Quote from: NathanIW;848208Now I see that it's actually about today.  When people talk about OSR or old school in relation to RPGs they don't mean "stuff present in the first decade of the hobby."  Instead they mean a very specific approach to play that actually excludes elements that show up very early in the history of RPGs.

This.  

If you go back and look at the earliest materials produced after people started using the OGL in ways not envisioned by WOTC, they consistently spoke a style of gaming that died out in RPG gaming, and going back and exploring the path not taken from that point.  

The idea was not exclusionary - the fact that it recognized the hobby largely went in another route with later games pretty much says the approach that ended up dominating was present all along.  

I acknowledge that people were vocal from the beginning about not agreeing with the game as it was presented, even as they continued to play it.  Requests for more realism, a heavier emphasis on role-playing (or story, or narrative, or however you want to term it), greater complexity, etc., are always there.  

In the beginning there was a much greater split among gamers, however.  And I would say that those who complained most about D&D as first written got what they wanted over time, and probably were more likely to keep RPGs as a primary form of recreation throughout the years.  For whatever reason, they identified with RPGs more heavily.  Or perhaps it was partly since that play style was more consistently (and officially) encouraged later, they continued to find the industry's output worth their money.  But I don't see how anyone can read published output over that long period of time and not see a significant difference in tone and emphasis, even if the mechanics didn't change much.

Thus, the path not taken. Or perhaps, continued.  Not "the only path that existed during that time".  

The problem was the choice of the term "old-school".  It was too general.

Quote from: Haffrung;848281Stick around long enough and you'll run into the OSR Taliban. They're the ones who claim that combat wasn't really an important part of D&D until 3rd edition. Or that nobody used published adventures back in the day. Or that PCs loaded down with magic items are a new school thing.

It is absolutely revisionism.

While in the vast space of the internet I'm sure that somebody said that somewhere, sometime, I think that to imply that those are commonly held beliefs is not being very fair at all.  I certainly don't see many people advocating those positions.  Maybe I'm in the wrong OSR neighborhoods, but the ones I spend the most time in are considered pretty conservative.  

Also, I think there's a lot of confusing of "combat with lots of feats and mechanical doo-dads wasn't part of early published rules" with "combat wasn't really important until 3rd edition".  Those two statements are not the same.  Neither is "PCs shouldn't be entitled to X number of magical items at Y levels" equivalent to "There weren't many DMs who gave out so many magic items that characters looked like Christmas trees before X year".  

Noting that a thing became explicit in rules is not the same as saying that it sprang from the head of Zeus like Athena when those rules were published.

Quote from: Spinachcat;848367For instance, there is an OSR school of thought that Old School is "written by Gygax" or "published by TSR" and FOR THEM, the OSR is about playing with the original games and modules.

Perhaps, but I don't see much call to stick to the original modules.  The rules, yes - I personally don't see much point to new rulesets, as I was never looking for a new game.  But (as an example) OSRIC was designed to allow publishing new adventures for those original games moreso than it was to replace them.  If there are people advocating only playing modules published by TSR that must be a micro community so small it has escaped my notice.

Quote from: RandallS;848398It's not that combat wasn't important, but that combat was fast and somewhat abstract until the Player's Option books appeared. Sure there were many groups with complex house rules for combat that made it take much longer but combat wasn't designed by the rules to be a time-consuming tactical battle before then. Also, tactics in combat were what I call "real-world" tactics (defend from higher ground, attack from the flanks or the rear, etc.) as opposed to what I call "rules manipulation tactics" (the tactical manipulation of interacting rules widgets).

Length of combat (and full-on "rule manipulation tactics" in 4e) is one of the main reasons I do not like WOTC editions of D&D. If the average length of a combat encounter in an RPG (including any setup and tear-down of minis and terrain if required) is much over 10-15 minutes, it bores me both as a player and as a GM. Rules manipulation tactics do not interest me at all as I'm not interested enough in RPG rules mechanics -- I expect the rules to fade into the background not be upfront and center as I play.  Are my feelings universal? Of course not, but I have near zero interest in games with lengthy and complex combat or where the rules are designed to be upfront and center when I'm playing a character.

