This is where the context of the whole game play matters.
New School: Any combat only takes a couple rounds and there are only a set low number of encounters per day. Plus you have encounter abilities. And short rests to reset abilities. And the base characters are made to be flashy super heroic and more powerful then foes. And everything else under Balance and Fairness.
Old School: Hhahahaha. We will start with Unbalanced and Unfair. Combat often takes a lot of rounds, and there is no real encounter limits per day. No encounter abilities. No short rests. No resets. The base characters are made to be gritty heroes.
So, an old school game starts combat at level 1 and never stops combats, ever, for any reason, until level 20? Look, you are just attempting to mock a style you don't even understand, and it is getting frustrating. Combat taking only a couple rounds? That isn't because of some new school style easy mode play... that's just an average from actual aggregated data. It is meant to be an easy shorthand to make discussing the actual game easier.
Also, encounter abilities? Short Rests? You mean... the rules of the game? Yeah, sure, if you want to declare that anyone who is playing 5e is playing 5e then go ahead, but now you might as well just be saying "2e plays differently than 5e" which will surprise literally no one.
Also, the recover 50% of shot arrows is common to both....except:
OS takes into account details, common sense and the simulated reality. So if you shoot 10 arrows off a ship at a sea monster...those arrows are gone forever. The idea that the archer will swim around in the ocean and find the still good arrows is beyond dumb.
NS in the same encounter...well the archer just Alters Reality and gets five arrows back because page 11 of the rules says so.
You are wrong, and the point I was making was an aggregate of average play, I even added an extra arrow per combat to give wiggle room. So unless every fight you are in over four levels of play is shooting sea monsters on a boat, your point is useless and, again, wrong.
Well, first drop the idea that every single action is life and death. Even in OS like 75% of actions are not. It is a possibility, not an always.
So ok, lets take an action.
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.
NS: Everyone has The Rules out and are on that page...often literally. The player does the exact mechanical effect in the rules to get whatever mechanical effect in the rules they want per the rules. The DM nods along and follows the rules, doing whatever the rules say the DM can do.
Again, you are wrong. Sometimes we reference the exact wording on a spell or ability, for example we just had to go over Sleep and Crown of Madness in todays session, because it turns out Sleep doesn't need line of sight. But skill checks? No one References the rulebook for skill checks, because there are no rules for skill checks. The fact that you seem to think we sit around with the book open, constantly just reading rules at each other just further demonstrates you have no clue what you are talking about. You have some meme-level understanding of newer editions, and have never actually played or even watched a group play the newest versions of 5e.
Except your jumping to the gamist mechanical rule decision only. The player can't make a decision unless they know the rules.
Your first sentence makes no sense. Your second sentence is self-evident. Yes, in a game, you cannot make an informed decision, unless you know how the game works. That is how the informed part of informed decisions works.
It's not. You'd think that if a player did want to be a druid...they would have some interest in nature. Seems odd that a player would be just a blank slate and then randomly see the word 'druid' and say they love druids characters.
Unless your a gamist that is just playing a druid character for their pure mechanical game rule abilities. But then Role Playing Acting should not matter to such a player.
So now you are judging people on not only being less knowledgeable than you want, but also that they don't pursue their interests the way you want. Funny thing, I like playing Druid characters. I like the aesthetic, I like the themes... but I don't know diddly about wilderness survival and most of my animal knowledge it random trivia. So, I can't play a druid unless I like nature the way you think I should to be able to play a druid?
Again. Elitism. Either I must be so into nature I go on nature hikes and read survival guides for fun... or I only want them for their mechanics and don't like the idea of role-playing in a role-playing game. I can't just think something is cool and want to play that character.
Sure, anyone can say random lines. But maybe you missed the point that the lines were not random? This is an example of a player knowing about the setting, lore and real life related things and then using all that to say some lines.
Sure... if any of that matched the setting, lore or real life things. But it doesn't at my table. So, should I just give you a pass because it was something that made sense to you, even if it doesn't reflect elves at all at my table?
Right, Old School is harder. In Old School it is expected that players remember a lot of details and information. And also take notes. And then the Old School player must be able to use all that knowledge in game play. It's hard....
While the New School player...well, they just relax. Should they want to know something they just tell the DM to tell them or make a check to have the DM tell them or just make a check to have their character do it. Easy street....
Hey guess what, as a New school player I take notes. I tend to remember things... and yet, I don't consider it "easy street" to ask a DM about something that hasn't come up yet. I'm playing a 200 year old elf in one game, homebrew world before you start on the things I "should" know. We just started heading into orc lands and I asked "what does my character know about orcs". Why? Because this is literally the first time in the entire game to date that we have headed in that direction, and no one has encountered orcs in the entire game yet. SO, instead of acting like my 200 year old character has only heard of the things he has encountered in the last three human villages and nothing else in his entire like... I asked.
It isn't about "easy street" it is about logic, and not hiding information from people to artificially make things seem difficult.
