Quote from: Kyle Aaron;447931We couldn't wait, either, but we never achieved it, because unless your DM was a wuss who fudged everything, nobody made it past 5th level anyway.

The characters were limited in level by mortality. Limiting them in level by rules seems to me... redundant.

That wasn't really my experience.  Yes, I probably played in dozens of abortive "campaigns" where we never made it past 3rd or 4th level.  But what I found was the rule in campaigns that were planned out to be long-term in the first place was that you'd go through several characters, with high mortality, until you got (through luck or skill) a character that made it up to 5th or 6th level, and enough resources and success, and after that it became difficult for a character to die permanently.

A few years back I ran my famous RC campaign, completely by the book, where the characters all made it to maximum level or just about. You could say that its because we were adults by then; but long, long before that I played a BECMI campaign, also by the books pretty much, where we got to about 20th level (still far from the maximum level of 36, we topped up at the "Companion" level before the campaign fell by the wayside, but a far cry from level 5).

RPGPundit

Quote from: Spinachcat;447972This is where my experience diverges from yours.

I was very fortunate that our local community center hosted a Gaming Club that was open to teens and adults.  One of the first things I was introduced to by the older gamers was starting campaigns at higher levels.  

The usual club setup for our Arduin D&D games was you got 100K XP and 50K to make items after you rolled your stats in front of the GM.  Lower level ones would have half that, higher level ones ten times that number.

So we never waited to play 16th level mages.  We got a tremendous amount of high level play, often in my Gamma World / D&D crossovers, so there was huge novelty and excitement for us in a RBO game.  

Perhaps this is why I enjoy 4e.

That is certainly a divergence.  To me and the people I played with in my formative gaming years, that would have been seen as "cheating". I don't see it quite like that now, but I still have no interest in the concept.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Haffrung;447975Point of order:

Orthodoxy doesn't always follow how forebearers really behaved. It's often a fierce over-reaction against the perceived heresy and self-indulgence of modern times.

But perhaps it's just a coincidence that as modern D&D becomes more complex and over-powered, the arbiters of old-school D&D promote an ever more abstentious and pared-down version of the game.

Yes. That's what I was getting to with the term "pseudo-nostalgia".  It reminds me of fundamentalist christians, who in their youth dated as teenagers, and kissed, and maybe made out, and certainly held hands, pushing today for their children to not date, or kiss, or hold hands but do some bizzare pseudo-biblical concept of "courtship" instead.  Its not really "how we always did it", but they try to imagine it was, out of a sheer sense of disgust at what they view as the increasing immorality of the outside world.

My "Old school" certainly isn't that; but maybe its because I was there when it was actually happening (kind of near the end of it, but still). I don't want to create a reactive, invented pseudo-past.  Unfortunately, its my perception that far too many self-styled "old-schoolers" want exactly that; and what they play and run isn't so much old-school as a grotesque ultraconservative parody of the same.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Phillip;447989Where did you get this high horse from which you proclaim Basic D&D not a legitimate game? THAT is the newly stringent and narrow view, NOT the enjoyment some of us take in playing the game.

Basic D&D is certainly a legitimate game, one of the best iterations of the D&D game, and the best introduction to RPGs in general ever made.  Part of that game is that it is the POINT of the game to make it PAST 3rd level.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;448026Basic D&D is certainly a legitimate game, one of the best iterations of the D&D game, and the best introduction to RPGs in general ever made.  Part of that game is that it is the POINT of the game to make it PAST 3rd level.

RPGPundit

I just consider that to be NOT YOUR JOB to dictate to other people. Your stuck up attitude is not really persuasive of anything except itself.

It's just the same baloney as the claim that the POINT of D&D is to play up to 36th or 100th (or some other arbitrarily high) level -- being sure of course to buy TSR product #2156, DM's Option: High Level Campaigns, TSR product #1017, Immortals, and/or TSR product #1082, Wrath of the Immortals.

