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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Melan" data-source="post: 3607139" data-attributes="member: 1713">Awesome!A significant point. On the other hand, I would agree that early 1e and OD&D had its own analogy of ecology, which I call thematic appropriateness. This means that instead of encounters making strict biological, social, etc. sense, they make sense in the context of a "dream-world" or such. This is a bit out there, but here is a concrete example: in Tegel Manor, a huge haunted house released by Judges Guild, you get to find a place called "The Nursery". In an ecological dungeon, it would contain childrens' toys, clothes, beds, etc. In Tegel, it contains a demon doll, a "teddy bear with teeth" and animated tin soldiers guarding a cache of marbles -- which are in fact rubies and emeralds. So the encounter isn't entirely logical in the strict sense (Tegel Manor really isn't), but there is an indirect association with a nursery. It is that extra step from real to surreal that makes it old school.Of course, this is just one type of old school. There are more -- from the highly improbable but cool ("I put in a gravity well because gravity wells are AWESOME.") to the mundane and boring ("I put in yet another 12 orcs playing dice in a 10'X10' room, hi-ho."). And sometimes things are used so out of context that they lose their original meaning and become a D&Dism, or their own thing. A lot of Tolkien-related content is like this.***Also, good point on plane-hopping. Getting sucked into hostile and improbable otherworlds is a staple of old school D&D. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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