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

[Thomas Shey]

I figured most groups didn't stick together very long (you always hear about the exceptions, not the normal games) but I didn't realize the speed difference in leveling. That's kind of nuts.

The combination of the progressive costs on levelling and the fact you didn't actually get that much more gold/monster experience and so on could make things take a very long time. Only reason people levelled at all frequently was a combination of playing a lot and the fact you occasionally would stumble over a big haul, treasure-wise and back in those days that was the biggest component of experience.

 

[MerricB]

The combination of the progressive costs on levelling and the fact you didn't actually get that much more gold/monster experience and so on could make things take a very long time. Only reason people levelled at all frequently was a combination of playing a lot and the fact you occasionally would stumble over a big haul, treasure-wise and back in those days that was the biggest component of experience.

It's worth mentioning that at 9th+ levels, a lot of things changed about the game. At that point, the XP required for each new level didn't increase, instead being a set value (varying by class), but quite a large one.

Meanwhile, hit point acquisition slowed to a crawl. (An AD&D fighter gained 3 hp every level, no Con bonus allowed!)

I do wonder how many people continued to play their same characters after "Name" level, admittedly. I've certainly seen a number of people say that's when they retired their characters to their strongholds and kept adventuring with lower level characters.

If I'd been more involved in AD&D play at that time (it was very interrupted by leaving school, going to uni, then discovering other RPGs), I wouldn't be surprised if we'd played to Very High Levels - but all my long-running campaigns as a DM came as an adult.

Cheers,
Merric

 

[bloodtide]

Well, I would imagine after the fight they would stand up, walk a hundred feet, and recover their arrows. Just like real-life archers do. You realize that with a 30 ft movement speed it takes less than 30 seconds to move 100 ft, right? Why would they be incapable of doing this?

I guess all the game plays your talking about are simple easy combats: The fight only lasts a couple rounds, the PCs always win, the PCs never have to run or retreat and the game pauses so the archer character can take the time to go find all those arrows. This all falls under the Being a fan of the players.

In a more complex, detailed game that was harder...at least half of all ranged fights would make it impossible to "just go collect arrows" by common sense.

No? Not in the fact that New School is any different than Old School in this respect. Miniatures have always been optional, and lots of tables have always chosen not to use them, because they are expensive.

Money has nothing to do with it. I've used cheep plastic toys forever. Back in the Time Before Time, I could got to the Ben Franklins and buy plastic orcs and wizards for a penny each.

I will still say that Old School games are much more likely to choose to use figures as they like more complex and detail in thier game play.

Which include things like foreshadowing the trap, highlighting clues to the trap's existence, ect.

All Fan of the Cahracter/player things.

Which is fine, but do notice that even episodic shows tend to have larger sub-plots that take a season to resolve. It is only when you get to sitcoms where everything resets at the end of the episode that you lost semblances of plot. And, notably, DnD even in old school doesn't work like that, because you gain levels, gear, and other things over the course of your adventure.

Not sure way gaining levels matters?

. And the largely episodic plot structure can be a very New School thing too.

So everything is in both Schools?

 

[CandyLaser]

I think my longest game back then was on the order of four or five years, because that was how long I lived in a given area before moving, and I've been the GM for most of my groups. I've moved toward shorter campaigns as I've been in the hobby longer, because I'd rather get to explore more settings and systems. These days I'd think of a two year campaign as a long one.

 

[MerricB]

So everything is in both Schools?

YES!

I'm not that serious about that answer. But it is certainly the case that the "old school" is a lot broader and includes a lot of "new school" concepts - when you look at the larger story of how people played rather than just what was in the rulebooks.

D&D is made up of various traditions, not always compatible.

 

[bloodtide]

YES!

I'm not that serious about that answer. But it is certainly the case that the "old school" is a lot broader and includes a lot of "new school" concepts - when you look at the larger story of how people played rather than just what was in the rulebooks.

D&D is made up of various traditions, not always compatible.

I pointed out pages ago that OS had some NS in it as....well, they are the people that made NS. Lots of the authors of 3E D&D played 1/2E and played in some had harsh Old School games....and this is 100% why they mad the 3E rules what they are....and then made the 3.5E rules.

But when I say many, most, some and such qualifiers I'm saying over 50%. So it's not like there were not tons of games not using or doing whatever.

And Old School, just by having the minatre wargame fans in it, often used a lot of figures.

 

[CandyLaser]

YES!

I'm not that serious about that answer. But it is certainly the case that the "old school" is a lot broader and includes a lot of "new school" concepts - when you look at the larger story of how people played rather than just what was in the rulebooks.

D&D is made up of various traditions, not always compatible.

It's also true that contemporary OSR folks often offer advice that fits well with the sort of advice you'd get in a lot of PbtA games. For instance, the Principia Apocrypha suggests that GMs should:

Don't hide important information from the players. If the PC could reasonably know something, tell the player and move on. The game is about making decisions, and players can’t make good decisions without good information.

Let unknown mysteries become known problems. Maintaining secret lore can be fun, but until it's a problem for the players, it doesn't exist. Tie lore and mysteries into treasure that the players are already want to acquire.

