What makes an Old School Renaissance FEEL like an OSR game?

[howandwhy99]

As for game systems defining the classes think:

Mind - Magic-User
Body - Fighter
Spirit - Cleric
Deception - Thief

You'll want a magic system (physics engine for everything), combat system (attacking and defending by anything), religion/alignment system (behavioral system for all self-initiators), and... well the thief is really more of a single tactical approach.

 

[Dethklok]

Sorry for the delay; I had a lot of work to do, but I wanted to comment on this:

Yet the more I learn about the older players and GMs playing OSR games, the more I start to doubt that. One thing that is the most puzzling to me are "classic TSR modules". Except for the GDQ series, none of these seem to have any story seeds. "There is a dungeon and you go there because it's there, and you're adventurers and that's what adventurers do."

That has overwhelmingly been my own experience with D&D throughout the years.

I think you might have put forward another element that makes a game feel like an OSR game with that paragraph. OSR games feel like the fictional world matters and the rules and procedures are about adjudicating the shared fiction rather than being an end in of themselves.

They can absolutely be played that way. I ran a Basic (red-box) D&D game in school that worked out something like this. And I also played D&D with another GM who created a very evocative setting. But in my experience, it isn't typical. And if we restrict ourselves to oldschool D&D, neither the rules nor scenarios supported imaginative play. You're familiar with Dragon Warriors, I think, so I'll ask if you remember The King Under the Forest or A Shadow on the Mist - maybe Runequest could set a mood the way Dragon Warriors could, but D&D simply didn't.

I think the disconnect here is that in old school play you don't attempt to "create the story" at all. The fiction I'm talking about is not a story in the literary structure sense. It's the content of the description of the participants. You play to see what happens and what you can do and let any "story" just emerge as it does (more on this below).

For many players, no story emerges beyond that seen in a typical game of chess. The opportunity is there (in chess as in rpgs!), but it's seldom realized.

I think it's worth mentioning that in my study, while I predicted and found a negative correlation between the imaginative or aesthetic personality and liking for D&D, it was primarily the older D&D games that were responsible for this correlation.

Moreover, shouldn't we expect this on the basis that creative neophiles will always be exploring the newest shiny thing, while their less adventurous counterparts are satisfied with the same old routine?

Which might highlight another common element to old school RPGs. Playing to see what happens.

It's a lot of fun; it happened two weeks ago in a game I ran. One of the most memorable scenes was a random encounter with a goblin, who stymied the adventurers with a rolling fog. The little sprite snuck in and stole one of their scramasaxes, dashed away into a copse of trees, and called the wolves down on them. At every turn, the adventurers were just about to catch the little thief, but they were never coordinated enough, or rolled luckily enough, to do it.

 

[Celebrim]

That has overwhelmingly been my own experience with D&D throughout the years.

I'm sorry to here that.

And if we restrict ourselves to oldschool D&D, neither the rules nor scenarios supported imaginative play.

Wait... what??

I think it's worth mentioning that in my study, while I predicted and found a negative correlation between the imaginative or aesthetic personality and liking for D&D

???

Ok... whatever.

Moreover, shouldn't we expect this on the basis that creative neophiles will always be exploring the newest shiny thing, while their less adventurous counterparts are satisfied with the same old routine?

???

Yeah... you might want to tone down all the veiled aspersions a bit. You might also want to back up and read my Thursday, 20th February, 2014, 02:45 PM. I feel its very applicable.

 

[amerigoV]

On the overall lack of story/story seeds in the old modules: to a degree, I believe this is why there is some staying power to them. There is enough that you can run "as is". But since its not loaded down with heavy, interlocking story elements you can very easily add and subtract these items (very modular...maybe that's why we called them modules back in the day). A DM can take the same adventure and give it a lot of different feels. I have been having some fun taking the old modules and giving them some new angles to run them a conventions.

Today's stuff has more story, but I find them so interwoven that they are hard to run. If I love the product as is, then great. If not, its more work to take the thing apart then if I had just made it from whole cloth.

 

[ExploderWizard]

And I also played D&D with another GM who created a very evocative setting. But in my experience, it isn't typical. And if we restrict ourselves to oldschool D&D, neither the rules nor scenarios supported imaginative play.

Before there can be meaningful discourse here, can you give me an example of something (rules or scenarios) that does support imaginative play?

For many players, no story emerges beyond that seen in a typical game of chess. The opportunity is there (in chess as in rpgs!), but it's seldom realized.

For those who are playing a game does an emerging story serve a purpose? Should someone keep a detailed journal of their financial ups and downs for the purpose of creating fiction while playing Monopoly?

I think it's worth mentioning that in my study, while I predicted and found a negative correlation between the imaginative or aesthetic personality and liking for D&D, it was primarily the older D&D games that were responsible for this correlation.

