Quote from: -R.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?

To be fair, a lot of "old school" essays of that sort are reacting against people who denigrated their playstyle in years past as "mere hack'n'slash," "incoherent play," etc.

There's plenty of people on all sides of these discussions who take their RPGs a bit too seriously.

On the other hand, sicking uber-strong monsters on 1st level pc's is a technique used by some.  I believe at some point Frank Mentzer posted over on Dragonsfoot about a campaign he ran where shortly into the first adventure, a red dragon swooped down and torched the PCs.  TPK.  20 minutes later they have a brand new set of characters and begin anew with a healthy respect for the dangers in the world!

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;229233What 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?

That is spot on.  As an old-worlder myself I agree not only that each point is accurate, but also it is my prefered play style personally.   Of course there's pros and cons to every approach, but this is the one that I know and love.  Now what did I do with them thar false teeth, dagnabbit!?

Quote from: Fritzs;229189Old school does not amuse me. In general, amuses people who were there, or desperately wish they were there.

Check your sources buddy. I was "never there" nor do I desperately wish I had been, but I do use OS elements in the games I run. I have been doing so even before I knew what the hell "Old School" was.

Quote from: -R.;229250just strikes me as so much grumpy old man silliness.

Right...if a male above 25 mention an opinion on gaming it can just be discounted because he is obviously grumpy and silly. Nothing to see here, move along...

What's with this knee-jerk reactions and ageist accusations everytime OS gets mentioned? Really folks, get your act togheter. Those type of insults are what is getting old.

Quote from: Edsan;229523Right...if a male above 25 mention an opinion on gaming it can just be discounted because he is obviously grumpy and silly. Nothing to see here, move along...

What's with this knee-jerk reactions and ageist accusations everytime OS gets mentioned? Really folks, get your act togheter. Those type of insults are what is getting old.

Ageist?  Really?  You're really suggesting that my making a joking reference to a SNL skit in reference to what I thought some advocates of a certain aspect of "old school" gaming is an act of ageism?  

I might have mentioned this before, but we're talking about a game where we sit around pretending to be elves and hot rod pilots in outer space.  Taking what I've said as "ageism" is just absurd.

Not to mention the fact that I haven't seen the age of 25 in over a decade.  

The thing is my own play-style is more "old school" than anything else.  I just don't think there's anything particularly superior about it, which was the entire point of my earlier -- again, jokingly intended -- Dana Carvey riff.

I came onto gaming late, so I fell this is if not a golden age, then perhaps a gold-plate age

There's whatever I could want - wargaming either historic, current or future. There's high fantasy, light magic, modern monsters, medieval monsters, cards, quick play, long play, anything!

Some of course will be drek. Just like novels, sometimes a knock-off hack gets glory while the first author dies penniless and alone.

And of course some of that crap will turn to gold in the hands of a good GM.

I'm also working on the next generation - my kids (5 and 11) are gamers. I've ran one-off wargames for the other 11 year old and 6 year old. That's how we get things going. Be the awesome Aunt or Uncle or Big sibling or parent. Teach the kids!

Man, over my time gaming, the mid 80s were the best, by miles. Even White Dwarf was a good general gaming magazine...

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;229273If 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.

No, it wasn't Settembrini I had in mind.  Honestly, I can make so little sense of most of his posts that I tend to just go right past them at this point.

I've done a little searching, but I can't find the threads/posts I had in mind, but I do recall several posters on here, in all seeming seriousness, suggesting that people who didn't care for games that weren't "fair" were wimps or spoilt children, that all they obviously wanted was constant positive reinforcement with no risk and that they were obviously lesser people -- not just lesser gamers, but somehow lacking on a fundamental, personal level -- than the folks who had it good and rough in the old days.

If I can find the posts, I'll quote from them, but I'm not terribly invested in any of this so I doubt I'm going to put in much effort.

Well, I wouldn't go nearly so far as to call them a "lesser person" but if someone gets all bent out of shape because their rpg character gets killed, then they do probably need to grow up a little bit.

At the same time, if a GM gets all bent out of shape because the player characters aren't playing along with his "script" for the adventure then the same would apply to him.