Defining "old school" by vote

[Orius]

I chose:

• PCs used as playing pieces with no real personalities
• DM as antagonist
• Dungeons with no “ecological” sense, just full of monsters to slay
• Byzantine and arcane rules 31 42.47%
• Playing adventures created by the DM

A lot of old school to me seems to be the type of game that was DM vs. players, and the first two answers fit into that. When the DM throws in a lot of arbitrary no save traps that he know will probably just bump a PC off and he using traps for just that purpose, you know you're playing old school. So really you justs keep playing the same PC with the only difference being the Roman numberal at the end of his name.

Monster-filled dungeons. That seemed to be the standard old school style. Of course story and plot is more recent, but not necessarily better since it often involved those rails.

Byzantine and arcane rules, AKA 1e AD&D. At least that's the impression I get from all the people who say they ignored at least half the rules back in the 1e days because they made little sense.

I said adventures created by the DM because that's how it was back in the earliest days before modules. Though really, that probably isn't something that's old or new school, because I've never made much use out of modules myself.

Didn't answer on treasure. I wanted to pick the stingy option, because a lot of the RBDMs seemed to like being tight with treasure for balance reasons, but a lot of the official modules it seems were loaded down with loot.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Literally, none of the above. There are several conspicuous absences, and probably then some.

 

[S'mon]

This is an interesting position. I have many quibbles with the Slaver (A1-4) series, but I would never have thought of them as railroaded. (The Scourge of the Slavelords compilation megamodule is all railroady as hell, but that came much later.)

If you think the A series is "sometimes-railroaded", what makes the G series not? (I think neither are railed.)

Bullgrit

I may only be thinking of the megamodule, as I am not sufficiently familiar with the A-series, so I probably should have kept my mouth shut.

Having PCs auto-captured in-game is railroady, but starting the PCs off capured at the start of play is not, it's setting start conditions for the adventure. If A-series doesn't do that, ok.

 

[Bullgrit]

I may only be thinking of the megamodule, as I am not sufficiently familiar with the A-series, so I probably should have kept my mouth shut.

Having PCs auto-captured in-game is railroady, but starting the PCs off capured at the start of play is not, it's setting start conditions for the adventure. If A-series doesn't do that, ok.

This "auto-capture" issue is a complicated one in the A series because there are two different situations between the megamodule and the indivdual modules, and people often don't realize there is a difference between them.

In the megamodule, the party is auto-captured in the beginning, to start the adventure. This is the very definition of a railroad scenario -- there is nothing, no defense, no precaution, no fight, and no save the PCs can make to avoid getting captured in this beginning. The scenario is designed to auto-capture, and the author states so. But this exists only in the piece of turd that is the megamodule.

In the individual modules, the fourth/last module in the series starts out with the party captured. This start assumes that the party is captured at the end of the third module. But the last encounter of the third module is not necessarily an auto-capture.

The text explains a trap that can capture the PCs if the DM wants to end tournament style: PCs are walking down hallway to the Slavelords throne room. Behind them rises a wall to seal off their escape. In front of them, the Slavelord magic-user casts a wall of force. Then sleep gas is pumped into the corridor. This method is given as an option, and is given only a paragraph or two. (Also note that it is not really a truly inescapable trap, it's just not likely for PCs of levels 4-7 to have a way out.)

But the text also says that you can have the adventure end with the PCs actually encountering and fighting the Slavelords (in which case, the Slavelord m-u has already expended his wall of force for the day, and so the SLs don't have an easy trap). This option is suggested as preferrable, and is given a great deal of text. The module even gives the full stats for the Slavelords, and their likely round-by-round tactics.

In non-tournament play, a battle with the SLs is the way the module is written. Although, the level 4-7 PCs are unlikely to defeat the level 9-10 Slavelords in a stand-up fight, so death and/or capture is the likely result, even without using the tournament-play trap.

Dead PCs will be raised (remember, in AD&D1 there wasn't an option for the subject of a raise to say "no") for torture and questioning. So the fourth module starts on the assumption that the PCs are captives in the Slavelords' dungeon. (The PCs find their stuff and gear at the end of the fourth module.)

So, you see, the auto-capture issue is a complicated one in the A series. In the beginning of the megamodule there is absolutely a railroaded capture, by author's design and intent. (And it's completely unnecessary, too.) But the ending of the third module is not truly a railroad capture, (no more so than the minotaur in the Caves of Chaos is a railroad TPK), but I can see how some might argue it.

When people talk about the auto-capture issue in the A series, the two versions (megamodule and individual modules) get mixed up, and that makes discussions confusing.

