Beyond Old and New School - "The Secret That Was Lost"

Herschel said:

Maybe the mechanics were not where the problem exists. A whole lot of people seemed to like and use them just fine.

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Everybody's a Genius but If You Judge a Fish By Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing It Is Stupid

Very nice thread !
Thank you, [MENTION=59082]Mercurius[/MENTION], for opening it. Paying hommage to Boorman's Excalibur and Moorcock style was just icing on top of the cake

If I read well the excellent contributions of [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and, especially, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], I feel there is very little difference between "old" and "new" school. I am more worried with what's in between...
Let's dive into it : I fully endorse the claim that there is a very special imaginative process at work at the heart of "Fortune in the Middle" mechanics. Particularly, you have strong constraints on where you are coming from, and where you are getting to, and a lot of freedom concerning the journey from A to B. This architecture provides many features, as it provides some room between gamining mechanics (which can focus on fun, balance, ease of use, whatever) from narrative license, and empower each player with his own vision of "what happens" while guaranteeing everybody's on the same page concerning the final state. Of course, I have seen many people, on this board and elsewhere, disliking this kind of mechanics, and putting the blame on 4E for using them so casually... I feel they are misrepresenting the issue, as the most blatant supporter of FitM was, IMHO, Gygax himself, especially in 1E DMG. When you think about it, with his random tables, the old man invented the Schrödinger dungeon ! The room behind the door doesn't have to exist before you open the door ! This is the ultimate scene framing device, not in the sense of creating meaningful scenes, but in the sense that only the present "encounter" matters. So, no, I wouldn't oppose Old and New schools on the way they use and support imagination, on both a microscopic (rolls are FitM) and macroscopic ("scene framing") level.
I am under the impression Next is pretty neutral concerning FitM mechanics : it uses them quite a lot (in fact, once again, HP are going to be a real source of headaches for those who don't embrace the FitM paradigm), but not as overtly as 1E (I would say 4E is not blatant enough on this subject, and this is one of the many reasons of its demise). Next also promotes a time framework compatible with scene framing, with short and long rests recharging PC resources. Where Next does an excellent design job is when it tries to enable this protagonistic time management device while preserving the naturalistic flow of time. This philosophy shows at many places, where the design tries to make room for "kool powarz" without the (IMO) obnoxious power formatting (I hope Next Fighters will be able to lure foes into battle, spending some metagame resource, but not in the cold and tokenized manner of "Come and Get it !" encounter power). I also feel that the design team believes (like me, and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], I guess ;-), and I am sure the class has a special meaning to [MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION], if I remember Iron Heroes well enough) that the game vanquishes or perishes with its implementation of the Fighter, and they are definitely aiming at giving it back its "Old school" resiliency.
For those afraid to lose 4E "story now" features with Next, I would say I think there is more to gain than to lose with the relaxing of the hygienic regimenting of time, resources, roles, and threats. (For instance, I don't feel able to DM a Song of Ice and Fire style campaign, with a naturalistic take on the world and the idea that every character can be a protagonist, using the 4E framework. Having to rebuild NPC when the PC level up, or when they acquire PC status, seem very cumbersome to me). A less tokenized system, besides being less alienating to a LOT of players, would open up nice possibilities such as the Doom Pool : my real concern, regarding DM force, has always been restraint : why shouldn't I Buff, Scry and Teleport to get rid of these nasty PCs in their sleep ?
I definitely think 4E "tight math" and p42 are overrated : math is surely better than in 3E, thanks to the enforcement of a "bounded accuracy" policy, but the ubiquitous use of a single die (a d20, for instance) as a randomizer yields to a very strange world indeed (take a closer look at the distance jumped, for instance...). Actually, "math" was tighter in 1E, because Gygax understood the use of a bell curve, and used one (or more !) new table for each and every case he encountered. I can see the appeal of a unified mechanic, but 4E is really : you have 30% / 55 % / 80 % to succeed at a Hard/Moderate/Easy task appropriate to your level. Adjust by 5% for every 2 level difference. Even Fate (which is not what I would call a crunch heavy game !) has a richer base system, as it starts from a bell curve... Also, all those minigames contained inside D&D have always fired my imagination : how many armies built with the War Machine ? Castle features carefully paid for ? Decks of many things and Wands of wonder and Spheres of annihilation and Vorpal swords ? Psi using BBEG ? A clean system is serviceable, but it sometimes comes to the detriment of accuracy (jump length), effect (fighters resilience), fun & imagination...
(by the way, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], I think you are overrating/overselling 4E a bit too much with the support of inspirational healing. In Tolkien and Arthurian Romance, both (master)pieces of reactionary literature, healing IS divine : both Arthur and Aragorn are king by divine right, and I would argue their ability to *channel* heroism and bravery in their followers, or to be themselves inspired by an icon of love, is divine by nature. So, IMO, these characters ARE paladins, and divine healing is inspirational by nature. To be continued )

steeldragons said:

Ok...lemme try... the DM has no limits...the players do. they can certainly try to think "outside the [rules] box"...and I would assert a "good" [subjective] DM will allow things as makes sense. Now, an /dick/rat bastard DM can take advantage...on purpose!...But that is not necessarily a "good" [subjective] thing.

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Question: if the GM has all the power, and players (therefore) have none, what are the players doing? Before you say "having fun", I mean something that they are actively, not passively doing. If I go to watch a film (movie), I might or might not have fun, but if I do it will be a consequence of the active action that I take - which is to watch a movie. So, if the things that happen are just what the GM wills to happen, what are the players doing? What role are they playing? The only one I can think of is to add suggestions that the GM can include or not as s/he sees fit. So the players are essentially playing a "guess what the GM thinks is cool" game. If that is what I'm going to do, there are places and ways to do it that I would much rather be/do than playing a roleplaying game. If I'm playing an RPG I want to have some solid actual role in making the emergent story happen - and I want the people I'm playing with to do so, too. Otherwise I'll just go and do something interesting, instead.

steeldragons said:

AND, my final word here, is that that is the primordial difference in [the D&D game's] playstyles...or at least two very significant ones. One says that is "serving/improving/"bettering" and one says that is "subordinating/negating/destroying" the game. That makes the ideal of 5e, however appealing, of "One game to rule them all" completely impossible.

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Well, yeah - I was saying that several months ago (and, to be fair, I think you were, too).

MichaelSomething said:

Everybody's a Genius but If You Judge a Fish By Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing It Is Stupid

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OK, but, if you judge trees impossible to climb because you are a fish, you may not be using your genius to best advantage...

Cyberen said:

the most blatant supporter of FitM was, IMHO, Gygax himself, especially in 1E DMG. When you think about it, with his random tables, the old man invented the Schrödinger dungeon ! The room behind the door doesn't have to exist before you open the door ! This is the ultimate scene framing device, not in the sense of creating meaningful scenes, but in the sense that only the present "encounter" matters. So, no, I wouldn't oppose Old and New schools on the way they use and support imagination, on both a microscopic (rolls are FitM) and macroscopic ("scene framing") level.

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First of all, this was a fine post all round - I enjoyed reading it!

This specific paragraph prompted a thought for me: I am used to thinking of saving throws in AD&D as FitM, and you bring up the encounter/dungeon builder tables, here - but I think that the "one minute combat round" was another example. If you think purely in terms of the combat round starting out with both combatants in a guard position about to strike, full minute rounds makes little sense; combats from that point take seconds, not minutes. But, if you think of the combat round as including manoeuvre, intimidation, name calling/taunting, feints and testing the opponent's resolve and so on, it makes more sense. So the outcome of a round becomes much more malleable and varied - the resolution system just giving an abstracted version of the outcome.

Cyberen said:

This philosophy shows at many places, where the design tries to make room for "kool powarz" without the (IMO) obnoxious power formatting (I hope Next Fighters will be able to lure foes into battle, spending some metagame resource, but not in the cold and tokenized manner of "Come and Get it !" encounter power).

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This is a matter of taste, I think. I actually prefer the "tokenised" system because of its clarity and simplicity. One minor issue I have with 13th Age is with the "manoeuvre choice depending on to hit roll" mechanism for fighters and a few others. The need to think about this, possibly at several stages, during the mechanical resolution of the attack I find more prone to pull me out of game engagement than a simple token choice. Others' mileage will very likely vary, but I like to have clear, simple resources to use as a player, and to have difficult/tense choices to make with them.

