Quote from: Christopher Brady;1040508woe betide if you started with AD&D 1e or later.

BECMI (which was printed together as Rules Cyclopedia) and AD&D 1st edition were developed at the same time in what was described as a "two-pronged strategy."

Just thought you might like to know:D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons#Two-pronged_strategy

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1040510BECMI (which was printed together as Rules Cyclopedia) and AD&D 1st edition were developed at the same time in what was described as a "two-pronged strategy."

Look, I'm not stating facts, I'm stating that people around here claim that anything after RC, which they lump in AD&D as after, is garbage and if you like ANYTHING after that, you are a garbage human.  Which sadly includes me.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1040510BECMI (which was printed together as Rules Cyclopedia) and AD&D 1st edition were developed at the same time in what was described as a "two-pronged strategy."

Just thought you might like to know:D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons#Two-pronged_strategy

That wasn't BECMI.  That was Holmes.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1040427Besides being a terrible review imho (YMMV) is this a good illustration of the difference between old and new schools?

Maybe I'm jaded by all the 70s and 80s movie reviews I read where you had to parse the critics' biases the way the old Iron Curtain citizens had to parse Pravda--but it sounds like a good review to me.  After you read it, you had a much better understanding of the product.  Granted, that was an unintentional byproduct of the reviewer's efforts, but it still happened.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1040503Which is surprising to me, as buttfuck middle of nowhere tends to be the most conservative (as in they don't get new stuff as often as a major city, like where I live) is so against the 'tried and true'.  If anything, I've seen (as I've moved way too much in my life) small towns and villages double down on the older stuff, because it's what they know.  Unless, your town is relatively new, as in it's got a lot of young families.

From 1973 to 2012 I lived in the largest city of every state I lived in; Minnesota, Massachusetts, and New York.

I am now in an area of 1265 square miles, with 18,000 some people, that voted 70% Trump, and a state that has gone Republican with Electoral votes every election since 1972.

Quote from: Gabriel2;1040513That wasn't BECMI.  That was Holmes.

Well if we can differentiate between D&D authors, then Rules Cyclopedia was Allston and that makes it over a decade older than AD&D 1st edition.

Point is Brady's compatriot players declaring AD&D 1st ed is not as aold as RC are mistken.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1040512Look, I'm not stating facts, I'm stating that people around here claim that anything after RC, which they lump in AD&D as after, is garbage and if you like ANYTHING after that, you are a garbage human.  Which sadly includes me.

Wow. That's quite the anecdote.

Speaking of anecdotes, when I was in my teens, I watched the whole dichotomy develope through the pages of White Dwarf and Dragon Magazine letter pages, reviews and articles. I still have a lot of those magazines in print and there is no doubt in my mind that the coining of terms like "Monty Hall" , "Hack and Slash"  and "Dungeon Crawl" (like those used ine the review I posted) were deliberate distortions of the style of gaming that we now refer to as Old School.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1040548Speaking of anecdotes, when I was in my teens, I watched the whole dichotomy develope through the pages of White Dwarf and Dragon Magazine letter pages, reviews and articles. I still have a lot of those magazines in print and there is no doubt in my mind that the coining of terms like "Monty Hall" , "Hack and Slash"  and "Dungeon Crawl" (like those used ine the review I posted) were deliberate distortions of the style of gaming that we now refer to as Old School.

It's ALL old school 'style'?  Because I've seen so many different gaming styles from various DMs over the years.

Quote from: estar;1040494It is easy to get into a bubble.

Clearly. And I am clearly in one (over in the 'how to play a supergenius' thread not long ago, I determined that I overestimated how many of us here were overcompensated, underchallenged IT nerds). Still, I am just a little amazed (and maybe even a little incredulous, thanks people for not getting offended).

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1040503Getting old sucks.  I don't recommend it for anyone.

I don't know which way to go with this, 'beats the alternative,' is the straightforward joke, but then there are Carrousel references that could be made. Oh, decisions...

QuoteWhich is why the 'OLDER IS BETTER' attitude among gamers over here, in Canada's Capital, is exceedingly shocking to me.  You'd think a city with the amount of wealth we have they'd want to try the something new, for novelty's sake.  But nope.  It's all about Rules Cyclopedia at the youngest over here.  Anything else is New School and sucks donkey balls, and if you like anything past that, you're a donkey ball sucker.

