Is "Old School" Overrated?

[Lord Zack]

There is advancement though. It's not in the area of technology or efficiency, but in the area of experience and knowledge, and no less important.

When Gary first set out to publish the original pamphlets, how many D&D gamers do you think there were in the entire world? A couple dozen? 30 years of accumulated experience, millions of sessions, thousands of groups the world over writing, talking about, and playing the game... All of that experience and real world testing absolutely informs game design, teaches designers what issues there are, gives shape and form to direct decisions that inform the style of a game system from top to bottom.

I sincerely doubt when making the game originally Gary wrestled over the player skills versus character skills debate (just by way of an example). That is an issue that arose with the thief class introducing skills, NWP being introduced in Dragon and the like. Those advancements came about from the player base growing and playing the game, experience from many sessions informing the issues of the day.

Now, we can identify these issues, designers and fans of theory discuss them at length, new systems are built around answering such questions. Advancement isn't in answering such a question definitively, but in recognizing that the question exists and having knowledge, gained from play experience, of the merits and flaws with the different approaches.

That's why I say this whole new-old thing is just nonsense. Most of the old school community doesn't play the actual older edition, but a retro-clone designed to emulate elements of the playstyle that edition, and that editions players at the time, represented. These retro-clones are designed with the knowledge and experience of the game industry as a whole, informed by the years of advancement as discussed above. The ways in which we gamed back in the day varied pretty much by the group, but a common, shared knowledge arose, issues were discussed and argued and answered in many cases, those answers informing the design of the next edition. That is to say, the designers of the next edition were informed by the community on what was more commonly played or where the players more often fell on one side or the other of a particular issue. The retro-clones are more like alternate reality versions of an edition (or the way the next edition could have gone, instead of the way it did). But for every group that played the game that way there were a 1000 that didn't. The design decisions that informed each new edition weren't born fully formed from Zeus's head, they came from the playing community, as did the designers.

We are all, really, playing the same game, in all its glorious forms.

Keep in mind that the retroclones, Swords and Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord and OSRIC are pretty much identical to the editions they are based on.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Besides that - the Model T might be technologically inferior to a modern Volkswagen or GM vehicle, but I suppose there are still some collectors around that drive their Model T around occassionally, and like certain aspects of it.

And with less extreme examples, there can be found examples for "older tech" cars. Modern cars come with lots of electronics and other stuff that can break down and repairs requiring a specialist, also increasing their weight. There are drawbacks to modern technology, not just advantages. For most of the people, the advantages are a lot more important than the drawbacks, but some people have different preferences or need.

 

[Ariosto]

Keep in mind that the retroclones, Swords and Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord and OSRIC are pretty much identical to the editions they are based on.

Legally, they cannot actually be identical "clones"; when in doubt, the designers have favored caution. LL is about as close as possible. The OSRIC core leaves out some parts, including some Gygax suggested that in retrospect he would delete. S&W is by intent a departure in key ways, rather than a strict duplication, as is BFRPG.

It may be a distinction of an "old-school" ethos that the differences from one game to another are regarded as of such little significance, especially in the circles of OD&D and S&W players. The fine points of the mathematical constructs are not really the focus of interest, and those who wish to change them simply do so without concern for any "official" line.

Thasmodius's notion that choosing a different set of approaches for the latest "official" rules set constitutes "advancement" is not one with which I agree. It is not a move forward, but rather is a move sideways through a range of variations that has been present from early days.

Changing D&D to be in some regard more like Champions or The Fantasy Trip or whatever hardly makes it "better D&D". It just makes it different from the established referent of "D&D" and more like something else.

Now, that may be a good commercial move if the "something else" has been a good seller and some of its market might be captured. Old D&D itself spawned a lot of imitators! GURPS is not "a better version of" rival Hero System, but it has many similar features and a segment of the population may like its different take better and buy it instead -- and vice-versa.

