Okay, we are at least getting to some agreement that there can be problems.
Problems are universal.
I would think you would ALSO have a large problem if the person running the game doesn't understand the rules in the OS type of game. Knowing the basic rules of the game is a pretty basic requirement for running the game.
Not for OS so much. There is a branch of OS that does not even want the players to know anything about playing the game: the DM knows the rules and rolls. The players just role play.
But in general, the rules don't matter much to he players in OS. The DM might change them at any time, after all.
But on your last line, this is sort of the point I've been driving at. OS games want to limit players to only doing what they already know (except for magic) but the point of a roleplaying game is not to play yourself. It is to play someone different. This is why we "give away" information, because it is information the character should likely know, but the player does not.
Well, your mixing the two.
Old School expects you to role player your character using your player skills and intelligence. A good player learns how to act. No actor is a spy, wizard or ninja for real....but they act like one. And yes OS expects players to put in the effort to act....and again most good actors do this.
The DM being in control of the information is gatekeeping. The clueless players just play the game not knowing much, except when they roll and the DM gives them a bit. But even then a DM will only say so much, right? Less then a paragraph? And the DM will only tell the player what the DM wants them to know.
Old School wants a player to know as much as they want to know and figure things out for real.
Anyone claiming to use real magic is often incorrect about that.
The millions of practitioners disagree with you.
And you keep using the term "Hard Fun" but I've never agreed with that term. I accept you believe that, but I have not agreed that it is what is happening. And while I won't deny there are people in this vast world who lack common sense, implying that people who use one of two styles has it.. and other people play the other way... is rude.
Hard Fun is simple enough....it is hard to put together a 5000 peace puzzle. It is easy to put together a 100 piece puzzle. Crossword puzzles are hard...Candy Crush is not.
I'd note that you can find people with a lack of common sense everywhere.....not in just one group.
That is almost never how that goes. The only time I ever did anything remotely like that, was a time I had a magical lock on a chest, and a player wanted to use identify in a clever way to pick the lock. I hadn't prepared for them to do that, and had to come up with an answer on the fly, which led to me making up a complex alchemical formula... which wasn't written down, and that they solved with a roll, because there was no other possible way to DO that. And that is the only example in the last 10 years.
Okay, so that is your one picked example that does not seem relevant?
If a player is sitting there clueless in front of a puzzle, I've already made a mistake. They should have some clue just from my description. Then, if they want to, they can roll or ask me. For example, I once had a party enter a desecrated shrine, and ensconced in the shrine were various figures to good-aligned deities, desecrated in unique ways (the Cat Lord devoured by mice, a fire goddess trapped in ice, a god of freedom in chains). I never told them the answers to the puzzle, but I did let them roll to see if they could figure out who these obscure deities were and how each was desecrated. Then, as long as they did something to mitigate it, I said it was close enough to the answer.
You might be stuck on the rut that this only applies to puzzles? Note it apples to all game play all the time.
And giving the players a "pass" is very New School.
One thing I have long, long noticed is that writers and GMs have a similar problem. You have perfect knowledge of a scenario, so you see the obvious clues. You know the answer, so the answer is obvious to you. But players DON'T KNOW. They don't see the situation like you are seeing it. And so I give chances for them to find the routes and clues, and if they still are struggling, I will let them roll to push them in the correct direction. I don't have a player walk into a puzzle, then tell them the answer to the puzzle, but I recognize that it is more fair to them to give them recourse to find the path forward, when they can't figure it out.
Right, not everyone is good at puzzles. Don't use them if you have players that can't solve them.....the same way with nearly anything else.
The difference here is the OS DM tells that player "sorry your not a good fit for my game, goodbye" and the NS DM changes the game so they can solve the puzzles or "says it is close enough to the answer".
Yeah, we do backtrack sometimes. Because yeah, their character would have been smart enough to do something. I once had a DM take us stating to a Sorcerer-King that we would "leave immediately" and have us walk over a week into the desert before informing us we were dying of dehydration, because in a DESERT none of our characters thought to pack supplies for a MONTH LONG JOURNEY because we said we would "leave immediately". And every single person at that table protested the ruling, because it was frickin obvious that we would have gotten supplies. No one leaves on a month long trip across the desert with three days worth of food and water.
