I think there's a mistake here, and BigLizard is doing a masterclass in respectfully trying to correct here, being made by some of the long time RPG players (red box initiate here, though honestly I got more acrtual play back then out of Star Frontiers and first and really cut my teeth in gaming with Twilight: 2000) that "old school style" proponents or the "old school renaissance" industries are attempts to reproduce how the game was actually played in the 70s or 80s (by the 90s there was a significant generational shift in gaming and codifying the storytelling aspects we were all allegedly doing anyway was coming more and more into print, like someone even made a whole system out of that notion...). It's not.
Old school in any medium or genre is always nostalgia and nostalgia takes great great liberties with "truth" and will actually embrace patent inaccuracies for whatever emotive effect the style is trying to evoke.
I really don't understand what point you're trying to make here
So, calling something "old school" is a tipoff that it's a deliberately dishonest and manipulative attempt to manufacture nostalgia, but pushing back against that dishonesty and pointing out that the nostalgia is fake is a mistake, somehow?
Your effort at distillation, while I presume not itself dishonest in intent or manipulative of audience, is at least naive and immature in it's supposition that works of imagination need to fit into the "truth" and "lies" binary of a blinkered internet argument. If you can't understand that "old school" can be evocative* of "lost" elements of TTRPG, and D&D specifically, as it became less cottage industry and more reflective of something akin to AAA industry (at least in WotC's case) while not being a totalizing representation of a historic moment, that's more reflective of a paucity of aesthetic regard on you than any alleged sin or crime of "old school." I think the overall problem with many on these sorts of threads is this is a conversation about style, and as such should conforms to a much more nuanced and tolerant rhetoric than the weird right/wrong kerfuffle many are having here. One can have a strong lean or disregard of Old School, but for some to plant their opposition in "never happened" (not to go into the inaccuracies of such claims) betrays a lack of understanding of the nature and existence of Old School, despite it being illustrated numerous times in this thread.
Everyone should check out of this thread and check in to watch like 15 minutes of Questing Beast, because the ire to OS and OSR isn't even windmill tilting it's mounting a light brigade charge at a glacier. Old School and Old School Renaissance style and product exists, and to tell a proponent they're just wrong is as silly as telling someone inspired to play by Critical Role is wrong. Not everything need be couched in fighting words, even in D&D.
*and I mean evocative in its more every day use in terms of feelings and sentiments raised, not fireballs. OS and OSR have undeniable affect for many players despite the antagonism on this thread, and the prior one with the player who expressed contempt for "role playing". You're free to feel the need to shut that feeling down, but I thought we weren't so much about invalidating feelings when it comes to the fun of the game.
Your effort at distillation, while I presume not itself dishonest in intent or manipulative of audience, is at least naive and immature in it's supposition that works of imagination need to fit into the "truth" and "lies" binary of a blinkered internet argument
Uh huh
Appealing to a retrograde mindset is not a choice based solely on style and aesthetics, and I will respectfully suggest that you reconsider which of us is the naive one if you think that it is
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Thanks for the blast from the past in Traveller as after I posted I also remembered Traveller 2300, Shadowrun, Twilight 2000, Warhammer, Warhammer 40K and Paraniod. There are probable a few or a lot I am not remembering at the moment.
Your comment on Traveller's background system is something I am the people I played with liked as it helped build a back story or framework for us to work with (with some input from the GM on his setting).
Your comments on fashion to me is explained by their is only so much room in a product for art and quite often players and GM's focus more on rules then descriptive text that can change with their version of the setting or changes they have to make to the module. I can say that I found Warhammers art (when I bought the product in the early 80's) changed how I envisioned things in a lot of RPG's and I often used their maps of building in other systems and or campaigns.
In the early days I and we used things from one game to supplement our lack of funds and lack of time to creatively make and or design things. So for example in a dream/drug sequence in James Bond 007 we might use Waterdeep the city of Splendor as a dream town in which your agent fought orc's and other fantasy bad guys as well as Warhammers Coach Inn as a building in a Twilight 2000 game as a building to be defended.
