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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 8676872" data-attributes="member: 19857">For me Old School is an attitude towards gaming, not an edition - though I find it perplexing that some folks can use certain editions and think of them as Old School.For me an Old School game is one where:1. Life is cheap - don't count on your character making it to level 2, and if you do don't count on making it to level 3.2. Because life is cheap, character creation is quick - roll some stats, pick a class, don't spend time on backstory or anything because there's no time you need to get your replacement character into the game now. You'll figure out a personality for them as you play, not in advance.3. Stats mostly don't matter, except maybe to qualify for a class, so random stat generation doesn't really matter much unless you really have your heart set on a paladin.  But you'll roll up 12 characters anyway and take the best stat array anyway because that's just how you do things.4. It's perfectly acceptable to take your dead character and write a "2" next to his name and claim he's the brother of your original character.  Or to change the first letter of his name and do likewise - "This is Xafrax brother of Zafrax who also happens to be a 1st level magic-user - you kept my brother's stuff for me, right?"5. Things are going to be random and make no sense if you think too long about it - and that's fine because that's how it's supposed to be.  Why is there an owlbear lair in the middle of this dungeon where there's no way for it to get anywhere to hunt? Don't worry about it - owlbear lairs probably have pretty good treasure and maybe you'll find an egg!  Kill it quick!6. There's going to be a lot of tapping around for hidden traps and secret doors while the DM is making funny looks at you and secretly rolls dice and then tells you that you've found nothing.Where things shift between Old School and modern gaming for me is how much I care about my character from jump.  If I've invested hours in creating a character then I'm going to be irritated if I die as soon as I fall into a random pit and have to do it all again - to me that's a modern gaming attitude.  If I've spent 10 minutes rolling some dice and making a handful of choices and I'm good if this 4hp character named Gerald takes a goblin spear to the gut in the first encounter because I can just cross out his name and write "Gerald 2" on it, claim it's his twin brother, and move on that's Old School.  I will probably come to care about this character if he survives for a few sessions and starts to get a personality, but not from the start.(And this is why I can't think of 2e AD&D as "old school" unless you're basically just playing it as 1e AD&D with some tweaks.  Proficiencies and kits change AD&D from old school to modern in my eyes by making me invest more effort into character creation than I want to for a PC who might very well die 5 minutes into the adventure, and also will make the character a bit too unique to feel good about just changing his name from "Garth" to "Barth" and moving forward with it.)</blockquote>

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