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

[TiQuinn]

guess most NS DMs would say they have the veto power....but they simply choose not to use it. Though too, many players will ask the DM for guidance and say something like "oh can I make a tavern run by a dragon?" and the NS DM will just nod and smile and say "yes you can" and approve it.

Okay, I feel this is getting into criticism rather than actual differences.

 

[Krachek]

1 and 2ed were in the path of survival. Everyone was newbie at the time, and almost all DM stick to the lethality of the game. All alignement, all classes were oriented around survival. Playing Lawful good, resulting quickly into Lawful dum dead, there was finally one alignment « pragmatic survivalist ». The game was said to encourage player’s skill, indeed the skill to read and please the DM!

3.5 and 4 turn thing upside down. Players were getting tools to fight on equal terms with the DM. Which often turn the encounter into rules lawyering fight instead! Don’t need to read and please the DM anymore, you just need to have a solid build and you can do whatever you want.

5ed start to allow after almost 50 years, to go back the the original goal of the hobby. Play a character and see where the adventure will lead him. Forget about survival, forget math, just take the skin of a character and see what is happening.

 

[Minigiant]

This does show the gap between New and Old School.

A NS curse, or any effect is generally lite and does not effect the character much over all. NS has a long list of things that should not be done to a character. And like you say, things like curse must be easy to undo. And done so quickly. This also crosses over into be "be a fan" part as a NS DM will just tell the player what they need to do to undo the curse, or at worst make it a simple role to find that information.

In an OS game, a curse or other effect might be stuck on your character for years...real life years. And to remove it might be too hard for the character, or they simply don't want to do it for role playing reasons. Or they are just slowly working towards the goal.

No.

A NS curse is as light or harsh and and as easy or hard to recover as the DM and Player choose.
That's why it's not written down in the book.
The DM gives it to the PC and then the PC knows the effects and the cure.
At which point its all in the Player's hands.

The OS curse is written by the designers or the DM and cure is helf by the DM or the designers.

In the Silver ea, the curse is very harsh but easy to cure. The onus is then put on the DM to put obstacles in the way of the easy cure.

 

[Umbran]

In an OS game, a curse or other effect might be stuck on your character for years...real life years.

So many of you seem to forget that Remove Curse was a 3rd level Cleric Spell in 1E.

 

[MerricB]

Everywhere you go, you hear talk about "Old School" Play. Old School This, Old School That. There are games part of the Old School Renaissance that pride themselves on how close to Gary's Vision they can be. But while everyone is rolling 3d6 in order and searching for that save-or-die poison trap that has to be around here somewhere, I have to ask "Old School in relation to what?"

Quick question: Have you read The Elusive Shift by Jon Peterson?

Quoting its opening paragraph:
"Dungeons & Dragons famously resulted from the intersection of two cultures: a gaming culture of conflict simulation and a literary culture engaged with speculative and fantastic fiction. Or as Gary Gygax put it in 1976, "It arose from a combination of warfare with miniature figures and the desire to create heroic epics of the strange and supernatural" (SFF 87). To understand the first audience for D&D, it is therefore necessary to understand the two preexisting cultures of wargaming and science-fiction fandom, where the latter is understood to encompass fans of fantasy fiction. Science-fiction fandom got organized decades before the first games fans banded together, and the wargaming community would copy the pioneering structures that enabled science-fiction fans to forge their own identity: national and regional clubs, which hosted both local and large-scale conventions and published amateur magazines, or fanzines, for disseminating ideas throughout their membership."

I think there's a large part of "New School" play that is apparent in the original twofold nature of D&D's audience, and while there have been more mechanical and procedural innovations since the early days, there's always been a tension there.

Consider a core matter of the early game: Do you get XP from treasure acquired? According to Gygax and the official rulebooks, the answer was "yes!", but there was a very strong strand of groups that said "no!", and in 2E they gained ascendancy and so XP for treasure gained is relegated to an optional rule.

I do recommend The Elusive Shift, as well as any other of Jon Peterson's books.

Cheers,
Merric

 

[MerricB]

Another interesting quote from the opening chapter:

In 1970, Gary Gygax ascribed to his Chainmail coauthor Jeff Perrin a distinction between the attitude of two types of players he called "warriors" and "gamers" where "warriors seek to duplicate actual conditions of battle" to emphasize realism and "gamers are willing to twist realism any which way if a fun game results".​

In 1970!

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Chaosmancer]

Everywhere you go, you hear talk about "Old School" Play. Old School This, Old School That. There are games part of the Old School Renaissance that pride themselves on how close to Gary's Vision they can be. But while everyone is rolling 3d6 in order and searching for that save-or-die poison trap that has to be around here somewhere, I have to ask "Old School in relation to what?"

