Searching for "New School" elements

[Raven Crowking]

(Slightly surprising, given our recent disagreements about meaning!)

I still have no idea of what you were trying to convey in that recent disagreement.

 

[Bluenose]

I think old school means something. There are some play elements unique to old school - the mega-dungeon, large parties with lots of henchmen and hirelings, and the OD&D playstyle Ariosto mentions upthread (a high player to DM ratio, frequent play, a small subset of the player base arranging a time to meet with the DM).

And there are other elements strongly associated with old school but not unique to it - high PC death rate, very gamist play, lack of realism, lots of random generation, classes balanced over the long-term, many discrete sub-systems.

Well, if you're going to define any mega-dungeon as by definition old-school, then it's a definition of old-school. It's certainly true that they don't seem to be common in newer games.

Your point about large parties with henchmen and hirelings is, imo, totally wrong. I'm playing in a Glorantha HQ2 game, highly story based, and if all the PCs turn up with all their followers for an event you're talking about over 50 people. Other games also make leader/follower a part of the game play.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I found a quote in Strategic Review Vol 2 issue 2 which seems to recommend that magic items can be purchased by PCs from NPCs -

there should be some high-level, very tricky and clever chaps in the nearest inhabitation to the dungeon, folks who skin adventures [sic] out of their wealth just as prospectors were generally fleeced for their gold in the Old West. When the campaign turkies flock to town trying to buy magical weapons, potions, scrolls, various other items of magical nature, get a chum turned back to flesh, have a corpse resurrected, or whatever, make them pay through their proverbial noses. For example, what would a player charge for like items or services? Find out, add a good bit, and that is the cost you as referee will make your personas charge.

EDIT: From the article, D&D Is Only As Good As The DM, by Gary Gygax

When I began reading the passage I assumed the 'very tricky and clever chaps' would be con-men, selling the PCs fake magic items, as the article is largely concerned with advising DMs to be stingier with treasure and magic items, to make players work harder for their loot and levels. But no, permanent magic items can be purchased from 'magic marts' in old school play, albeit at a high cost. And, of course, PCs can purchase such items from other PCs for a lower cost.

It is often a temptation to the referee to turn his dungeons into a veritable gift shoppe of magical goodies

No, the gift shop's outside.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I found a quote in Strategic Review Vol 2 issue 2 which seems to recommend that magic items can be purchased by PCs from NPCs -

Who wrote it?

That's not an idle question. I'm coming to think that what's called the "Old School" movement might be more accurately called the "Gygaxian Tradition" movement--it seems very much concerned with the Game As Gygax Intended and Played It, passed down by word of mouth and the Gygaxian community as much as by the text. Works that don't fit into that tradition, whether by authors other than Gygax who weren't in touch with his thought, or in modes outside the typical Gygaxian model of play (such as tournament modules), don't qualify as definitive of this "Old School" regardless of date. And even if it was by Gygax--the prose style certainly sounds like him --it may be an experiment that was abandoned in the further development of the tradition.

(Disclaimer: I have no interest whatsoever in this branch of Old School, but I do think the hobby might be better served if it weren't so often seen as the only 'Old School' method, by both partisans and detractors. But I also admit I get annoyed by the tendency of some to blame the things that hooked me--Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Elmore and Caldwell art, 2nd Edition--for 'ruining the game.' )

 

[ExploderWizard]

I found a quote in Strategic Review Vol 2 issue 2 which seems to recommend that magic items can be purchased by PCs from NPCs -



When I began reading the passage I assumed the 'very tricky and clever chaps' would be con-men, selling the PCs fake magic items, as the article is largely concerned with advising DMs to be stingier with treasure and magic items, to make players work harder for their loot and levels. But no, permanent magic items can be purchased from 'magic marts' in old school play, albeit at a high cost. And, of course, PCs can purchase such items from other PCs for a lower cost.

No, the gift shop's outside.

The idea that magic items can possibly be for sale isn't new school.

The expectation that magic items are for sale, at a standard price, and that the items in question be unambiguosly genuine IS a new school idea.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Who wrote it?

Gary Gygax, I should've fully attributed the quote.

