4E and "Old School Gaming" (and why they aren't mutually exclusive"

[Betote]

I think that, for me, "old school" means:

1. Player choice drives the game.
1a. Really bad player choices lead to TPKs.
1b. Really clever player choices lead to rewards and advantages beyond the norm.

I'd say that yes, sandbox is as much "old school" as it gets. I'd add a feeling of constant danger and a little player justified paranoia as well

What's sad is that, RAW, the 4e rules make 1a and 1b very difficult. A because you really can't do much more to a player which lasts more than a few minutes apart from make him face a much higher level monster and kill him blow by blow. And B because the books are always stressing the need for everything to be balanced.

Yes, you can houserule it or ignore the mandates of the DMG, but I don't need to spend 90+ bucks on books just to be able to ignore them. I can ignore things for free, thank you very much

2. There are strains of an almost Lovecraftian incomprehensibility to many gods and demons, a la the chaos temple in Keep on the Borderlands.
3. The forces of evil gather on all sides of the Realms of Man.

... And that would be "Sword & Sorcery" against "High Fantasy". As Howard predates Tolkien, one could say S&S is in fact more "old-schoolish"

 

[mearls]

What's sad is that, RAW, the 4e rules make 1a and 1b very difficult.

I could not disagree more.

What 4e does is push the mechanical repercussions more into individual encounters, than into a series of encounters. And I think it cuts both ways.

In 4e, players don't have the "smart bomb" of a sleep spell to escape one fight per day at low levels. On the other hand, they face far fewer save or die mechanics, but they also face far more durable monsters who can quickly overwhelm a party if the PCs are fool enough to draw too many opponents upon themselves.

While the short rest does provide some measure of reset, getting to that short rest, and taking it without interruption, can be a challenge, one that for foolish players can end in a TPK.

The key is that, as DM, you need to design your adventures that way. G1 is as deadly to a group that charges in on a frontal assault in 4e as it was in 1e.

Admittedly, you need to approach the game from a different POV, but I don't think the change is as radical as throwing out everything you learned about D&D.

 

[MerricB]

What's sad is that, RAW, the 4e rules make 1a and 1b very difficult. A because you really can't do much more to a player which lasts more than a few minutes apart from make him face a much higher level monster and kill him blow by blow. And B because the books are always stressing the need for everything to be balanced.

You can do a lot to PCs that last more than a few minutes, although we're still getting used to the forms that takes. Disease effects are the big ones, but medusa still petrifies, mind flayers can eat brains, and the bodak is rather scary.

And don't underestimate the effect of expending healing surges: when you're down to 1 or 2, you're close to death and all my players know it. At that point, you retreat or you hope the dice don't kill you.

I'm having a lot of fun with healing surges, actually. One of the PCs insulted an evil deity in that deity's temple... so, I cursed that PC to be able to regain no healing surges until they got the cursed lifted. That really scared that player, I can tell you.

Cheers!

 

[RFisher]

Dag! Beat me to it.

Sadly, when I went to link to it, I didn’t have it handy. Had to search.

What 4e does is push the mechanical repercussions more into individual encounters, than into a series of encounters.

Interesting. I think this may be an important but subtle reason that 4e wasn’t quite doing it for me.

 

[Korgoth]

I think that, for me, "old school" means:

1. Player choice drives the game.
1a. Really bad player choices lead to TPKs.
1b. Really clever player choices lead to rewards and advantages beyond the norm.
2. There are strains of an almost Lovecraftian incomprehensibility to many gods and demons, a la the chaos temple in Keep on the Borderlands.
3. The forces of evil gather on all sides of the Realms of Man.

That's pretty much it, to me. Rule 1 and its sub-rules are the critical parts of it. Quick, creative thinking is key. Mindlessly attacking is a fool's gambit.

I think those are very good points, Mr. Mearls, but you left one out: in Old School play, you don't handle with a roll what can be handled by common sense and description, such as searches, negotiations etc.

You don't get to roll your Int to 'solve' a riddle, or roll your Sense Motive to find out if the bad guy is lying to you. You have to figure out those things for yourself.

 

[Betote]

I could not disagree more.

Why am I not surprised?

What 4e does is push the mechanical repercussions more into individual encounters, than into a series of encounters. And I think it cuts both ways.