Give players the chance to think their way around threats and obstacles by telegraphing them ahead of time. No one likes their death to be random chance. When a PC dies, it should be their fault.

Clever solutions to a problem should usually work, as long as they are within the realm of possibility. Be generous. If the action is unlikely or dangerous, call for a save or ability check, but only forbid a creative solution if it is clearly impossible.

If players tend not to think this way, present them with situations that are nearly impossible to tackle head on, and strongly reward even slightly creative solutions. One of your goals as a GM is to encourage this mentality. Feel free to tell your players that cleverness will get them farther than brute force.

Establish situations with several actors or factions pursuing their own ends. Let the players’ actions affect this environment, and let the consequences affect the players in turn. Show the situations worsening if the players don’t address them.

This is all stuff that you'll hear, perhaps in different words, from the GM chapters in plenty of PbtA games as well as from defenders of the New School in this thread.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's... sort of unreliable.

Back in the early 2000s, we had a series of threads examining the amount of XP and treasure in the early AD&D adventures, and the totals indicated a very similar levelling speed to that of 3E.

But, and this is a big but, we're also aware that a lot of early groups got rid of XP for treasure in the early days. (That faction eventually came out on top in AD&D 2E and relegated XP to treasure as an optional rule). In theory, story-based XP was meant to replace it, but AD&D 2E's guidelines made that a lot less than the XP for treasure. (As I recall, it was capped to be equal to the monster XP, so instead of the 20% monster/80% treasure split, you became 50% monster/50% story, which given the same number of monsters, meant level gain was more than halved in frequency). Did those early gamers make up the XP, or were they happy with slow level-gain?

By the time of 3E, it's mostly all monster XP. And by 5E, the designers seem to like "DM gives out levels when they think appropriate".

In the case of the D&D Adventurers League, where an ongoing DM is not assured, it's possible under the current rules to gain a level after every 2-hour session! This isn't how 5E works in most homes, however!

Going back to the "old days", you also have the Monty Haul gamers. Anyone think they were going up at slow rates?

There is likely a "typical" group, but I'm not sure that even the folks at TSR were really aware of what that was.

Cheers,
Merric

Oh sure, I was more thinking about it in terms of the expectations than the reality.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I guess all the game plays your talking about are simple easy combats: The fight only lasts a couple rounds, the PCs always win, the PCs never have to run or retreat and the game pauses so the archer character can take the time to go find all those arrows. This all falls under the Being a fan of the players.

In a more complex, detailed game that was harder...at least half of all ranged fights would make it impossible to "just go collect arrows" by common sense.

You asked how an archer could collect arrows if they were in cover, and firing 100 ft away. I answered.

Now you are accusing me of having all simple, easy, short combats where we always win and never retreat and the game pauses.

...

But you didn't ask what would happen if the party retreats. You asked what would happen if the enemy was 100 ft away. And running away? Running away has nothing to do with being more complex or more detailed. Heck, it barely has anything to do with the fights being harder, because you supposedly still win fights. But sure, go off about how you are running away half the time and that proves that counting ammo matters. Even though you didn't bring up running away until your third or fourth example to prove that collecting arrows is unreasonable.

Money has nothing to do with it. I've used cheep plastic toys forever. Back in the Time Before Time, I could got to the Ben Franklins and buy plastic orcs and wizards for a penny each.

Money can be a factor. I've used washers and d6's in a lot of fights. But you need a map to accurately show the position too. Unless you are just sketching a quick picture of positions? Which I've done a lot in New School too.

I will still say that Old School games are much more likely to choose to use figures as they like more complex and detail in thier game play.

You like more complex in your game play huh? Then why not use Theater of the Mind? It is far more complex to keep track of thirty or so individual positions in your head than to off-load that mental overhead into a map. I should know. There have been a lot of times we've been doing theater of the mind, then pulled out a piece of paper or gone to a nearby whiteboard to start sketching things out so everyone can keep track of it all.

So, for Hard Fun and extra complexity, shouldn't you prefer the more complex and more difficult Theater of the Mind approach?

All Fan of the Cahracter/player things.

Also all better trap design that works better, encourages better player behaviors, and creates more engaging story-telling.

Not sure way gaining levels matters?

Because in a true episodic series, where everything resets to base at the end of every episode, you can't have characters grow and change. Homer Simpson never gets a permanent promotion, just a temp one for the episode. But DnD characters level and change, they are not the same in session 30 as they were in session 3. So you cannot have a true episodic reset. You have an ongoing narrative of change, just not one with an overarching plot.

So everything is in both Schools?

Everything? I doubt it. Most things? Probably.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's worth mentioning that at 9th+ levels, a lot of things changed about the game. At that point, the XP required for each new level didn't increase, instead being a set value (varying by class), but quite a large one.

Meanwhile, hit point acquisition slowed to a crawl. (An AD&D fighter gained 3 hp every level, no Con bonus allowed!)

Yeah, but the question always is how many people even got there. When you see a lot of people say they never saw a PC with a 5th level spell, I have to conclude it wasn't that many.

I do wonder how many people continued to play their same characters after "Name" level, admittedly. I've certainly seen a number of people say that's when they retired their characters to their strongholds and kept adventuring with lower level characters.

I played my longest played character until he was 13th level when I could.