Old school/new school definitions -- meaningless?

[Quasqueton]

Events and encounters in an “old school” dungeon might be close in proximity and yet completely unrelated. However, I would expect that events and encounters in a “new school” model dungeon might be interconnected somehow.

And yet, there are plenty of examples of “old school” dungeons where the events and encounters are interconnected somehow. And there are plenty of examples of new adventures where the events and encounters are in close proximity and yet are completely unrelated.

. . .“old school” adventure, I have a general idea of what he means; more emphasis on exploration and combat. Less emphasis on game balance and plot cohesion.

Yet there are plenty of new adventures that have emphasis on exploration and combat (Forge of Fury). And there are plenty of old adventures that have plot cohesion (The Assassin’s Knot). [I don’t know what you mean by “balance” in this context.] Does this mean FoF is “old school”, and AK is “new school”?

I could line up the current batch of adventure modules, and you’d find good and bad design. You’d find plotless dungeon crawls (Heart of Nightfang Spire) and plotted political thrillers (Speaker in Dreams). You’d find combat-filled explorations, and city-based mysteries.

I could line up the old adventure modules, and you’d find good and bad design. You’d find plotless dungeon crawls (Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan) and plotted political thrillers (The Veiled Society). You’d find combat-filled explorations, and city-based mysteries.

I could line up all the modules, both old and new, and you’d find good and bad design. You’d see similarities between the old and new and differences between new and new, and old and old.

One of the things I’m getting at with saying that officially labeling some new adventures as “old school style” is that it suggests that they are somehow removed from the modern constellation of adventures.

You could put the “old school style” marketing gimmick on The Standing Stones and people would find points in it that are “old school”. You could take the “old school style” marketing gimmick off of Aerie of the Crow God and people would point out things in it that they dislike about the “new school style”.

You could dress up Dwellers of the Forbidden City in the current format and layout styles, and folks who didn’t know it would think it a “new school” adventure.

You could dress up Lord of the Iron Fortress in the older format and layout styles, and folks who didn’t know it would think it an “old school” adventure.

Quasqueton

 

[Umbran]

Please define this "new school design", and identify who created this style and who is enforcing this style. I suggest there is no "new school design" just as there was no "old school design".

Well, that it wasn't created by one person, and isn't enforced by a particular body does not mean the style does not exist. No one person created the pulp-detective genre of fiction, and nobody enforces it, but it recognizably exists, and has it's own conventions.

There is good and bad design, but old/new is irrelevant.

What qualifies as good or bad design depends very strongly upon what folks want out of an adventure. And for many that's changed over time - it is probably not the same in 2006 as it was in 1986. Right now, I'd say Saltmarsh is a better-designed module. But, at the time I had more fun with (and I now recall more clearly) the events of Tomb of Horrors.

Consider "old school D&D" to be a genre, and you're on the right track. When you ask if it is an accurate thing, you are asking the wrong question - what you should be asking is if it is precise. And it isn't. It isn't as if there's a single target date, and everything before it is "old school" and everything after it is "new school". That's not how genre definitions work.

Take the remembered play experience of a large swath of the folks who played AD&D, 1e - that's "old school". So, to find out what the genre is, think about what adventures and play experience they remember...

Collectively, the things that come first to our minds will be the things that most of us played, and that had really cool scenes, or other things that stick in our minds. That parobably means the modules for mid to high levels, due to the fact that higher level means cooler stuff happening in the more complicated combats. So, look at the main sequence of mid to high level adventures. Slavers, Giants, and Demonweb, White Plume, Tomb of Horrors, and the like.

I think the defining difference between new and old shool is best seen in the kind of stories we see related to the games...

In "old school" the basic unit is the "war story", in which the player related the events within a combat or encounter, regaling the audience with how clever, brave, or hosed they were. The war story recalls the details of actions well, but the whys and wherefores are mostly just a backdrop to make things hang together in a logical sequence. Who the characters were is less important than what they did.

In "new school", that basic unit is, instead, the D&D novel - The Icewind Dale or Dragonlance trilogy. Sure, we still tell the occasional war story, but new school adventure design is more intended to be part of such a work of fiction, than it is designed to generate a string of war stories.

 

[Nomad4life]

I don’t disagree with any of the points that have been made thus far… And yet I’ll still wager that I could walk into any gaming convention in the country and the majority of the gamers there would have a sense of what I mean by “old school” and “new school.” Sure, there is potential for miscommunication- and a wide range of it, no doubt. But the same is true for the concepts of “light” and “dark.” Are those terms of no value?

You could dress up Dwellers of the Forbidden City in the current format and layout styles, and folks who didn’t know it would think it a “new school” adventure.

You could dress up Lord of the Iron Fortress in the older format and layout styles, and folks who didn’t know it would think it an “old school” adventure.