So this thread is to discuss what it means to be "New School". When did it start, what does it entail and how can it be fostered and improved. This is a plus thread, so the point is to celebrate and nurture new school play. OS people, uh go hangout in Dragonsfoot or something...

What is New School Play (to me)

Cavaet: This is my view on NSP.

1.) Characters are special. New School play fosters a sense that the PCs are cut above the standard person. They have unique skills, a complicated backstory, a special origin, or some other thing that makes them just a little bit different. New School characters can be the scions of prominent figures, selected by the God's to be their chosen, have cursed lineages they must absolve or at least bare, or are prodigies in their chosen field. That is not to say all characters have 20-page backstories: sometimes the baker's daughter discovers she's a sorcerer and goes adventuring. The key is they aren't just random mercenaries, they have something special.

2.) Characters are defined by those around them: New School characters often have a variety of connections in their life: Friends, Family, Loves, Bosses, Rivals, Etc. The relationships help define the character. Does the PC adventure out of loyalty to his friends, quest for the love of a beautiful maiden, or seek to win the approval of a doubting father. They may have an enemy who shows up to ruin their day, a Moriarty to the PCs Holmes. This could be the campaign villain or a side character. Regardless, they are in it for more than just gold and glory.

3.) Campaigns have clearly defined Stories: NS play often has an endpoint; a place the story builds to. Villains scheme and plot, cataclysms threaten to destroy what the PCs love, the fate of kingdom/world/multiverse is in the PCs hands. This is commonly seen in adventure paths (see below): but its far older: most people would credit Dragonlance for this style of play but I think the Ur example is the GDQ: Against the Giants -> Queen of the Demonweb Pits where the PCs seek to explore disturbances with a local giant steading and get drawn into the machinations of the drow and their Goddess, Lolth. There are stakes, tension, and narrative flow. Events build on each other. Eventually, only the PCs can save everyone.

4.) Death is Not the Only Fail state (but it's the worst one): New School Play rarely treats player characters like tissue. Meatgrinder play is seen as anathema to NS play. Instead, PCs often suffer other setbacks other than death. After all, if all the PCs die, the game is over. That is not to say NS play is easy or a cakewalk, but it does mean that PCs have a little plot armor (even something as thin as negative hp/death saves) and often, failure results in the loss or treasure, plot complications, and other "fail forward" options.

5.) Play is narrative, but not necessarily linear: Adventures, and to larger degree, campaigns, have a greater emphasis on narrative play. The PCs find a hook and get involved in the action, often following the story beats to their conclusion. That is not to say NS play is a railroad (as some like to paint it); there can be multiple branching paths and a Good DM has to know how to get PCs who have wandered too far afield back to the focus, but adventures tend to have a strong story element, not just a dungeon to explore for gold.

6.) NS emulates Fiction: Most people who play RPGs do so because they saw some other form of media (movies, games, novels, etc) and said, "I want to make my own." NS play attempts to capture that spirit. It has players making characters like the ones they see in fiction and has DMs telling stories like the ones that inspired them. Large the life villains, grand stakes, bold heroes. They have come to tell a shared story like the ones that have inspired them.

That's my list of what NS means to me. Feel Free to add your own or comment on what is there. Let's build a community that prides itself on being New School.

I largely agree with your list, but would have phrased things a bit differently.

For example, I might have moved the gold and glory to points three or five. I have rarely to never played a game of DnD where the goal was "make a ton of money adventuring". Even if we are out to make a name or a company, the "real" goal is being heroes and helping people.

Also, I don't think "like tissue" is accurate. I feel like "ceramic" is closer to true. We try not to break PCs, but when we do, we try to glue them back together, and sometimes the cracks and the material used to hold them together makes for an even more unique and beautiful form.

 

[Reynard]

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.

I know I am late in replying to this but:

The OP asked "old school.in relation to what?" While part of the answer is "5E" another part of the answer is "the Hickman revolution." The folks that actually started to OSR may have been inspired to do so by the OGL and 3E, but most of them had never moved on from 1E.

In its conception, at least, the OSR was a response to pretty much anything after B/X.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Things that come to mind; neo-trad, Hickman revolution, non-random chargen.

Though maaan, if non-random is considered particularly "new school" that has it starting as early as far back as 1980 (when the last piece of The Fantasy Trip was published).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I know I am late in replying to this but:

The OP asked "old school.in relation to what?" While part of the answer is "5E" another part of the answer is "the Hickman revolution." The folks that actually started to OSR may have been inspired to do so by the OGL and 3E, but most of them had never moved on from 1E.

In its conception, at least, the OSR was a response to pretty much anything after B/X.

That would explain why some of them are so resistant to calling some pretty classic old games "old school".