 

[Doug McCrae]

But I also admit I get annoyed by the tendency of some to blame the things that hooked me--Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Elmore and Caldwell art, 2nd Edition--for 'ruining the game.' )

We're probably too negative about 2nd ed on ENworld, it gets shot at by both sides. Dragonlance, in particular. Someone should start a thread about the positives of high fantasy, epic quests and heroes who are real heroes.

The expectation that magic items are for sale, at a standard price, and that the items in question be unambiguosly genuine IS a new school idea.

I agree with you that tricking the players with a fake magic item sale is very Gygaxian, and not new school.

However the idea of the magic item being on sale, for more than a PC charges for it, is very much in accordance with 3e and 4e. And I think Gary means less than a double, or quintuple, charge when he says 'add a good bit'. 4e seems to be much stingier than Gygax, at least in this instance.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I agree with you that tricking the players with a fake magic item sale is very Gygaxian, and not new school.

However the idea of the magic item being on sale, for more than a PC charges for it, is very much in accordance with 3e and 4e. And I think Gary means less than a double, or quintuple, charge when he says 'add a good bit'. 4e seems to be much stingier than Gygax, at least in this instance.

Oh yeah. A 4E magic item is kinda the type of thing a charlatan would sell a PC in an old school game.

 

[Raven Crowking]

However the idea of the magic item being on sale, for more than a PC charges for it, is very much in accordance with 3e and 4e. And I think Gary means less than a double, or quintuple, charge when he says 'add a good bit'. 4e seems to be much stingier than Gygax, at least in this instance.

There is a difference between Gygaxian & WotC magic items for sale. As an easy example, take B2. There are a few items PCs can buy, but only a few. The PCs cannot simply order anything they want!

If you remove wish lists, or the idea that treasure moves until the PCs find it, and the idea that whatever magic item the character wants to buy is available, then WotC-D&D can potentially become stinger than Gygax!

(As a side thought, it occurs to me when writing this that there is definite link between the placement of treasure in 1e, and the "follow me" treasure in 4e. In the 1e case, a great amount of treasure is placed that the PCs are not expected to find; this helps to ensure that the PCs will be able to locate and recover a reasonable level of reward. In 4e, "follow me" treasure performs the same function.

Given that WotC-D&D tends to funnel toward fantasy-novel play....rather than the fantasy-world play expectations of 1e....that might in fact be a very good decision. Gygaxian play assumes that if party X fails to find treasure Y, well, Y is still a viable campaign element due to the persistence of the site as an actual in-play feature of the world. Contrast this with, say, an AP, where the dungeon site may never be used again by plan. With the AP set-up, what isn't used is wasted. With the fantasy-world set-up, whatever isn't used now is simply waiting in the wings to be used later.

I vastly prefer fantasy-world to fantasy-novel, but thinking of this element of 4e in this way does give me a new appreciation of the thought put into that game's design.)


RC

 

[M.L. Martin]

(As a side thought, it occurs to me when writing this that there is definite link between the placement of treasure in 1e, and the "follow me" treasure in 4e. In the 1e case, a great amount of treasure is placed that the PCs are not expected to find; this helps to ensure that the PCs will be able to locate and recover a reasonable level of reward. In 4e, "follow me" treasure performs the same function.

Given that WotC-D&D tends to funnel toward fantasy-novel play....rather than the fantasy-world play expectations of 1e....that might in fact be a very good decision. Gygaxian play assumes that if party X fails to find treasure Y, well, Y is still a viable campaign element due to the persistence of the site as an actual in-play feature of the world. Contrast this with, say, an AP, where the dungeon site may never be used again by plan. With the AP set-up, what isn't used is wasted. With the fantasy-world set-up, whatever isn't used now is simply waiting in the wings to be used later.

I vastly prefer fantasy-world to fantasy-novel, but thinking of this element of 4e in this way does give me a new appreciation of the thought put into that game's design.)


RC

I don't know if it's a difference between 'fantasy-novel' and 'fantasy-world' play as much as a difference between definitions of a campaign. As I understand it, under the Gygaxian/early D&D model, campaigns often involved multiple and fissiparious groups that all adventured in the same world, often in the same dungeons, with eventual solo play as a goal. Therefore, treasure left behind could be picked up, not only by the same group later, but by an entirely different set of players, or by a mixed group.

Other modes of gaming have more strongly identified the campaign with the group. Thus, as you point out, left-behind treasure is as good as lost unless the PCs make a point of coming back for it later.