Worlds of Design: “Old School” in RPGs and other Games – Part 1 Failure and Story

For me, the difference between Old School and anything else is not in the rules, but in attitude. Is failure, even losing, possible, or is it not? Is it a game, or is it a storytelling session?

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Notice it’s “storytelling”, not storymaking. Every RPG involves a story, the question is, who creates the story, the GM or the players?
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Inevitably, 40-some installments into this column, “Old School” would come up.

“ . . . role-playing games do not have plots. They have situations at the campaign, adventure, and encounter level which the players are free to interact with however they wish– as long as they accept the consequences!” - Jeffro Johnson (author of the book Appendix N)​

This will be in three (oversized) parts, because understanding of this topic is fundamental to discourse about what some of us (at least) call RPGs, and there’s too much for one or two columns (I tried). I think of a Quora question that asked what a GM can do when a player’s character does something insane or ludicrously inappropriate during a game. The answers varied widely depending on the goals of the answerer. The Old School answer is, “let the character suffer the consequences of the action”; but for those on the New School side, it was a much more complex problem, as the character’s actions would make it hard if not impossible for the GM to tell the story he had devised for the adventure.

Likely everyone reading this has seen and perhaps discussed the term “Old School” in connection with RPGs. When I started to reconnect with RPG fandom a few years ago, I wasn’t sure what “Old School” meant. There seem to be many definitions, but I now see the fundamental divide as not about rules. Rather, it’s about the attitude of the GM, and of the players, toward losing and failure. That’s at the root of Jeffro’s rant, though he puts it in terms of plot and story, which are closely related.

As I said, this is in three parts. The second will talk about rules, GMing, and pacing, and about non-RPGs reflecting the two schools. The third part will talk about differences in actual gameplay.

I’m not going to be “one true way” the way Jeffro is (“thieves must have d4 hit dice” is one of his rants). I write about RPGs as games, not as story-telling aids or playgrounds, but I am describing, not prescribing even as I obviously prefer the Old School. Let’s proceed.

If it’s a game (Old School (OS)), there’s a significant chance you can lose, you can fail. If it’s a story session, with no chance you can lose, it’s something else. This is like a co-operative board game that you cannot lose: why bother to play?

In terms of story, in OS the players write their own story, with the benefit of the GM’s assistance. The GM sets up a situation and lets the players get on with it. (This is sometimes called [FONT=&amp][FONT=&amp]"[/FONT][/FONT]sandbox[FONT=&amp][FONT=&amp]"[/FONT][/FONT] in video games, though video games tend to impose an overall story as a limitation of using computer programming instead of a human GM.) The other extreme is when the GM tells the players a story through the game. (In video games this is called a linear game, where the story always ends up the same way.)

If a GM is Old School and runs the same adventure for several different groups, the results will probably vary wildly. If the GM is at the other extreme, the overall shape of the adventure will be the same each time, with variance only in the details.

Old School adventures are usually highly co-operative, because the characters will DIE if they don’t cooperate. New School doesn’t require cooperation, you’re going to survive anyway.

Not surprisingly, as the hobby has grown, the proportion of wargamers (now a small hobby) has decreased drastically. Many players are not even hobby gamers, that is, they’re not quite “gamers” in the old sense because the only game they play is their RPG(s). Many people want their games to be stories, so the shift from Old School to something else is not surprising.

D&D 5e bears the marks of the newer playing methods, as there’s lots of healing as well as the ridiculous cleric spell revivify for mere fifth level clerics.

There are all kinds of shades of the two extremes, obviously. And all kinds of ways of running RPGs. Next time, I’ll talk about more differences between Old School and newer ways of playing such as Rules and Pacing, and compare with non-RPGs.

This article was contributed by Lewis Pulsipher (lewpuls) as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. You can follow Lew on his web site and his Udemy course landing page. If you enjoy the daily news and articles from EN World, please consider contributing to our Patreon!

 

[Shasarak]

Sadly, starting some time ago but becoming most noticeable with the advent of 3e, for some people not only is building a character playing the game, it IS the game. Just look at any char-ops board...

I think you are right, char-op has been around for a long time. I especially noticed it when I swapped from DnD to ADnD but the best char-op was from the Skills and Powers book in 2e.

Ah, good times.

 

[Shasarak]

That really depends on the game.
I mean, yeah. But also, even if you're having a lot of fun with it, it's still a distinctly different sort of game. However you go through the progress of generating a character, whether it's point-buy or random-rolls or just using a pre-gen, none of that is relevant to what you do with the character after you have it. And what you do with the character, once you have it, is the game I'm talking about.