I agree with all of this. And I know from your posts that you and I have pretty compatible ideas about D&D. But I have actually been told that the idea of old-school D&D was to avoid combat. Not fast combats, but as close to zero combats as you can manage. Now, I'm well familiar with running away from killer monsters and living to fight another day. But I think 'the idea of old-school D&D was to avoid combat' is overstating things to an absurd degree, and not match my experience, or what I saw of dozens of other groups (my city and schools had a thriving D&D scene in the early 80s). We cleared out those Caves of Chaos. And White Plume Mountain. And the Caverns of Tsojcanth. It was the only way to make sure you didn't miss any loot.

Again, the 'old-school D&D was never about combat' meme is trying to portray a very specific mode of play - cautious megadungeon exploration and looting - as the norm. Hey, it's a fun mode. I've ventured into The Dark Tower in a party of 1st level characters, so I bow to no man in fantasy frickin' Vietnam cred. It just irks me to see a very specific and extreme mode of play cited as the norm, the implication being all those kids clearing out the Caves of Chaos weren't playing the game right (and some of the more pissy grognards come right out and say D&D was ruined by 1979).

Quote from: Haffrung;848407But I think 'the idea of old-school D&D was to avoid combat' is overstating things to an absurd degree, and not match my experience, or what I saw of dozens of other groups (my city and schools had a thriving D&D scene in the early 80s). We cleared out those Caves of Chaos. And White Plume Mountain. And the Caverns of Tsojcanth. It was the only way to make sure you didn't miss any loot.

I think you are adding something that I don't see present when people make arguments similar to what you are talking about.

Saying that "the older rules implicitly encouraged avoiding combat as much as possible by heavily weighting XP towards treasure and not monsters" is not the same as saying "People didn't love to lay waste to monsters from day 1".  It wasn't the optimal play according to the rules as written.  That didn't stop anyone from doing it, or enjoying it, and I've never seen anyone say that there was some sort of hobby-wide understanding of the implications of the experience rules in 1979.  That doesn't mean those rules didn't weight the rewards as it did, or that a style of play that tried to avoid combat with low likelihood of gaining treasure thereby wasn't probably the "smart" play.  

Smart does not equal "what people really enjoyed doing when they sat down to roll dice".

Quote from: Christopher Brady;848378So to me, this 'Old School' stuff people are claiming are how it was 'originally' played, is New School, I only started seeing people do it within the last 2 decades.

We know from people who were there (at least one of which, if not more, has participated in this very thread) that it certainly is how it was 'originally' played.  But you are right in identifying the more recent example as to what is truly important about "old school."  It really is about now.  The last 2 decades is about right.  When the RPG industry went down one path and a small group didn't go with them and then things slowly stewed on the early internet until today.

Quote from: EOTB;848405If you go back and look at the earliest materials produced after people started using the OGL in ways not envisioned by WOTC, they consistently spoke a style of gaming that died out in RPG gaming, and going back and exploring the path not taken from that point.  

This is a great way to put it.  The path not taken.

QuoteThe problem was the choice of the term "old-school".  It was too general.

And the use of the word "old."  While accurate it also makes people think it's about doing history rather than game play today.

Quote from: Haffrung;848407'the idea of old-school D&D was to avoid combat' is overstating things to an absurd degree,

I totally agree.  Though I think you're extrapolating talk about a smart in game strategy to mean talk about the game as a whole in a way that probably isn't right.

QuoteIt just irks me to see a very specific and extreme mode of play cited as the norm, the implication being all those kids clearing out the Caves of Chaos weren't playing the game right

I don't think it is claimed to be the norm.  I think it's claimed to be smart play given the implications of 1 GP = 1 XP.  Under that framwork, kids clearing out the Caves of Chaos weren't playing the game wrong, just not as strategically as others.

In my own game I don't use 1 GP = 1 XP.  I used 1 survived adventure area = 1 XP (and way lower numbers for XP to level up).  My game is specifically about exploring a mythic underworld so I reward it directly.  Why kill monsters?  They're a danger during exploration and leaving dangers behind you when it comes time to return to your safe haven can be very deadly.  Why get treasure?  The things you can buy with it and the fame for coming back to civilization with it.

Quote from: Spinachcat;848367The problem I see with discussions of "what is old school" and "what is OSR" too often focus on TSR D&D vs. WotC D&D and that confuses the discussion as the rest of the rich history of the RPG hobby is left out.

