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Reposted 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)

Which looks good to me, though I'd drop Stormbringer personally and would add in some iteration of DnD, either the basic set or the Rules Cyclopedia.

What do you think?

Note, for the purposes of this thread, old school ends with the release of Vampire in 1992, from then old school is over baby. If you disagree, and most of you will, start your own damn thread :-)

Seriously, we just need some parameters and if we don't cut off in the early 1990s we'll have lists full of Exalted and UA which are distinctly not old school, great as they both are.

I have to agree about adding a version of D&D.  Personally I would go with BD&D, for me it would be the red box edition.

Morrow Project always gave me that old school feeling.  Especially the first edition before they added in skills and it was all attribute based.

Glad to see Classic Traveller up there though.  Always loved that one.

Just my two cents.

I consider Interlock games - Mekton II and Cyberpunk 2020 - to be old school if only because they were core to my gaming experience in my mid to late teens.

Also remember that GURPS was pre-1990 and Rifts was pre-1992. Actually, Palladium Fantasy is obviously old school and it was enough of the "go to" game in my area for people tiring of AD&D that it might very well be a core game. I'd even dare to say that there might be two distinct periods of "old school" - one pre somewhere in the 1980s and one post up until the early 1990s.

Do we have a definition for 'old-school', or is it just whatever we like to think it is?



[I like Mr Analytical's take on it.]

OK, well, OD&D has got to be in there.

Also, Empire of the Petal Throne, for the setting.

My 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.

!i!

(P.S. And looking up-thread at Wil's response, of course Palladium Fantasy and Cyberpunk 2020 belong on the list.)

Personally, I think old school died way before '92, by the way. Or alternatively, there are subphases of it. '70s games are one thing, Rolemaster and FGU-ish games are already another. So are GURPS and Megatraveller.

Oldest oldschool phase: does not possess a comprehensive skill system, nor is absence of said skill system missed.

The Fantasy Trip should definitely be on the list.

Probably Rolemaster as well.

I'm trying to articulate a reason why C&S shouldn't be on the list. Actually, I don't know the game very well, but it seems like an early branch out from the adventure-oriented game that I think of as truly old-school.

I've got to put the FGU games on there. They were unified only in that they epitomized to me what it is I think of when I hear "old school."

Arduin is old school.

There's a book that came out--I didn't use it much--it came out in 80 or 81 and it was ubiquitous in $1.00 bins for years after that, like "Frampton Comes Alive." It was The Highest Level of All Fantasy Wargaming, by Bruce Galloway. It was very, very whatever it is we call old-school.

GURPS 2nd edition :) it epotomizes old school for me

i'll second top secret.  i never played the other, "s.i." or whatever edition.  

and the cutoff definitely has to be late 80's.  

the latest version of d&d (in this category) would be ad&d 1, or basic/expert.  even RC is too late.

"core" old school?  I think the original list is a bit off.

-D&D (OD&D/Basic D&D/AD&D 1st)
-Traveller
-CoC
-V&V

I think that does it as the core.  Most early old school games were just dirivitives of these groundbrakers.  Sure, other games had cool inovations (I mean, what game didn't in the earliest days of the hobby).  But if you had to form a "core" the above list ould about do it IMHO.

Never played "Aftermath", but it feels like it's missing.  Likewise "Metamorphosis Alpha".

Quote from: whiteyfatsGURPS 2nd edition :) it epotomizes old school for me

Original GURPS came out around 1985. So, if your cutoff is mid-1986 it just gets in there.


 What about CHAMPIONS?  Either that or Villans & Vigilantes I remember as the first superhero RPG that anybody was talking about around that time....CHAMPIONS always seemed to be the better or more popular of the two.


- Ed C.

Yea, Champions needs in, as well as Metamorphosis Alpha.

And I'd have to throw in GURPS 1st. Still have my box somewhere.

I guess I missunderstood the point of the thread, because people are just throwing out anything that came before 1990.  I have a copy of Heroic Worlds if everyon wants a list of everything in the book.

Actually I stopped when I was going to throw in C&S and T&T and Jorune. I stopped at what I thought should be added.

To me MA was the game I lusted after and only played Gamma World because it was a derivative.

Champions cause, well, cause.

GURPS cause I'm an addict.

Where's the Marvel Superheroes love?

Quote from: StuartWhere's the Marvel Superheroes love?

comeon!  OLD SCHOOL!

What the heck does FASERIP have to do with old school?  Revolutionary color coded table, unified mechanic, streamlined rules, clearly writen instructions...need I go on?

Quote from: darGURPS cause I'm an addict.

Gurps is a refined version of an actual old school game, tFT...being refinded knocks it right off the old school list IMHO.

My new mission, to rip apart every game on this thread!

Just kidding ;)

Quote from: grubmanstreamlined rules, clearly writen instructions...need I go on?

That IS the old school...

:haw:

Quote from: grubmanGurps is a refined version of an actual old school game, tFT...being refinded knocks it right off the old school list IMHO.

My new mission, to rip apart every game on this thread!

Just kidding ;)

NOPE, 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.

I wonder if the criteria "it came in a boxed set" defines old school. Are there any "core" old school games (besides AD&D) that didn't come in a boxed set?

