Do "old school" RPGers have an advantage?

[RoryN]

What I'm talking about is not only in understanding the mechanics of different RPGs, but in acting as a GM as well, drawing on their experience of various other games to enhance the one, or ones, they are playing currently by using older supplemental rules to add a little twist, or perhaps an older module that no one remembers.

For myself, the majority of my experience has been with D&D, from about 1980/81 on to the release of 3E. I am like many of that time frame...I have shelves full of material for 1E, 2E, and 3E...modules, rule books, supplements, Dragon/Dungean magazines, etc. There is so much information, I have know way of actually knowing all of the information I may have. But, there are a few things that I do remember and like to pull out upon occasion (ie. pain rules via Dragon Magazine #118).

Does this give an advantage in running a campaign or playing the game that some of the younger people just starting out may not have? I have seen some very interesting campaign/character ideas come from all sorts of people, so I'm thinking that as long as a person has a good imagination, there aren't any real advantages to being based in the "old school", but others may have different thoughts.

 

[Jack7]

I run a lot slower than when I was younger. On the other hand I fight a lot dirtier and more effectively as an old man. Because I know how to now. So I guess it all evens out.

On a more serious note this kinda reminds me of the old saw that if you don't make a great discovery in physics by the time you're 25 (or something like that) you never will, but if you're a poet you won't be any real good until you turn thirty or more. (And if you're a modern poet you'll suck long after that too.)

But personally I think all of that kind of speculation is mostly bullcrap.

To me it depends mostly upon the individual.

I do think, being serious again, that practice and experience generally tends to make you much, much better at whatever you're doing. On the other hand practice without variation and training with criticism can certainly limit your creativity and impulse to seek out new discoveries and novel approaches to problem solving.

I don't reckon I can answer this other than to say, it does and it doesn't.

Experience certainly makes you more experienced. It doesn't necessarily make you wiser or more cunning. Then again real experience and good training rarely hurts much either.

I'd say the particular school and exactly what is being taught is probably more important than the old or new part.

 

[Shemeska]

I wouldn't say so absolutely, but rather it's an advantage for a person to have been exposed to a bunch of fantasy resources to draw upon for ideas, tropes, inspiration for when they actually run a campaign.

I don't consider myself old-school (one generation advanced from old school?), since I only started D&D with 3e. However I subsequently did go back for a lot of 2e stuff, though my 1e knowledge is pretty slim and I've never played a single one of the classic 1e modules.

I think I ran a pretty decent campaign for my first one out of the gate though.

As for DM's I've played with, the best ones were actually one or two years younger than me, except wierdly enough they'd played all of that old-school material since they got into gaming much earlier. Two folks in particular I'm thinking of, but I also had possible the worst DM I've ever played under who was older than any of us, had played all of the old-school stuff, and was truly terrible as a DM. Like epic bad.

So it really depends on the person, but breadth of experience is probably an advantage (old-school or not).

 

[KidSnide]

DMs with a lot of time under their belt have the advantage of a longer history to practice their art and experience different approaches to the game. They also have more time to experience life, which doesn't matter that much to tactical combat, but is pretty important to representing a variety of NPCs with different experiences.

That having been said, I think talent (and an interest in developing talent) is more important than experience. I'll take a combination of engaging narration and a keen sense of what the players need to have fun over 30 years or orc-bashing any day.

-KS

 

[Ahnehnois]

Well, if 10,000 hours is the threshold for expertise, someone who's been DMing since the 80's has a big head start.

Experience with different styles is also generally good for any creative endeavor.

I'm skeptical of any specific effect of this so-called "old school". I haven't been around long enough to know, but the term has always seemed to me to be one of those message board artifacts that doesn't reflect real life.

 

[RoryN]

As for DM's I've played with, the best ones were actually one or two years younger than me, except wierdly enough they'd played all of that old-school material since they got into gaming much earlier. Two folks in particular I'm thinking of, but I also had possible the worst DM I've ever played under who was older than any of us, had played all of the old-school stuff, and was truly terrible as a DM. Like epic bad.