This isn't a problem, it's a feature.  Why?  Because "old school" isn't about doing history.  It's about identifying one's interests.  If it was about every approach to gaming that can be identified in the 70s, it becomes a totally useless term as it would represent too broad a variety of play to be useful in identifying anything.

It doesn't actually confuse the discussion either.  As for the people who actually participated in the thread by following the original poster's lead of listing elements, they were remarkably on the same page.  There's some discussion about some things being seen as essential vs option (Pundit raised that point point about dungeons not being essential), but largely everyone is communicating very clearly with no confusion.

The only people who are confused are those who still thinks "old school" is a historical category.  It's not.  It's a social category about play, blogs, discussion and publishing (and the people involved) today (and the very recent past).

Anyone who wants to raise a historical problem with old school excluding things (either explicitly or only implicitly by concentrating on D&D) like Runequest, Tunnels & Trolls, etc., as well as approaches to included games like OD&D are factually correct in terms of history, but irrelevant in terms of what people who are actually into old school RPGs mean when they use the term.

It's like getting confused or angry by Art Nouveau not including the work of early Modernists.  They're new right?  They're "Nouveau" so why does Art Nouveau exclude them?  Because Art Nouveau is a term about a social phenomenon (in this case, an art movement) and not a historical category for all art produced from 1890 to 1910.

Quote from: Haffrung;848407I agree with all of this. And I know from your posts that you and I have pretty compatible ideas about D&D. But I have actually been told that the idea of old-school D&D was to avoid combat.

I think many of the people saying that are over-reacting to the later "fight everything that moves to the death" meme that seemed to really take off with 3e (which removed things like morale and reaction rolls from the game and made killing things the primary source of XP) and got to the point by the time of 4e that some of the designers sounded like they were claiming claiming that the only "fun time" in the game was "combat time". In comparison to this, old school D&D really was about avoiding combat -- when unnecessary and/or avoidable.

However, even if one really was playing to avoid combat as much as possible -- a lot of combat happened anyway because it was either necessary to get the treasure or could not be avoided. However, I think it is more accurate to say something like "old school D&D wasn't about  seeking out combat but about only fighting when it was the best way to accomplish one's goals and it was about avoiding have to fight fair when you did fight you did everything possible to rig things in your favor before combat ever started."

QuoteNot fast combats, but as close to zero combats as you can manage. Now, I'm well familiar with running away from killer monsters and living to fight another day. But I think 'the idea of old-school D&D was to avoid combat' is overstating things to an absurd degree, and not match my experience, or what I saw of dozens of other groups (my city and schools had a thriving D&D scene in the early 80s). We cleared out those Caves of Chaos. And White Plume Mountain. And the Caverns of Tsojcanth. It was the only way to make sure you didn't miss any loot.

My play notes at the end of the Microlite74 3.0 editions annoy some of my fellow OSR people because they are pretty clear that the "wargaming" style of play that so a vocal group in the OSR trumpets as more or less the "the way" was only one of many ways quite early on -- to the point there were articles on different play styles published circa 1979-1980. I don't mention the Quick Primer for Old School Gaming but some people are sure I'm attacking it. I'm not, of course, as that is certainly where things started in Lake Geneva, but other styles of play quickly developed -- even among some of the people who learned directly from the LG crowd.

Quote from: Haffrung;848281Stick around long enough and you'll run into the OSR Taliban. They're the ones who claim that combat wasn't really an important part of D&D until 3rd edition. Or that nobody used published adventures back in the day. Or that PCs loaded down with magic items are a new school thing.

It is absolutely revisionism.

I just think it's sad that so many long-time players seem almost ashamed to talk about how they really played, and instead prefer to theory-wank about how they should have played.

Hrrmm... No taliban here.

Had just one guy in our original gaming group of fifteen or so, Tom Chimo, that used published adventures. All of the rest of us created our own dungeons, and we created our wilderness settings too. It was an important milestone of gaining entry of our "D&D" gaming group. How cool was your dungeon? What was awesome and unique about your gaming world?

All of us, except for Tom Chimo, played board wargames as well. Tom was one of the last new players to join our original wargames/D&D group.

There was no theory-wank, because there was no theory to wank. We spent lots of time though working out houserules for our campaign settings, and in working to resolve differences in our campaign games so that our characters could be effortlessly transported back and forth, into our different games as they were hosted by different GMs in our group.

