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

[pemerton]

If a player character declared something, like that the symbol the GM just showed them was the symbol of Asmodeus, and the DM demanded to know how their character would know that because otherwise they are metagaming, and the player in question needing to come up with a "reasonable" reason why they would know that fact. Which yes, is something I have seen happen.

But who, in your example, is the author of the fact that the symbol is a symbol of Asmodeus? My initial impression is that you are talking here about the player recognising a symbol, not deciding what it is a symbol of.

 

[bloodtide]

You seriously expect someone to read 3 books, study them to the point that they have all the details memorized in order to play a character with pointy ears? You don't understand that 99.99% of DMs, old school or new school don't expect graduate school level of knowledge on your chosen head cannon?

Ok....did you note this was voluntary? Sally, the Old School player asked for more knowledge. That is it.

There is no forcing or demanding or anything else. The player choose the Hard Way....because they like that way. That way is fun for them.

Differences.

 

[Oofta]

Ok....did you note this was voluntary? Sally, the Old School player asked for more knowledge. That is it.

There is no forcing or demanding or anything else. The player choose the Hard Way....because they like that way. That way is fun for them.

Differences.

But you've also stated that if they need to know how to properly greet the wood elves. I assume that knowledge comes from one of those three books. Which, by the way, where the f*** do you get 3 books on wood elf lore?

Based on everything you keep repeatedly stating it's pretty clear that by "hard way" you mean the one that truly intelligent people play because everybody else is playing on Daddy Don't Hurt Me mode where they can just roll a die and all problems are solved.

 

[ezo]

Ok....did you note this was voluntary? Sally, the Old School player asked for more knowledge. That is it.

There is no forcing or demanding or anything else. The player choose the Hard Way....because they like that way. That way is fun for them.

Differences.

Here's the extent of what most OSG did for a player who wanted to play a wood elf (for AD&D anyway...)

I've highlighted the text that would be most relevant for "playing" a wood elf.

2E you had the Complete Book of Elves with even more information. Anything beyond such things was widely dependent on the DM, but I don't recall many going much further unless the "wood elf" had a more prominant role in the fantasy world.

 

[payn]

I guess I can try an explanation.

Old School: Player Sally makes a wood elf character. She asks me for more information about wood elves so she can play her character better. I give her three books to read about wood elves. Sally, on her own time, reads one of the books.

The next game session Sally uses all the real life knowledge she got through hard work and effort to role play her character in the game. Sally also took notes...and highlighted text in the book too.
New School: Ben makes a wood elf character.

The next game session,, when Ben needs to know something game related, he asks the DM or makes a check to have the DM tell him the information or makes a check to have his character know and use it.

Guess I'm the only one that sees a difference?

These differences? I'm afraid so.

 

[payn]

I mean, I don't harshly judge things called "old school," whether by me or by others. I spoke highly of funnels earlier, and I think that the design ideas that were paired up with GP=XP are very sharp, even if that's not my preferred take.

What I do judge harshly is when a game that bills itself as embracing many styles specifically enforces "old school" play. Which is one of my major problems with 5e. It doesn't do this consistently (e.g. it's much more "new school" for resource management, something "old school" fans have every right to complain about), but it absolutely enforces several "old school" approaches that are deeply frustrating to me.

That sums up 5E. Something for everyone to love, and something for everyone to hate.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is the fundamental problem with most granular resource/logistic (e.g. weight or inventory management) systems. They're fiddly, complex, slow...and the "reward" for using them is that you don't have problems. This is, I think, the real reason why such things are mostly unpopular. Players enjoy tallying up numbers that reward them--"big number go up" is a meme for a reason--but tallying numbers that solely punish them when the numbers are bad, not so much.

Food and water are probably the only exception to this, and that's mostly because we know the visceral meaning of hunger and thirst. Even then, such "survival mechanics" often lose their luster pretty quickly if their only effect is "avoid penalties."

I'd really love to see serious game design put into trying to make survival, resource, and/or logistical mechanics that reward success, rather than only punishing failure.

I have some complex feelings about this, but they only apply to settings with some serious scarcity issues.

As an example, in a post-apocalypse setting where some supplies are possible to purchase, but only in some places that PCs may be away from for extended periods. In extreme cases this is, of course, less like routine supply tracking and more like tracking consumable magic items, but there can be some interim cases (crossbow bolts come to mind).

Mind you, this only matters if its the sort of game that's focused at least in part on the survival elements of that kind of setting, and its hard to get those to be interesting and not annoying, but if that's what you want to focus on in part, some tracking here seems warranted.

In most sorts of games, its just tedium; set a maintenance cost for characters and move on.

 

[mamba]

OS: The player just describe what and how they try and do it and does not worry about the rules. The DM decides if and when rolls are needed, if the rules are followed, if the DM has some homebeew rules or anything else on a whim. As you might say: the player can not make an informed decision based on the mechanical game rules....they just simulate a role play.

if they have no idea about the odds of an action they also cannot decide whether it is a good action to take or not. At that point they are not playing a role, they are stumbling around in the dark

NS: Everyone has The Rules

good

 

[mamba]

Guess I'm the only one that sees a difference?

I am seeing it too, I don’t need three books on Wood Elves to play one

 

[mamba]

What I do judge harshly is when a game that bills itself as embracing many styles specifically enforces "old school" play. Which is one of my major problems with 5e. It doesn't do this consistently (e.g. it's much more "new school" for resource management, something "old school" fans have every right to complain about), but it absolutely enforces several "old school" approaches that are deeply frustrating to me.

I am curious what you consider OS in 5e, all the parts I care about seem thoroughly purged / made obsolete by spells etc.