grubman is right.  Kind of.  In a needling sort of way.  A lot of these games are just older, and not definitively "Old School".  A lot of the games from the mid-80s are Old School re-worked, or perhaps refined (GURPS, D&D 2nd ed, etc).  A lot of these games are what I referred to up-thread as the "Transitional School" (Shadowrun, the late-80s crop of GDW games like Space: 1889 and Twilight: 2000).

My list of real core old school games is:

• D&D (and family, including Basic and Advanced, Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World 1st ed, etc)
  
• RuneQuest (and family, though Call of Cthulhu was the first great step into the "Refined Old School")
  
• The FGU family, especially Chivalry & Sorcery and Villains & Vigilantes
  
• Tunnels & Trolls
  
• Traveller

Yes, many of those are fundamentally derivative of D&D, but they took a basic idea and developed it from a unique creative standpoint that clearly differentiated them.  I'm tempted to add The Fantasy Trip, but, you know, it was barely even a "roleplaying" game.

!i!

I think you probably haven't seen In the Labyrinth. When that came out, TFT became as much an RPG as anything else out there.

Another nit: FGU family? I can see a resemblence between the games of the "D&D family"; even the original Top Secret wasn't very far removed IIRC. But FGU games were if I'm not mistaken 1 or 2 families, then a whole bunch of quirky, unique (though not always user-friendly) games. Often overlapping in theme--no effort it seems to avoid competing with themselves between Bushido and Land of the Rising Sun for example.

Yes, I've seen In the Labyrinth, but I still view TFT -- in the form of Melee and Wizard -- as essentially a tactical game.  Add it to your own list, but it's not on mine.

As for the "FGU family", yeah, I felt funny writing that.  It's clearly not the same kind of family as the D&D family or the RQ family.  Even C&S and V&V bear little resemblance to one another.  A lot of their games were certainly old school in terms of timing and content, but were ultimately not particularly influential on the hobby.  Still, I see FGU as a strong old school influence unto itself.

!i!

Hey, I was walking past one of my bookshelves and stumbled across the original Thieves' World boxed set by Chaosium from back in 1981.  It features character stats for pretty much all of the prominent games of the time.  I thought this might prove instructive.

• Advanced D&D
• Adventures in Fantasy
• Chivalry & Sorcery
• Dragonquest
• Dungeons & Dragons (basic)
• The Fantasy Trip
• RuneQuest
• Traveller
• Tunnels & Trolls

I also happen to have the Thieves' World Companion, published in 1986, which is arguably the era of the revised old school.  It adds RQ III and MERP/Rolemaster to the list.

Man.  Adventures in Fantasy?  Does anyone even remember that game?

!i!

How about adding Boot Hill, Bunnies & Burrows and Superhero '44 to the list?

A thumbrule I use to mark the line between old school games and modern games is Mekton 2 from R. Talsorian Games. Mainly because the game incorporated the detailed lifepath to enhance the story for characters and the skill system which is based on a die roll + skill + characteristic vs. a target number as a basis. All of that came out in 1987 and affected all games which followed, IMHO. Its basing the deliniation on the mechanics rather than on the date it was published.

Ninja Turtles and Rolemaster.

Personally I think TFT is a better rpg than any edition of Gurps, but there you go.

I'd like to see the magic system expanded to be a tad less combat focussed, and some psionics rules for adapting it to other settings, but other than that I think it is one of the better fantasy systems yet to be produced.

Any thing produced by TSR from its beginnning to like 88, 89. Is old school.
Marvel FASERIP (Anything as chart dependant as this is definitely old school IMHO)
D&D Basic and Advanced
Star Frontiers
Boot Hill
Gang Busters
Gamma World
Metamorphoosis Alpha

Chaosium stuff from the 80's is totally old school
Call of Cthulhu
Superworld

Then the rest:
Bushido
Twilight 2000
Traveller
Bunnies and Burrows (Which normally I would be hesitenet to mention. But it was the first game to have detailed martial arts rules.)
Aftermath (Super crunchy)
Mechwarrior
Star Wars D6
Villians and Vigilantes (I guess all the stuff from Fantasy Games Unlimited. I just realised how much stuff they had. Its all old school crunchyness.)
Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes.