Also the same went for rules IIRC my first copy of Twilight 200o was thin and I imported rules from other systems that we needed. We also did that with more or less success with other games such as a skill and weapon skill system for AD&D.
1. Limited Rules Coverage - OSR games generally cover very few gameplay elements, for example, they usually don't have skill systems. The idea is that most of the game is not meant to be managed by rules but through a collaborative GM-Player adjudication and the assumption that the GM use common sense and logic to make determinations.
2. Treasure = XP - Most OSR games are designed with clear gameplay goals which are rewarded, the most common in D&D variants is that treasure found is XP gained (1 gold = 1 XP). This is probobly one of the most common rules found in OSR products.
3. Emmergant Gameplay over Prepared Gameplay: This is simply the idea that the DM doesn't prepare session details and makes a lot of decisions by casting a die. Is there a fight? Roll random monster chart. Does the barkeep like you? Roll a reaction roll to see. Rolling on charts to find out what happens is a common and expected practice and OSR games usually have many charts created for this purpose. It exists to create randomness in how events, narratives and stories evolve.
4. Player Centric - This simply means that most OSR games assume conflicts/problems and narratives are resolved by the players, not their characters. Character sheet properties are used when the player makes a mistake not as a way to find if they succeed or fail to do things. Ex. You don't tell the GM "I search the room" and make a search check, you describe how and where you search and the DM determines if you find something based on your description.
5. The Fourth Wall - Breaking the fourth wall is expected and encouraged. Metagaming is a part of the game, its expected and really required for players to be successful in an OSR game. OSR adventures are designed to kill the characters and player ingenuity is how you overcome a typical OSR game adventure, metagaming is vital to do so successfully.
6. Lethality is important - Its vital to OSR games that they are lethal to the PC's and again, reliance on player ingenuity as opposed to character sheet properties and mechanics is what makes the difference between characters dying in failure, or basking in success. This is seen as a standard part of the challenge of an OSR game.
7. Play to Win - OSR games have clear rewards and goals. Achieving these goals "aka winning" is a measurable concept in OSR games.
Red highlights = a game where rules are not really important
Blue highlight = a game that only operates on rigid adherence to rules
A game where there are clear goals and rewards, but little adherence to rules to achieve them, few/no planned challenges to overcome, where players must metagame (use rules knowledge) to survive, but don't have character sheet resources,where they level up from finding treasure but loot is randomly rolled after fighting the random monsters, where the game is character-lethal but without planning (so the DM just decides who lives and who dies) and without character sheet resources to enable the characters to overcome them.
There is a lot to unpack here but I think there are a couple of common points that I think should be established and clarified to keep the conversation from revolving around incorrect assumptions.
One thing is that the point of this discussion is not to prove that "old school" is better than "New School". I know the OP started out with that sales pitch, but I know with certainty that this not what the OSR is about or for, nor does anyone who actually cares about its preservation advocate any such line of thinking.
The next thing is that there needs to be a separation of the OSR and the "Old School Gaming". They are not the same thing and they do not represent the same people. The OSR is largely driven by a community of gamers who did NOT play D&D in the 70's and 80's during D&D's infancy. It is in fact a modern movement run by young gamers and a lot of "older gamers" have latched onto it after the fact and proclaimed it their domain. This is important because the goals of the OSR, why the OSR was created is important to understand in the context of this conversation. Its actually in stark contrast to old school gamers who feel the old rules "are the best". No one in the OSR actually thinks that, its why in the OSR we are creating clones and re-workings of the rules, its because they are not great, at least not in the quality of writing and clarity. In essence, the OSR likes what the rules do, if you can understand them, so bringing clarity to the rules is the priority of OSR products.
