Starting "Old SChool" gaming

[Belen]

So a fair conclusion to draw from this would be that a possible difference between "old" and "new" school gaming is that one favors the player's skill and the other the character's skill?

In some respects, yes. You challenged the players rather than the characters.

 

[mmadsen]

So a fair conclusion to draw from this would be that a possible difference between "old" and "new" school gaming is that one favors the player's skill and the other the character's skill?

According to the Primer, definitely. That's the Second Zen Moment: Player Skill, not Character Abilities.

Again though, "old school" gaming had a number of well-defined -- or overly defined -- subsystems, most notably for combat; it's just that the vast majority of the game was played outside those well-defined subsystems, where the DM made rulings using "common sense" and taking into account all the details of the context.

 

[Belen]

According to the Primer, definitely. That's the Second Zen Moment: Player Skill, not Character Abilities.

Again though, "old school" gaming had a number of well-defined -- or overly defined -- subsystems, most notably for combat; it's just that the vast majority of the game was played outside those well-defined subsystems, where the DM made rulings using "common sense" and taking into account all the details of the context.

You can moderate the "common sense" rulings, but stratifying the ability checks.

Most of the poor GMs got into trouble because they tried to develop rules for every situation.

 

[Celebrim]

So a fair conclusion to draw from this would be that a possible difference between "old" and "new" school gaming is that one favors the player's skill and the other the character's skill?

When this thread first appeared a few days back, I wrote a very long post (even by my standards) addressing this topic. It got eaten by a server error, and due to a distraction (in the form of a 4 year old girl) I didn't notice until the text was unrecoverable (even through fiddler). I guess I'm going to have to try to rewrite it, because no one here is quite representing my opinion.

But, before I do that, I'll make a very brief answer to your question.

The short answer to the above is, "Yes." The longer answer is that neither 'old school' nor 'new school' is inherently entirely one or the other and that, while it is possible to play it entirely one way or the other, in practice most people don't and have good reasons for doing so.

I have always played, even since the early 80's, something of a hybrid game where player skill supplemented character skill and vice a versa.

Consider a 1e character skill like 'Find Traps'. This was never the only way to find a pit trap. You could do all sorts of creative things to spring a pit trap: the classic probe ahead with a 10' pole, fill a large sack with dirt and have someone burly repeatedly toss it ahead of you as you went down the corridor, summon some suitably heavy monsters and send them down the corridor to break a path for you, or drink a potion of flying and gingerly put your weight on the floor until you sprung the pit open. In 1e, in the role of a thief, at one time or the other I've done all of these things. However, in most cases the first thing I did was roll to 'Find Traps'. The way I was taught to play, the 'Find Traps' roll was made by the DM - not the player 0 and was made in secret. In this way, the player never knew whether, if he didn't find a trap, it was because there was no trap or if it was because his character wasn't observant enough.

If I had to point to one thing that is different about how I run the game and the way most players learn to play 3E, it's that.

You see, if I told the DM I was searching the floor for traps, and the DM said, "You find a pressure plate.", then I had something to work with and so much the better. But, if he said, "You don't find anything.", I didn't know what that meant and so I then resorted to my backup plan, generally speaking a 10' pole. Finding the pressure plate with my 'Find Traps' roll was far far better than finding it with my 10' pole, because that meant that I could avoid the trap which is far far better than springing the trap, even from 10' away. Being 10' back was sometimes good, but sometimes it was of little help.

So there was an intersection between player skill and character skill in I think a very interesting way. As your character got more experienced, his character skill got better and that helped you make better decisions, but you still had to fall back on your basic player based problem solving in many cases.

I think by pretending that the dichotomy is so huge, people are doing themselves a disservice by pretending that the two approaches have no problems (or rather by pretending that their favored approach has no problems and that the other approach is just all wrong). I've seen bad DMing in every edition. There are pitfalls to avoid in both a player centered game and a character centered game. The best games tend to do some of both. I mean really, where were these old school games where noone rolled to detect secret doors or find traps or for surprise or any of the other proto-skill mechanics? I'm sure there were some out there, possibly games tied to oD&D, but even in 1980 I don't think that was how most people played. Most people were hybridizing their games, and the trick to playing 3e in a 1e style is achieving that approximate mixture again. In my opinion, the 3e rules set adapted to the 1e game makes for better old school gaming than any older edition does. I see no reason to go back to an old rules set that I abandoned in frustration in order to play in the way that I've always played.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It's a while since I've read the Primer but from the discussion it seems to be making the case for Amber Diceless Roleplaying rather than AD&D 1e. The latter has many complex rules, and a skill system (or rather, several skill systems) - Thieves' Abilities, Secondary Skills (DMG pg 12), Sages, Listening at Doors, Surprise. All class abilities, including spells, could be regarded as skills.