In much the same way that enjoying movies requires more imagination than reading books I'm sure.

Moreover, shouldn't we expect this on the basis that creative neophiles will always be exploring the newest shiny thing, while their less adventurous counterparts are satisfied with the same old routine?

On this subject the movie Wayne's World sums things up better than I ever could.



Mrs. Vanderhoff: "That's where the magic happens."

Benjamin Kane: "You work in TV?"

Mrs. Vanderhoff: "No, but I watch a lot."

Benjamin Kane: "Of course you do. You're creative."

 

[pemerton]

If I'm just rolling dice to make the issue go away then I'm not engaging with the described situation. If the described situation is that there's a door with some human bones scattered in front of it and I just go "detect traps, 32. And if I find some, disarm traps... 33" then I'm not really engaging with the described situation but trying to make the described situation simply go away.

So I think the real question is whether or not the resolution mechanics that represent a character's abilities are being used to actually engage in play or to avoid engaging with the situation.

Ever since 2e Player's Options books (and continuing in 3e and 4e) there's been a paradox in D&D: A player wants to describe their character using the rules, but in selecting skills like Diplomacy, Historical Lore, or Insight, a player who wants to engage in those areas of the game is basically investing in a skill to...avoid engaging what it is they're wanting to engage in!

Yes to both of these.

I have posted in other threads in the past that Perception and Diplomacy, at least as often used in D&D 3E, are not action resolution mechanics at all but scene-reframing mechanics.

I'm not 100% sure how that relates to "old school", though, because some old-school spells - like Teleport and Wish - also have this characteristic.

I really don't think you can run D&D 4E in an old school way because as soon as you do, you've modified things to stop pointing back to the rules (power use and the hit, miss and effect lines) and back to the fiction and thus you're no longer playing 4E. You need to abandon the procedures of play of the game in order to run it as if it were an older game.

I'm sure it's true that 4e can't be run in a old school way (though I'm not 100% sure what that means). But I don't think 4e play is as fiction independent as you imply here. In combat the fiction matters to understanding the positioning and physical situation in which the characters and monsters find themselves.

And in a skill challenge, the whole framing and scope of possibility is defined by the fiction. The difference from the fiction-driven approach you have described isn't the way that result point back to the rules, but the X before Y structure operating as a constraint on the GM's narration of the fiction.

Also nnms - thanks for the link to the old RQ SRD (I have multiple copies of a later edition, I think 3rd or thereabouts - Avalon Hill and Games Workshop) and also for the link to Cthulhu Dark.

 

[Mark CMG]

In combat the fiction matters to understanding the positioning and physical situation in which the characters and monsters find themselves.

Regardless of the edition, if the importance of terrain/position/physical location is in regard to how it relates back to the mechanics of combat then I'm not sure it is really being related back to the fiction in the manner that some have described upthread (particularly true in cases where terrain is shorthanded to types or level of difficulty buzzwords).

 

[pemerton]

if the importance of terrain/position/physical location is in regard to how it relates back to the mechanics of combat then I'm not sure it is really being related back to the fiction in the manner that some have described upthread

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "mechanics of combat". In AD&D there are rules, printed in the PHB, which dictate how far an arrow may be shot or a spear thrown. Does consulting the fiction to work out how far two characters are apart, so as to work out whether or not one can shoot the other, count as relating back to the mechanics of combat and hence not as relating back to the fiction?

 

[Mark CMG]

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "mechanics of combat". In AD&D there are rules, printed in the PHB, which dictate how far an arrow may be shot or a spear thrown. Does consulting the fiction to work out how far two characters are apart, so as to work out whether or not one can shoot the other, count as relating back to the mechanics of combat and hence not as relating back to the fiction?

Well, to try and stick within the context of how things are setup in the thread, I would use a couple of rather pointed opposing examples, nether necessarily better than the other nor for any particular edition or game system. To address your new situation, if the player asks (perhaps even in first person, though not prescriptively necessary) the GM if he thinks his character can reach a foe with a spear throw and the GM says it seems possible, then they are feeding the fiction. If the player asks for a precise distance so he can consult a table (even if it is a memorized range/scale in his head), then they are primarily playing the mechanics of the system. To return to the example we were previously discussing, if the player asks if his character would have an easier time traversing toward a foe by rounding to the left or the right and the GM suggests the ground to the left is less rocky, then they are likely feeding the fiction (and the fiction feeding the choices). If the GM outlines specific section of difficult/impassable terrain where movement is halved or quartered (or whatever-ed) and then the player picks a path on a map based on his movement rate, he is working within the mechanics of combat primarily. I think most games have a bit of each but, depending on the playstyles of the GM and players can lean largely in one direction or the other for the most part. One extreme of playstyle serves as a the top down view of the system (often both literally and figuratively) while the other extreme lives so far within the system that being aware of the system is hardly necessary for the players of the characters.