The OSR was created very specifically because the original 1e rules writing for B/X, BECMI and AD&D sucked and were hard to understand and teach. The movement was created with the very specific goal of creating clarity of these rules and modernizing them. In fact the initial efforts were not labeled OSR, they were simply people who learned to play the original games and realized that we needed better books, written with ease of use in mind. From that came efforts like OSRIC which proved the concept and the OSR became a movement of re-creating original D&D content and then later basing new games on original D&D content, specifically 1st edition B/X rules on which like 90% of all OSR games are based. "Plays like old school games" became a sales pitch of these OSR games, but the definition of what "Old School" is, is actually different depending on which of these products you actually pick up. The OSR manifesto's were written to help define the concept of old school gaming like "A Quick Primer For Old School Gaming" by Matt Finch or "Principia Apocrypha" by Ben Milton and Steven Lumpkin. It's worth noting that both of these manifesto's are respectful outlines of what old school gaming is according to the author, not attacks or rejections of modern gaming, simply a definition of what the authors think makes old school gaming unique and fun. Even handled in this manner it does not make any of these writers official OSR representatives, they are just voices in a chorus and its worth pointing out that everything said in these documents is debated and challenged by old school gamers, illustrating that the concept is not unified under one flag. It's not like these manifestos are universally accepted as truth about what the OSR or Old School Gaming is.
Nothing about the origins of the OSR however is inherently hostile towards modern gaming, but like all movements, we have our radicals that dirty the waters who have proclaimed the OSR their domain after the fact, content creators like RPGpundit that use the label to push their own personal agendas and politics. These people again, are not some sort of elected officials that represent the movement, they leverage its existence for their own purposes, in the case of RPGpundit, it's pushing his own published books. Strangely enough, RPGpundit despite all of his hostility towards modern gaming and gamers was a contracted consultant and writer for 5th edition D&D.
Why is any of that important? Because when you understand that the OSR movement is a modern movement about clarifying and modernizing old editions of the game and creating new (modern) variants based on older editions of D&D it should become quite clear that those goals are not all that different from what modern D&D game designers do in current editions of the game. Modern D&D, like the OSR games, are built on the legacy and history of the game. There are however some differences in the goals because while modern D&D wants the game to evolve into something better, the OSR is there to preserve what came before. These goals are generally not in opposition to each other and the fact that there is a divide should be seen as a positive thing as the result is more games. How could that possibly be bad?
The battle if there is one is over control of the "official D&D" direction. A battle I will admit I do participate in fighting on occasion as I do believe that some evolutions of D&D are bad for the franchise as a whole and frankly I believe very strongly that I have not been wrong about that. For example, 4e was an evolution of D&D and it was a terrible one, coming awfully close to killing the franchise. I believe the direction and health of official D&D is important for all D&D players, it affects old school gamers and new school gamers alike and so discussions about the evolution of the game, the direction of the game, ensuring the game remains healthy, that it has a good direction forward is not something that modern D&D culture gets to proclaim exclusive rights over. The OSR may have different goals when it comes to their vision of D&D which plays out in the products the OSR creates, but they have the same obligation and right to care about the current game as anyone else because it affects them. Contrary to popular belief, most OSR gamers play modern D&D and modern RPG's because the OSR is a modern movement and is about modern games. This idea that they are a representation of "the past" is categorically wrong.
I don't think you could ever come up with a definitive list of what is "old school" while being objectively not part of "new school", there is always cross-over, but I don't think anyone could dispute that the following list of old school gaming concepts do not make a common appearance in modern games.
1. Limited Rules Coverage - OSR games generally cover very few gameplay elements, for example, they usually don't have skill systems. The idea is that most of the game is not meant to be managed by rules but through a collaborative GM-Player adjudication and the assumption that the GM use common sense and logic to make determinations.
2. Treasure = XP - Most OSR games are designed with clear gameplay goals which are rewarded, the most common in D&D variants is that treasure found is XP gained (1 gold = 1 XP). This is probobly one of the most common rules found in OSR products.