I say....Palladium anything.

Quote from: WilI wonder if the criteria "it came in a boxed set" defines old school. Are there any "core" old school games (besides AD&D) that didn't come in a boxed set?

Neither Runequest nor TFT. Bits of TFT came in separate boxed sets, but the most roleplayingest version came just as three thin 8.5x11 books.

Ysgarth also was just books, no box, although I wouldn't call it "core". Same applies to High Fantasy.

Quote from: Elliot WilenNeither Runequest nor TFT. Bits of TFT came in separate boxed sets, but the most roleplayingest version came just as three thin 8.5x11 books.

Ysgarth also was just books, no box, although I wouldn't call it "core". Same applies to High Fantasy.

You mean like this (http://cgi.ebay.com/Runequest-Second-Edition-Boxed-Set-Rare_W0QQitemZ260172012514QQihZ016QQcategoryZ1183QQcmdZViewItem) for Runequest? Runequest may have had some non-boxed books (such as the original hardback) but it had plenty of boxed products. While I concede that TFT had no boxed set, there were plans for one and Melee and Wizard both came in pocket boxes originally. Boxed sets are very much "old school"

Yeah, I referred to the Melee and & Wizard boxed sets above.

Had no idea about the RQ boxed set; I bought my copy of RQ2 new as just the paperback manual.

With that I suppose rephrasing the criterion as "came in a boxed set, even if it also came as non-boxed books" is a pretty good first-pass.

See, I came at RPGs in the late '70s/early '80s from playing numerous pocket box games, as well as games like Panzer Blitz and Panzer Leader with my dad (as well as old SSI games such as Eastern Front). To me, boxed sets are pretty much the definition of old school and you'll find that even games that did not have their core books in boxed sets (such as AD&D) still heavily featured boxed sets for expansions.

Yep, I began with the same stuff, but somehow my RPG buying patterns didn't have such a clear pattern of boxes. Or I'm just forgetting.

I STILL have the box from my GURPS 1st edition boxed set - I store cardboard heroes in it these days.


- Ed C.

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!

You can slice this "old School" pie nearly anyway you like, really.  I'd agree that my gut tells me neither Vampire nor AD&D 2nd edition are old school.  But I can point to people online who think 2nd edition Boot Hill is new school because it came in a fancy schmancy fullsize box, or that Gamma World is new school because it is a refinement of ideas originating in Metamorphosis Alpha.  Personally, I look to the period before big chain stores carried D&D as the era of the Old School.  That matches up pretty well with the games of the 70's, as I'm pretty sure Kaybee Toys, Toys R Us, and Kmart started carrying D&D stuff with the '81 boxed set.  So looking strictly at the 70s, what are the key games?  Off the cuff I'd say D&D, Traveller, Runequest, and T&T are most influential in terms of design.

looking at ian's list (and going with IMO) i'd put the cut-off at '84.

Quote from: RPGPunditThe 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.

That is a great top 15 list.  I'm with Pundit on this one, I can't believe any serious gamer would exclude DnD from the list.  Also, while Judges Guild didn't make a game per se, IMO their material for DnD epitomizes "old school".  I might add EPT to the list since it was the second RPG I ever purchased (after white box DnD) but since it used the same mechanics as DnD I don't know if it rates separate billing.

Rigour, people, rigour!

There´s obviously different eras of Roleplaying.
As it is blatantly clear, old-school is dichotomic term, that is of no help whatsoever when a LIST of games is discussed.
The power of binary variables is rather limited.

We´d need at least an ordinally scaled variable, a ranking, if you will.
Better though to categorize along qualitive lines and then sub-differentiate according to year of publishing.

Or you first stratify by publishing date, and then you draw lines of tradition/innovation through the eons of roleplaying connecting the ages of the Enlightened with the ages of the bland and finally the age of the downfall and corruption of American audience taste.

*SWOON*  TW boxed set....i'm so jealous. :deflated:

That list sounds about right to me.  That would be my personal list of "core old school games" right there. (without adding Bunnies & Burrows, which is ridiculously niche...and maybe I'd toss in Gamma World, too.  Just lost that 1st ed. boxed set twice within the last week on eBay :mad: )

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaHey, 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!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaMan.  Adventures in Fantasy?  Does anyone even remember that game?

According to John Kim's site, it was by Arneson and some other collaborator(s), which jogged my memory. IIRC, it was printed with a different color for each of the then-standard three books, i.e. the typeface in one book was red against a white background. In itself this made the game virtually unplayable (I guess nobody thought it was worth photocopying it.)

I sold my copy of AiF recently.  It struck me as bone dry fantasy at its most vanilla and least interesting.  The earlier JG-published Arneson work First Fantasy Campaign is much less coherent but also a lot more fun.

El, the collaborator was Richard Snider, he of Powers & Perils. And E. Gary did his own game in that vein, Dangerous Journeys. Both he and Arneson have said the design principle was to put in every rule they could think of.

Which leads me again to stress the point: very soon after the '70s Big Bang, game design de-differentiated itself at speed of light in a number of directions such that sometime in the very early '80s already Old School becomes a nigh-amorphous term.