I guess ideally I would like to see about a quarter of the book as character options, about a quarter as spells and the rest as the assorted combat rules etc.

But those percentages could change depending how much world building you have included in the rules set.

 

[5ekyu]

This is a point worth noting.

There's a rather significant difference between a) allowing flaws to arise during and as a result of the run of play or b) baking those flaws in as part of the character's mechanics.

If a flaw is baked in then a player is reasonably expected to play to it - which is fine - but then is less likely to look any further or allow any other flaws to arise; because the game system has planted the seed of flaws being rewarded with benefits and thus to have a flaw without a benefit is mechanically counter-productive. Further, the GM is somewhat expected to somehow bring this flaw into play at some point in order to make it relevant.

But if a flaw simply arises out of the run of play with no mechanical advantage expected or given in return it allows the player the freedom to have the flaw reflect things the character has done or experienced in play (as opposed to off-camera backstory), and to play the flaw however she likes. It also places no burden on the GM unless she specifically wants it to.

In D&D (all editions) I'd agree. But if the game system is specifically geared around a flaw-for-benefit mechanic then so be it. I'll just find a different game to play in.

"But if a flaw simply arises out of the run of play with no mechanical advantage expected or given in return it allows the player the freedom to have the flaw reflect things the character has done or experienced in play (as opposed to off-camera backstory), and to play the flaw however she likes. It also places no burden on the GM unless she specifically wants it to."

To follow on this and give some experience with the [p]reward systems, the mechanics impact the evolution of flaws.

In a non-syatem flaw game or a P4P, if a flaw is overcome in play -story-wise it's over - we overcame the arch-nemesis or cursed our powers inability to affect wood - it's just gone, no work required- a bit of story resolved that does not require any mechanical adjustments.

Sure, P4P might encourage you to find a replacement if the gimmick economy is neded, but it's not strictly mandated. Maybe other troubles can play more now.

But in [p]reward there are those bonuses you got early and the scales gotta be balanced. So those systems rules put you in the case of needing to buy-off those points with xp or suddenly developing a new problem that's amazingly just as impactful.

As a result, we tended to see in play the PC change less in this regard in the latter systems - those dials stayed more fixed, more rigid less managed organic.

Like I said, each has their own good and bad points.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not so sure it's a red herring at all. The discussion is regarding OS v NS, and one open-to-argument distinction between them is how they view and-or handle metagaming in general.

Here's something that may help give perspective on this.

I submit that the only way for a player to not metagame at all is for them to have no knowledge of the game mechanics. You can't use out-of-game information if you don't *know* any out-of-game information.

You may scoff at this, except I have played this way - "rules blind". My very first D&D game, in fact. My brother brought home the 1e rulebooks from college for X-mas, and a copy of the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. He asked the kind of people we wanted to play, assigned us each one of the pregen characters from the module, described them to us with no reference to the game stats ("You are strong as an ox, and dumb as a post.") and off we went, without so much as a character sheet. The GM handled all mechanics. A whole lot of rolling dice on his part, but he did it. He would sometimes tell us "You are in a lot of pain" or "you are tired" or "the giant ant bite on your leg looks ugly and inflamed". And we would choose accordingly. Sometimes we would rest. Or the Cleric character would cast the spell that he was told would heal people. But we never knew how many hit points we had. We didn't know what hit points *were* yet.

Meanwhile, as soon as you look at your "Hit Points" to gauge how much more punishment you can take, you are using game-mechanic information to make what should be in-world choices. There are rationalizations that "the fighter knows how much more damage he can take." But, damage to the human body doesn't work like hit points *at all*, they are a game abstraction. The rationalization also flies in the face of their being no death-spiral in D&D - there's no change in performance as you get hurt, so there's no in-game way for the fighter to know. And, even if the fighter does know, you then have to stretch credibility to apply this this to the wizard, who in-game should not in general know how much physical punishment his body can take, as he hasn't been training his body to take it!

So, referring to your hit points is metagaming. It is just metagaming we are all comfortable with.

Now, we are not arguing about YES/NO to metagaming. We are discussing *what* and *how much*. A different conversation.

 

[5ekyu]

You have what we in the business would call a "confidence level" that you won't like it. But, you don't actually *know*.

Sorry, but the difference between "I am confident that... " and, "I *know* that..." is vast.

Now, the dropping of a refrigerator is a thing governed by physical law. So, yes, you can have a high confidence level about what it does to you. The impact of a game session... not so much with the physical law.

Thus - unless you can honestly say that playing a game session with such a mechanic *sent you to the hospital* then I kind of have to classify this comparison as emotional hyperbole. It isn't really constructive.