3. Emmergant Gameplay over Prepared Gameplay: This is simply the idea that the DM doesn't prepare session details and makes a lot of decisions by casting a die. Is there a fight? Roll random monster chart. Does the barkeep like you? Roll a reaction roll to see. Rolling on charts to find out what happens is a common and expected practice and OSR games usually have many charts created for this purpose. It exists to create randomness in how events, narratives and stories evolve.
4. Player Centric - This simply means that most OSR games assume conflicts/problems and narratives are resolved by the players, not their characters. Character sheet properties are used when the player makes a mistake not as a way to find if they succeed or fail to do things. Ex. You don't tell the GM "I search the room" and make a search check, you describe how and where you search and the DM determines if you find something based on your description.
5. The Fourth Wall - Breaking the fourth wall is expected and encouraged. Metagaming is a part of the game, its expected and really required for players to be successful in an OSR game. OSR adventures are designed to kill the characters and player ingenuity is how you overcome a typical OSR game adventure, metagaming is vital to do so successfully.
6. Lethality is important - Its vital to OSR games that they are lethal to the PC's and again, reliance on player ingenuity as opposed to character sheet properties and mechanics is what makes the difference between characters dying in failure, or basking in success. This is seen as a standard part of the challenge of an OSR game.
7. Play to Win - OSR games have clear rewards and goals. Achieving these goals "aka winning" is a measurable concept in OSR games.
Of the things typically found in old school primers and OSR game descriptions, these are the things I think are so different from modern design D&D games and modern RPG sessions that they are distinctively "old school".
A final point here regarding the OPs attitude towards the modern gaming community is that its neither representative of old school gamers or the OSR. Trust me when I say Old School Gamers (those still playing the old systems) neither come here or care what happens in 5e, they don't care about anything post-TSR... period. The OSR on the other hand considers 5e one of its honorary members, after all it gave us awesome games like Five Torches deep and the entire Goodman Games line of re-prints. So the OP is representative of neither of these things.
To be honest this how I used to play AD&D in the Eighties and Nineties. I don't feel the same about the things in the OP. Just one remark, a lot of the Old School Players who hate 5e do play 3.5 occasionally. They don't have the same disdain for 3.5 as they do for 4th and 5th.
Let’s not forget that there are real people posting on here like myself who played in the 80’s and 90’s and are disagreeing completely with the tone of the OP and a few others. Nothing mentioned in these recent threads are exclusive to the games we played back in the day. A lot of the things - concepts, playstyles etc used now were also used when I played back in the 80’s. The only thing that has changed is the rules. The OP isn’t talking about the rules though, even though @BigLizard constantly uses specific rules and editions to justify the attitude of the OP. This OP, and others who have made similar threads recently about the awesomeness of earlier editions and the wrongness of modern editions is just trying to troll and stir up conflict. I don’t believe that these people even played older editions or could quote any of the rulesets without the assistance of google.
In fact the OP hasn’t added anything to this thread since starting it 3 days ago, even though they have posted in another thread. Which kinda makes my point.
Your effort at distillation, while I presume not itself dishonest in intent or manipulative of audience, is at least naive and immature in it's supposition that works of imagination need to fit into the "truth" and "lies" binary of a blinkered internet argument. If you can't understand that "old school" can be evocative* of "lost" elements of TTRPG, and D&D specifically, as it became less cottage industry and more reflective of something akin to AAA industry (at least in WotC's case) while not being a totalizing representation of a historic moment, that's more reflective of a paucity of aesthetic regard on you than any alleged sin or crime of "old school." I think the overall problem with many on these sorts of threads is this is a conversation about style, and as such should conforms to a much more nuanced and tolerant rhetoric than the weird right/wrong kerfuffle many are having here. One can have a strong lean or disregard of Old School, but for some to plant their opposition in "never happened" (not to go into the inaccuracies of such claims) betrays a lack of understanding of the nature and existence of Old School, despite it being illustrated numerous times in this thread.
