange that we RPG types have a term for every little bibb and bobb in the scene but have yet to develop a shared dictionary around such an important part of running adventures! Of course there are many blogposts regarding keying, and I count myself among bloggers who have written about their favorite styles and so on. But this is not a theory post. Instead, I'd simply (ha!) like to identify & label the varying keying patterns within the OSR so that we can better discuss them. Is it important? No. Will it be…