D&D 5E Grey beard culture question about critical role

[TwoSix]

Emphasis mine.

Obviously we all had different experiences in the "old school" but I must say this is the first time I have heard these two terms mashed together.

"Old school story focused" is a pretty good descriptor for 90s era 2E/White Wolf style play.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Emphasis mine.

Obviously we all had different experiences in the "old school" but I must say this is the first time I have heard these two terms mashed together.

A lot of what I actually saw back in the day was dragonlance influenced story focused play. With out the CR level of dialog and improv.
A lot of what is referred to here as old school seems to me to be exploration based play, which in fact I saw very little of back when I started play. Though the older players I knew had played it but did not run their games that way.

Edit Changed "Old School" to "old school" to make a distinction that the important bit is "old" not referring to "OSR"

 

[Greg Benage]

Obviously we all had different experiences in the "old school" but I must say this is the first time I have heard these two terms mashed together.

DL 1 Dragons of Despair was released in 1984, and it was more "story-focused" (by any means necessary) than anything coming out of CR.

 

[Reynard]

"Old school story focused" is a pretty good descriptor for 90s era 2E/White Wolf style play.

Ah, this is a question of what "old school" actually means.

 

[Reynard]

DL 1 Dragons of Despair was released in 1984, and it was more "story-focused" (by any means necessary) than anything coming out of CR.

This is the first time I have ever heard anyone refer to Dragonlance as "old school."

EDIT to add: in fact i would go so far as to say, in my experience, Dragonlance IS the break from Old School.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

This is the first time I have ever heard anyone refer to Dragonlance as "old school."

Its "old school " if it was around when I was at school or older

 

[overgeeked]

It's like the language / cadence. Or maybe the things they "expect D&D to be". A few examples:

Yeah. Think of it more like improv theater and group storytelling than a game.

the interchange with merchants is not not something I'm accustomed to - this seems to be a big part of the experience

CR infamously has entire 4 hour episodes of just shopping.

the depth-of-character is really impressive, but again, I'm simply not accustomed to it - the group is "really in character" at the table

That’s the main selling point of CR. Pro voice actors and actors immersed in character and playing the game.

the killing move, "how do you want to do this" is something new to me

This is common in my experience. We’ve called it different things but done similar since 1984.

the mechanics of the game seem to be less important than the story of the game

Absolutely. It’s more collaborative storytelling than game. They engage the rules “when necessary” but otherwise keep chugging along.

Again, my DM is really amazing (I introduced D&D to him many years ago), and I'm having a very fun time, but I'm just...not...quite...connecting.

Were you around for the Hickman revolution? It’s that taken to the extreme. If you can find a copy of Hickman’s X-Treme Dungeon Mastery, 1E is out-of-print and 2E is still fulfilling via Kickstarter, it might offer some insight.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Yeah, I'd second the recommendation for watching Legend of Vox Machina. I just don't have the time to watch Critical Role in full, but the cartoon is much easier to watch. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

I am slowly working my way through Exandria Unlimited - even if those episodes still hover around the four-hour range, it helps knowing it's self-contained and there are fewer episodes to go through.

As someone slightly older that as watched most of CR 1 Legend of Vox Machina. Matt Mercer plays a very old school story focused version of D&D. Of a type that was rare in my experience in the old days.

Considering that someone that started gaming when 3e came out has been gaming for over 20 years now, I think it's fair to call Dragonlance old school.

This is the first time I have ever heard anyone refer to Dragonlance as "old school."

EDIT to add: in fact i would go so far as to say, in my experience, Dragonlance IS the break from Old School.

 

[Mannahnin]

This is the first time I have ever heard anyone refer to Dragonlance as "old school."

EDIT to add: in fact i would go so far as to say, in my experience, Dragonlance IS the break from Old School.

This is definitely a point of confusion for a lot of folks.

I'm among the folks who often point to Dragonlance as a transition/inflection point. From TSR focusing less on challenge/exploration-focused modules, to more on heroic adventure story-style modules, and novels alongside them. The so-called Hickman Revolution.

A lot of the hardcore AD&D partisans will exclude DL and 2nd ed AD&D from the old school, and to some extent that makes sense. But on the other hand, as The Elusive Shift and early fanzines document, some folks were doing very story and character-focused D&D in the 70s, nearly from the get-go.

While "story-focused" isn't the first phrase that I'd normally pair with "old school", I don't think it's incoherent either. Some old schoolers were story focused. I think this mode of play is often referred to as "Trad", as opposed to "Classic", which is ostensibly the Gygaxian challenge-focused style, for example in RetiredAdventurer's Six Cultures of Play essay from last year. Although I think he's a little bit off in saying that Trad play was necessarily a reaction to Classic, or that it didn't develop until the late 70s. The zine conversations referenced in TES indicate that it started really early.

Six Cultures of Play

A blog about roleplaying games and theory focused on Mythras, Dungeons and Dragons, and OSR games.

retiredadventurer.blogspot.com

 

[Greg Benage]

EDIT to add: in fact i would go so far as to say, in my experience, Dragonlance IS the break from Old School.

Okay, if you define "old-school" as "not story-focused," then I agree "old school story focused" is an odd construction. I also agree it's the way the OSR has defined it. If, on the other hand, the poster was referring to the more general meaning as "old-fashioned or traditional (in a positive way)," then I think it's fine.

I mainly inserted myself into the conversation because I feel like the OSR has led people to believe that their idea of "old-school" is the way most old people actually played, and this was not my experience. In terms of the setting and the way it's structured and developed (as opposed to the quality of the writing or voice-acting, etc.), Mercer's campaigns would fit just fine in the 80s IMO.