Is "Old School" Overrated?

[Herschel]

Old school absolutely rocks. It isn't in any way overrated, but it is different. It takes a fair, flexible, quick on his feet DM for old school to be most fun. If he wasn't, things broke down.

Then came 3E where the DM had to be more studious and more disciplined with both time and rules. If they weren't, things broke down.

Then came 4E, which needs a hybrid of the two. You don't need to be quite as flexible or studious as respective previous editions but much more so than the other.

The styles are different, but all have their place. Old school still rocks, just in a different way. Just like Mozart, Benny Goodman and Guns & Roses are all good, just in different ways.

 

[Thasmodious]

Ha, 2e scribble looks like Ron Jeremy, that is definitely an "old school" porno-stash.

Long before there was an OSR, I had a run in with a young cousin who had just discovered D&D. He was 13 or so and excited about his new hobby. Discovering I played set him off and he went on and on about it. I laughed a lot hearing him go on about his characters with lame names like Cohen the Barbarian or Boo-boo, and the fun they had chasing bar wenches, pick pocketing townsfolk (who turned out to be dragons or Elminster, of course), and big dungeon fights. I did not hear much about roleplaying or character depth or such things. He asked me about my game and I remember telling him that we played completely old school, being old school gamers from the 70s and 80s. He was impressed with our pedigree and my description of story rich games with roleplaying, character development and still the occasional bar wench.

I did experience a wave of nostalgia hearing the kid describe the same game (now using 3e) that I played back in the day using OD&D. The more things chance and all of that. I thought at the time it would be interesting to pick up OD&D and play the system with my group now, as grown ups and well past that stage of hot-headed, libidinal teens and preteens. I thought about how our gaming had evolved with age and experience, how we became more interested in our characters as characters, how our roleplaying (and the emphasis we placed on it) had grown from those humble beginnings, how much more we liked to play out a story then we did back then...

It also occured to me that my groups own evolution was not as forward as I liked to think it was. We hit a pretentious peak of roleplaying uber alles in our early 20s - 5 page background write ups, speaking in character only once the game began, arguments over whether or not the character would act in such a manner, demanding story driven plots that made sure to include everything from the backgrounds of the PCs, etc. Then we snapped back a bit, letting a bit more loose fun back into the game. We enjoyed some more laughs, took more pleasure in a big fight, made some OOC jokes, and found a more loose and fun, and ultimately mature gaming style that was a combination of our childish, and wildly fun, games of yore and our serious and deep gaming of our 20s. What was old is new, its really all the same.

The kid playing 4e now is the same as the kid playing OD&D back then. Ive introduced dozens of people to D&D over the years and almost all of them have followed the same, or near enough, pattern. The first thing they enjoy is the neatness of the character sheet with all its numbers and places to put them, the dice, using them to bash monsters and collect treasure and items, then they find more value in the story and the character, then largely snap back to that happy medium where fun is the focus and a group that stays together awhile finds a happy medium that fits each individual player pretty well (serious enough for the roleplayer, enough action for the hero type, loose enough for the casual guy, etc.)

What gets my panties in a bunch is the idea of some 19 year old kid telling a 40 year old 4e gamer that has been playing since Chainmail that his Labyrinth Lord game is Old School and the 40 year old is playing a dumbed down game meant for kids and video game players.

There really is no Old School-New School. How can a system produced in 2004 by some guys who have 30 years of gaming and design development to draw from, utilizing the OGL and other aspects of modern gaming be "old school"? Its as new as they come and its still just about finding that happy medium where the group has fun and the way they want to play the game is represented. You can play a video-game like (whatever that is) game using OD&D or an old school mega-dungeon with 4e or a RP-fest with BECMI. And we did all these things. The evolution of D&D came about by people playing the game. Everyone uses house-rules. Dragon has thrived for 30 years publishing house rules and variants from the gaming community at large. Popular house rules spread and found their way into each new edition. Gamers evolved the game, not some shadowy corporate cabal passing decrees from on high. Game designers were and still are, first and foremost gamers.

This old school-new school divide is just that, a divide. We have this tendency, especially here in America I think, to categorize and divide even the smallest niche group (like gamers) into smaller and smaller divisions and then imagine that those other guys are so far removed from our viewpoint as to be entirely irreconciable. And people will defend this gulf, vehemently. The rabid old school gamer who despises all things WotC (and spends hours a day on the internet telling everyone just this) and the fresh from the farm 15 year old 4e gamer have far more in common than either of them do with people who do not engage in imaginative roleplay at all. It really is sad to me that this divide exists, that people defend it, that someone will probably quote something above and go after how the old school games are nothing like the new school. We have already seen it in this thread with snide comments from some about 4e having no roleplaying or condescending tips on how to make your old school game new school. When the truth is, many of us started as kids swinging swords, picking pockets and rolling for hookers.

 

[Fifth Element]

To some, "old school" is a warm fuzzy name for something they like.

To others, "old school" is an insult for something they dislike.

And the irony is that they both might be talking about the exact same thing. Or they may be talking about to completely different things.

Indeed. Unless we can define what "old school" is, there's not point in using the term. And good luck reaching a consensus definition, given that different gamers often use it to mean completely opposite things.

