D&D General Younger Players Telling Us how Old School Gamers Played

[Jack Daniel]

I think the OSR community would be better off if we embraced our styles of play with much less emphasis on discovery of a forgotten path. It frankly does not matter how things used to be done. We have a cohesive set of principles and fabulous games like Into The Odd and Old School Essentials. No reading of tea leaves are necessary.

I might buy this if it weren't for the fact that every time I've followed one of these discovered forgotten paths, it has consistently led to improving my games across the board.

The third assumption was that all players played in a shared world. No. The DM's game was their world, but that didn't extend from DM to DM. Good lord, that would be impossible to even try to manage.

That this was part of the early design-intent of D&D is well-documented and uncontroversial, even if it didn't manifest in the way most people played. But, as Trent Foster wrote back in 2009 over on the K&K Alehouse forum, the OSR isn't a project to revive the way everyone played back in the day — that would be variable to the point of incoherence — it's aimed at reviving the play-style D&D was intended for by its designers.

"I was there in 1977 and I wasn't playing the way Gygax and the Lake Geneva circle wanted me to play" is, I guess, interesting. But it's also spectacularly irrelevant to anyone who's only really interested in reconstructing that early Gygaxian style.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The chargen "minigame"* that exists now?

HA! You could create a character in 5 minutes flat.

Do you need a backstory? How's this- "Krag has a sword. Krag likes adventure."

Done and done.



*Minigame is a misnomer- more of a maxigame.

Yeah, that's why I don't play that way.

 

[occam]

You know... Gen X actually seems to have gotten away scot-free in the Aging Wars. You don't see anyone hating on them or blaming them for anything.

There were so few of us, and Boomers were in charge for so long, we could hardly be blamed for anything.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don’t think he’s trying to youngsplain to old players how they played. He just learned of a rule in OD&D that he had no idea existed, which recontextualized how he thinks of old school play, and is sharing that revelation with an audience primarily of other younger players who probably aren’t familiar with that rule either, and speculating a bit on how EGG’s original play group specifically may have played using this rule.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yeah, that's why I don't play that way.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I don’t think he’s trying to make any claims about how all groups played back in the day. Rather, he’s noting that a rule that he had now idea existed recontextualized his understanding of the original rules, and making some educated guesses about how EGG’s group might have played.

....why is he making educated guesses?

Seriously. This is the part that gets me. You don't need to make educated guesses, you just need to educate yourself. There is a wealth of material out there. Just ... do a little bit of research! Just a little bit.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I get that how from the perspective a player that started with 5e, you could look at the old 1e DMG and think that everything in there was used. Which ignores how anarchic different groups were back then in the face of such a shambolic tome. 5e is much more of a closed system, and for someone used to that and a world where you can just go online and ask other players, or even the writers themselves, how mechanics are supposed to work, it's easy to take some of those assumptions with you when you look at the past.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm sorry it wasn't stated in fifteen written pages.

 

[Charlaquin]

....why is he making educated guesses?

Seriously. This is the part that gets me. You don't need to make educated guesses, you just need to educate yourself. There is a wealth of material out there. Just ... do a little bit of research! Just a little bit.

I mean, if his goal was to understand how they played, yeah, that would be a smart way to go about it. But I don’t think that’s what he’s actually trying to do here. He’s just walking through the potential implications of a rule of OD&D he just learned, trying to work out how it would affect the structure and incentives of play if observed.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don’t think he’s trying to youngsplain to old players how they played. He just learned of a rule in OD&D that he had no idea existed, which recontextualized how he thinks of old school play, and is sharing that revelation with an audience primarily of other younger players who probably aren’t familiar with that rule either, and speculating a bit on how EGG’s original play group specifically may have played using this rule.

He's literally saying "this explains old school D&D and how they played."