Raven Crowking
First Post
Wait...does that mean you agree that you're "trying to control content by plain old browbeating"?
Searching for "New School" elements
- Thread starter Bullgrit
- Start date
Wait...does that mean you agree that you're "trying to control content by plain old browbeating"?
I think this is a very interesting facet of early D&D and one with implications which I rarely see discussed (here, at least).
There's a section on 'Time in the Campaign' DMG p37 with examples that make it clear that play is not intended to revolve around 'a party' but rather that various coalitions of a wide group of players form and dissolve to pursue various agenda.
In that environment character death does not involve trying to integrate a new guy into a 'party' while preserving everyone's niche. A TPK is not an ending. The campaign is still going with a whole load of other players now alerted that area x or dungeon y has something very dangerous in it. Stories and rumours of the deaths enter the folklore. Maybe another group forms to investigate and try and find any survivors. These days that seems more like the way a lot of LARP is played.
Early in the thread I posted something by thejester about how 'old school' was an attitude or approach. In a game with, say, a 5-strong party I would have misgivings about a lot of those attitudes - they are not ones I commonly share and that wouldn't be a playstyle I'd get involved in much these days. But in a campaign stocked with 25 players forming different adventuring parties I would hold the opposite view and consider them strengths.
I think lots of other elements of AD&D which I find less than compelling with a 5-player party become interesting in a 25-player campaign.
So the context of the number of players intended to be in a campaign is a valuable point in an 'old school' discussion, imo.
jmucchiello
Hero
Jumping in late, I've had a perspective change on what is old school recently and thought I'd share.
Old school is pre-1st Ed DMG. Because before that no one knew what the hell they were doing. Most learning about how DMing happened via in-game play. Once the DMG exists, people could "study" DMing outside the play environment. And thus a previously "verbal" tradition was written down. And by being written down could be interpreted without benefit of seeing it in action first.
At around the same time, TSR was pumping out tournament style modules and there is nothing Old School about a tournament module. Sandbox play and tournaments play have very different goals. But that isn't the important part. Tournament play concepts leaked into non-tournament modules. That's why the number of "Keep on the Borderlands" style modules diminished over the history of 1e. Modules started being written with the attitude that the players were going through it once and never coming back. That is not old school. (What better way to get folks to buy more modules?) TSR becoming a "big" business also affects how the game is developed.
Notice that on page 5 Bullgrit complains about not liking a list of "old school" modules. Everyone was originally a tournament module. Coincidence?
Old school is pre-1st Ed DMG. Because before that no one knew what the hell they were doing. Most learning about how DMing happened via in-game play. Once the DMG exists, people could "study" DMing outside the play environment. And thus a previously "verbal" tradition was written down. And by being written down could be interpreted without benefit of seeing it in action first.
At around the same time, TSR was pumping out tournament style modules and there is nothing Old School about a tournament module. Sandbox play and tournaments play have very different goals. But that isn't the important part. Tournament play concepts leaked into non-tournament modules. That's why the number of "Keep on the Borderlands" style modules diminished over the history of 1e. Modules started being written with the attitude that the players were going through it once and never coming back. That is not old school. (What better way to get folks to buy more modules?) TSR becoming a "big" business also affects how the game is developed.
Notice that on page 5 Bullgrit complains about not liking a list of "old school" modules. Everyone was originally a tournament module. Coincidence?
Bullgrit
Adventurer
Very interesting concept. (I can't give you xp yet.)jmucchiello said:
Just to correct this characterization: I did not complain; I said they weren't my style. Nothing to complain about -- I wasn't forced to run or play them.
And of the modules I listed as not liking, (ToH, WPM, and DL), I think only ToH was originally a tournament module. But, having said that, I will admit to also not liking very much the Slavelords series, which were all originally tournament modules. You might have an correct observation, though.
Someone check me on this: am I seeing something that's not really there, or does it seem that most people who self-identify as "Old School" generally like *everything* from the early D&D era? Am I the only one who experienced the early era who admits to disliking parts of it? (The parts I liked, I've embraced in products from later eras.)
Is the rule: Old School -- gotta love it all! ?
Bullgrit
I'm going to try interpreting this charitably. Are you saying that the publication of the 1e DMG established the basis for the development of the New School? Given that the document had to be written by people who started off not knowing "what the hell they were doing", and embodies their views on the game, it must be a product of their School. And many of those who played based on it, would be their Schoolmen.
Your observations on the business side of things are insightful, but I don't agree that this is what divides the schools. Rather, it describes the pressures that led to the ascendancy of the New School.
For me, I would say that the tipping point is when the industry leader went in for plot-based adventures, in which the main structure (the plot) cannot plausibly be replayed in the same campaign. By comparison, a site-based adventure's main structure (the site) can be replayed in the same campaign without straining disbelief. Just restock the dungeon, tip off the PCs that new evils have invaded, and away you go! (Plus, players who take good care of their old maps get rewarded for their diligence.)
the Jester
Legend
Not at all. I'll go ahead and point at Dragonlance modules as a good example of "ugh" content from the 1e era for me; as another example, I think To Find a King and the Forest Oracle rate very low as well.
the Jester
Legend
Well, sure, but they are certainly from the "early era", and I was addressing the question: Does everyone else who lived through the early era like everything from it?
My answer is a clear "No"; the fact that they are sometimes pointed to as "new school" in style is irrelevant to the era they come from.
Or maybe I misunderstood the question- if your question is really "Do you more or less consistently prefer stuff in the same style," my answer is "More or less, yes."
As you've pointed out yourself, early-era adventures are no more all "old skool" than current-era adventures are all "new skool". In the "Describe an adventure you like" thread I started with one from the 2.8e era (Players Option stuff), which is the worst era of D&D mechanically imho tacked onto the end of the worst era of D&D for my taste in playstyle as well; and yet I love that adventure and have run it at least twice.
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