Well, I think there is a strong parallel between these points and the whole “pornography vs art” merry-go-round of rhetoric. There is ancient artwork that would fit our modern day concept of pornography, and modern day pornography that poses as art. Problematic, yes, but not a signal to throw such terms into the flames. Those terms still "mean" something to most people.

One of the things I’m getting at with saying that officially labeling some new adventures as “old school style” is that it suggests that they are somehow removed from the modern constellation of adventures.

And here, I think, is the real problem. Not the terms “old” or “new” school themselves (as relative terms among casual gamers) but the use of these terms as a marketing ploy. In a way that I can’t really seem to articulate, it is almost as though the term “old school” caries with it a bizarre kind of “authenticity” as if to say “See? This product is the real thing!” That could be problematic.

 

[Arnwyn]

While I don't agree that the terms "old school" and "new school" are meaningless (as Nomad4life points out), I do agree with Ourph that such terms are (fairly) useless as a form of communication.

For example, I define "old school" as "1e modules that the majority of people talk fondly about". (Yeah - it's as vague as it sounds.)

I define "new school" as 2e Ravenloft modules.

And those are crappy, crappy definitions.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

"Old school" is a much abused term.

The only significant difference I perceive is that old school is a game played by the players themselves. Therefore designers can be unapologetic about disregarding metagaming issues, character vs. player knowledge, in game logic, in campaign logic, and character roleplaying.

Why is this cheesy puzzle here in this underground fortress? So the players get to figure it out!

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

I agree with most of what is posted here. However, I think the strongest case for "old school" v. "new school" is designing an adventure to challenge the players rather than challenge the characters. As corny as it sounds, 'back in my day we had to explicitly describe how we searched a room just to find a single copper piece and we liked it!' Also, 'back in my day role-playing meant we had to bluff or persuade the judge/referee without resorting to dice and we liked it!'

I believe that D&D back in the '70s and early '80s taught us or got us to improve some very real life skills. The thoroughness of investigation and attention to detail prepared me for my IT career. Having to role-play persuasion and bluffing prepared me for various sales and management jobs I've held over the years. Old School D&D challenged me as a player and I'm a better person for it. Frankly IMHO 3e teaches people how to min/max their characters and rewards that over role-playing.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Frankly IMHO 3e teaches people how to min/max their characters and rewards that over role-playing.

As if that were necessarily different in old school games? As you were implicitly roleplaying yourself there might be zero incentive to not optimize the numbers on the character sheet for combat only.

How smart is an Int 3 Fighter at solving puzzles? Exactly as smart as the K-12 education plus college degree of the player in question happens to be.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

As if that were necessarily different in old school games? As you were implicitly roleplaying yourself there might be zero incentive to not optimize the numbers on the character sheet for combat only.

How smart is an Int 3 Fighter at solving puzzles? Exactly as smart as the K-12 education plus college degree of the player in question happens to be.

I agree that we were incented to dump low scores (and boy did we have them) into stats that we could overcome with role-playing. And that was effectively min/maxing. And given the sheer amount of combat, characters were optimized for that. Charisma was only used for determining the # of henchman you had. However, back then players were rewarded for being clever, diplomatic, and bluffing rather than their characters unlike today.

Does anyone still spike the dungeon door?

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

However, back then players were rewarded for being clever, diplomatic, and bluffing rather than their characters unlike today.

Does anyone still spike the dungeon door?

Perhaps.

There is a certain pleasure to playing a PC that attempts to be clever, diplomatic, and bluffing yet has very mixed success due to the limitations of the PC's talents. But it is not for people who do not enjoy RPing characters with real warts.

Spiking the dungeon door? Only if I really want everyone within 1000' to know an intruder is nearby. One of the joys of 3e is that competent attempts at stealth are often rewarded handsomely.

 

[DM-Rocco]

To me, old school adventure design is largely something I know when I see it. The Dungeon Crawl Classic series is definitely old school design.

Give me a nasty dungeon crawl with some twisted things lurking inside that Man Was not Meant to Know and not many deep brooding philosophical "behind the screen" type touches like "realistic dungeon ecology" anyday.

I think, by and large, older adventures didn't take themselves as seriously and this benefitted them.

Against the Giants, Temple of Elemental Evil, Isle of the Ape, these were adventures that broke a lot of the current "rules" but people still buy them, still play them and still enjoy them.

Maybe breaking the rules made them less formulaic. I dunno.

Chuck

I would have to dido that. If I am reading, running or going through an adventure and I start to think about the A1-4 slaver series, then I know I am in old school. If I feel like I could die at any moment and get all creepy inside and start to remember horror thoughts about the Tomb of Horrors, then I know the creator of AD&D, Gary Gygax, must have slapped some new old school into it as well