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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 4847851" data-attributes="member: 3887">Mark me down as someone who doesn't quite get the utility of the whole old-school/new school divide as a discussion-framing tool.To me, 2e was just... D&D. Which is to say it was a tool for creating our own fantasy adventure stories. My long-running 2e campaign turned into a epic quest set in a consistent and detailed world, but that had very little to do with the any of the material published for 2e. This was simply what we wanted to use D&D for. My high school friends and I started gaming playing poorly strung-together AD&D modules, and evnetually wanted something different. So we played our version of 'campaign play', which didn't bear much resemblance to logistics focused swords and sorcery treasure hunt which defined the Gygaxian 'campaign' model. Neither was it a railroad. The two major goals of the quest where player-defined. We used a mix of 'challenge the player' and 'challenge the character' obstacles (just like I did in 3e, BTW). Over the years we gradually moved away for certain kinds of 'challenge the player' situations. But this had nothing to do with a change in gaming philosophy. It was a time issue. Creating challenging puzzles for smart and creative players on a consistent basis is tough (and time-consuming)! Ultimately, I think the 'old-school' and 'new-school' labels describe play style preferences that go back to the beginning of hobby and aren't neccessarily associated with specific periods of time. Some people want to play a strategic treasure-hunting wargame, other people want to star in a dinner-theater version of the Lord of the Rings. Most probably want something in between.</blockquote>

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