What the referee does in an OSR game, and what a game is

• Prepare a scenario for play, using whatever tools are standard
• Frame scenes, including describing locations and marking the passage of time
• Tell other players whatever their characters would know
• Play their characters, on and off screen
• Adjudicate task resolution
• Make models
• And that’s it, literally nothing else.

“Game” here doesn’t just mean published rules text, though it does also mean that. Mostly though it means whatever set of techniques, distributions of authority, constraints on authority, and resolution procedures your play group in fact uses. Following are some possible parts of a game that might not be in any rules text. They’re in the game if the play group does them.

• Write a little two-sentence bio.
• Make two characters at once, because one will likely die soon.
• Since your character died, do you want to play that guard until the end of session?
• Feel free to add details about [this place], your character is from there.
• Nat 20, nice! Tell me how you do it.
• We’re playing this one seriously. No murder-hoboes.
• I actually use the dungeon stocking tables from OD&D.
• We’ll play flashback scenes whenever something interesting prompts it.
• Don’t bother rolling for that, it’ll obviously work. (Or: Don’t bother rolling for that, there’s no way it’ll work.)

And so on. You can see how various the components of a game might be.