It's on par with the claim that it's NECESSARY to keep starting over from 1st level, however long one has been playing (and quite regardless of what Mr. Gygax wrote in the DMG).

It is, in short, even more ludicrous than it is annoying.

Quote from: RPGPundit;448018No one is questioning your having fun with it, just analyzing the issues of WHY some people are finding it fun today.

RPGPundit

To me, it'd be the challenge of survival, of not relying on the propect of gaining experience and levels to make it and live to see another day in the dungeon. Explore ever further, ever deeper, down to the ten hit dice red dragon and make it out, once again, alive.

It's fun for me today for the same reasons it was fun 33 years ago: the original premise of danger, excitement and uncertainty, the fascination of putting one's true fantasy-adventuring mettle to the test, the delight in discovery as opposed to recitation from rote.

best done with house rules for gruesome critical hit tables, detailed poison rules, and such-like; death-porn.

Quote from: two_fishes;448051best done with house rules for gruesome critical hit tables, detailed poison rules, and such-like; death-porn.

Not for me. I'd be much less interested by critical hit tables, poison rules and death porn.

What I find interesting in the premise is precisely that you don't count on the rules to make you tougher or take you out of a situation that is really dangerous. It's about you thinking outside the box and outplaying the environment. Not about random die rolls and rules upon rules added to the game.

Quote from: two_fishes;448051best done with house rules for gruesome critical hit tables, detailed poison rules, and such-like; death-porn.

If that's your thing, then level is pretty much beside the point!

Good luck getting to 10th level in Empire of the Petal Throne -- but then you're more likely than ever to die because of the 1/200 chance that any blow, from however pathetic a foe, can deliver instant death from lucky hit to the vitals.

(Why more likely? Because you're less likely to die from accumulated hit points of damage, or from poison.)

Quote from: Phillip;447989Where did you get this high horse from which you proclaim Basic D&D not a legitimate game? THAT is the newly stringent and narrow view, NOT the enjoyment some of us take in playing the game.

Where in fuck did I say that? I play Basic D&D. I just find a hard-wired limit of level 3 pointless. If you have a DM who doesn't fudge, you'll have plenty of time to enjoy levels 1-3 (20+ sessions, if you go by Holmes guidelines) without any rules enforcing a limit.

Seriously, start actually reading my posts or shut the hell up.

Quote from: RPGPundit;448024It reminds me of fundamentalist christians, who in their youth dated as teenagers, and kissed, and maybe made out, and certainly held hands, pushing today for their children to not date, or kiss, or hold hands but do some bizzare pseudo-biblical concept of "courtship" instead.  Its not really "how we always did it", but they try to imagine it was, out of a sheer sense of disgust at what they view as the increasing immorality of the outside world.

My "Old school" certainly isn't that; but maybe its because I was there when it was actually happening (kind of near the end of it, but still). I don't want to create a reactive, invented pseudo-past.  Unfortunately, its my perception that far too many self-styled "old-schoolers" want exactly that; and what they play and run isn't so much old-school as a grotesque ultraconservative parody of the same.

Okay, so at least one other person in this thread gets what I'm talking about.

A couple years ago I came across a local campaign, advertised at my FLGS, where the DM was running an old-school B/X game. I wasn't able to attend any sessions, but I was on the mailing list and followed the after action reports and comments by the DM and players.

The DM was about my age, and had played D&D in the late 70s/early 80s. The players were all strangers who met through the FLGS ad, but they had all played pre-3E D&D before. The DM admitted he was getting his ideas of how to run the game from various old-school D&D forums.

As the campaign progressed, it became evident that the players were a bit disappointed. Lots of PC deaths, lots of aimless sandbox play. When the campaign wound up, the DM issued an assessment of what the players did wrong - they didn't hire enough hirelings, didn't investigate rumours, didn't scout enough, weren't thorough enough planning outdoor expeditions, or searching for secret doors, etc. In the end, he admitted that the players didn't seem to really understand the kind of campaign he was running.

