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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RevTurkey" data-source="post: 7716152"><p>Okay so...this is an opinion piece. It's pretty obvious that it is and it doesn't try to be much else. Just like you can take or leave the rules in D&D one can take or leave this article and it's implied suggestion that the old way of playing was better. A few of the comments mention that they wouldn't want TPK due to bad dice rolling...well, that isn't what the author said. In the earlier days of D&D I remember a greater emphasis being placed on puzzles and figuring things out like traps and such. Much less the idea of a joint storytelling game and more a sense of a player orientated challenge game. Not to say that random rolls couldn't result in tragedy but then without the randomness one could argue that the whole thing becomes too predictable. I too have felt this shift in RPG gaming and I can see why the OSR movement has been so popular with many people (myself included). OSR doesn't mean hack and slash...to me, quite the opposite. I agree with this authour that many modern players have become too reliant on reward and expectant of it. I think many modern games are too easy on players and that they spoon feed them happy, cuddly experiences...to me this encourages hack and slash boring play. If I think back on my times roleplaying I always remember the moments of high risk and triumph the best. That said, I enjoy old and new games. It's easy to be dazzled by the nostalgia of the early editions without seeing the mechanical improvements of more modern systems. I think to a degree it is a matter of balance, style and implementation rather than the actual game system. I recently played through a campaign of Shadow of the Demon Lord. Boy, was that brutal. Too much so for my tastes. Running the published adventures, characters dropped like flies. This is a very modern game system trying (for my eyes) to replicate the old school sense of danger and challenge (like it's videogame cousin Dark Souls did). It's a great and interesting game but I think the published adventures focussed on challenge through combat danger too much. It didn't feel fair. That said, some of the character loses were due to player error and it was interesting to see them blame the game system and published adventures instead of themselves. This is the key thing for me. Players and people in society seem less able to accept or handle the responsibility of their own actions and the consequences of such. This encourages games that by default try not to upset them by scolding them for poor decision making...rather offering a slight nudge or tap on the wrist for their stupidity or naive actions. I'm waffling away now so I'll stop...My preference lies somewhere between the two styles but I see the author's point and would rather play an old school game with high risk and consequence than a game made too easy and predictable by being overly rewarding...etc etc... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>

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