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<blockquote data-quote="John Quixote" data-source="post: 4888346" data-attributes="member: 694">In my experience, the play style has nothing to do with old school. It's quite true that you can use anything from OD&amp;D to 4e for any sort of game along the continuum from the brainless sandbox dungeon-hack to the deep-immerson collaborative story.&nbsp; What differs, IME, is the degree of customization that goes into character creation and advancement.Old school games are games where the characters are generated organically (i.e. with dice), and they advance on a more or less predetermined path, with minimal chances on the part of the player to alter that path with options (i.e. proficiency slots, dual-classing).New school games allow customized character creation and advancement (point-buy abilities, CP for &quot;skills &amp; powers&quot;, feats, prestige classes, daily/encounter/utility powers, etc.).&nbsp; Characters can be &quot;built&quot; like a Magic the Gathering deck, and &quot;combos&quot; can emerge from selecting features that synergize well.&nbsp; Put another way, old school doesn't allow very many options for min/maxing, but new school pretty much expects that characters will be &quot;optimized&quot; to succeed at the mechanical aspects of&nbsp; gameplay (read, combat encounters... plus the occasional skill test, if the DM is throwing a bone to the rogues and bards).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="John Quixote, post: 4888346, member: 694"] In my experience, the play style has nothing to do with old school. It's quite true that you can use anything from OD&D to 4e for any sort of game along the continuum from the brainless sandbox dungeon-hack to the deep-immerson collaborative story. What differs, IME, is the degree of customization that goes into character creation and advancement. Old school games are games where the characters are generated organically (i.e. with dice), and they advance on a more or less predetermined path, with minimal chances on the part of the player to alter that path with options (i.e. proficiency slots, dual-classing). New school games allow customized character creation and advancement (point-buy abilities, CP for "skills & powers", feats, prestige classes, daily/encounter/utility powers, etc.). Characters can be "built" like a Magic the Gathering deck, and "combos" can emerge from selecting features that synergize well. Put another way, old school doesn't allow very many options for min/maxing, but new school pretty much expects that characters will be "optimized" to succeed at the mechanical aspects of gameplay (read, combat encounters... plus the occasional skill test, if the DM is throwing a bone to the rogues and bards). [/QUOTE]

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