Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;853272And Heaven help you if you define "old school" in a different way or run an old school game in a way that doesn't fit the narrow confines of the "gaming Al-Qaeda".


Misleading potential gamers about old school games is bad. When modern day grogs try to change the definition of old school games to accommodate their preferences, that's bad.

RuneQuest is unambiguously "old school".

Uh, no. When it was published, it was advertised as a NEW approach, and sure struck me (very favorably) as that. It was probably one representative of the "simulation school" that Gygax lambasted -- "realism" being a big selling point -- but what most impressed me was the extent it was actually a game system whereas AD&D was not really systematic but just an organically grown collection of  heuristics.

Any school that identifies RQ with D&D is not a literally old school (and in any case "the old school" is actually newer than the 3e/4e D&D schools against which it arose in the first place as a reaction).

It has nothing to do with any "school" division I've ever seen among RQ players who have no dog in the D&D fight.

Quote from: Nikita;855449I would say that the real start of the "new school" was reliance on commercially made campaign settings...

Really?  So Against the Giants, Keep on The Borderlands, et al, which was about 1979-81, and were sold with the expectation that players would use them in some way, thus relying on them to make a campaign out of them...  So you're saying that anything after 1978 is New School?

Alright then.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;855455Really?  So Against the Giants, Keep on The Borderlands, et al, which was about 1979-81, and were sold with the expectation that players would use them in some way, thus relying on them to make a campaign out of them...  So you're saying that anything after 1978 is New School?

Alright then.

Pretty much so. For me the concept of having some kind of pre-made scenario books set in one game universe was a huge revelation back when I started.

Thinking this further, I think that after that the next term in school was "simulation and realism" brought forwards by RuneQuest.  I'd put the step beyond that as invention of meta-plot that goes forwards according to commercial corporation that produced it.

Quote from: Nikita;855457Pretty much so. For me the concept of having some kind of pre-made scenario books set in one game universe was a huge revelation back when I started.

Thinking this further, I think that after that the next term in school was "simulation and realism" brought forwards by RuneQuest.  I'd put the step beyond that as invention of meta-plot that goes forwards according to commercial corporation that produced it.

Personally, even with the era of pre-mades (Keep of The Borderlands came with an edition of D&D didn't it?  I remember people talking about that) I've never actually used bought adventures back in the 80's.  In fact, if it weren't for me being part of the D&D Adventures League thing for WoTC, I still wouldn't.  I much prefer making worlds and settings rather than using a premade one.

Quote from: S'mon;854546From what I can see, "OSR" is generally used to an attempt refer to resurrection of a type of D&D primarily played 1974-77. It's not used to refer to non-D&D gaming of any period, ...

There's a lot you've missed seeing.

AD&D is definitely a big part of the OSR, along with the Basic/Etc. sets from 1981 on. ("Retro clones" OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord pretty well kicked off the phenomenon.)

A few years ago, I was one of a tiny few still using the OD&D booklets; not many more current gamers had ever even seen them. Most who hadn't weren't chomping on the bit to delve into First Fantasy Campaign and Best of The Dragon and Chainmail to unearth the campaign form they had never used, wanted to use, or perhaps even been aware of.

The game of "OS or not?" -- categorizing this or that non-D&D game of any period -- is one I've seen all over the place. It was the bread and butter of the Grognardia blog.

It's unfortunate, because it's a cause of piles of confusion and consternation.

"Skills aren't OS, so RuneQuest isn't," is the kind of pedantry that of course brings Empire of the Petal Throne, Traveller and the Advanced D&D Dungeon Masters Guide into the incoherent fray.

RuneQuest was not and is not part of ANY school of D&D. It's RuneQuest, and it can have (indeed has had) its own schools with their own concerns.

Traveller has plenty of "edition wars" without importing opinions on a completely different game that Traveller fans don't necessarily know or care about.

Quote from: Nikita;855457Pretty much so. For me the concept of having some kind of pre-made scenario books set in one game universe was a huge revelation back when I started.

Thinking this further, I think that after that the next term in school was "simulation and realism" brought forwards by RuneQuest.  I'd put the step beyond that as invention of meta-plot that goes forwards according to commercial corporation that produced it.

Yep.  AD&D, any edition, is "New School."  When the game went from "do what you want" to "if you don't do this it's not Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" is when Old School died.

I also love all this shit about "Old School Taliban" and "Old School Grognard Mafia" and shit like that.

Like what anybody calls anything makes any FUCKING difference in how you play a dumbass elfgame at your table.

Quote from: Phillip;855452Uh, no. When it was published, it was advertised as a NEW approach, and sure struck me (very favorably) as that. It was probably one representative of the "simulation school" that Gygax lambasted -- "realism" being a big selling point -- but what most impressed me was the extent it was actually a game system whereas AD&D was not really systematic but just an organically grown collection of  heuristics.

You are right and you are wrong. You are absolutely correct as far as Runequest 2nd edition compared to AD&D 1st from the perspective of a game circa 1979-1980.

However 2nd edition Runequest compared to Runequest 6 (I have both) definitely have has a different tenor and ton. So while it not like D&D old school it is Runequest old school. So what is "old school" depends on what you are talking about.

The recent interest in old school is because of the ability of the Internet to allow people with a narrow interest in a subject to readily communicate about the subject. Out of the millions there only may be a 1,000 who like the Lost Realm of Widgetland but if half of them get talking through the internet suddenly you can start doing things again with the Lost Realm of Widgetland that you couldn't do before.

The problem comes from the fact that while most long running games has an old school, as you pointed out the different old school are not the same kinds of games and appeal in different way. When combined with how the various gaming communities persisted over time the result that today we have several distinct communities of old school games. Communities that largely reflect the relative popularity of the game back in the day.

Some people here say AD&D is old school. I never considered AD&D for the most part to be Old School. Some aspects of it were, parts that were taken from Bx or 0D&D and incorporated.

0D&D or BX D&D were old school.

Old School isn't a specific system or even game, it's a style of play.

Quote from: Batman;855526Old School isn't a specific system or even game, it's a style of play.

That's not the people wanted to sell/promote OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord and such want you (the general, not specific you) to believe.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;855529That's not the people wanted to sell/promote OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord and such want you (the general, not specific you) to believe.

Bullshit.  Where have you ever seen Stuart Marshall (OSRIC), Matt Finch (OSRIC, S&W) or Dan Proctor (Labyrinth Lord) say anything remotely close to that?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;855529That's not the people wanted to sell/promote OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord and such want you (the general, not specific you) to believe.

I've never played those games, so I cannot really comment on them. For certain there are systems completely devoted to the Old School style but I still feel it's far more fundamental than specifics mechanics.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;855455Really?  So Against the Giants, Keep on The Borderlands, et al, which was about 1979-81, and were sold with the expectation that players would use them in some way, thus relying on them to make a campaign out of them...  So you're saying that anything after 1978 is New School?

Alright then.

Module-based play is the standard on eg Dragonsfoot, and OSRIC was originally to support that mode with new published modules, but the current OSR tends to emphasise the pre-module do it yourself approach rather than use of published adventures.

Quote from: Phillip;855464There's a lot you've missed seeing.

AD&D is definitely a big part of the OSR, along with the Basic/Etc. sets from 1981 on. ("Retro clones" OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord pretty well kicked off the phenomenon.)

BFRPG and OSRIC kicked things off, but I think AD&D (eg OSRIC) is a pretty small part of the current OSR, which centres around clones and derivatives of OD&D and B/X.