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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quasqueton" data-source="post: 3610013" data-attributes="member: 3854">"Old school" is a complicated, misleading, and self-contradicting term for D&D. For every item someone lists as an "old school" aspect, someone else will list something completely contradictory.Does it refer to game mechanics or play style?As game mechanics: one person will say old school was more open and free and easy, but another person will say they were restrictive and byzantine and complicated.As play style: one person will say it was all role playing and personality developing, but another person will say it was all cardboard characters and table-top war gaming.Even looking at the D&D adventure modules published at the time shows great diversity in "old school".Tomb of Horrors is a very different scenario than Vault of the Drow, yet they are both from the same era in the game, even written by the same author.And even with the same adventure module, players showed great diversity in how they played the material.Steading of the Hill Giant Chief has most of the giants of the complex in one room, partying. Some groups took that opportunity to infiltrate the steading with stealth, avoiding the big gathering and raiding what they could before the party broke up. And then some groups took that opportunity to attack everything at one time, in one huge epic battle. Two completely different ways of dealing with the same scenario. Which was the true "old school" style? Reading responses so far in this thread says that both are old school.I posit that there is no real "old school" style. It all comes down to "old school" means, simply, "How I played the game when I was 20-30 years younger, with less gaming and life experiences. How I understood, misunderstood, and interpreted the rules when first starting this hobby.""Old school" is meaningless as a definitive and objective label.Quasqueton</blockquote>

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