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Old school/new school definitions -- meaningless?
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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 2988716" data-attributes="member: 177"><p>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. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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 <em>precise</em>. 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. </p><p></p><p>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...</p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>I think the defining difference between new and old shool is best seen in the kind of stories we see related to the games...</p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 2988716, member: 177"] 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. 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 [i]precise[/i]. 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. [/QUOTE]
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