That is decidedly odd. We've established I don't have the social distribution of gamer demographics down pat, but the impression I get is, regardless of talks of old school resurgence or the like, 5e and PF are combined somewhere between 51% and 90% of the D&D gaming (which is 51% and 90% of the TTRPG gaming) out there at the moment. I wonder if it's one of those local phenomenons like Runequest ruling in the UK.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1040548Well if we can differentiate between D&D authors, then Rules Cyclopedia was Allston and that makes it over a decade older than AD&D 1st edition.

The general (arbitrary) distinction that is usually made is oD&D (being precursor to both lineages) and then 1e and 2e on the AD&D side, and the Holmes (B), Moldvay/Cook (B/X), and the BECMI (everything after, starting with the Mentzer boxed sets). For whatever reason, RC and the 90s intro boxed sets are rolled into Mentzer.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1040577Clearly. And I am clearly in one (over in the 'how to play a supergenius' thread not long ago, I determined that I overestimated how many of us here were overcompensated, underchallenged IT nerds). Still, I am just a little amazed (and maybe even a little incredulous, thanks people for not getting offended).

Being in a bubble is not necessarily bad.  Think about the default mode of playing RPGs as a hobby. Sitting around a table (or a screen with in the case of a VTT) with a small group of friends for months on end. The fact we are interacting with the larger hobby makes us the weird ones.

One of the only thing I would call an issue for a specific hobbyist is not being aware of the above. The flexibility of RPGs means there are lot of "right" ways of running a campaign. Which is the other thing I consider an issue among many hobbyists, that the way you play now is not the only way to achieve the things you like about a campaign. That over the long haul it pays to be flexible and that RPGs by their nature are kit-bashes of disparate elements. For example if I ever run another Majestic Wilderlands campaign using GURPS it would benefit from all the work I did while running the Majestic Wilderlands with OD&D.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1040577That is decidedly odd. We've established I don't have the social distribution of gamer demographics down pat, but the impression I get is, regardless of talks of old school resurgence or the like, 5e and PF are combined somewhere between 51% and 90% of the D&D gaming (which is 51% and 90% of the TTRPG gaming) out there at the moment. I wonder if it's one of those local phenomenons like Runequest ruling in the UK.

If you lived in Pittsburgh in the late 80s you will would think that Palladium and Rifts were king of the hill and TSR was a has been.

SO yes Chris B is seeing a local phenomenon.

If you want to see what a look at how a group centered on a game store in a rural area looks like then check out the monthly schedule of the Gold Stars Gamer Guild. But keep in mind it represents what that group of 20 or so hobbyists like. If you move 15 miles south to the game store in my town it 5th edition, and adventurer's league all the time. If you move north towards Erie, PA the fourth largest city in PA, then you will see a lot of board games due to the Erie Gamer's Guild who runs Erie Day of Gaming. Along with Magic the Gathering and other collectible game. The prime source of tabletop roleplaying material is a used bookstore with no space for gaming tables.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/209358555776191/

If you move 30 miles to the west to Lorian, then you run into a game store whose owner goes out of his way to collect and sell OSR and other all small publisher material.

Meanwhile there are dozens of small groups that I know of that never pops up at any of these places except to buy something.

The above is why I long gotten into the habit of working something like this into my works and post. "This is some things I wrote to use at my table, hope you find it useful.".

Not to say there isn't some common elements found among all these gamers. But that mostly has to do with how rules and products are presented and what they get for the price rather than specific types of mechanics, settings, and genres.

It can be either way. 1st ed AD&D is old school (AFAIK), and I find those rules hopelessly Byzantine. I have to admit that I would probably figure it out if I liked it (Rolemaster and Artesia are also complex, and that didn't daunt me), but I guess I don't.

Quote from: Trond;1040687It can be either way. 1st ed AD&D is old school (AFAIK), and I find those rules hopelessly Byzantine. I have to admit that I would probably figure it out if I liked it (Rolemaster and Artesia are also complex, and that didn't daunt me), but I guess I don't.

According to this forum.  You are wrong.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1040704According to this forum.  You are wrong.

That's OK, this forum has occasionally been known to be wrong before

Quote from: Trond;1040715That's OK, this forum has occasionally been known to be wrong before

Amen, Bruh, amen.  

Good games continue to be good, regardless of age.
New games that are good are also good.