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

[Corinnguard]

I sometimes feel like 3e initially tightened things up a bit on that front before they loosened again further down the line.

I think alignment in 5e is decidedly more RL in that it no longer uses a broad brush to paint an entire species with a specific alignment stereotype. It's more focused now on the alignment of a given individual.

 

[Mark Hope]

I think alignment in 5e is decidedly more RL in that it no longer uses a broad brush to paint an entire species with a specific alignment stereotype. It's more focused now on the alignment of a given individual.

Yeah - my approach is always that alignment is applied after the fact. You can't decide what alignment you are - it's determined by the things you do. Same applies to "monsters"

 

[Remathilis]

Wooo, omnibus reply time.

I think you left out the most important thing:
This was actually a topic on GenConTV about 5e.

The game is way less adversary. The DM's job is not to give players a hard time, but a good time. It is more about cooperation between players and DM.

This was something I missed in my first brainstorming. The DM is a player just as much as the others, but he's the facilitator and narrator moreso than the referee. He stands to make sure his players are having fun, even if things don't go great for their characters. TPKs are unfortunate events created by bad planning as much as bad dice and considered more of a failure state than a badge of honor.

I would call it character motivated story driven games, with more emphasis on character development in universe and more focus on story element. In essence, new school is more collaborative storytelling and less lightweight skirmish board game.

Combat can be a factor, but its combat with purpose rather than combat for combat's sake. Which is why you get the whole "epic boss battle" situation where players feel cheated if a fight is too easy as much as if it is too hard. Killing a boss in one round is anti-climatic. It becomes a balancing act.

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.

The seeds were planted long before the garden was in bloom. Hickmanesque storytelling in both Dragonlance and Ravenloft certainly point to a play style which is proto-NS in its thinking. The 2e settings and metaplots certainly moved the game towards one where the PCs are heroes rather than mercenaries. GDQ was the proto-AP. NS didn't appear overnight, it was a reaction to elements of OS play where people asked "but why IS the vampire in the dungeon?"

My very basic view of the difference between new and old is that old school you'll get a puzzle to solve and players talk about how to solve whereas in new school you just roll a check to figure it out.

Minigiant sums it up below: OS challenges the player, NS challenges the character. The OS DM rewards clever play, strategy, intuition, and tactics. The NS DM rewards connection, bravery, conviction, fidelity to concept, and getting into character.

I think the biggest aspect of NSP is Character Play over Player Play.

Grogrick the PC beats the challenge not John the Player. The Player comes to the table informed of their PCs common actions and which ones they are better at.

PCs and Monsters have abilities on their sheet that determine their successes.

Anyone can shove. The action is described or laid out in the rules. Grogrick and the Ogre monster can Deal Damage and Shove in one action.

Which is an interesting point I hadn't fully considered. I don't say "I (player) beat the Tomb of Horrors" I say "Remathilis (character) beat the Tomb of Horrors". Its HIS accomplishment as much as mine, and I did it with a combination of his skills and my play.

Based on your definition, I guess I've been doing NSP for a few decades without even realizing it.

Or maybe, just maybe, there has never been one monolithic school of thought when it comes to playing the game and different people started going in different directions since the inception of the game.

There is no sharp dividing line that separates when OS becomes NS. Its not like you can say "3e is when D&D became NS" because thats not remotely true. 3e moved the needle along (and I feel for the first time, the rules began to reflect NS elements in D&D worlds and adventures that had existed prior, but were at odds with AD&Ds OS roots) but there is no clear line where you have completely abandoned one for the other.

Nor I guess should there be. I have played the OS style modules. I remember them fondly. There are some OS elements I still prefer, you do not have to be 100% one side or the other. This ain't politics or cola-wars, you don't have to pick a side.

Primacy of Character over World

This is what I think makes something 'New School'. In essence, it's the idea that yes the world does revolved around the player/character--not to serve them, but revolves around them. In extreme this can lead to how storygame sbasicaly allow players to just make stuff up about how the world works or have specific powers that trumps any need for it to 'make sense'--yes, In-world I'm using the Goddess of Fate's power but it does literally allow me to control an NPC as if I am the actual factual GM.

In lesser forms it's usually using rules to override 'common sense' during play, or performative play where the idea of challenge is not to actually challenge but to make the character cool or do cool things.

I would phrase it "The campaign" revolves around the characters. I find one of the traits of OS play is that specific characters aren't important; the world persists regardless if your particular characters live or die, succeed or fail. Which is why OS can be far more cavalier with PC death; the death of any given character doesn't matter at large. But in NS play, that particular character DOES matter. He has goals, destinies, allies and enemies and whole narrative strands that fall apart if they leave or die. A TPK in NS is usually the end of the story, a TPK is OS means the next set of PCs might stumble upoin the same quest and pick up where the others left off.

