D&D General What Constitutes "Old School" D&D

[Oofta]

For me old school is more about style of play and themes than calendar dates. While THAC0 was a big part of old school, I look at it more as Gygaxian player challenges and dungeon crawls. Solve this puzzle or find your way out of a maze that I've only been describing that also contains one way teleportation that is so seamless that not only do you not know you were teleported, nobody else in the party notices either. Throw in various tricks, traps and obstacles not only designed to challenge, but to outright kill off hapless PCs left and right. You brought a lot of hirelings as fodder, right?

There's nothing wrong with that style of course if it's what your into. But that also means it can be somewhat edition independent, although complaints about there being relatively few "oops you're dead" mechanics and PCs actually having a decent chance to survive come up when discussing the current edition.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think old-school is a rolling timeframe, because it's based on a person's individual perspective. There are people that consider my vote incorrect and that only original D&D counts as old school. One day someone is going to call 4e old school and my heart is going to break a little. And that's all okay (well, maybe not calling 4e old school... ).

It definitely is, though, to be fair.

It's a decade+ old, it is meaningfully different from what has come since, and the difference is such that it feels, to many people, like a change in genre.

There are people playing dnd right now who weren't born when 4e was first released, and who would have trouble recognizing it as the same game as the current iteration of the game.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And yet, that's exactly what the vast majority of gamers do.

I always wonder where you're finding gamers, when I read stuff like this.

It is a minority, in my experience.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

But CR isn't Mary Sue self-insert "I'm so awesome" story-gaming. It's story-focused play...with a group of professional storytellers who understand drama, story structure, dramatic twists, character flaws, etc. That's the difference. Most gamers wouldn't recognize story structure if it smacked them in the face. That's one of the reasons why I won't bother with story-gaming. If you have any understanding of story and drama at all, you're not going to self-insert a Mary Sue. You're not going to make a perfectly invulnerable and uncaring character. And yet, that's exactly what the vast majority of gamers do. There are entire forums and communities and channels dedicated to exactly that.

Definitely. It's just not for me.

Yeah, absolutely. I just don't have fun with Mary Sue filled, story-focused games. If that's what some people like, have fun. I'll play with other people though.

You are making more of my Mary Sue comment that I intended. I mentioned fanfic and the existence of "Mary Sue" more as evidence that people have put themselves or a character they create into a heroic story. The Mary Sue derives from a similar place as the ttrpg or the portal fantasy or even the whole LITRPG/Ieasaki genre.

So people have been using D&D to create a more story and more heroic themes from the beginning.

 

[commandercrud]

TSR = old school
WOTC = new school

 

[schneeland]

If someone mentions "old-school D&D", I mostly think of OD&D, B/X and AD&D1, mostly because I see it as a sort of playstyle that is more focused on emergent than pre-written narrative. However, I might be a bit biased there because I view it through the lens of OSR games. If someone drew the line between 2e and 3e I would also find that reasonable.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Radio stations still say "Best of the 70s, 80s, 90s, and today!" There are 30 years between "today" and the 90s, how long can they keep saying that?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I would say it is a broad term, but definitely wouldn't apply it to anything 3E or beyond (and would be reluctant to affix the label to 2E as many of the developments old school is a reaction to emerged during the 2E period). I like 2E myself but as a matter of terminology this would be my approach (mainly using it to refer to OD&D and AD&D, or retroclones of those system). I think there is also 'old school adjacent' where you have people using newer systems or other systems but running them and constructing adventures and worlds in ways that fit the old school paradigm.

 

[Shiroiken]

Generally I consider AD&D as "old school," with a particular focus on 1E (since that's where I started). OD&D and AD&D were pretty similar overall, and while game play shifted its focus over time to be more story based (as opposed to dungeon based), the game itself remained similar. 3E changed the gamed significantly enough, both mechanically and socially, that in my mind it's the breaking point for "old school."

 

[Grendel_Khan]

This is the main reason I cringe away from storygames and story-focused play. Literally every single time I've engaged with that style it's nothing but a group of people trying to convince each other just how utterly spectacularly awesome and perfect their character is. First level characters with zero XP and epic backstories try to out do Lord of the Rings. It's Mary Sues all the way down. Make a character. Here's a random assortment of stats and hit points. If that one dies, roll a new one. It's not special. It's a fictional construct to play a game. Get on with it already.

Then you've played with folks who truly, absolutely don't get the principles of most storygames, which are often much harsher on PCs than typical trad games. Tons of storygames are explicitly about hurtling toward tragedy, in ways no one can munchkin or optimize their way out of, that prevent turtling and ultra-cautious play, and that require the players to understand and buy in from the beginning, that this is about telling a story that has an end, and that end probably isn't going to be a happy one. The Between, Apocalypse Keys, Blades in the Dark, Trophy, etc.

You don't have to like storygames yourself, but what you're describing is just people playing games with no consequences. Given that the most common roll in a PbtA or FitD or related game is a success-with-consequence/complication, who knows what they are playing, or failing to play.