Some of the DMs I've gamed with that are older are just too set in their ways, which kind of makes it a bit tougher for their players, and even for the DM himself to be at the top of their game.

So it really depends on the person, but breadth of experience is probably an advantage (old-school or not).

I totally agree with you on this. There are some people who have the imagination and ability to play things off-the-cuff as a DM, and regardless of experience, those tend to be the best at their craft. One of the best DMs I ever gamed with was younger than I was, and I would venture to say at that time, he was a better DM than I was. He was good with the rules, but had the ability to let things slide when it came to making the game better for all of us. Then again, my room mate at the time was excellent with the rules but didn't have the ability to go off on some side tangent that we might lead him on. He just couldn't "wing it", which is (to me) a necessary skill for a DM to at least have available.

 

[Shemeska]

I totally agree with you on this. There are some people who have the imagination and ability to play things off-the-cuff as a DM, and regardless of experience, those tend to be the best at their craft.

Absolutely, and I've also found that gamers tend to synergize with one another. We didn't start out that way, but the folks in my gaming group even the total n00bs like myself, in the last decade or so every single person has DM'd at least one long-running campaign. I've enjoyed it all, and getting to be on the other side of the table when they've run has made me better I think.

 

[OnlineDM]

Interesting question. My guess is that experience will generally help, but I'm not sure that having an "old school style" is a strict positive or negative. It's probably a positive for some groups and a negative for others.

I'm certainly new school, having run games for less than two years now, and I definitely feel like I'm getting better over time just because I'm more comfortable ad-libbing, adjusting encounters on the fly, role-playing NPCs and monsters better, etc. If I had 10 years of this under my belt, I expect I'd be better still.

So I'd say it's not a question of "old school" but a question of practice. Is a person who has a lot of practice doing something likely to be better at it than a person who has not had that practice? Sure. That's not to say someone brand new at it can't be amazingly talented and surpass the experienced folks right out of the gate, but it's less likely. The talented person will probably get better over time, too.

 

[RoryN]

Absolutely, and I've also found that gamers tend to synergize with one another. We didn't start out that way, but the folks in my gaming group even the total n00bs like myself, in the last decade or so every single person has DM'd at least one long-running campaign. I've enjoyed it all, and getting to be on the other side of the table when they've run has made me better I think.

Watching and learning is a key to DM success, I think. It is a very rare occurance when someone runs a game for the first time and is extremely good at it, but game mastering has gotten better over the years as groups do just as your group has done. I watched other DMs and learned from their mistakes, as well as from their successes...and by doing a LOT of reading. As a DM, you can't be "too prepared" in my opinion.

 

[Ringlerun]

I will have to say that i didnt believe at first that old school gamers had an advantage but after much thought i would have to say yeah we do.

When i first started roleplaying in the early 80's there was not much competing for my time and money as a kid. Computer games were archaic at best and thats if your family owned a computer. Nowdays if kids dont have an iphone, ipod, ipad, laptop, xbox, playstation, and a wii they think they are disadvantaged.

Books were about the only thing i could afford when i got money for bdays and xmas. And the amount of great literature out there was fantastic. Tolkeen, Howard, Azimov, Moorcock, Lieber, the list goes on and on. Im not knocking books nowdays but the biggest fantasy novel in the last 10 years is the harry potter franchise. And most other fantasy novels are based on excisting rpg's or while reading you can tell the auther was influenced by rpg's in general.

No social media to contend with in the 80's. When i wanted to do something social i played RPG's with my friends. No online MMO games to destroy free thinking, kill x, kill x, get more powerful then go kill x.

As a kid in the 80's your time was your own. I got 3 nephews and 1 niece ranging in ages from 16 to 21 and they have no time. There social life consumes every waking moment of their lives. They cant even sit at a table and eat without texting someone about what they are eating? They have created a symbiotic social leaching system that if they dont contribute every waking second of every day to the collective their individual universes would come crashing down and they would cease to exist.

So growing up old school has some advantages