We originally played D&D, Traveller, Boot Hill, Tunnels & Trolls, Gamma World, Melee, Wizard, Advanced Melee/Wizard, Metamorphosis Alpha, The Morrow Project, and The Complete Warlock. We had character conversion tables for some of these, and made character conversion tables for the rest. We even used D&D to make a Star Wars game in late 1977/early 1978.

Also, I say Wargames, because we had been playing board war games even earlier and we didn't see D&D/RPG stuff showing in our local hobby shop and the comic book store until 1977.

We often modded board wargames and would add our own homebrew expansions and house rules to improve playability early on, and liked seeing other player mods and add-ons in SPI's Strategy & Tactics and Avalon Hills' The General magazine.

We really enjoyed making up custom scenarios. That was the fun part of wargaming, and we went right into RPGs with that same philosophy, at least our local group did, in Colorado Springs.

Quote from: Haffrung;848407I agree with all of this. And I know from your posts that you and I have pretty compatible ideas about D&D. But I have actually been told that the idea of old-school D&D was to avoid combat. Not fast combats, but as close to zero combats as you can manage. Now, I'm well familiar with running away from killer monsters and living to fight another day. But I think 'the idea of old-school D&D was to avoid combat' is overstating things to an absurd degree, and not match my experience, or what I saw of dozens of other groups (my city and schools had a thriving D&D scene in the early 80s). We cleared out those Caves of Chaos. And White Plume Mountain. And the Caverns of Tsojcanth. It was the only way to make sure you didn't miss any loot.

It just irks me to see a very specific and extreme mode of play cited as the norm, the implication being all those kids clearing out the Caves of Chaos weren't playing the game right (and some of the more pissy grognards come right out and say D&D was ruined by 1979).

We played combat heavy right from the beginning, deaths were frequent in our campaigns from 1977-1981, and it was rare to see a character make it to 6th or 7th level or higher. Most characters died along the way.

Originally we didn't have magic users with lots of magic items. We didn't have magic users with uber powerful magic artifacts as well. These came as a result of the expansion of the game, and became much more prevalent from 1980 on. AD&D focused on these awesome magic item generation tables. With us, and Old School 0D&D the big thing was our characters crafting and creating their own unique magic items.

We didn't see that kind of play in the early tournaments though. What we saw instead was commonly labeled "Monty Haul" where these new players would just go into the AD&D book and pick or roll up what they wanted right off the treasure generation tables.

This loot wasn't found in dungeons. The players didn't fight and kill anything for it (Though some players had the nerve to claim that they did)  It wasn't discovered in the lairs of hazardous creatures... it was simply cherry-picked by the players at the start of the gaming session.

We called it Monty Haul, because it was like that old TV game show Let's Make a Deal, where the host (Monty Haul) would give all the SWAG behind a mystery curtain to the gameshow guest, and the guest didn't have to do a damn thing to really earn that SWAG. Like undeserved manna, or a gift from the heavens.

A Monty Haul campaign (with a "U") was the generic label for a Game Master (and his/her campaign) who would run adventures that were like the game show giveaways, except the questions weren't nearly as hard. Players would end up staggering under the loads of gold and gems (except the encumbrance rules often were ignored as well) and cherry-picking which magic items they wanted to keep because they had so many to choose from.

They weren't playing the original game as intended. They were playing a completely different game with the same name. That confused the hell out of alot of people.

This also diluted the real value of the old school game, which was a game based on merit and fixed advancements where the characters progressed by completing different types of achievements (Not just looting and combat!) that earned xp.

Good players could earn xp, and avoid TPKs or extreme casualties by avoiding a fight, and playing clever or smart, using strategy, alliances, teamwork, specialized equipment, and unique play styles to achieve comparable or unique goals. Good Gms would work all of that into their 0D&D game.

By 1981 that original play style was almost entirely gone, and had been replaced instead by lazy "New SchooL" AD&D GMs with pre-stocked dungeons where the only reasonable goal was to kill everything, and take whatever loot could be found.

lame. lame. lame. ...and boring as hell. That's just another reason TSR  Ad&d died.

Quote from: GameDaddy;848452We played combat heavy right from the beginning, deaths were frequent in our campaigns from 1977-1981, and it was rare to see a character make it to 6th or 7th level or higher. Most characters died along the way.

