'Old School' Experiences with D&D 3.5

[Ed Cha]

Edit to add: Any supplement and adventure module suggestions that carry that 'Old School' feel are also welcome.

Have you checked out these yet?

http://www.indiepressrevolution.com...ld&PHPSESSID=a52ae49d00d00d6b3077f9568d8db7ea

"Innovative. The material is clearly written by a gamer for the enjoyment of gamers."-- Gary Gygax

I "live" old-school. I probably have one of the largest collections of 70's/80's D&D, Judges Guild, Tunnels & Trolls, Flying Buffalo, and miscellaneous stuff in my area.

 

[DarrenGMiller]

I DM'ed 1E from 1982-1992. I have gotten some VERY "old school" sessions playing Necromancer Games' Crucible of Freya and Tomb of Abysthor and a converted Village of Hommlett, as well as Torrents of Dread from Dungeon and a converted Isle of Dread. I own two of the Goodman Games adventures, but have not run them yet. I also ran a bunch of 3.0 conversions of 1E & 2E adventures that felt very "old school."

DM

 

[Darius101]

Old School feel

To me old school means:
1) memorable times in the Adventure
2) Memorable NPC's with personality and maybe even a quirk or two
3) something to tell others about in story form when you get together either at a con or just over a beer.

Old school feel means that the group works together as a team to acomplish something and nothing is just a dice roll.
If it was just a dice roll then why play was the feeling I always got because of the descriptive nature of my DM made it feel real to us.
Old school means that you may not want to kick in the door because you have no idea what is on the other side. What is on the other side may be a very high level monster that you could avoid, talk to to or otherwise not have to get killed by. Many of my old players were parinoid ....they warned the newer 3.5 players but as power gamers the new players headed them not....the older players survived and the newer ones learned or moved on.
A great example of old school to me is the A series of modules by TSR. The slavelords can be very deadly in 3.5 and AD&D and it is converted.
The temple both old and new when run correctly can easily also be quite memorable. It is up to the DM to tell the story right. The players will make memories if they play it as a Role Playing Game and not a Dice fest.

Later,
Darius

 

[Quasqueton]

was reading the intro section regarding how 3rd Edition had relegated a lot of the fun regarding discovering and disarming traps to a simple dice roll mechanic

So how did the thief's "find traps" and "disable traps" work.

On this specific subject, I've not seen a difference in "old school" and "current school".

"I search the door for traps." <dice rolled>

Same in all editions. Didn't matter if the trap was in the door knob, in the frame, in the hinges, etc.

"I search the statue for traps." <dice rolled>

Again, the same in all editions.

It's hard to discuss "old school" D&D. I could describe standard element "A" of games in the old days, and someone would take it as an insult, and a back and forth edition war would erupt. But then next week, someone could ask what was good about "old school" D&D, and standard element "A" would be held up as a beloved feature.

It's a really odd phenomenon.

Quasqueton

 

[francisca]

I was told my 3.x game had a decidedly old school feel to it.

I dunno exactly how I did it though. I guess I just played D&D the way I thought it should be played, as I do regardless of ruleset. When you read the session logs from the games I DM, you can't tell if it's 3e or 1e or B/X.

YMMV, offer void where prohibited.

 

[Tatsukun]

Old school in 3.5? Easy...

1) Limit all PCs to the PHB
2) Randomly roll for stats, in order, 3D6
3) Randomly roll what class you can use. I suggest rolling four times, and then choosing which of those you want. Or you could set up some kind of minimum stats for each class.
4) Forget about CR, have a lot of things kill with no save. In essence, make it toally random who lives.
5) Don't use rules, just have the DM decide everything and tell the story.

Did I mention that I hated ADnD? Maybe I'm biased.

-Tatsu

 

[Melkor]

So how did the thief's "find traps" and "disable traps" work.

On this specific subject, I've not seen a difference in "old school" and "current school".

"I search the door for traps." <dice rolled>

Same in all editions. Didn't matter if the trap was in the door knob, in the frame, in the hinges, etc.

Quasqueton

Now that it's been a couple of days, I can't recall the exact text of the book, but I don't think that the statements in the intro were comparing AD&D to D&D 3.5. I think it may have been referring to Tunnels & Trolls, and saying that it was a bit difficult to make the traps as effective in a game like 3.5 (The original Grimtooth's books and Catalyst books were generic, but produced by Flying Buffalo, who also produced Tunnels & Trolls).