Bullgrit

 

[Woas]

For better or worse Dungeons & Dragons itself is just "old school" in general to me. Any edition. Time period is not a factor.

 

[Doug McCrae]

2. Real-world knowledge more important than formal game rules.

The lack of realism of the early D&D dungeons is a particularly distinctive feature. Also for a caster to succeed, the most important element is system mastery - knowing how his spells work. This sometimes seems to be a point of pride for players of magic users - they fancy themselves smarter than fighter players because they must read and learn the spell lists in the PHB.

7. Broad, strongly archetypal character classes with details defined by role-playing.

They've never really been archetypal, they are much too specific. Vancian magic, clerics that obey the strictures of specific real world medieval knightly orders and cast Biblical spells, Celtic druids and bards, shaolin monks.

9. Game play for everyone but the DM solely consists of what actually goes on at the table.

See my point above about system mastery being required for casters.

 

[Storm Raven]

So, you see, the auto-capture issue is a complicated one in the A series. In the beginning of the megamodule there is absolutely a railroaded capture, by author's design and intent. (And it's completely unnecessary, too.) But the ending of the third module is not truly a railroad capture, (no more so than the minotaur in the Caves of Chaos is a railroad TPK), but I can see how some might argue it.

Well, ther auto-capture element is only one thing that makes the A series somewhat railroady. A3, for example (both the tournament and non-tournament versions), consists of two dungeon crawls with an interstitial sketchily laid out town investigation. The two dungeon crawls are literally a line of encounters. The dungeons themselves basically consist of a single corridor with rooms along the way and no way to deviate from the path. The PCs can go forward to face the next encounter, or go backward out the way they came, but have no other options.

The tournament versions of A1 and A2 are a lot like this too, although the non-tournament versions allow for more freedom of decision by the PCs.

The auto-capture element crops up, even in non-tournament play, because captuing the PCs is the only way to move them from A3 to A4. If you want to play out the series, capture is the only option, which many find railroady.

 

[Bullgrit]

With 97 voters at this time, the only items to get better than 50% are:
- Dungeons with no “ecological” sense, just full of monsters to slay
- Continuous dungeons for the PCs to crawl and hack through

68% and 56% really isn’t enough to call a consensus.

Interesting to note: Out of 97 voters, 33 said “old school” is generally good, and 15 said “old school” is generally bad. That leaves 49 who didn’t vote either way – 51%.

I made the poll list from items that seem to get thrown out often as what some people think of “old school”. When I set about making my own votes on the poll, I realized that I can’t really choose many of these myself. This made me think longer and harder about what I think of when I think “old school”.

After a lot of thinking, I came to the conclusion that, to me, “old school” is AD&D1 or BD&D from 1977 to 1985. “Old school” describes not a style of play, but an era of published material.

“Old school” started with the AD&D Player’s Handbook and the Holmes BD&D box set and ended with the Temple of Elemental Evil.

The materials published in the “old school” era are as varied in style, conceit, quality, and culture as much material is today. Death dungeon crawls like Tomb of Horrors are “old school”, but so are murder mystery investigations like The Assassin’s Knot. The simplicity of the Moldvay BD&D rule book is “old school”, and so is the complexity of the Gygax Dungeon Master’s Guide.

The old school era had good and bad material. Wonderfully good, and abysmally bad. Sometimes these two extremes could be found in the same book. The material was played with by good players and bad players. Intelligent friends and idiotic jerks. Sometimes these two extremes could be found in the same person.

Bullgrit

 

[Bullgrit]

The two dungeon crawls are literally a line of encounters. The dungeons themselves basically consist of a single corridor with rooms along the way and no way to deviate from the path. The PCs can go forward to face the next encounter, or go backward out the way they came, but have no other options.

Isn't that pretty much like Tomb of Horrors?

I'm not going to derail this into a discussion on what is a railroad or not, but I never thought of the dungeons in A3 or the cross over from A3 to A4 as railroads -- though I never ran either of them (I ran A1 twice, and A2 once). Someone can start a new thread to discuss this specifically if they want.

Bullgrit

 

[Dedekind]

With 97 voters at this time, the only items to get better than 50% are:
- Dungeons with no “ecological” sense, just full of monsters to slay
- Continuous dungeons for the PCs to crawl and hack through

68% and 56% really isn’t enough to call a consensus.

Another interesting thing is the "DM as referee" and "DM as antagonist" choices. Almost everyone chose one of them, but it is equally divided between the two.

I voted DM = antagonist, but, in hindsight, I suspect that had as much to do with my group when I was playing D&D back then. Given that, I wonder if the quality of DMs has changed drastically over time?