Obviously, there are exceptions, but the general trend is that setting serves the story and story serves the characters.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah - my approach is always that alignment is applied after the fact. You can't decide what alignment you are - it's determined by the things you do. Same applies to "monsters"

I don't really care about alignment other than "no evil PCs" which isn't really about alignment and as a quick guide to how enemies are going to react if I haven't put much thought into them. It's just a descriptor, sometimes useful sometimes not.

 

[Mark Hope]

I don't really care about alignment other than "no evil PCs" which isn't really about alignment and as a quick guide to how enemies are going to react if I haven't put much thought into them. It's just a descriptor, sometimes useful sometimes not.

I quite like the idea that most people don't have an alignment. It's something that only applies to those who really, really act in ways that literally align them with cosmic forces of law, chaos, good, or evil. Most people are just people.

 

[Krachek]

1 and 2ed. Be smart or die!
3.5 and 4ed. Be tactical to beat the game.
5ed. Be yourself and have fun.

 

[Yaarel]

New school is both more narrative and less narrative. Specifically, new school requires bespoke mechanics to make a narrative concept functional.

Because the old school mechanics were minimal, the roleplay aspect used to be almost entirely narrative while devoid of mechanics. With little exaggeration, a player who wanted to play the "concept" of a character who could fly, simply "pretended" the character can. The DM may or may not arbitrarily impose DM fiat to sometimes make this concept happen in a particular scenario. (One often saw this contradiction between narrative and mechanics, such as when pretending the Elf was the most magical species, despite zero mechanics to substantiate the concept.) The reliance on nonmechanical narrative was so deep in old school that to suggest any "mechanics" at all to reify a narrative concept was anathema. The battlecry was "rollplay" (mechanical adjudication) interfered with "roleplay" (narrative adjudication). Many old schoolers viewed these as mutually exclusive.

In new school, mechanics have more sophistication with more detail. The player must "build" their character concept while choosing the mechanics that most helpfully actualize it. Sotospeak, the character that can fly needs a mechanic that does so, so that during a combat encounter flight is one of the mechanical options.

New school emphasizes mechanics. At the same time, it emphasizes D&D as a narrative game by generating a character build whose mechanics imply and encourage a character concept with thematic, narrative, capabilities. The mechanics themselves are more narrative. It is impossible to play new school without prioritizing and detailing character concepts.

5e transmits a sense of how old school worked via its skill mechanics that are similarly minimal. Mainly, noncombat abilities are "ability checks" with a thematic bonus. The DM fiat arbitrarily decides what a player can and cannot do outside of combat. On the one hand, the DM has a free hand to explore almost any kind of narrative. On the other hand, the skill mechanics themselves are minimal thus almost devoid of any narrative gameplay implications beyond the vague theme.

 

[MichaelSomething]

New school is both more narrative and less narrative. Specifically, new school requires bespoke mechanics to make a narrative concept functional.

Because the old school mechanics were minimal, the roleplay aspect used to be almost entirely narrative while devoid of mechanics. With little exaggeration, a player who wanted to play the "concept" of a character who could fly, simply "pretended" the character can. The DM may or may not arbitrarily impose DM fiat to sometimes make this concept happen in a particular scenario. (One often saw this contradiction between narrative and mechanics, such as when pretending the Elf was the most magical species, despite zero mechanics to substantiate the concept.) The reliance on nonmechanical narrative was so deep in old school that to suggest any "mechanics" at all to reify a narrative concept was anathema. The battlecry was "rollplay" (mechanical adjudication) interfered with "roleplay" (narrative adjudication). Many old schoolers viewed these as mutually exclusive.

In new school, mechanics have more sophistication with more detail. The player must "build" their character concept while choosing the mechanics that most helpfully actualize it. Sotospeak, the character that can fly needs a mechanic that does so, so that during a combat encounter flight is one of the mechanical options.

New school emphasizes mechanics. At the same time, it emphasizes D&D as a narrative game by generating a character build whose mechanics imply and encourage a character concept with thematic, narrative, capabilities. The mechanics themselves are more narrative. It is impossible to play new school without prioritizing and detailing character concepts.

5e transmits a sense of how old school worked via its skill mechanics that are similarly minimal. Mainly, noncombat abilities are "ability checks" with a thematic bonus. The DM fiat arbitrarily decides what a player can and cannot do outside of combat. On the one hand, the DM has a free hand to explore almost any kind of narrative. On the other hand, the skill mechanics themselves are minimal thus almost devoid of any narrative gameplay implications beyond the vague theme.