And as you point out, in many contexts the term "old school" is intended to be derogatory. Same with "new school". As such the terms are "hazardous" because without careful qualification, they can easily be misinterpreted as an insult.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

And as you point out, in many contexts the term "old school" is intended to be derogatory. Same with "new school". As such the terms are "hazardous" because without careful qualification, they can easily be misinterpreted as an insult.

Or rightly interpreted as so. The OP in the other thread started down that road by calling his DM "Old School," to describe what he perceived as mistakes. Wether or not the guy is a bad dm is debatable, but it's not because he's old school.

 

[billd91]

(IOW, I believe that OS and NS have meaning as "apples and oranges" but not "black and white", regardless or how many shades of grey you care to introduce. Obvious exceptions, like "ascending vs. descending AC" are, of course, exceptions to this general parameter.)


RC

I don't see how old school/new school has meaning like apples and oranges at all. That would imply that there are virtually NO commonalities between the two, no comparability. I don't see how that can even be described with respect to role playing games and gamer styles.

I think the burden of defining what old school and new school means is far greater on any conception of the two concepts as being like apples and oranges (automobiles and lions). Whereas looking at old school and new school as a spectrum is easier because you can say that games and styles of playing that conform closer to the rules and play styles that evolved earlier in the development of RPGs drift toward the old school end of the spectrum while others drift toward the new school end.

 

[Scribble]

D'oh!

I thought you were responding to the post directly over your post.

My bad.

In that case, I would agree that "What makes something oldschool" and "What makes it newschool" are worthwhile questions.

I just don't agree that there needs to be a cutoff. Some things are both. For example. I would argue that 4e contains elements of both, even though it is more NS than OS. RCFG contains elements of both, but is more OS than NS.

I think we'd need to define OS/NS in terms of both rules elements and playstyle. While these things may feed each other, doing so makes "playing OS in a NS way" or "playing NS in an OS way" easier to comprehend.


RC

Well that's fine- that's kind of what I was getting at. I wasn't implying that there HAS to be a hard fast OS/NS line, for each game, just that in order for there to be a difference in the terms there has to be a difference in what they mean. So game systems aside, what makes an element of a game OS, what makes it NS. Why is something considered one and not the other?

Personally I kind of agree with Umbran/Bullgrit because I think the terms are kind of confusing by nature, and there are better ways to really discuss design/play then subjective and somewhat loaded (at this point) terms.

I mean would GURPS be considered newschool gaming?

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't see how old school/new school has meaning like apples and oranges at all. That would imply that there are virtually NO commonalities between the two, no comparability. I don't see how that can even be described with respect to role playing games and gamer styles.

Apples and oranges are both fruit, but they are both enjoyable because of different fruit-type qualities.

But the "vs." part can only come in where there is an actual dichotomy (ascending vs. descending AC, for example). For many OS/NS divides, there are just multiple ways of doing things, none of which necessarily preclude the other(s).

IMHO, anyway.

That has certainly been a philosophy that has guided me in writing RCFG.


RC

 

[billd91]

Apples and oranges are both fruit, but they are both enjoyable because of different fruit-type qualities.

But the "vs." part can only come in where there is an actual dichotomy (ascending vs. descending AC, for example). For many OS/NS divides, there are just multiple ways of doing things, none of which necessarily preclude the other(s).

IMHO, anyway.

That has certainly been a philosophy that has guided me in writing RCFG.


RC

You have been providing an example of an actual dichotomy for the "vs" part, but you have yet to provide an example of an apple/orange analogy for old school or new school. If you would provide one, that might help me understand what you mean. Right now, I still think your apple/orange description is obscure.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Indeed. Unless we can define what "old school" is, there's not point in using the term. And good luck reaching a consensus definition, given that different gamers often use it to mean completely opposite things.

The biggest problem with this sort of argument is that, all too often (IME, nearly universally), it is shorthand for "I don't want to hear what you have to say, so shut up about it."

I don't know about you, but I have been through "This term has no meaning" discussions on EN World before. Because a term has no agreed upon, set-in-stone definition does not mean that it has neither meaning or value.

Because if it did mean that, may I point out that you're no less likely to reach a consensus definition on "old school" than you are on the term "D&D" itself. There are lots of gamers who don't think 4e, or 3e for that matter, are D&D. Should we stop using the term? There are gamers who think that 3rd party games not bearing the logo are D&D, and gamers who do not. Should we stop using the term? Gygax suggested that too many house rules took the game out of the sphere of D&D. Does your game use any house rules? Is it still D&D? Should we stop using the term?

Obviously not. We accept that the term may (does!) mean different things to different people and clarify when we believe we need clarification.

By all means, open threads to attempt to clarify what people mean by the terms OS & NS. That is truly worthwhile, and aids in mutual understanding when respectfully done.

Try to squash the term because you don't understand it, or don't like what (you believe) it implies? Not so much.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

You have been providing an example of an actual dichotomy for the "vs" part, but you have yet to provide an example of an apple/orange analogy for old school or new school. If you would provide one, that might help me understand what you mean. Right now, I still think your apple/orange description is obscure.

Skill rolls and descriptive resolution.

Descriptive resolution can be used to set DC for a roll, or can eliminate the need for a roll overall. A roll can be used to provide information to aid in descriptive resolution. There is no dichotomy between the two; they are seperate things that can be used apart or together. No "vs." Apples & oranges instead of Macintosh vs. Granny Smith.


RC