It is also not unusual to completely misinterpret people's opinions on things.

I didn't say that the mechanic was new. Go, look - I never said anything of the sort about its newness. I never said it was revolutionary. So... STRAWMAN!

How about we don't bother with this until you respond to what I actually say, hm?

But let me ask this... if something is not new, if it doesn't do new things... or even stuff even noticably different and our preferences have not changed since the last time we "tasted" such things ( or have gotten even stronger having played same kind in other game systems as the new niche gets a lot of copies) ... how then does a position of "you dont know " or that you are working from a position of ignorance" make sense?

See, yes, you did not say FATE mechanics were new or that they did new things with it or that it's different much less revolutionary- but you did layout this long coffee-block argument to get to a point that new and different " experiences (new to you) might alter the results and not experiencing each of these puts you in a position of ignorance.

I get that folks like FATE and by all means it's a fine system, much of it has been a fine system for a long time.

But no matter how much I like one system or another, I am not gonna be jumping to the easy-quick place of assuming or clashing anyone who dislikes it without some unspecified investment of hours or months or years are working from ignorance.

Especially if I wont say that system does the thing they dislike with new mechanics - directly at least - and have to ho yo italian coffee.

But yo be very clear - I don't like coffee cant stand it and hate tiramisu after trying it cuz - coffee kills it for me. I have amazed friends who gave me cakes, pies, cookies, bbq chicken etc without telling me it had coffee even just a dash only to have me stop after the necessary polite bite and say whatever I needed to get out of the rest (given some social cases where you can't just spit it out - ahem boss` wife)



As for whatever you imagine to challenge whether we know we won't like it or maybe we just think we will, you are free to imagine whatever you like about hoe much more you know about what we will or won't like and what we know about it.

 

[Hussar]

What always surprises me in these conversations is when did D&D become a simulationist game? I mean, seriously? At what point in D&D's history did someone look at D&D and go, "Yup, that's simulating a reality that I find believable"

There's a reason we got actual simulationist games. Almost right from day 1. Games that made concerted attempts to create a simulation of the game world. And they succeeded to varying degrees.

But D&D? In what world is D&D even in the same zip code as a simulation game? The combat system in any edition, is so abstract that you cannot actually narrate any successful or failed attack. Not really. What does losing 10 HP actually mean? The only thing you can actually narrate is death.

Or, put it another way. What is the difference between a 12 Intelligence and a 13 Intelligence? That's a point that's been argued to death. Because the system is so abstract that the numbers really aren't meaningful.

On and on.

Look, I love sim gaming. I really do. Give me some Harn or GURPS or Battletech and I'm a happy camper. Diving in and going to town on tax forms. Fantastic.

But, what's the point in trying to claim that D&D is anywhere near that axis of things? It's almost purely gamist and has been since day 1.

 

[R_Chance]

What always surprises me in these conversations is when did D&D become a simulationist game? I mean, seriously? At what point in D&D's history did someone look at D&D and go, "Yup, that's simulating a reality that I find believable"

There's a reason we got actual simulationist games. Almost right from day 1. Games that made concerted attempts to create a simulation of the game world. And they succeeded to varying degrees.

But D&D? In what world is D&D even in the same zip code as a simulation game? The combat system in any edition, is so abstract that you cannot actually narrate any successful or failed attack. Not really. What does losing 10 HP actually mean? The only thing you can actually narrate is death.

Or, put it another way. What is the difference between a 12 Intelligence and a 13 Intelligence? That's a point that's been argued to death. Because the system is so abstract that the numbers really aren't meaningful.

On and on.

Look, I love sim gaming. I really do. Give me some Harn or GURPS or Battletech and I'm a happy camper. Diving in and going to town on tax forms. Fantastic.

But, what's the point in trying to claim that D&D is anywhere near that axis of things? It's almost purely gamist and has been since day 1.

All games (at least RPGs and war games anyway) simulate a game world or environment. With different levels of detail in different areas. And, some of those worlds are like our own and others are different. What might be "realistic" in one world might be impossible in another. The differences between "simulationist" and "abstract / gamist" are on a sliding scale. And if you think any fantasy RPG is "realistic"... better to talk "suspension of disbelief".

If you want to "narrate" every detail of something like combat in D&D you could bolt on a system that would detail the results of a hit or miss based on the "to hit" and "damage" rolls you make in D&D. It would be a pain, and burn large amounts of time (and numerous die rolls) but you could. The results would dovetail with those standard D&D rolls. Or you can leave it to the imagination and some short descriptions. Personally I can go with "imagination" and short descriptions. Ymmv.