Originally we didn't have magic users with lots of magic items. We didn't have magic users with uber powerful magic artifacts as well. These came as a result of the expansion of the game, and became much more prevalent from 1980 on. AD&D focused on these awesome magic item generation tables. With us, and Old School 0D&D the big thing was our characters crafting and creating their own unique magic items.

We didn't see that kind of play in the early tournaments though. What we saw instead was commonly labeled "Monty Haul" where these new players would just go into the AD&D book and pick or roll up what they wanted right off the treasure generation tables.

This loot wasn't found in dungeons. The players didn't fight and kill anything for it (Though some players had the nerve to claim that they did)  It wasn't discovered in the lairs of hazardous creatures... it was simply cherry-picked by the players at the start of the gaming session.

We called it Monty Haul, because it was like that old TV game show Let's Make a Deal, where the host (Monty Haul) would give all the SWAG behind a mystery curtain to the gameshow guest, and the guest didn't have to do a damn thing to really earn that SWAG. Like undeserved manna, or a gift from the heavens.

A Monty Haul campaign (with a "U") was the generic label for a Game Master (and his/her campaign) who would run adventures that were like the game show giveaways, except the questions weren't nearly as hard. Players would end up staggering under the loads of gold and gems (except the encumbrance rules often were ignored as well) and cherry-picking which magic items they wanted to keep because they had so many to choose from.

They weren't playing the original game as intended. They were playing a completely different game with the same name. That confused the hell out of alot of people.

This also diluted the real value of the old school game, which was a game based on merit and fixed advancements where the characters progressed by completing different types of achievements (Not just looting and combat!) that earned xp.

Good players could earn xp, and avoid TPKs or extreme casualties by avoiding a fight, and playing clever or smart, using strategy, alliances, teamwork, specialized equipment, and unique play styles to achieve comparable or unique goals. Good Gms would work all of that into their 0D&D game.

By 1981 that original play style was almost entirely gone, and had been replaced instead by lazy "New SchooL" AD&D GMs with pre-stocked dungeons where the only reasonable goal was to kill everything, and take whatever loot could be found.

lame. lame. lame. ...and boring as hell. That's just another reason TSR  Ad&d died.

All true but that game style stems from the actual published modules.
If a game releases "exemplar" examples of play you have to accept that people will follow those examples.

Also you miss out on the roleplay/thespy movement which is critical as it was the movement that actually "won". So whilst Monthy Haul was a thing the almost immediate reaction to it was as well. This is why CoC could be released in '81 as a system with no treasure haul no cool powerz and one in which reluctantly fighting things and dying horribly was the new black, and yet it did massively well.

Quote from: NathanIW;848421This isn't a problem, it's a feature.  Why?  Because "old school" isn't about doing history.  It's about identifying one's interests.  If it was about every approach to gaming that can be identified in the 70s, it becomes a totally useless term as it would represent too broad a variety of play to be useful in identifying anything.

Yes, this.

Quote from: jibbajibba;848456All true but that game style stems from the actual published modules.
If a game releases "exemplar" examples of play you have to accept that people will follow those examples.

Also you miss out on the roleplay/thespy movement which is critical as it was the movement that actually "won". So whilst Monthy Haul was a thing the almost immediate reaction to it was as well. This is why CoC could be released in '81 as a system with no treasure haul no cool powerz and one in which reluctantly fighting things and dying horribly was the new black, and yet it did massively well.

We actually started playing other RPG systems from 1980 on. I never did play CoC, although we did have GM in our gaming group that created lots of CoC type campaign settings. We played in these horror settings with abominably evil creatures, original demons, powerful undead, and hell spawn. He always created these vast mostly empty and forgotten cities and urban areas that were linked by a complex networks of gates, bridges, stairways, portals, and teleportals. There were energy creatures, and places where you could get trapped in time and space, and even traps which led permanently to other dimensions.

We also played more traditional feudalistic and gritty Harn, Runequest, and Chivalry & Sorcery, and in the Mid 80's Rolemaster. Had some friends adopt Amber, and Rifts and GURPS, when they first showed up. Because no one wanted to play in a boring setting where the only goals were to kill and loot. People didn't want to play AD&D where they were being told how to play and how to GM. They wanted to figure out their own ways to make and play roleplaying games, and they adopted these other systems to do just that.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;847864it may not be essential, but it's certainly a quality of old school play afaic...the dungeon is pretty fundamental.

