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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Irda Ranger" data-source="post: 4888990" data-attributes="member: 1003">Well that poll pretty much proves no one can agree on what "old school" means. A couple points though.Referee vs. Storyteller. I think the antagonistic poll option that stands out most clearly as "correct" though is "DM as referee vs. DM as story teller." The story-teller option is clearly losing, as it should. The oldest modules had no stories; they were just locations, monsters and NPCs. Story didn't really come to the fore until the Dragonlance modules. Nowadays it's pretty much assumed that pre-written adventures have a pre-written plot the PCs are to follow.Byzantine vs. Lite Rules. I'm not surprised these are both doing well, even if Byzantine is in the lead. They're both correct. New school is infatuated with having the d20 universal mechanic. Old school uses whatever mechanic makes sense for adjudicating success and failure of a particular course of action, but these rules are often individually very simple and there are fewer of them then in New School.There are also a couple things I think are critical to understanding the old school that the poll doesn't cover very well.Creation vs. Generation. Old school generates. Characters, encounters, adventures, treasures, etc. etc. Both the DM and players cede narrative control to the dice and a table somewhere in the rulebooks. New school creates. It's all about customization. Characters are created with the standard array and power choice. The DM creates his encounters and treasure parcels.Strategy vs. Tactics.  3E and 4E is obsessed with how you fight the bandits. To Cleave or Not to Cleave, that is the question. Old school does not have all these choices. "Roll to hit." The focus of old school is whether to fight the bandits, or maybe to avoid them, or to bribe them. It's a higher-level more strategic point of view.DM Discretion. Old school relies on the DM to do his job well much more so than the new school which precisely nails down in-game effects. Old school spells and items often only have "fluff" (in the modern parlance), and it is left to the DM to determine what actual in game effect this has. "Cool, I'm invisible. What does that get me in this particular scenario?" New school favors precisely defined (and play-tested for balance) in game effects divorced from the fluff, and screw common sense. "Your sword is glowing bright purple. No, that doesn't penalize your Stealth check." A kid new to DMing will not be asked to make decisions he isn't equipped to make, but a guy with 10 years behind the screen is discouraged from making decisions that he is much better equipped to make than the WotC writer far removed from the actual events at the gaming table.</blockquote>

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