Everyone should check out of this thread and check in to watch like 15 minutes of Questing Beast, because the ire to OS and OSR isn't even windmill tilting it's mounting a light brigade charge at a glacier. Old School and Old School Renaissance style and product exists, and to tell a proponent they're just wrong is as silly as telling someone inspired to play by Critical Role is wrong. Not everything need be couched in fighting words, even in D&D.
*and I mean evocative in its more every day use in terms of feelings and sentiments raised, not fireballs. OS and OSR have undeniable affect for many players despite the antagonism on this thread, and the prior one with the player who expressed contempt for "role playing". You're free to feel the need to shut that feeling down, but I thought we weren't so much about invalidating feelings when it comes to the fun of the game.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Uh huh
Appealing to a retrograde mindset is not a choice based solely on style and aesthetics, and I will respectfully suggest that you reconsider which of us is the naive one if you think that it is
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
MidnightPlat,
Thanks for the blast from the past in Traveller as after I posted I also remembered Traveller 2300, Shadowrun, Twilight 2000, Warhammer, Warhammer 40K and Paraniod. There are probable a few or a lot I am not remembering at the moment.
Your comment on Traveller's background system is something I am the people I played with liked as it helped build a back story or framework for us to work with (with some input from the GM on his setting).
Your comments on fashion to me is explained by their is only so much room in a product for art and quite often players and GM's focus more on rules then descriptive text that can change with their version of the setting or changes they have to make to the module. I can say that I found Warhammers art (when I bought the product in the early 80's) changed how I envisioned things in a lot of RPG's and I often used their maps of building in other systems and or campaigns.
In the early days I and we used things from one game to supplement our lack of funds and lack of time to creatively make and or design things. So for example in a dream/drug sequence in James Bond 007 we might use Waterdeep the city of Splendor as a dream town in which your agent fought orc's and other fantasy bad guys as well as Warhammers Coach Inn as a building in a Twilight 2000 game as a building to be defended.
Also the same went for rules IIRC my first copy of Twilight 200o was thin and I imported rules from other systems that we needed. We also did that with more or less success with other games such as a skill and weapon skill system for AD&D.
Thanks for the memories
To paraphrase Billy Joel: 🎼🎵“Old school, new school, my school, your school, it’s all D&D to me.”🎶
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Red highlights = a game where rules are not really important
Blue highlight = a game that only operates on rigid adherence to rules
A game where there are clear goals and rewards, but little adherence to rules to achieve them, few/no planned challenges to overcome, where players must metagame (use rules knowledge) to survive, but don't have character sheet resources, where they level up from finding treasure but loot is randomly rolled after fighting the random monsters, where the game is character-lethal but without planning (so the DM just decides who lives and who dies) and without character sheet resources to enable the characters to overcome them.
To be honest this how I used to play AD&D in the Eighties and Nineties. I don't feel the same about the things in the OP. Just one remark, a lot of the Old School Players who hate 5e do play 3.5 occasionally. They don't have the same disdain for 3.5 as they do for 4th and 5th.
Let’s not forget that there are real people posting on here like myself who played in the 80’s and 90’s and are disagreeing completely with the tone of the OP and a few others. Nothing mentioned in these recent threads are exclusive to the games we played back in the day. A lot of the things - concepts, playstyles etc used now were also used when I played back in the 80’s. The only thing that has changed is the rules. The OP isn’t talking about the rules though, even though @BigLizard constantly uses specific rules and editions to justify the attitude of the OP. This OP, and others who have made similar threads recently about the awesomeness of earlier editions and the wrongness of modern editions is just trying to troll and stir up conflict. I don’t believe that these people even played older editions or could quote any of the rulesets without the assistance of google.
In fact the OP hasn’t added anything to this thread since starting it 3 days ago, even though they have posted in another thread. Which kinda makes my point.
Though that is blatantly false and obviously you recognize that, I have to agree with Billy Joel here. Wise wise man.
N/A