I don't disagree that dungeons are important in the OSR. Just saying they're not the be-all and end-all, and increasingly in the 'third wave' of OSR products they've become slightly less central though certainly still a big deal.

If NathanIW's gloss on "old school as community of practice, not history" will put a stop to complaints about Taliban, I'm all for it. After all, Mullah Omar is dead.

My own experience playing D&D starting around 1978 was that getting in fights would get you killed. This didn't necessarily mean we avoided combat; our characters just died a lot. My personal response to this as a DM was to give the players an ally who was a couple levels higher (we never bothered with by-the-book hirelings or henchmen), and also to have do-overs on several TPKs. Once the PCs got a few levels up, this ceased to be much of an issue, but I soon stopped playing D&D until college a few years later. Never bothered with published adventures.

The main fantasy alternative to D&D that I tried in the interim was TFT, which was more survivable for beginning PCs (but shallower power curve) and which we played almost exclusively using the published paragraph adventures. There was very little "campaign" if any. Maybe some characters carried over from one Death Test to another. Scenarios were very combat-focused. PC death was still quite frequent due to bad luck...but tactics could mitigate risk.

RPGs were just one option among many in a general wargaming scene that included a fair amount of Diplomacy, original Squad Leader, Magic Ream, Ogre, Wooden Ships & Iron Men, etc.

At college in the mid '80s the gamers I hung out with were still playing wargames occasionally including marathon sessions of Cosmic Encounter. But we mostly played D&D in increasingly houseruled forms. There were female players, which was new. (I do remember one female Diplomacy player BTW.) Characters never died that I recall.

At the time, to me, this was a very different style of game from what I'd done in the 70s to early 80s. I had a strong suspicion, occasionally spoken out loud and occasionally confirmed by the DMs, that PCs could not die. Corollary: as long as you weren't making a total mockery of the game from a social perspective, tactical and strategic thinking really wasn't too important. Paradoxically, these games also featured extremely long discussions of plans for upcoming battles.

In retrospect and I believe also at the time, two things were apparent:

1. As I said above, this was a different style.
2. I liked the old style, but my friends looked on it with suspicion.

To bridge the gap, I had ideas about various ways to mitigate or buffer the dangers of a more status-quo, sandbox-y game while players got up to speed; however, my participation in the hobby dwindled to zero in the 90s.

Quote from: RandallS;848444I think many of the people saying that are over-reacting to the later "fight everything that moves to the death" meme that seemed to really take off with 3e (which removed things like morale and reaction rolls from the game and made killing things the primary source of XP) and got to the point by the time of 4e that some of the designers sounded like they were claiming claiming that the only "fun time" in the game was "combat time". In comparison to this, old school D&D really was about avoiding combat -- when unnecessary and/or avoidable.

However, even if one really was playing to avoid combat as much as possible -- a lot of combat happened anyway because it was either necessary to get the treasure or could not be avoided. However, I think it is more accurate to say something like "old school D&D wasn't about  seeking out combat but about only fighting when it was the best way to accomplish one's goals and it was about avoiding have to fight fair when you did fight you did everything possible to rig things in your favor before combat ever started."

Yep.

I get tired of being told that "old D&D" was about nothing but hack and slash, or that it was about killing everything that moved, or that we never role played because there are no skills for "diplomacy" or "negotiation" or "bluff" or "take shit."

Original D&D was written by wargamers for wargamers.  And the first rule of strategy is "Fair fights are for chumps."

Also, I am explicitly NOT part of any "Old School Renaissance."  I'm just playing the silly ass game pretty much the same way I always have.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;848786Original D&D was written by wargamers for wargamers.  And the first rule of strategy is "Fair fights are for chumps."

This.

Also: It is constantly overlooked that most wargamers have a great sense of "theme". As an outsider, you see some abstract chits moving around on a hex-field, some dice being rolled, some charts consulted, but for the seasoned wargamer a battalion of PzIV's just rolled across the Eastern European peninsula flanking the Red Army in a relentless storm of steel.

Likewise, the "theme" of D&D is there, in the rules! People back then obivously didn't need any additional bells and whistles to immerse themselves.