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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4895162" data-attributes="member: 4937">My first inclination is to just state that everything published before 1990 or so is 'old school' by definition, but really that's not a very fine grain.Before we can answer the question, we need a working definition of 'old school' that isn't just 'old'.  I think that you can identify two large distinctive groups in that list.'Gygaxian' and 'Hickmanian', plus a few important outliers.The Gygaxian modules are tightly focused dungeon crawls.  They have very terse descriptive texts generally centering on what there is to kill, and what stuff it has to take.  They are typically somewhat sandbox dungeons and generally they have large numbers of humanoids which will band together and present the PC's with something approaching a classic war gaming tactical scenario.  The mode of operation of the PC's is something like elite commandos.Very typical Gygaxian modules include B2, WG4, S2, S3, S4, A1-4, GDQ, and ToEE.There are however a couple of Gygaxian modules that very much leave those bounds in important ways.  The most important of those are 'Tomb of Horrors' which introduced a linear evocative puzzle driven dungeon style that would in many ways overshadow the maze-like sandbox style of Gygax's other works.At the same time Gygax is doing this though, there is significant exploration going on with what a module is like.The most important of these experimental works is 'Beyond the Crystal Cave', which is, next to something like GDQ, is IMO the most important module in D&D's history.  UK1 is a radically different story driven module that is completely outside of the Gygaxian style.  There is nothing 'old school' about it.  You don't really kill things and take their stuff.  If you try, you'll almost certainly die.  Instead, you are expected to talk to most everything you meet and try to come up with a people resolution based on the clues you gather.  The climax of the module is so radically different to a Gygaxian module I won't even describe it here for fear of giving too many spoilers.   Other early but not 'old school' modules include 'The Assassin's Knot' (sadly left off the list) and to some extent the other module on the list from the UK, 'U1: Sinister Secret of Salt Marsh'.After Gygax, the most influential adventure writer in D&D is in my opinion Tracy Hickman.  The Hickman style is a blending of the open sandbox dungeons of the Gygax style, with the story driven dungeons of the experimental style.  You still kill things and take their stuff, but now the map is also the outline of a story.  The levels are chapters, and they involve rising action leading up to a clear climax.  Hickman is borrowing alot from Gygax's masterpeice 'Tomb of Horrors' and alot less from something like G1-3.  The text descriptions are still very terse, but Hickman attempts to do with text something like Gygax did primarily with illustrations in S1 - provide a consistant narrative experience so that everyone is playing the same story (more or less).  The line blurs most clearly I think at 'Temple of Elemental Evil' and Hickman's 'Pyramid'.   ToEE is the climax of the Gygaxian style, and it has almost evolved into something Hickman might have written.   Conversely, Pyramid is the very beginning of the Hickman style, and other than being lighter hearted than what Gygax is typically remembered for (his humorous works being less well remembered) it could almost have been written by Gygax.  But out of Pyramid we get works like Ravenloft and Dragonlance which are clear departures from what has gone before.</blockquote>

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