D&D General Defining "New School" Play (+)

[DEFCON 1]

Two things. First, could you actually play AD&D or earlier versions without filling in a whole lot of gaps? Second, does anybody really lean into BIFTs? Because we tried initially and it just never stuck.

Focusing on the specific examples of new school ideas is kind of missing the point. Feel free to substitute any other new school concept you wish that you believe actually gets used.

 

[payn]

The problem with that is that something that allegedly started in 1985 cannot, per force, be called "new school" with any degree of seriousness. Perhaps, if we're going to qualify something "new", it should be a style that's less than 20 years old not a nearly 40-year-old style.

Na, I think you are hung up on literal age. Considering they are making brand new old school games as we speak, doesnt change the fact that there are aspects that are clearly new school even if they are decades old.

 

[TiQuinn]

Na, I think you are hung up on literal age. Considering they are making brand new old school games as we speak, doesnt change the fact that there are aspects that are clearly new school even if they are decades old.

Yeah I’m reading the points in the OP’s post and thinking, heck, Call of Cthulhu meets most of these except that the characters ultimately are on a track to die/go insane at the end (intentionally).

 

[payn]

Yeah I’m reading the points in the OP’s post and thinking, heck, Call of Cthulhu meets most of these except that the characters ultimately are on a track to die/go insane at the end (intentionally).

Thats a really good point to bring up. I think new school games tend to have more intention to gameplay design. Call of Cthulhu for example, intends to tell mythos stories about characters in often intangible danger. Many old school systems are generic attempts at simulation of a genre so its a fantasy/scifi/etc... insert your favorite and go setup. So, the old school one size fits all can work for whatever you want, but it will never be a custom fit. YMMV

 

[billd91]

I think there's possibly multiple points where we start to see a New School of play (compared to something that tends to get promoted as old school). There's the shift in story telling, plotting, and treating PCs like something special in the narrative rather than an avatar for a player to show off "skilled play" by pondering their way through the GM's obstacles.

But there's also a shift in exposing rules to the players so they can make more meaningful choices with the mechanics. It starts a bit with 2e exposing more of the game engine to the players in the PH and making it the fatter volume rather than hiding it all in the DMG. And then it gets developed a lot more in 3e D&D with descriptions of appropriate DC and more defined effects so that players know what to expect from their choices.

 

[Minigiant]

Personally I think that due to the post 2e booms there are 4 branches of NSP

The 3e branch
The 4e branch
The 5e branch
The PBTA/BITD branch

I'd almost call the 3e and 4e branches Middle School Play.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Yes, very different!

There are some significant differences across the games you mention - Fate and BW, for instance, are pretty different play experiences - but they all contrast with the OP's picture, which could go back to some approaches to RPGing that were around in the late 70s/early 80s.

Yes, exactly.

If we're trying to undersrtand what the New School is against which the Old School is defining itself, I think looking we should be looking at what are the wider changes that promoted a change in thinking about games.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To me, the only real use for labels is to give completely new potential players a few signposts to look at / follow when trying to figure out which direction they wish to take their gaming. Big signs that tell them that X type of game usually gives a Y experience can help get that player to the starting line of the game more likely to suit their needs and get started.

But for the rest of us? Or even those players above once they've taken their on-ramp into gaming and can now drive the road ahead? We all figure out pretty easily that those signposts are barely useful for serious action. It'd be like needing to find a particular house on a particular street in a particular town in a particular county in a particular state, but the signpost / label we get is "You are now entering the United States of America".

Yeah... that signpost is technically true... but it sure as heck not gonna do a whole lot for us, LOL.

Street signs are signs as well—and, for that matter, labels. I find them rather essential for navigation. I should think "Now Entering Pennsylvania" is more like "this is a TTRPG." Specific styles are somewhere between streets and neighborhoods within a city; of varying utility depending on how frequently you travel between areas.

 

[payn]

Personally I think that due to the post 2e booms there are 4 branches of NSP

The 3e branch
The 4e branch
The 5e branch
The PBTA/BITD branch

Hmm, I have other thoughts. I think the E wars was really the D&D community making heads and tails of old school and new school thought. 3E was a blend in arguably the most extreme of both schools, 4E was an attempt to bring it into new school, and 5E was another run at the hybrid 3E attempted. In its current state, I wouldn't consider D&D old or new school, its a blend of both. Just palatable enough to ease the tension and become everyone's second favorite edition. The fact that D&D has become this sort of soft landing spot for RPG is a source of agitation for folks wanting old or new play highlighted.

If anything, many games not D&D are the branches into new school play while D&D slowly absorbs the ideas through time.

 

[Umbran]

Personally I think that due to the post 2e booms there are 4 branches of NSP

The 3e branch
The 4e branch
The 5e branch
The PBTA/BITD branch

That would seem highly misleading - while PbtA and BitD get a lot of discussion around here, they are relative latecomers to the party, from 2010 and 2017, respectively. Meanwhile, Cortex is from back in 2007, and Fate is from 2003. I am sure folks could identify several other "New School but not-very-D&D" games that predate PbtA too.

You might want to just call that last, the "Indie Games" branch. It lumps things together in a way that's not descriptive of any particular style, but it makes it more clear that the point of the category is more "Not D&D" than anything else.