*edit* Thought I'd drop back in and apologize for being a bit of a … rear end. There are times when I should probably wait before I post. If you weren't sure, this was one of them

 

[Umbran]

But let me ask this... if something is not new, if it doesn't do new things... or even stuff even noticably different and our preferences have not changed since the last time we "tasted" such things ( or have gotten even stronger having played same kind in other game systems as the new niche gets a lot of copies) ... how then does a position of "you dont know " or that you are working from a position of ignorance" make sense?

In this context, if I say it isn't new, I mean that only very broadly. Like, "a car is not a new thing". Four tires, a steering wheel, brakes, internal combustion engine. You know - a car. But cars today are a lot different from cars a century ago, or 50 years ago. Even in a thing that is broadly the same, there is change. That internal combustion engine? Not a given any more....

For any given general mechanical element, *how* it is implemented matters. The context in the game it sits matters. How it is intended to be used matters. There's a ton of details around it that can impact how it operates in practice. So, if you don't have experience with the specific implementation, you don't really know what it is like in this incarnation.

Mind you - I did not say this to make a claim that you should try a game with such mechanics. Not at all. You're free to play what you like. Experiment only with what you want, that's all good.

I was more referring to the fact that if you haven't worked with it... you're like.. maybe the old guy on an auto mechanics forum, who used to work on cars a lot when he was young... in 1967? You're talking about braking systems... but anti-lock brakes started becoming really common in the 1980s - after your time. Brakes aren't a new thing, but there's detail in how they are applied now that you don't know a whole lot about, and you would need to actually work with them a goodly amount to get yourself up to speed on the details of their performance and maintenance.

That's not saying you *need* to get up to speed. It is just that you should recognize that you can go ahead and talk about brakes on an Edsel, but if you talk about brakes on a Tesla... you're probably going to get something important wrong....

 

[Hussar]

All games (at least RPGs and war games anyway) simulate a game world or environment. With different levels of detail in different areas. And, some of those worlds are like our own and others are different. What might be "realistic" in one world might be impossible in another. The differences between "simulationist" and "abstract / gamist" are on a sliding scale. And if you think any fantasy RPG is "realistic"... better to talk "suspension of disbelief".

If you want to "narrate" every detail of something like combat in D&D you could bolt on a system that would detail the results of a hit or miss based on the "to hit" and "damage" rolls you make in D&D. It would be a pain, and burn large amounts of time (and numerous die rolls) but you could. The results would dovetail with those standard D&D rolls. Or you can leave it to the imagination and some short descriptions. Personally I can go with "imagination" and short descriptions. Ymmv.

*edit* Thought I'd drop back in and apologize for being a bit of a … rear end. There are times when I should probably wait before I post. If you weren't sure, this was one of them

Heh, no worries. Didn't see the before the edit stuff. I've got a pretty thick skin anyway.

But, I do disagree. RPG's don't necessarily simulate a game world at all. They don't have to. Some RPG's deal with primarily conflict resolution and leave most of the world simulation to the imagination of the players. AD&D wasn't simulationist in the slightest. It was pretty unabashedly gamist. The DM was there to challenge the players and the players were more interested in "beating" whatever the scenario was than dealing with anything like "Hrm, exactly how does the plumbing in this mega dungeon work anyway"

But, I'd point out that my HP idea is pretty apropos. No edition of D&D can EVER answer the question, what does 10 HP of damage look like. You can't. I can't. Not really. We ignore that and make stuff up, but, at the end of the day, any narration we create is entirely divorced from the mechanics. The whole AC/HP system is far too abstract to actually generate any answers.

I mean, for something to be a simulation, it actually has to simulate something. If I play a flight simulator video game, there is a very direct correlation between my actions and what happens in the simulation and we can easily identify the exact point in time when I massively screw up, sending that 747 into a flat spin only to turn into a large fireworks display somewhere in the vicinity of Dallas.

The same is very much not true in D&D.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, if I was going to make a Magic User as an enemy, I'd probably go through the PC rules. Mostly because 1e didn't really have any rules otherwise. Which then brought in all sorts of weirdness. How much XP was a, say, 7th level MU worth as a foe? Can you show your work?

Yes and yes, in fact. Page 85 of the 1e DMG gives me all I need.

7th level is treated as 7+1 HD, so base is 375 + 10 per hit point + 175 (SA high intelligence affecting combat) [+175 (SA AC 0 or lower) if applicable] + 275 (XA spell use).

A 20 h.p. MU with AC 4 thus gives 375+200+175+275 = 1025 xp.