I wanna talk a little about something I've been noodling with in Stampede Wasteland. Rules that are impossible, or only exist as a sort of absence of something else?
Let's take a look at a part of generating Settlements:
The first step is figuring out how big the Settlement is by rolling 1d6. You'll probably notice that there's a result for if you roll a seven or higher. Now, unless you have a very special d6, you're not gonna get that result.
So what's the point of putting that result there in the first place? Well, how I'd interpret it at the table is that these City-States exist, but you're not going to be encountering them randomly while exploring the Wastes. Maybe there's another way to travel to these fabled City-States? Maybe that turns into the foundation for an adventure. Maybe the table actually decides that City-States don't exist anymore; something wiped them off the map. Maybe the table has come up with a way to get a bonus to that d6 roll based on the rulings they've been establishing. It could mean any number of things!
I think this works in this sort of game, partially because the rules are relatively minimal. And in a more minimal ruleset, sometimes you have to slow down and read between the lines and try and come to your own conclusions on how things work. This is, to me, very different from something being incomplete, but it could be a fine line.
If this were something like a Forged in the Dark game, this sort of absence might feel more like an oversight, but in the sorta-OSR sphere, expectations are a little different. It's interesting to think about.
The other example of this sort of idea crops up in the travel rules. There's three options for traveling the Wastes; by foot, by steam-crawler, and by airship.
Here are the rules for airship travel:
That's it. You know from reading that line that airships exist and people can use them to travel. But for whatever reason, getting passage on them is so far out of reach of the PCs that it may as well be impossible. It reveals something about the game's world, and how it operates.
Just like the City-State rule, airship travel could also spark adventures at the table. What would it take to get a ticket for an airship? What kind of people travel by airship?
I dunno! I think it's an interesting space to play around in. Exploring the space where rules and mechanics meet the world of the game, and the space that that opens up for the table to interpret those rules. Or something like that.
