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

[GuyBoy]

I don’t know for sure, but I know what I think is Old School D&D and that is; it’s what you think it is for you.

I know that sounds kinda trite but I think it depends on your own experience of the game and when you started playing.
For me, Old School means white boxed set and 1E, so around 1978-83 but that’s not just the actual game. It’s wrapped up with punk music, school, friends, rugby and my life at the time. It includes Judges Guild stuff, Dragon magazines and early Ral Partha miniatures. And 10’ poles. And owlbears.
The group I game with now are in their 40s. For them, they haven’t even heard of Jennel Jaquays and Old School means 2E, THACO and general pre-3e stuff.
Whose right? Both probably.

 

[Lanefan]

Multiple-answer in the poll would have been nice, as I'd have voted for both of the first two options presented.

For me the cutoff pretty much falls at pre- and post-Unearthed Arcana (which is, coincidentally, close-ish to pre- and post-Dragonlance). Before that is old-school. After that and up to 3e's release is mid-school. 3e and newer is new-school.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Like I said, OSR obviously bases its reinterpreted rules on a something that did exist in 70s and 80s. But as @Greg Benage put it, it takes what may have been unexplored assumptions about a certain playstyle in the 70s and 80s and creates a robust play ideology. That ideology itself is new.

Right, that's my thought. I don't recall there being ANY emphasis in the ACTUAL old days, for example, on 'rules lite' or anything like that! In fact most of what was going on in those days was people furiously writing new rules to go on top of the old rules! D&D was ADVERTISED as a 'toolbox' that would get you some core pieces from which you could build your 'campaign' (which term almost meant the same as a whole RPG back in those days). So you took the white box and you added charts and tables and rules and encounter matrices, alternate homebrew classes, etc. etc. etc. until you had everything you needed covered. If you didn't ACTUALLY do that stuff, it was just because you were a neophyte DM and once you got started by gosh you'd add all that custom stuff that would make your game really pop!

I never heard of ANYONE who espoused the idea that a lack of system was some sort of high concept. Later purists have gone back and stated how bad a thing the thief class was, with its dice-based abilities. Nobody thought that in 1975! That's what classes were for, adding packages of new ability mechanics and 'stuff' so you could do some new cool thing. I mean, I'm guessing someone will trot out some quote from SOMEBODY back then who will say they flamed Gary for making thieves, no doubt there was one someplace. It sure as heck was not some great movement. Nobody had that kind of analytical insight into RPG play one or two years after it was born. We were all just blown away by the concept and writing stuff down like mad dogs.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

You should let us vote as many times as we like

What do you think this is, Chicago?

 

[jmartkdr2]

I thought this would be easy, but then I started to wonder if 2e is "really" old-school.

I generally divide it into old-school (TSR-era is more accurate), silver age (3e to 4e) and modern (5e), based not just on dnd but the rest of the hobby market as well. But now I'm thinking I should separate out the 90's (white wolf and AD&D 2e) as their own Dark Age.

 

[Greg Benage]

That's what classes were for, adding packages of new ability mechanics and 'stuff' so you could do some new cool thing.

The whole "spells" section of Men & Magic makes one question the "in old-school D&D, we don't look for abilities on our character sheets to solve problems" bit. That's one of the "Zen Moments" of the OSR Primer. Hell, the cleric was created because a vampire PC (!) had become too powerful and the other players needed some new abilities on a character sheet to counter him.

It's still useful and interesting, though, and some OSR designers have gone back and, for example, tried to create a more freeform magic system that would actually be a good fit for the "player skill, not character abilities" ethos.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The whole "spells" section of Men & Magic makes one question the "in old-school D&D, we don't look for abilities on our character sheets to solve problems" bit. That's one of the "Zen Moments" of the OSR Primer. Hell, the cleric was created because a vampire PC (!) had become too powerful and the other players needed some new abilities on a character sheet to counter him.

It's still useful and interesting, though, and some OSR designers have gone back and, for example, tried to create a more freeform magic system that would actually be a good fit for the "player skill, not character abilities" ethos.

Right. I think that ethos has its merits. I'm not that into playing in that style TBH, but I can at least acknowledge that they're doing something and they have some thought behind it. Your point about the cleric is a good one too. I understand that was a Dave Arneson Blackmoor 'patch', but it was certainly indicative of the general Arneson/Gygax 'brewing stuff up' mentality and how if you wanted some new abilities you simply added a class or whatever.

I always thought the better way to go with wizards would have been to make each one pretty specialized and locked into just a very few personalized spell options from the start (like maybe call it your 'demon pacts' or something kabalic like that). Actually I have an old supplement some guy printed up which does that. You get an interesting character, and your powers can 'progress' with time, but generally outright fighting is not a strength of his classes. A few of them can do some nasty stuff, but handling an orc is generally not part of the shtick. Of course that kind of design always runs into the possibility of stepping on existing classes, but so does any other new class design...

To me, that kind of 'brewing up stuff' is the real old school style!

 

[Reynard]

You should let us vote as many times as we like so we can cover a whole spectrum we believe is old school.

Excluding the mid 1970s 0D&D, I would include everything up to early 2nd edition.

I stated in the OP that your pick includes everything before it as well.

 

[Umbran]

Any D&D played after classes in a school building that was built before WWII.

 

[Zardnaar]

Generally pre 2E or 85 or so.