Very few Old School games backtrack.
Your example is an example of lack of detail. In NS everyone is just assuming the smart characters are doing smart stuff all the time and does not need to be mentioned. In OS, the characters would prepare for the journey and be keeping track of things like water by the gallon.
Now don't take this to an unreasonable extreme. We don't retcon everything. But there have been plenty of times where a player spoke up and said "but wouldn't my character have known that/planed for that" and they have been correct. As a GM, I don't always remember every little detail of the characters, and it is not fair of me to penalize a player because of it.
This is common in NS as everyone likes the Flexible Reality.
To give an example, let us say that there was a fancy dinner and the players go to drink wine from a goblet, and I have them rolling con because the wine was poisoned. One of my players might speak up and claim "Wait, I have that ring that glows green near poison, wouldn't I have noticed that?" In the NS approach.. yeah, they would. Mea Culpa, they notice it before people drink, what do they want to do.
Your example is odd as it is yet again the DM...who is in control of the magic ring glowing...not telling the players vital information.
But, my impression I've gotten from OS advocates is that their responses would include 1) "You never said you were wearing that ring, so you aren't wearing it." 2) "You never said that you were looking at that ring before drinking, so you won't notice it before drinking." or 3) "Well, this poison was enchanted to be hidden from your ring/someone stole your ring and you have a fake not the real ring" or basically anything else to avoid it being the DM's fault for forgetting to mention it.
Sure some Old School DMs might say those for this bad example.
But this does does show the differences. The NS player just has their character sit down and drink and plays the game very lite and casually. The OS player is 100% saying to the DM that they put on their ring AND the test the liquid before drinking it, as the game is harsh and deadly.
In OS it is common enough to have items stolen, replaced or destroyed. Or like in this case have a dispel cast on the ring. But again a good OS player has a vial of poison with them to test the ring all the time and always before drinking anything. See the level of minute detail?
Also, in OS, some enchanted wine with undetectable poison would be just fine.
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But ok, drop the silly magic ring part. We have group NS and OS resting in the afternoon shade. So a messenger comes with an invite from a baron none of the PCs know, and invites the Pcs to dinner with an offer of a great job. The baron is in fact planning to poison and capture the PCs and sell them off to an old foe.
So in OS the DM will do nothing to tip away that evil plot. But the characters are free to use all afternoon to discover whatever information about the baron that they can. But as they must do every little bit "for real" this will take time and effort. The baron did not tell every NPC in the world his plan....only three NPCs know about it. Only if the players can use their real skills and intelligence might they piece together random facts and clues. And in general, the only way they might really find out about the plot is going to the barons castle ahead of time. The players here have to be alert that anything might be a trap or worse. The players might do some preparation, like have antidote or magic too.
So....NS. Well, the players will just roll "what does not character know about this baron?" and the DM will read off a bit. And the critical bit is does the DM...buy just this lone roll...tip the players off by having the character "know the baron and the old foe are best friends". Because when the players are told that information for free, they might take notice. Also the NS DM thinks it's fair that the characters has "someway" to learn about the poison plan....maybe even just "they will see the cook putting drops in the drinks from a vial marked 'poison'." The players here are more casual....they know the NS DM will give them lots of obvious chances....and they can always ask for recons like "oh my character would have been smart enough to do X"....and the DM will agree.
But what would you say? In an OS game there is at least a 50% chance that the characters would learn nothing suspicious and get poisoned. In a NS game the percent is...
I don't think I am. I think this has been consistent this entire discussion.
You don't like Old School and mix it with Bad DMs....
Because it is disruptive. It makes everything harder on me as a GM, and makes everything less fun for the players.
So..................to be clear you are saying Character Death is the Worst thing that can happen in a game?
Players aren't ignorant, especially when you are intentionally misleading them, hiding information, ect which you have repeatedly claimed is the point of OS play. You have literally stated that things can happen for no reason that the players know, so how are they supposed to know about them?
They are not...that is how a near reality simulation world works. A player is limited by what their character can see and hear. They have no idea what goes on in the rest of the world.
This is the big difference between the NS character being Main Characters and having the world revolve around them; and OS where the characters are just everybodies.
