My Response to the Grognardia Essay "More Than a Feeling"

[Baron Opal]

Where does James define "old school"?

 

[avin]

I'm a modern player. Old school style is not for me

 

[Ariosto]

That essay is not without context; it is a response to "dismissals of the old school movement".

Dismissal is not recognition of validity. It is not, "Well, I prefer the latest products from White Wolf and Wizards, but you prefer an older style, and that's okay because different people like different things."

Dismissal is, "Well, there's really no substantial difference at all. The objective particulars may be radically different, but if you don't get just the same 'feeling' from this new game then that's just your subjective impression."

While it does not logically follow, the appeal to irrationality sets up: "So, you are not permitted to promote your game -- but publishers and fans can promote New Game X. Your views are irrelevant, and it is wrong of you to express them."

Preference itself is subjective, and there is nothing right or wrong about it. The dismissal of observations concerning different game-mechanical approaches and their effects on the process of play, though, is disingenuous and contrary to critical analysis.

There are objective differences to which people respond in subjective ways. To claim that one likes the latest novelty better because "it's just the same" is simply absurd.

 

[WayneLigon]

I think you can't really put it down to anything other than 'feeling' and nostalgia.

 

[Cadfan]

Why bother having a club if you can't exclude people from it?

What you're perhaps not seeing is that the "feelings" driving this sort of thing are only in part "feelings" about what games "feel" what ways. They also involve "feelings" about who's "one of us" and who isn't.

 

[catsclaw227]

The part of the essay at Grognardia that rubbed me a bit the wrong way was:

Likewise, when a player of such games claims he's doing so "in an old school style," I have no recourse but to accept him at his word and move on, because no argument could possibly be offered to disprove his feeling that he's playing an old school game.

I like playing 4e, yet I inject some old school style in it by having some plot-light regions, some site based adventures, as well as some dungeons with not-so-realistic ecologies.

I also play up the idea that the rules for PCs are different than the rules for NPCs, Monsters and their environs. Not that the world "physics" are different for PCs, but that there are options for NPCs and Monsters that don't exist for PCs. i.e. if I want a monster to have some cool ability or something, then they can have it. I don't need a book of stats to play it out. Also, for me, old school style presumes a fair amount of "winging it" and DM Fiat.

Now, because I inject these into my 4e game, I feel like I DM 4e in an old-school style.

Why would he "have no recourse but to accept" my ideas? There is a difference between playing an old school game and playing a modern game with some old school sensibilities. I am not playing an old school RULESET, but I like some old school style.

Is there be some need to prove that I am not playing an old school game?

Most of the reasons I don't like some of the old school games as much as I used to are because of game mechanics issues, but I an still try to achieve the FEEL that I got from old school games.

 

[Treebore]

As James (and you) indicates, part of what defines old-school is emotional, and thus subjective.

He's trying to define what it is outside of the subjective response.

It's an interesting idea, but not an exercise that I think will bear much fruit. (Although it could certainly generate a lot of discussion.)

For me, "old school" in relation to D&D is the approach mainly used in 1E - few(er) rules, and adventures being site-based and plot-light.

Agreed. The only thing I would add is we (we being the people I game with) play Castles and Crusades because we love the "feel" of how the game goes. We play 1E, and campaign in Mystara/Known World and Greyhawk, because we love how the game plays over other editions and iterations of it. Simply put, we have more FUN with the versions we play than the other versions. I/we do NOT say the other editions and iterations are not fun, only that we have less fun with them than we do with what we do play.

So I agree more with James than Joel. There is definitely an emotional/"feel" component to everything, but the reasons aside from feelings we play what we do is the mechanics add to our fun, not detract from it by turning it into work and a burden.

3E and 4E have a lot of cool and fun elements to them, but those elements also add a lot of complexity and mental work to everything you do, even just moving your PC (AoO's, I am GLARING at you!) . So we have discovered "simple and gets the job done" is not only easier, but allows for much more of a "simple and fun game" experience rather than the mentally exhausting, yet still fun, feel 3E and 4E gives us.

So rather than get into all thsi edition wars crap I play what gives me the most fun, and just get over the fact that others find 3E and 4E more fun than I do. "To each there own" is a truism after all, on many levels, and in many ways.

Edit: Let me also add that despite the fact that I find 4E the least fun edition/iteration of D&D yet, my feelings did not keep me from going and playing in World Wide D&D Day yesterday for over 5 hours. I still had fun too!

So you edition/iteration superiority people keep up your fights! Meanwhile I'll be sneaking around playing and having fun where ever I can find it.

 

[joethelawyer]

Agreed. The only thing I would add is we (we being the people I game with) play Castles and Crusades because we love the "feel" of how the game goes. We play 1E, and campaign in Mystara/Known World and Greyhawk, because we love how the game plays over other editions and iterations of it. Simply put, we have more FUN with the versions we play than the other versions. I/we do NOT say the other editions and iterations are not fun, only that we have less fun with them than we do with what we do play.

So I agree more with James than Joel. There is definitely an emotional/"feel" component to everything, but the reasons aside from feelings we play what we do is the mechanics add to our fun, not detract from it by turning it into work and a burden.

Good points. But in his essay, he says that "...the continued success of the old school renaissance depends greatly on promoting the unique qualities of older games in a clear and rational fashion."

How would you feel if the official defining qualities which are decided upon exclude C&C as a game with that "old school" feel?

Even if it didn't affect you personally, how would you feel if it affected detrimentally the # of people who give C&C a try because it didn't fit the arbitrary exclusionary definitions regarding essential mechanics needed for an old school game? These definitions propounded by a bunch of middle aged guys on a few very popular blogs and boards, affect people who are investigating what old school is all about. What if there came to be a list of old school games, ranked according to how well they fit the arbitrary definitions of essential qualities? What if C&C was way down on or off the list entirely? The new guys, chekcing out old school, read the list, and never try C&C.

That's the big reason his essay rubbed me the wrong way. By trying to isolate certain qualities in older games which fit an arbitrary old school criteria, he is in essence defining what old school is, and more importantly for games like C&C, what it isn't. Seems a bit presumptuous to me.

While the mechanics can drive the feelings of enjoyment one gets from a game, ultimately it is the feelings of fun which drive people to play a game, not the mechanics. Trying to define mechanics or other criteria which define old school means they are effectively saying that "You can call what you are doing fun, but please don't call it old school. We want to keep that definition clean and pure, as defined by us."

 

[Mark]

(. . .) a bunch of middle aged guys on a few very popular blogs and boards (. . .)

Popular being the relative term.

 

[Ariosto]

Why would he "have no recourse but to accept" my ideas? There is a difference between playing an old school game and playing a modern game with some old school sensibilities. I am not playing an old school RULESET, but I like some old school style.

That part indeed was poorly put, conflating the claim to play "in an old school style" (early in the sentence) with "playing an old school game" at the end.

However, it is just such conflation that figures in the rhetoric of dismissal. It's a cherry picking of things, with the assertion that other things therefore do not matter. At its most egregious, it is the claim that there's no difference in the games because to some degree one chooses to ignore the difference.

Could one play Game X without the skill system, skill challenges and challenge ratings? Could one "house rule" it into a form that lets one get through four encounters per hour instead of just one, or that puts less emphasis on combat, or that involves the same resource management as Game Y?

To that and many other questions, the answer naturally is "yes". But that is to avoid addressing the designs in themselves ... which is of course the point!