(I blame my lack of sleep for this post)


Let me tell you about the Golden Age of Gaming...

Back then, things were simple, and in four colours. Galactic princesses were rescued by dashing space traders, Nazis and their pet albino gorillas got their butt kicked by heroic soldiers, and dragons died at the hands of brave knights and wizards. Surviving members of the Greatest Generation, as many have come to call it, are revered. People like Old Geezer, one of Sgt. Gygax's Howling Grognards.

Then, the Committee on Un-American Gaming threw the whole industry into the dark ages. All gamers were suspicious of heretical activities, and were dragged to the Parental Inquisition's tribunals. Too many good games and books died during these Burning Times.

But then, the Silver Age roared in, clad in Goth makeup and Grunge music. This was an age of non-conformism, of questioning and subverting the established values. New drugs like Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon were all the rage, and the most audacious ones explored the outer limits of the nascent Internet.

While many remember this as a time of creativity and pushing the limits, the Supplement Wars created sharp rifts in society. The cities, gaming clubs, and bookshelves became overcrowded, and decadence settled in again.

It seemed logical then, that a return to old school tradition and grognard populism was greeted with enthusiasm when 3E was released.

I believe it was Monte Cook who said "It's the PDF economy, stupid." I didn't see any cigars or a stained blue dress, though the Book of Erotic Fantasy is out there, somewhere.

And now? We have a new Fourth Edition promising expanded gaming and regime change, alternative gaming lifestyles attempting to break into the the mainstream, and a revival of classics through the magic of POD. Consumers have near-infinite choices only a few mouse clicks away, and pundits populate the evening shows with their opinions.

As usual, we are living the best of times and the worst of times.

28But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these;  29As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass.
 30But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.
 31Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.
 32This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
 33His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
 34Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
 35Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.

I think we are living in a golden age right now, due to the diversity of options we have. Ironically, the player base seems to be shrinking despite this (from where I stand as a non-DnD player).

Quote from: The_Shadow;229118I think we are living in a golden age right now, due to the diversity of options we have. Ironically, the player base seems to be shrinking despite this (from where I stand as a non-DnD player).

I think the health and quality depend on the health and quality of actual play, not the game books published.  The hobby could have millions of new titles published each year but I wouldn't call that a "golden age" if only a handful of people were actually playing.

It was a time much like the depression during the pre-WWII era.  In the distance storm clouds loomed on the horizon... The Committee on Un-American Gaming threw the world into a dark age, indeed, with the armies of Evangelical-Communists preaching the One True Way (in all it's crazy-haired variations) (or rather anything but the Traditional Way) in order to scare up a market for themselves and destroy whatever had been the cause of glee and joy among the once happy basement dwellers and cheeto eaters.  The CUAG, however, was but the tip of the ice burg, for behind them was a deeper and darker force which remained un-named.  Yet a few brilliant luminaries percieve this, and speaking out, were largely derided as cranks.  And the great horde, and the great flock, converged into the malstrom.

Somewhere on a distant hill a ray of sunlight glinted off the marble walls of an ancient temple, in which yet the memory of the Golden Age survived... upon the golden tray three small parchement books in which are simple rules leading to myriad universes, unbound by the binders, unfettered by the Rules Lawyers, an ancient system, flawed, yet beautiful...

or something.

Funny stuff.  Two quibbles though:

1) Reagan gamers played 3.x?  Huh?

2) It's certainly amusing how different people look at "old school" differently.  To call 3rd Edition are "return to Old School" roots is a tar and feathering offence on some of the forums I hang out on.

Old school does not amuse me. In general, amuses people who were there, or desperately wish they were there.

Why old school confuses me:

Except for a period when I was just starting out in the Army (1996-1999) and not playing anything... and that period from 1989-1996 where I played (TMNT, Palladium, Heroes Unlimited, Beyond the Supernatural).. then Rifts, Earthdawn and Torg... I have been playing D&D in it's various forms since 1978.

Weekly.

I never played OD&D. (And by that, I mean the booklets). I saw them, I knew of them. But nobody ever touched them, even in the 1970s, because AD&D1e was like.. right there, and had the best content and most comprehensible rules. (haha, but yes, true).

In 1978 we played AD&D1e. Or Basic D&D. Or some kind of hideous mashup of the two.

But in those days, those games were all new, all "what was happening now". Nobody ever looked backwards.

I do think back to that 1990s period as a time when there were far more people playing Not-D&D, but fewer people gaming overall, and I think of that period as gaming itself reaching it's absolute low-ebb by 1999. Conversely, it was the highest point for RPGnet, which had established itself as a community for people who longer enjoy gaming in any way.

Quote from: wulfgar;229186Funny stuff.  Two quibbles though:

1) Reagan gamers played 3.x?  Huh?

Ah yes, I forgot to remove that incomplete bit before posting (it's edited now). I couldn't think of a good analogy for that last night.

What is "old school", anyway, really? This bloke tells us, and he's more verbose even than me, so I won't quote it all, just...

   "First Zen Moment: Rulings, not Rules - The biggest key to understanding "old school" gaming is like a Zen moment: much of the time, you don't use a rule, you just use a ruling. [...]