Cyberen said:

(by the way, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], I think you are overrating/overselling 4E a bit too much with the support of inspirational healing. In Tolkien and Arthurian Romance, both (master)pieces of reactionary literature, healing IS divine : both Arthur and Aragorn are king by divine right, and I would argue their ability to *channel* heroism and bravery in their followers, or to be themselves inspired by an icon of love, is divine by nature. So, IMO, these characters ARE paladins, and divine healing is inspirational by nature. To be continued )

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Surely, one advantage of the "choose your own way to imagine the route from A to B" nature of 4E powers, you can envisage Warlord healing as "divine" in nature, if you want to? The point being that neither Arthur nor Aragorn routinely cast Cleric spells the rest of the time, but 4E allows such a character to be played with the "healing" happening by whatever agency you want to imagine it happening by. In earlier editions, by contrast, you can't (as written) get inspirational or any other healing without divine agency.

Balesir said:

Question: if the GM has all the power, and players (therefore) have none, what are the players doing?

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Um, no. I didn't say "the GM has all of the power (therefore) the players have none." I said the GM has no limits. The players, somewhat obviously, do. They control their characters and nothing else...but by virtue of their control of the characters, they are really the ones in the driver's seat of the story/game/adventure. So, you could say, the players are the ones with "all the power."

The players can not say "I go into this room, there's no monsters and its filled with treasure." or when they run into a dragon they can not just say, "I kill it. It's dead. We find the macguffin." The GM...can [though in the latter example I couldn't imagine why they would! haha]. The player of the Fighter can not say "I cast Sleep" or the Thief heal the dwarf with her Cure Light Wounds spell while the Cleric is Hiding in Shadows.* The GM could have an NPC do so [with some kind of backstory/reason/way for it to make sense, I would hope]. There are constrains to their influence over the game world...that the GM does not have.

Limits/no limits =/= no power/all power.

*Simplistically speaking. I know there are certain editions of D&D, other storytelling type games, playstyles that allow or enjoy a degree of narrative control by players, and feats/skills/prestige classes/etc... that allow this kinda stuff to occur. No one has to explain for me how any of that is possible. Please and thank you.

Balesir said:

Question: if the GM has all the power, and players (therefore) have none, what are the players doing?

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The same thing that we're all doing in real life I imagine. The universe is a big place. We have either no or virtually no ability to influence even the tiny part of it that we care about. The same is carried through in our fiction, including the idea of fate in fantasy and the idea of cosmicism in horror and sci-fi. It does, however, befit us to try and focus on the things we can control.

I don't see why the same logic doesn't apply to rpgs.

(Not that [MENTION=92511]steeldragons[/MENTION] didn't address this point capably as well).

Balesir said:

First of all, this was a fine post all round - I enjoyed reading it!

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Thank you very much, good Balesir !

Balesir said:

This specific paragraph prompted a thought for me: I am used to thinking of saving throws in AD&D as FitM, and you bring up the encounter/dungeon builder tables, here - but I think that the "one minute combat round" was another example. If you think purely in terms of the combat round starting out with both combatants in a guard position about to strike, full minute rounds makes little sense; combats from that point take seconds, not minutes. But, if you think of the combat round as including manoeuvre, intimidation, name calling/taunting, feints and testing the opponent's resolve and so on, it makes more sense. So the outcome of a round becomes much more malleable and varied - the resolution system just giving an abstracted version of the outcome.

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Definitely, the "1 minute combat round" what part of what I was alluding to when I was claiming 1e was very transparent concerning FitM, and clearly, it offers a blank slate for narration, while at the same time guaranteeing game system integrity (you can narrate/imagine whatever you want... as long as it doesn't change the rolled outcome). 4E is very ambivalent on this subject, as the combat roll is closer to task resolution, and with the (almost) mandatory use of the battlemat, which doesn't give a lot of room to the so-called Schrödinger crevice in the collective theatre of the mind where the battle takes place.

Balesir said:

This is a matter of taste, I think. I actually prefer the "tokenised" system because of its clarity and simplicity. One minor issue I have with 13th Age is with the "manoeuvre choice depending on to hit roll" mechanism for fighters and a few others. The need to think about this, possibly at several stages, during the mechanical resolution of the attack I find more prone to pull me out of game engagement than a simple token choice. Others' mileage will very likely vary, but I like to have clear, simple resources to use as a player, and to have difficult/tense choices to make with them.

