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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9376180" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I would add another element:Making Informed Choices.Something revealed by the massive amount of content in 3.x was...there were a lot of &quot;choices,&quot; but not very many choices. An awful lot of things were absolute trash, not even worth thinking about. This had been a characteristic of D&amp;D for a long time, but 3e made it aggressively obvious to anyone who really cared about gameplay qua gameplay. Trap options have existed in D&amp;D since OD&amp;D, and stupidly brokenly overpowered stuff had too. If there is such a thing as &quot;New School&quot; at all, this has to be a part of that: getting rid of &quot;traps&quot; and the crazy-powerful-you-should-always-take-this stuff (like Natural Spell).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.This also manifests as an interest in balance as a game design element--which 3e tried to pursue, but objectively failed miserably at actually achieving. (Had it been able to somehow enforce old-school style play on its players, that might have been a different story, but the game just wasn't designed properly for it.) Different options need to actually be relatively close to the same in total impact BUT still different in effect: that way it is really, actually a choice, and not a mere brute-force calculation to determine what is best. You have no choice but to THINK about what you want to do, because path A, B, and C are all objectively valuable but still different.Finally, this manifests as a deep and abiding antipathy for certain kinds of &quot;Old School&quot; techniques that may have once been acceptable, even laudable, but which &quot;New School&quot; usually does not cotton to very much. Fudging, quantum ogres, secretly rewriting in-combat creature stats on the fly, secret retconning, &quot;invisible railroads,&quot; that sort of thing--&quot;New School&quot; may not be universally opposed to this stuff, but it's definitely got a MUCH lower tolerance for it than &quot;Old School&quot; ever did.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9376180, member: 6790260"] I would add another element: Making Informed Choices. Something revealed by the [I]massive[/I] amount of content in 3.x was...there were a lot of "choices," but not very many [I]choices[/I]. An awful lot of things were absolute trash, not even worth thinking about. This had been a characteristic of D&D for a long time, but 3e made it aggressively obvious to anyone who really cared about gameplay [I]qua[/I] gameplay. Trap options have existed in D&D since OD&D, and stupidly brokenly overpowered stuff had too. If there is such a thing as "New School" at all, this has to be a part of that: getting rid of "traps" and the crazy-powerful-you-should-always-take-this stuff (like Natural Spell). It dovetails with some of the things above. For example, the reduction in lethality is not there to remove challenge, despite what many, many, [I]many[/I] frustrating people will tell you. The point is to [I]let you learn from your mistakes[/I], 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 [I]ultimately[/I] in doubt, but it is [I]initially[/I] in doubt, and that matters a lot. This also manifests as an interest in balance as a game design element--which 3e [I]tried[/I] to pursue, but objectively failed miserably at actually achieving. (Had it been able to somehow enforce old-school style play on its players, that might have been a different story, but the game just wasn't designed properly for it.) Different options need to actually be relatively close to the same in total impact BUT still different in effect: that way it is really, actually a [I]choice[/I], and not a mere brute-force calculation to determine what is best. You have no choice but to THINK about what you want to do, because path A, B, and C are all objectively valuable [I]but still different[/I]. Finally, this manifests as a deep and abiding antipathy for certain kinds of "Old School" techniques that may have once been acceptable, even laudable, but which "New School" usually does not cotton to very much. Fudging, quantum ogres, secretly rewriting in-combat creature stats on the fly, secret retconning, "invisible railroads," that sort of thing--"New School" may not be universally opposed to this stuff, but it's definitely got a MUCH lower tolerance for it than "Old School" ever did. [/QUOTE]

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