 

[Celebrim]

It's a while since I've read the Primer but from the discussion it seems to be making the case for Amber Diceless Roleplaying rather than AD&D 1e. The latter has many complex rules, and a skill system (or rather, several skill systems) - Thieves' Abilities, Secondary Skills (DMG pg 12), Sages, Listening at Doors, Surprise. All class abilities, including spells, could be regarded as skills.

That says in about 50 words what I was going to say in about 5000.

I think the writer of the Primer - which is by and large well worth reading don't get me wrong -nonetheless comes a few Zen moments shy of enlightenment.

 

[rogueattorney]

It's a while since I've read the Primer but from the discussion it seems to be making the case for Amber Diceless Roleplaying rather than AD&D 1e. The latter has many complex rules, and a skill system (or rather, several skill systems) - Thieves' Abilities, Secondary Skills (DMG pg 12), Sages, Listening at Doors, Surprise. All class abilities, including spells, could be regarded as skills.

As it so happens, the late, great Eric Wujcik, the author of Amber Diceless (and, more importantly, TMNT and Other Strangeness )wrote a great article on playing an OD&D thief and diceless rpgs.

It's right here.

 

[Ariosto]

3E scholars, point me to a passage in the 3E PHB or SRD that encourages DMs to rule on "skill" actions according to the players' actions instead of a specific skill check roll, and I'll gladly change my perception that the game promotes "rollplaying" over roleplaying!

PHB 3.5, p. 73, Other Ways to Beat a Trap: "It's possible to ruin many traps without making a Disable Device check". (Examples follow.)

That's basically just a footnote, though. I don't think it ought to take a scholar to find the encouragement you have in mind. Certainly the emphasis is on dice-rolls. Then again, the writers may have taken rulings based on common sense for granted as an assumption.

I will say, though, that I never found stats such a problem in Traveller, RuneQuest, or other older games. The centrality of "point build" systems in The Fantasy Trip and Champions might seem to encourage "roll" playing -- but in my experience there usually was not a big difference.

There's a synergy between the rules heaviness of 3e and a rules-bound approach to play. That seems to me increased by design in 4e. However, it's the prevailing attitude among players of those games that presents the really great hurdle for a freer approach. Most often, it seems, the shift to old-style play blows their minds in a bad way.

 

[Umbran]

So I'll bite: 3E scholars, point me to a passage in the 3E PHB or SRD that encourages DMs to rule on "skill" actions according to the players' actions instead of a specific skill check roll, and I'll gladly change my perception that the game promotes "rollplaying" over roleplaying!

The relevant passages are in the DMG, since that's where much of the advice for the DMs reside.

3e DMG, pg 91:

The General vs. the Specific

Sometimes a player will say, "I look around the room. Do I see anything?" and sometimes she'll say, "I look into the room, knowing that I just saw a kobold dart inside. I look behind the chair and the table, and in all the dark corners. Do I see it?" In both cases, the DM replies, "Make a Spot check." However, in the second case the character has specialized knowledge of the situation. She's asking specific questions. In such cases, always award the character a +2 bonus for favorable conditions.

And, from the previous page, on the subject of the +/-2 modifier:

Going beyond the rule: It's certainly acceptable for you to modify this rule. For extremely favorable or unfavorable circumstances, you can use modifiers larger than +/-2....

Equivalents exist one pages 32 and 30 of the 3.5e DMG.

Thus - the DM is instructed to give the PC a bonus based on exactly what they describe they are doing, and the DMs told that they may assign whatever bonus (or penalty) they want.

This does not entirely eliminate the roll, but it makes the role servant of the specific actions in the game.

 

[Umbran]

However, the claim that it is a straw man does seem to be one.

Given that he said that it wasn't so much a straw man as an unsupported assertion, it seems to me that no such claim has been made.