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Clarity, simplicity, and a good dose of player fiat (not being bound too much by the vagaries of the die), I can get behind. What I dislike with the AEDU Powers, besides its dry formatting, is : 1) the way a power is hard coded in the PC repertoire : you are "building" a deck of powers 2) its weird attrition scheme : a CaGI fighter will lure its foes exactly once per fight, no more, no less (unless he choses not to). I have the feeling 4E PCs are 6-tricks ponies (3E and 3D powers), which could seem better than "I attack, again and again", but is in fact more of the same. I am longing for something more organic and open-ended, while relying on a robust resource management system. I find @mearls did a good job in this direction, in Iron Heroes, with the various classes building and spending their own token pools for SFX.

Balesir said:

Surely, one advantage of the "choose your own way to imagine the route from A to B" nature of 4E powers, you can envisage Warlord healing as "divine" in nature, if you want to? The point being that neither Arthur nor Aragorn routinely cast Cleric spells the rest of the time, but 4E allows such a character to be played with the "healing" happening by whatever agency you want to imagine it happening by. In earlier editions, by contrast, you can't (as written) get inspirational or any other healing without divine agency.

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You are right, of course. The trick with earlier editions, that is lost with 4E, is that DMs are expected to tinker with the rules to make them suit their needs. Gygax pulled the Cleric out of thin air to suit one of his needs, and so can you do if the proposed cast doesn't match your objectives. In other words, if you want a Warlord in 1E, it's not a big deal to create one. 4E is too complex for this scope of creative freedom, but compensates by offering extended refluffing capabilities.
I think this is the kind of players empowerment ("The rules are guidelines ! Feel free to invent more !"), shared between both sides of the screen (the rules are a very concrete part of the social contract of the game), that has been lost with the later, cleaner, more integrated versions of the game. I am happy Next seems very hackable by design !

Ahnehnois said:

The same thing that we're all doing in real life I imagine. The universe is a big place. We have either no or virtually no ability to influence even the tiny part of it that we care about. The same is carried through in our fiction, including the idea of fate in fantasy and the idea of cosmicism in horror and sci-fi. It does, however, befit us to try and focus on the things we can control.

I don't see why the same logic doesn't apply to rpgs.

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That's fine, but why can't the concept that our lives may have some greater meaning and purpose also apply to RPGs, and even D&D in particular?

Man, it's like we're using our system choices to play out our version of the Planescape faction war.

Cyberen said:

You are right, of course. The trick with earlier editions, that is lost with 4E, is that DMs are expected to tinker with the rules to make them suit their needs. Gygax pulled the Cleric out of thin air to suit one of his needs, and so can you do if the proposed cast doesn't match your objectives. In other words, if you want a Warlord in 1E, it's not a big deal to create one. 4E is too complex for this scope of creative freedom, but compensates by offering extended refluffing capabilities.
I think this is the kind of players empowerment ("The rules are guidelines ! Feel free to invent more !"), shared between both sides of the screen (the rules are a very concrete part of the social contract of the game), that has been lost with the later, cleaner, more integrated versions of the game. I am happy Next seems very hackable by design !

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To be fair, I tinker with 4e all the time. My players got bored with our OSR game and begged to go back to 4e, but they liked their current characters a lot and wanted to continue with them. So I developed versions of their characters by taking and adapting the 4e system and making powers and class features as I saw fit. The wizard has only 1 at-will, and can memorize 3 daily powers a day out of the 6 in his spellbook, for example. Another character is a Dex-based fighter with several ranger-style bow powers.

Zardnaar said:

No it was the mechanics. And I am not alone with the mass exodus to Pathfinder. Some 4E fans seem to have trouble accepting 4E was rejected because of the mechanics and most of that was the class mechanics in the PHB and the absurdities of healing surges and that is before one gets to combat length due to he hit point bloat and easy mode healing which slowed the game to a crawl. Kind of fun for one off type games but once the novelty value wears off you are in trouble. In 10 years or 20 years time I suspect 4E will be long forgotten. There will be no OSR type revival or successful 4E clone and I suspect 13th Age will be gone in a few years time as well.

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Awwwwww you are adorable.

Thanks for being you!

Ahnehnois said:

The same thing that we're all doing in real life I imagine. The universe is a big place. We have either no or virtually no ability to influence even the tiny part of it that we care about. The same is carried through in our fiction, including the idea of fate in fantasy and the idea of cosmicism in horror and sci-fi. It does, however, befit us to try and focus on the things we can control.

I don't see why the same logic doesn't apply to rpgs.

(Not that [MENTION=92511]steeldragons[/MENTION] didn't address this point capably as well).

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Imnot saying this is wrong, but it makes no sense to me and is the polar opposite of what I want out of a game.