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<blockquote data-quote="Jay Verkuilen" data-source="post: 7768526" data-attributes="member: 6873517"><p>Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but many DMs back in the day often used heavily padded boxing gloves in those early levels. A lot of folks didn't play &quot;by the rules.&quot; I know one thing we did a lot was skip level 1 entirely because level 2 characters were much more capable of taking a beating. We also tended to downplay or disallow Raise Dead, but did allow for a reasonably generous character replacement upon character death. That helps a lot. You can maintain an Old Skool feel in the game itself but not have the players be totally knocked back by character loss. Players who are invested in their characters and their stories will feel a notable loss when one departs the game. We also had &quot;story death&quot; if it came to a point where a PC really wouldn't go down the road the rest of the group is going and it's time for them to leave, or where they're out for a while due to needing to travel somewhere, research spalls, etc. My favorite game type is what I think is actually close to what the old Lake Geneva crowd played. Ensemble cast, fair number of henchmen, lots of exploration and a sandbox but with some overall story going on in the background so the world is real and not just static waiting for the PCs to interact with it. It's hard to run, though.</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="Jay Verkuilen, post: 7768526, member: 6873517"] Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but many DMs back in the day often used heavily padded boxing gloves in those early levels. A lot of folks didn't play "by the rules." I know one thing we did a lot was skip level 1 entirely because level 2 characters were much more capable of taking a beating. We also tended to downplay or disallow Raise Dead, but did allow for a reasonably generous character replacement upon character death. That helps a lot. You can maintain an Old Skool feel in the game itself but not have the players be totally knocked back by character loss. Players who are invested in their characters and their stories will feel a notable loss when one departs the game. We also had "story death" if it came to a point where a PC really wouldn't go down the road the rest of the group is going and it's time for them to leave, or where they're out for a while due to needing to travel somewhere, research spalls, etc. My favorite game type is what I think is actually close to what the old Lake Geneva crowd played. Ensemble cast, fair number of henchmen, lots of exploration and a sandbox but with some overall story going on in the background so the world is real and not just static waiting for the PCs to interact with it. It's hard to run, though. [/QUOTE]

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