IIRC - Tunnels & Trolls has Saving Throws to avoid damage based on a number minus the character's Luck stat, but no particular set of abilities to find and disarm traps - so maybe the Wurst of Grimtooth's Traps intro was implying that most of the traps in the book were not as fun, and could be innefective, if you simply let your players make a roll to notice and roll to disarm instead of having them describe what they were looking for, and how they were are going to deal with it (and in all probability killing themselves in the process).

Anyway, that's probably why the book introduces a small section of additional rules on finding and disarming traps.

Thanks for the additional suggestions folks.

 

[RIPnogarD]

The biggest difference to me, between old school and today would not be game mechanics so much as good vs evil. Dice have been being rolled forever. Yes the game has evolved but the gist is still there. What I feel would be considered old school would be to bring it back to good vs evil. Along with eliminating classes like blackguard and assassin. The only "anti"-paladin that I remember in 1981 was the 'Death Knight', found in the FF. <(He was one of the BAD-guys.)

 

[Ourph]

Old School - IMHO - means worrying less about story and ecology and more about just having balls-to-the-wall fun and adventure. In every game I run, I usually try to run it "old school" and I think, for the most part, I succeed. But there are times when I begin to feel a little burn-out or feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the campaign or just get writers block and I wake up to find I've drifted out of that "old school" mode and started trying to "novelize" the game - trying to make all the little pieces fit together, trying to arrange the challenges I set before the PCs into some coherent "story", trying to fit what I know the players want to do into some sort of framework where their characters have a very compelling reason to do it..

It's at those times that I sit down, draw up a treasure map for the PCs to find, populate a new dungeon with a couple hundred baddies and some phat (but deviously well hidden and cunningly trapped) loot to reward them for surviving and just stop worrying about who's pissed off at the PCs for their last exploit or which organization may be seeking them to help with problem X or how many long lost relatives they have or have not tracked down. In other words, I prioritize game over story and challenge over continuity for a while in order to kick up the excitement and fun level a little.

For me, that's a cyclical thing. Probably not so for everyone. I'm not suggesting a game devoid of story is the way to go. IME - story usually creeps in no matter what (through the actions of PCs and, in my case, due to my tendency to latch onto game events and expand the campaign around them - probably due to my simulationist streak). But I think what most people recall and like about "old school" is that there was a time before the 2e Monstrous Manual and the Dragon "Ecology of" articles and convention lectures from "experts" on why verisimilitude is so important to a good campaign when we didn't really worry about why the baddies were in the dungeon or where the ancient treasure came from and why someone else hadn't been there to plunder it before the PCs got there. We just kicked the door in, cut down the bad guys, looted the treasure, rode back to town on our trusty steed in a cloud of dust and glory and tipped the bartender with a big, fat gold piece because that's the kind of thing adventurers do - and pretending to be bold, ale-swilling, axe-swinging, devil-may-care adventurers was why we played (and loved) the game. To me, that's old school gaming in a nutshell.

As far as I can see, you can do that with just about any set of rules as long as you know what you want and focus on doing that rather than what the current gaming culture or the tone of the rulebooks might encourage you to focus on.

 

[Mighty Veil]

I'm trying to put together a D&D 3.5 game for a few friends (who play it exclusively), and I want to go completely 'Old School'.

Same here! I haven't read the responses yet but will after I post this. I think there will be many different views on this.

For me what I'm going to do is this. Less super-heroic/more arch-type for PC characters. Simplify some rules for quicker character creation. A more human-centric feel. Try to follow the original views and feel for alignment and classes. Some examples without going into too much details.

1. Less super-heroic/more arch-type

No prestige classes.

2. quicker character creation

Use UA's option skill rules

3. human-centric feel

Less Disney feel with the races in trying to make them all balanced. I had thought about level limits for demi-humans but decided to make demi-humans +1 EL (except half-elf).

4. Original views

Just read the Gygax threads ;-) e.g. Alignments are black and white, not shades of gray. And they is no backdoor excuses. Lawful is Lawful. Paladins are LG, not NG, not CN. Paladins are knights of lawful nations who do good deeds, and are not holy warriors.

I also will put more emphasis on mystery of things and less PC. e.g.
- Magic: No one knows exactly what it is? Sages have theories. But no one really knows. Magic is the name given to an unknown power by men.
- Mermaids and Lizard-men. Not Folk.
- Less Humanist. It's fantasy, so why not have some fun!
Half-orcs don't need to have a human/orc family tree. They could be an orc hybrid created by wizards, like the warforge. Maybe all half-orcs are male. Maybe they're sterile, maybe they're not.