But Old School had plenty of mechanics designed to reinforce narrative. Race as class and level limits to make it human centric. Gold for XP to encourage players to be greedy sword and sorcery types. A progression to ruling kingdoms at high level to reflect Conan's story.

They were just largely ignored by the player base...

 

[Yaarel]

Another new school element would have to be playing as a member of a species that originally was considered an enemy race to the races in the core PHB in earlier editions. Species like goblins and orcs were originally painted with a very broad brush, every member of those species was depicted as being evil. By 3e, these two species were depicted as mostly evil, but now there were exceptions who for one reason or another broke away from the rest of their species. The exceptions being goblin and orc player characters. Nowadays, goblins and orcs are like the other player character species in 5e, a societal mix of individuals on the alignment spectrum. There is a more inclusive approach to who you want to play as in 5e.

Heh, I refer to this process as the "domestication" of villains.

Vampire "villain" → vampire tortured soul exceptional individual → vampire a species like any other species.

Likewise, Drizzt the Drow, and recently Tiefling the Fiend.

The domestication relates to an instinctive fascination with danger, both to defend oneself against it and to repurpose its power with it.

 

[bloodtide]

The game is way less adversary. The DM's job is not to give players a hard time, but a good time. It is more about cooperation between players and DM.

Well, your millage may vary here. Any good DM would say they are running a game to give players a good time. A lot of players, if they encounter the slightest block or hardship in game play will immediately say the DM is giving them a hard time. It is really about style though: some players want to be challenged by the DM by making things hard....and some players want a more cinematic way that is not so hard. Though NS sure is all about cooperation.

It dovetails with some of the things above. For example, the reduction in lethality is not there to remove challenge, despite what many, many, many frustrating people will tell you. The point is to let you learn from your mistakes, to let you bounce back from being on the back foot, to have a difficult initial experience before rallying and ultimately winning: victory is often not ultimately in doubt, but it is initially in doubt, and that matters a lot.

The players can learn a lot from a characters death, but there is no advantage in having a character with "plot armor" survive anything. The death of a character is not the end of the game. You can keep playing.

My very basic view of the difference between new and old is that old school you'll get a puzzle to solve and players talk about how to solve whereas in new school you just roll a check to figure it out.

To restate this a bit: Old School is where the Players use their real life abilities and skills to solve problems, New School is the players use the fictional abilities of their characters to solve problems, with a roll of some dice.
.

. There is a more inclusive approach to who you want to play as in 5e.

Well, not exactly. This is a bigger issue. In Old School play no one cares about the rules or what is written in the books. You want to be a goblin, dragon or whatever...go ahead.

Being a fan of the characters means understanding the characters and the situations that make them shine, and providing them with opportunities for those situations.

This is a bit too vague. And your just falling back on making everything easy and take no effort. And not really describing a "fan". Comics are a bad example too, as the hero has auto plot armor. The whole foundation of the comic is "hero has adventures each month".

There is a fine tipping point for "hard". And for most players that point is way less then most DMs, that is where the break is. I make things in a game hard....nearly impossible to the view of some players. I don't give much of an easy opening or obvious clue most of the time, but that is exactly what a fan of the characters will do.

And this again goes back to the first post about NS being Cinematic, as in most movies/tv shows the heroes are given huge obvious chances.


My New School adds that have not been mentioned:

1.New School is about shared game power and control. Each person in the game is a player, even the DM. The DM has no power to effect the character in any major way, without the player approval and consent. Players can claim everything about their character, including things such as their background destiny.

To reuse the example, in an Old School game a curse might turns a character into a duck. As DM I did not mention this to the player or in any way ask them if they wanted this event to happen. It just does. In a New School game the DM must ask the player if they want that to happen, and if the player says no, the DM must drop it. And if the player agrees they can negotiate for special effects they want in order to agree, and most often add a time limit.

2.New School is about shared creation. Everyone is free to add whatever they want to the game, without direct DM approval. And most NS DMs welcome anything the players say. You see this a lot where a group walks into a town and the DM will turn to a player and say "tell me about the local town tavern". Then the player is 100% free to make up a tavern and have it added to the game world.

3.In a New School game, the Rules are Supreme. Everyone must follow the rules at all times. If a DM wants to change or ignore a rule, it must be done with player approval. And quite often for many NS games, if page 11 in the rules says something, everyone will accept and follow it willing. There is a group feeling that very few rules should ever be changed from the "core" game rules.

And, just for the Old School side.....well, we can utterly care less what suggestions are scribbled in a book....we do whatever we want.