Quote from: BalbinusReposted from rpg.net, I think this is probably a better site for the thread actually.

What games do you think epitomise the spirit of old school gaming?

A list proposed in an rpg.net thread includes:

Classic Traveller
Runequest 2 (3 will do)
Stormbringer (the original one)
Tunnels & Trolls
Gamma world (preferably the original)
Bushido
Call of Cthulhu (IMO second or third edition)

Good god they're idiots over there. I mean, everyone here does notice the glaring absence of D&D from the list? I mean, jesus christ, the Swine fuckers refuse to give any credit at all to the game that should rightfully get ALL the fucking credit.

The correct list would be the following:

1. D&D (original)
2. D&D (first basic set)
3. AD&D 1e
4. Judges Guild products for D&D
5. D&D (basic/expert set)
6. D&D (red box basic)
7. Arduin products for D&D
8. Tunnels & Trolls
9. Traveller
10. Gamma World/Metamorphosis Alpha
11. Star Frontiers
12. Palladium Fantasy
13. Call of Cthulhu
14. Runequest
15. Chivalry & Sorcery

That's a good "top 15" list.

RPGPundit

EDIT: Yes, I'd probably add Villains & Vigilantes to that list.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaMy thought was to axe Stormbringer, too, as it really wasn't particularly seminal to the hobby.  Also, Bushido is out, as it never had the profile that makes it stand out as a "core" game.

Adding another base hit for TSR, how about Top Secret or Marvel Superheroes?  And as long as I've mentioned superheroes, I'd seriously consider Villains & Vigilantes, even though I never played it, personally.

A final quibble -- I'd consider ending the "Old School" period earlier than 1992.  For one thing, I'm pretty sure that Vampire: the Masquerade was released in 1991.  More to the point, though, there was a wide field of transitional games that really made me go "Buh...wha?" in the late-80s.  Shadowrun, Space: 1889, and Ars Magica could all be considered the vanguard of the New Wave as much as the last of the Old School.  So I'm in favor of rolling that date back to 1989, with the release of Shadowrun.

The correct place to mark the end of "old-school" (in the sense that anything after that was done only with "retro" style and wasn't really old school) would not be with the advent of Vampire; it WOULD be with the advent of AD&D2e.  That's what ended Old School.

But like I said, the shitheads over at RPG.net don't want to give D&D credit for anything, apparently...

RPGPundit

Quote from: KoltarNOPE, TFT was a rough draft of a roleplaying game. GURPS is what Jackson got to do for an RPG when he is his own Boss.


 Even 1st Edition GURPS is pretty cool compared to many RPGs being released today.


- Ed C.

Hence you could make a good argument for The Fantasy Trip being Old School, not GURPS.

RPGPundit

Pundit, I trust you noted that I did add D&D.

What about Palladium Fantasy? I note several people suggested TMNT (the one Palladium game in the 10 greatest RP games ever written, IMO) but PF was earlier and basically the same mechanically.

-clash

The emerging trend of opinon seems to be that Old School ended when old school game companies started releasing 2nd generation games and new game companies began to appear on the shelves.  Some important landmarks:

   TSR releases AD&D 2nd edition -1989
GDW releases Twilight: 2000 and MegaTraveller - 1984 and 1986, respectively
Avalon Hill releases RuneQuest 3rd edition under license from Chaosium - 1984
FASA releases Mech Warrior, it's first stand-alone game - 1985
R. Talsorian releases Mekton and Cyberpunk - 1984 and 1988, respectively

I'm sure other examples could flesh this out, but the trend seems to have started as early as 1984 with Twilight: 2000 and RQIII, and hit its full stride by 1989 with AD&D 2nd ed, Shadowrun, and Space: 1889.  And let's not forget the role of Games Workshop.  Though focused on minis, they were a driving force of the changing face of gaming in the mid- to late-80s with Warhammer and WH40K.

!i!