This is one of the big differences. Whatever you define as that "help" are things an Old School DM would almost never even consider, much less do.
Yeah, you've made your disdain for helping players have a good time abundantly clear.
I would point out, again, that easy does not equal bad. Hard does not equal good. They are just different. Chess is a Hard Game and Checkers is an Easy Game.
So, yes, like above it is:
Harder Old School for the player to look up, read and remember information outside the game. Remember that information. Take notes. Have the skill to recall all that information and beable to use it in a constructive way during game play.
Easier New School the player they just tell the DM to tell them or make a check to have the DM tell them or just make a check to have their character do it.
It is hard to read a 300 page book on dark ages weapons; it's easy to just ask a DM "what does a mace look like?"
I guess this is apples and oranges. Note Candy Crush level 500 is brutal....
WHAT? Level 500 of Candy Crush is brutal? It is almost like I said that high levels of Candy Crush aren't easy back when you made that declaration. Shonk! I would have never considered that high levels of candy crush might be difficult, the very thing I said three posts ago.
And seriously, you keep saying everything you do is hard. Reading a 300 page book on dark age weapons... has nothing to do with playing DnD. It isn't playing DnD on hard mode, it is reading a book on medieval weaponry, and entirely different thing. Which is what you keep trying to claim is "hard" DnD. Reading entirely unrelated materials, memorizing them, then using DnD to flex your knowledge on wood types or the proper way to descale a trout.
I'd point out again this is Old School Style seeping into your game. See how it took you three paragraphs to describe it in detail?
The NS would be the "roll a check to solve the puzzle".
Considering this is a New School style DM with New School style players in a New School style game... no, actually, the way I did it is the New school way of doing it. You think all of us just sit around saying "Okay, you walk through, like, a door, and there is a puzzle, roll to solve? Okay, cool, you solve the puzzle and then you go through some other passages..." NO. We don't play like that. That's what I keep trying to tell you. You have no idea what the style you are critiquing is actually like. You just have some disdain and some memes.
Old School is much more about any witch way you can.
Any which way you can what? Just design challenges any way you please, even if it is a poor design that leads to bad results? And you still haven't addressed the actual point I made.
It's good to find players that will fit into your game. I know two NS DM that don't use hit points at all...I would never game with them.
And I would rather game with them than with someone who distributes intelligence tests as a pre-req to join their game.
Old School is harsh. It's a lot more PC vs nature and PCs vs supernatural.
Remembering things is Hard, as I said.
And you still are missing the point. Call it "Harsh" and "Hard" all you like, it doesn't change the fact. Track water properly, and keep water supplies up... and nothing happens. At that point the only thing you can do to make those water stores matter in the narrative, is to target and destroy them. Making tracking them initially rather pointless, because you are just going to destroy them to make it matter.
We don't avoid all of this because "its too hard", we avoid it because it is a bunch of pointless busywork that leads down rabbitholes of focusing on the most boring parts of the game. I can do basic arithemtic and track a number, but there is no reason to do so if the only thing I'm doing it for is to wait for the day you target that number, or I mess up, and then we start dying.
Again...there is no force. Playing Old School is a style. You don't have to play that way. The same way I would not have fun in a NS game.
I'm not assigning good or bad...you are.....I'm saying they are different.
Right, they are different. Your way is just fun, hard, exciting, requires focus, requires skill, requires caring about the game, requires intelligence, requires dedication... and then there is the other side that other people play. You know, the soft, delicate style where nothing really matters and no one cares... but you aren't saying one is better than the other... except for all the ways you describe old school as better and superior at every single possible turn.
Just to point out that it is a BIG thing. Remember when you said it was not and "other" things were worse. And then you oddly said you don't often do character death? Well, I'd point out that if it is not a big deal, why not have it happen often. But then you replied it is a big deal. So it kinda went around and around.
Yes, there are other things I can do to player characters that are worse than killing them and having the player bring in a replacement. Why don't I just kill PCs constantly then? Because it disrupts the narrative, it feels bad for everyone, it makes my job as the DM harder, I can't plan the set-pieces I want, I can't seed the storylines I want, people get confused on who knows what and which NPCs know which characters. IF the new character is too similar, I might forget the old character is dead. Entire sections of the story I was excited to see play out die on the vine.
And what do I get in return for constantly murdering PCs? Nothing. In fact I LOSE the ability to make it impactful. Oh sure, I can make some stuff up that we are playing the "hard" version of the game, and really challenging the players... except we aren't. It isn't a challenge to bring a new character sheet after your last character died. I have an entire folder of PCs for con games, I can bring 50 characters to a game at the drop of a hat. It is trivial.
IT would suck out every single bit of joy we get from this game, and replace it with endless pixeling of every room, SOPs to handle every scenario, and everyone distrusting every third word I say. All just so some people on the internet will give me fake brownie points for playing the "real" way.