What annoyed me about the campaign was that the DM set it up with the specific goal of being an old-school game, as defined by the grognards on the old-school forums. He was enforcing an ultra-conservative playstyle because he had recently learned that's the way B/X was supposed to be played. The campaign was simply a checklist of defining characteristics that have coalesced on old-school forums in the last 3-4 years.

And this wasn't an isolated case. I've come across many comments on forums in recent years where someone asks how to set up a real old-school game. Invariably, helpful grognards recommend the most pared-down, low-powered, sandbox game that ticks a whole bunch of boxes from the game according to bitterly reactionary threads on Dragonsfoot and Knights and Knaves Alehouse. These suggestions are invariably more conservative than most people actually played in 78-84. That's why I dislike the strain of old-school conservatism so often promoted on forums these days.

Quote from: Benoist;448053What I find interesting in the premise is precisely that you don't count on the rules to make you tougher or take you out of a situation that is really dangerous. It's about you thinking outside the box and outplaying the environment. Not about random die rolls and rules upon rules added to the game.

Sounds like the way I play. And you don't need a level 3 cap to do it. Ever play the Caverns of Thracia? Or the Dark Tower? Plenty of mortally dangerous situations for level 4-8 PCs, where you need your wits and not your power to save you.

Quote from: HaffrungWhere in fuck did I say that? I play Basic D&D. I just find a hard-wired limit of level 3 pointless.

Basic D&D includes only levels 1, 2, and 3.

Higher levels are not in the book. They are not in the box under the book. That's about as "hard wired" as it gets. THAT IS Basic D&D.

Playing Basic D&D is what you called

Quotejust another symptom of the ultra-orthodox streak running through the old-school community these days, fasting and wearing hair shirts as some sort of testament to self-denial.

Metamorphosis Alpha has no levels at all!

In 1st ed. AD&D, hit points are the only benefit of levels beyond 17th for fighters, 29th for clerics, etc.. Druids absolutely stop at 14th without Unearthed Arcana, monks at 17th. Non-humans have much lower level limits.

The 3e D&D PHB covers levels only up to 20th. 4e ends at 30th.

So what? The "POINT" of a fantasy adventure is not to be just like whatever arbitrarily selected item Haffrung or Pundit may arbitrarily select. The point is FUN.

People play Basic D&D because they enjoy it, the same reason people play Classic Traveller, or Marvel Super Heroes, or Halo 3.

It's got nothing to do with wanting to imitate YOUR ideological bully attitude. It's just playing a game, you fucking ass.

Quote from: Haffrung;448104These suggestions are invariably more conservative than most people actually played in 78-84. That's why I dislike the strain of old-school conservatism so often promoted on forums these days.

However, they may not be any more conservative than the way the people making the suggestions played back then (and may still do today). In many cases these folks -- like me -- started playing in late high school or early college. Our experiences will often be much different from those who started playing at age 10-12.

Also, I think the assumption of many people (except the real fundamentalists) giving advice like you describe is that the game will start as they describe and then the GM will modify it as it is played to better suit what the group wants. This is how most of us did it. We started from this "conservative" position and house-ruled things as we played to fit exactly what we wanted.

A number of people who like the set of house rules I used for my Microlite75 version of Microlite20 0e have asked me to do a S&W supplement with those rules in S&W form. I will try to do so sometime during the next couple of months. 0e with these house rules may be closer (at least in spirit) to the type of games many if not most 0e/1e campaigns circa 1975-1982 actually grew into. However, even with these or other such house rules players will still have to hire enough hirelings, investigate rumors, scout before rushing in, plan expeditions, search for stuff, etc. more than they probably have to in more recent versions of the game. And trying to attack everything in sight (under the -- inane IMHO -- assumption that anything the PCs encounter should be defeatable by the PCs in combat) will still likely result in a lot of TPKs.