If you want to sell a lot of "fast food" in California, then burritos might beat bowls of noodles; but the reverse might hold in China. If you're going for a more up-scale restaurant business, then maybe other dishes are more appropriate.

 

[Thasmodious]

Thasmodius's notion that choosing a different set of approaches for the latest "official" rules set constitutes "advancement" is not one with which I agree. It is not a move forward, but rather is a move sideways through a range of variations that has been present from early days.

That's not quite what I am saying, though. I said that design, whether a retroclone or the official line, is informed by a wealth of experience and knowledge from decades of real world play. The advancement comes not from making the decisions (so one is "better" than the other) but from being aware of the questions. In the case of the official line, each new edition attempts to improve upon and codify the way the game is being played, while correcting some problems of the previous edition (like 3es power gap or 2es huge expansion in combat complexity/time, which neither subsequent edition has been able to curtail, despite claims to the contrary). The official line is just one set of answers, one direction. The intent is to be the mainstream direction, to rep the way most players are playing the game and address the issues of the majority.

I already said the unofficial lines, the retroclones, are alternate reality versions of what could have been (your 'sideways'), answering design parameters in different ways, disagreeing with the official line in certain ways (1e took this definitive direction with OD&D, what if instead we had kept this and this, used x from y supplement, and went in this direction...)

The point is, its still all the same game. Part of the irony of all the choice, to me, is that in many ways the choice is meant to stand in for the houserules, to cover the ways in which the many varied groups will play the game. Instead, a group just picks one, and house rules the crap out of it anyway. I still bet you'd be hard pressed to find a straight by the book game no matter what book it is you are using to play. The more things change...

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Most of the old school community doesn't play the actual older edition, but a retro-clone designed to emulate elements of the playstyle that edition, and that editions players at the time, represented.

I'm not sure about that part. Certainly there's a lot of buzz around the retro-clones, but there's an awful lot of us out here that are playing the actual older editions. I have no hard numbers, one way or another—just saying…

 

[aboyd]

Well, there is a poll here on En World from just a few days ago, which showed that about 10% of us actually play the old versions. So that's something like "hard numbers" but only for our little corner of the Internet.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Well, there is a poll here on En World from just a few days ago, which showed that about 10% of us actually play the old versions. So that's something like "hard numbers" but only for our little corner of the Internet.

The problem with that is the sample; I'd bet that the majority of the people running old versions don't frequent EN World very often, if at all. (Which, of course, is more speculation without any real numbers to back it up…)

 

[Aus_Snow]

I'm not sure about that part.

Indeed. I'm really rather uncertain, myself. As in, I'd not like to be basing a business on that 'fact', for instance. Luckily, I don't think anyone else is, either.

There might be a little bit more of an uptake, now that all the original early D&D PDFs have been removed from sale, probably forever. After all, if it's a choice between the lack of an OD&D PDF, and an actual Swords & Wizardry PDF, it seems like a pretty simple decision to make.

Then again, most people prefer hard copy, even over a free PDF + printing it & maybe having it bound. And many simply resort to eBay / Amazon / forum sales, etc. For some, the original is the best. Or yeah, they've just never even heard of the retro-clones anyway. Not everyone spends nearly as much time online. . .

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The problem with that is the sample; I'd bet that the majority of the people running old versions don't frequent EN World very often, if at all. (Which, of course, is more speculation without any real numbers to back it up…)

I'd bet most people running pre 3e versions of D&D have never even HEARD of ENWORLD, or any of the retro clones for that matter. The internet crowd is a small subset of gamers, whatever the edition or game system.

 

[Mallus]

I'd bet most people running pre 3e versions of D&D have never even HEARD of ENWORLD, or any of the retro clones for that matter.

I'd take that bet. I think the safe money is on the number of D&D players running pre-3e being small overall, and the current OSR thing is a gaming-site meme, which means the people involved most certainly have heard of ENWorld.