D&D General What Constitutes "Old School" D&D

[AbdulAlhazred]

You seem to have been playing under some serious house rules there. 1e D&D explicitly contemplated evil PCs (for example all assassin PCs). The rules for switching alignments imposed a loss of one level in 1e and then an xp penalty for a while, but that was for any alignment switch, including going from neutral to good.

Being turned into some kinds of monsters could turn you into an NPC, and there was discussion in 2e Ravenloft of turning those PCs who fell into dark lord path corruption into NPcs.

Yeah, beyond that, I wouldn't consider a PC who does some questionable things necessarily EVIL outright. I mean, suppose I also commit some good acts? I could be neutral and not really concerned with good and evil all that much. Alignment is a swamp that will swallow up everything anyway. Presumably a bunch of highly pragmatic adventurers who regularly slay sentient monsters for their own monetary benefit are evil by any standard that would make you switch alignment in order to exploit a monster in some other way anyhow...

 

[Reynard]

Sort of strange we could not vote for multiple choices in this, so my vote for mid-late 90's is that and everything before it,

I mean, that's right in the OP.

 

[Helldritch]

You seem to have been playing under some serious house rules there. 1e D&D explicitly contemplated evil PCs (for example all assassin PCs). The rules for switching alignments imposed a loss of one level in 1e and then an xp penalty for a while, but that was for any alignment switch, including going from neutral to good.

Being turned into some kinds of monsters could turn you into an NPC, and there was discussion in 2e Ravenloft of turning those PCs who fell into dark lord path corruption into NPcs.

It came soon after my first group ever. It was 12 players, yep 12. One of them evil and it led to quite an argument (read here fist fight) when the evil character killed an other for profit... Yeah the group was too big and got split into two but guess what? Some that became evil started the same shenanigans and it led to more trouble IRL than I could ever expected (I was 12, so excusable, but still). This is when me and the surviving players said, never evil PC ever again.

And by the way, the Assassin class could start as neutral in the first few levels. At low levels, it was entirerly possible to play an assassin and when the time to switch alignment came, you could either change class (if you could) or abandon your character as I did not allow any evil chars.

Becoming a Darklord would remove that character too. No evil. Never again. Even later when we tried again a more open game with alignment it led to serious arguments between friends. Either everyone in the group is evil, or none are. Last evil group was 5 years ago and was meh... None if my groups are into this and fir me, it is quite a good thing. My games are grim dark enough without adding such a layer to them.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I mean, that's right in the OP.

I did not have the time to read any of the posts first and did not even see who made the poll until now. lol

 

[Bill Zebub]

This is the main reason I cringe away from storygames and story-focused play. Literally every single time I've engaged with that style it's nothing but a group of people trying to convince each other just how utterly spectacularly awesome and perfect their character is. First level characters with zero XP and epic backstories try to out do Lord of the Rings. It's Mary Sues all the way down. Make a character. Here's a random assortment of stats and hit points. If that one dies, roll a new one. It's not special. It's a fictional construct to play a game. Get on with it already.

I can’t remember where I read this…maybe a comic strip…but it was something to the effect of, “Why is it that everybody who claims to remember past lives were either royalty or poets? Where are all the peasants and serfs?”

 

[Lanefan]

One of the best of all 4th level spells. The goal of course being to burn through each monster before it reaches the one week mark, lol. The other trick was to drop the monster into a portable hole/bag of holding.

This is another commonly-seen thing I just don't get: putting something alive into a BoH and expecting it to survive in there.

Not on my watch.

(this is one of the ways a portable hole is more useful, in that something can survive in there at least for a while)

 

[see]

"Old school" is, of course, everything published up to the day before the one I opened my first D&D rulebook.

I actually voted my pure emotional reaction and then worked out that, in fact, that was where my emotions were drawing the line. I can offer various explanations why it makes sense to draw the line there, but I'm pretty sure it's all post-hoc rationalization.

 

[Voadam]

"Old school" is, of course, everything published up to the day before the one I opened my first D&D rulebook.

I actually voted my pure emotional reaction and then worked out that, in fact, that was where my emotions were drawing the line. I can offer various explanations why it makes sense to draw the line there, but I'm pretty sure it's all post-hoc rationalization.

For me it was an emotional reaction as well for where I draw the line, but a different one. For me the emotional line is when everything changed mechanically as I was playing. 1e, 2e, B/X, BECMI, RC are significantly mechanically compatible and I felt comfortable mixing modules, monsters, and magic items between the different editions straight and did so. (PC things like the stat bonuses for different scores and class HD and such meant not as much mixing of player end stuff, though I did play in an AD&D game with BECMI weapon mastery options and that worked fantastically). 3e and on required significant conversion work to run mixed material, I could not just pick up a 1e module and use the monster stat blocks straight.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is another commonly-seen thing I just don't get: putting something alive into a BoH and expecting it to survive in there.

Not on my watch.

(this is one of the ways a portable hole is more useful, in that something can survive in there at least for a while)

LOL, yeah, well, Question of All Things' portable hole was FURNISHED. It had a library, an alchemy lab, cages for containing captured monsters, and a huge collection of various items, components, supplies, etc. Granted, it was a bit crowded, but... Anyway, as long as you open your hole for a couple minutes every day or so the air will remain breathable. 1000 cu ft of air is easily enough for a couple days for several human-sized beings.

 

[GreyLord]

I consider the different eras of D&D...

TSR D&D

WotC D&D.

Anything from the TSR era is old school.

Anything later is WotC school.