In 4e, players don't have the "smart bomb" of a sleep spell to escape one fight per day at low levels. On the other hand, they face far fewer save or die mechanics, but they also face far more durable monsters who can quickly overwhelm a party if the PCs are fool enough to draw too many opponents upon themselves.

While the short rest does provide some measure of reset, getting to that short rest, and taking it without interruption, can be a challenge, one that for foolish players can end in a TPK.

What I meant is that 4e focuses too much on damage as almost the only way to "punish" players, and the only way to end a combat is to drop all your enemies to 0 hp, blow by blow.

Surely, SoD sucks when it comes unannounced, and the pre-4e Sleep spell is almost a "win 1 encounter for free", but there has to be some sort of middle ground between that and the "from 40 to 0 in 1d8-steps" approach of 4e.

And, by the way, monsters are *too* durable in 4e. Half of the combat is actual combat, and the other half is a "are we there now, daddy?"

The key is that, as DM, you need to design your adventures that way. G1 is as deadly to a group that charges in on a frontal assault in 4e as it was in 1e.

Admittedly, you need to approach the game from a different POV, but I don't think the change is as radical as throwing out everything you learned about D&D.

Problem is, if 4e is your first D&D game, you pretty much have no clues on how to do it apart from "everything has to be balanced or Something Horrible will happen and you'll stop having fun". If you grew up reading Gygax articles, you already have all the baggage needed to bring "old school" to any game (Heck, I've even run Gygaxian Risus), but if you're just stretching your DM wings and don't know any other advice than the 4e DMG's, it seems like your only option is to purchase correctly balanced monster groups and locating treasure parcels of the right level.

 

[MerricB]

You don't get to roll your Int to 'solve' a riddle

Please go to the 4e DMG, pages 81-84, which describe puzzles, riddles and similar challenges in more detail than has existed in any previous core D&D book, and tell me where it allows an Int check to solve a riddle.

 

[Betote]

I think those are very good points, Mr. Mearls, but you left one out: in Old School play, you don't handle with a roll what can be handled by common sense and description, such as searches, negotiations etc.

You don't get to roll your Int to 'solve' a riddle, or roll your Sense Motive to find out if the bad guy is lying to you. You have to figure out those things for yourself.

... And that's one of the things of "old school gaming" that I don't miss at all

It reminds me of the world of video games. Many people (myself included) feel that modern video games get many times lost in having bigger explosions, killing the most prostitutes and rocking harder and don't remember that a video game was supposed to be fun to play. I'd play Tetris over the last FPS any time.

Yes, retro video games were more fun to play, but they also had crappy graphics and music. Those are not good things of retro video games. And I'd play the FFIII remake for DS over the original any time. Because it has the good things of being "retro", but it got rid of the bad ones.

And not having skills and relying on the player's descriptions amusing the DM enough falls short. Because rpgs are also about make-believe, about pretending to be someone you're not. And I don't want my ranger to be overshadowed by the bookwormy wizard in survival ability just because my friend Timmy is a boyscout and I'm not.

 

[MerricB]

I think those are very good points, Mr. Mearls, but you left one out: in Old School play, you don't handle with a roll what can be handled by common sense and description, such as searches, negotiations etc.

The really weird thing about that is that Old School does handle them with a roll... sometimes. It's entirely about how the individual DM or designer wanted to handle it.

Searching for secret doors is a case in point: it's very clearly described as a roll in the Player's Handbook and DMG. In Keep on the Borderlands, you have the following text: "It has no treasure, but amidst the many sticks and bones it sleeps on is a bone tube (1 in 6 chance of noticing it for each person searching the heap, with a check for each once per round) with a protection from undead scroll within it." My my, another roll!

Initial negotiations? Handled with the reaction roll. (Note that this requires a number of opening exchanges - it's not rolled before you say anything).

Further negotiations would be roleplayed; but to a large extent so should they be in 4e.

Cheers!

 

[Betote]

Please go to the 4e DMG, pages 81-84, which describe puzzles, riddles and similar challenges in more detail than has existed in any previous core D&D book, and tell me where it allows an Int check to solve a riddle.

Page 84, the whole second column, "Puzzle as Skill Challenge".

I like more the option of page 81, "The "get a clue" check".