"Second Zen Moment: Forget "Fair." - A good GM is impartial [...] Beyond that, the party has no right to always encounter monsters they can defeat, no right to always encounter traps they can disarm, no right to invoke a particular rule from the books, and no right to a die roll in every particular circumstance. [...] The only right the players have – and it's a big one – the GM should never, ever, tell a player what the player's character does. That's the player's decision. [...]

"Third Zen Moment: Heroic, not Superhero - Old School games have a human-sized scale, not a super-powered scale. At first level, adventurers are barely more capable than a regular person. They live by their wits. [...]

"Fourth Zen Moment: Game balance a minor factor - Game Balance is not the all-important measure of all things in old-style gaming.  [...]

"For the Game Master [...] Remember: You are the rulebook.  There is no other rulebook."

What do you lot reckon?

To steal from Peter Graham, I'd say the "Golden Age" is about 12.

But to actually make a meaningful contribution, I suppose that Mythmere's write-up that Kyle quotes is a pretty good description of what people mean by "old school gaming".

Where I'd diverge from Mythmere is that I don't necessarily see all of the qualities as particularly positive, or at least not inheriently superior.  

For example, this:

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;229233"Second Zen Moment: Forget "Fair." - A good GM is impartial [...] Beyond that, the party has no right to always encounter monsters they can defeat, no right to always encounter traps they can disarm, no right to invoke a particular rule from the books, and no right to a die roll in every particular circumstance. [...] The only right the players have – and it's a big one – the GM should never, ever, tell a player what the player's character does. That's the player's decision. [...]

just strikes me as so much grumpy old man silliness.  "In my day, our characters didn't have hair dyers.  If they wanted to blow-dry their hair, they had to step outside in the middle of a hurricaine!  You'd get your character's hair dry, but they'd also take 10d6 points of damage from the sharp wood driven clean through their skull!  'Oh, look, my character is a human head kebab!'  That's the way it was, and we liked it, we loved it!"

There's something to be said for there being elements within the game that might be outside of the character's ability to handle, but it can be carried to an absurd length.  There's nothing particularly fun about having 1st level characters chased about by 14 bullettes.

Obviously he's not saying that, R. Don't be deliberately obtuse. You should read the whole article at the link. In context, it's obvious that the ludicrous extremes are excluded.

Players get offered big challenges for their characters, and sometimes that challenge will be "how to run away from a challenge too big."

It's not a fucking computer game where if it's there you must be able to kill it - at least after going back to the saved game thirty times.

I wish I could remember where it was - someone posted an account of a game Gygax ran, and there was bugger-all combat. The PCs ran away.

You mean this?

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=10387

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;229258Obviously he's not saying that, R. Don't be deliberately obtuse. You should read the whole article at the link. In context, it's obvious that the ludicrous extremes are excluded.

I don't think I'm being deliberately obtuse.  As I said in my response: "There's something to be said for there being elements within the game that might be outside of the character's ability to handle, but it can be carried to an absurd length."  (Emphasis added.)

Alright, actually, I'll admit that I probably shouldn't have tied my criticism of a particular mindset about the supposed superiority of "old school" gaming directly to Mythmere's essay.  

Yes, it's clear that he isn't suggesting that the DM accost a bunch of starting players with 23 githyanki riding ancient red dragons.

But I think it's also clear that there's this sort of weird machismo that sometimes accompanies the advocation of "old school" gaming.  I suppose that I could go and dig out some of the old threads where this has come up, but I don't know that I really have the time right now.  Suffice it to say that there have been comments where gamers who desire for a game that is clearly balanced and...err..."fair" -- in the sense of their characters being able to handle all the encounters in a game -- that paint said gamers as somehow...shit, I don't know, lacking in quality or some sort of like insipidness.

Really, is it that much of a shock to point out that some people take how others pretend to be an elf a bit more seriously than is warranted?

Quote from: KenHR;229263You mean this?

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=10387

Yes! Thankyou!

R., check it out. Gygax GMing, here. They have five encounters with other living creatures.

• they meet elves, and bribe them with offers of a share in the loot
• they meet a giant crab, and run away from it
• they meet a lake serpent, and while fleeing from it, zap it.
• they meet five flying beasts, slay a couple of them and the rest of the beasts run away
• they meet some wizard, but he's been smoking too much wacky weed or something and is unconscious. They tie him up, but he wakes up, throws off his bonds and runs away, leaving behind a threat to avenge himself of the theft of his treasure.

That's it. Everything else is traps and tricks and stuff. Gygax was challenging the players' creativity much more than their dice. And I see every evidence that he followed guidelines much like those I linked to.

Quote from: -R.But I think it's also clear that there's this sort of weird machismo that sometimes accompanies the advocation of "old school" gaming.

If the poster was serious, then that was probably Settembrini. He's mad, nobody listens to him. He's the one who's got, "if there can't be a TPK against the will of the players it's not an rpg" in his sig.

Obviously any GMing or play advice, "old school" or not, is absurb when taken to extremes. But if you take the different bits together, read in full and in context, it's usually much more sensible.