I'll make my list based on what me and my friends played, and talked about. I was born in 76 - so I evidently missed out on the "real" old skool stuff while I was busy getting old enough to read.

FANTASY:

- D&D: AD&D, and basic boxed sets (79, boxed set was my intro) We dabbled with AD&D, but the basic sets got all the real play
- RuneQuest 3rd (way too fiddly for us - little to no play)
- MERP (Too chart heavy and fiddly, but being able to kill anyone with one good hit of a sword was a revelation, and is now something I look for in every game.)

SCI FI:

- Traveller (had ALL the supplements)
- Star Frontiers (but, this one got way more play)

SUPERHEROES:

- Champions
- Marvel Super heroes

Played both with a slight edge to champions

MODERN:

- James Bond 007 (some interest, the big bidding chart make our heads hurt. Very little play.

- Top Secret S/I  (This game was the shit, with Manuel the Invincible Hitman.(From, err... South America!)
Like Jaws in James bond, you thought you killed him, but then again, you didn't see the body...

HORROR/SUPERNATURAL:

- Ghostbusters 1st. ed (Yes, we are Gods.)


That's my "old" school list...


The "later" years:

The last few Years of play before an involuntary 10 year hiatus from the hobby.

- Cyberpunk 2020  (good stuff, going full auto on corprate security was just good clean fun.)

- Star Wars d6 1st ed. (fast and fun only a few games though :(   )

- Vampire the Masquerade (just the GM and Players guide, and that's all we needed.)

Heard of and played a little Shadowrun - But what are the elves/dwarves/orks doing in my Cyberpunk??? The Fuck. But hey, it was a hit. What do I know.


.

I'll throw in:

• D&D (B/X, BECMI)
• AD&D
• Star Frontiers
• Marvel Super Heroes
• Gamma World
• Traveller
• Runequest 2
• Call of Cthulhu
• MERP
• WEG Star Wars
• Palladium Fantasy
• GURPS
• Champions

I'm pretty confident that if you throw this list at that nebulous group of people who fall between "casual gamer" and "grognard" ends of the spectrum, they'll recognize each and every single game on there, if by name only.  That's always been my personal, functional definition of "core".

And I don't want to start a new thread on this, but I was always under the impression that the publication of the first Dragonlance series of adventures was the clear and undisputed border that separated the old school and the new school.

I think the only time when you have a distinct single "old school" is prior to the eighties.  i.e. D&D, AD&D, Traveller, RuneQuest.  The changes from the 70s to the 80s were at least as significant as the 80s to the 90s.  

Really, I think in many ways the 90s were less of a change than the variety that we saw in the 80s.  

The 80s brought a wide variety to games, ranging from Toon and Teenagers from Outer Space to ultra-realistic simulation like Aftermath and HarnMaster.  Story focus had already been broached by the Dragonlance series followed by games like Call of Cthulhu, James Bond 007, Star Wars, Ars Magica, and Pendragon.  The 90s brought dice-pools, darker PCs, and a narrower trend around how to treat story.  

Quote from: PeteAnd I don't want to start a new thread on this, but I was always under the impression that the publication of the first Dragonlance series of adventures was the clear and undisputed border that separated the old school and the new school.

That would be mid-eighties, 1984 being the start of the release.  I would tend to agree with that as an important transitional point for story focus, but I think there was more to the RPG scene than just two schools.

Basically with John on this stuff. The big moments of change came with Runequest I/II (1978/1980), Champions (1981), and Paranoia/James Bond 007 (1983/4). The first, like In the Labyrinth, is arguably still an old-school game, at the end of the first great wave; the latter two are not, and open up important new 'waves' in game design that really permanently changed a lot of things about the hobby.

John's also right that there were different play approaches before 1980 but by the time you get to the mid-eighties the diversity of system and ways people are playing the systems is so great there's not much left of what I'd consider to be the 'old school' any more.

i'd drop MERP and WEG star wars off the lists, just because i'd consider anything licensed to no longer be "old school."

that, and the broad-spectrum push of dragonlance, is absolutely "new school" as well.

i guess the turn of the 70s/80s would be our benchmark, then?  makes sense to me.

Well, while I indicated up-thread that the big change for Chaosium came when it licensed RQIII out to Avalon Hill for the 1984 release, really they began to depart from "old school" with anything non-RQ.  As John indicated, this first step out of the prevailing course is Call of Cthulhu in 1981.  And I'd forgotten about James Bond 007 from Victory Games.  I'm comfortable rolling the date back to about 1980-81, which is about the time that I really began to notice that companies were releasing games dealing with genres other than Sci-Fi and fantasy.

!i!

CoC's an interesting case because its original design imperative is directedly anti-old-school. Just for its success in this it's arguably the most theoretically important RPG ever, and yet the negative demonstration always remains more deeply connected to what came before it than the things which emerge freely into the space opened up by it.

Quote from: CalithenaCoC's an interesting case because its original design imperative is directedly anti-old-school. Just for its success in this it's arguably the most theoretically important RPG ever, and yet the negative demonstration always remains more deeply connected to what came before it than the things which emerge freely into the space opened up by it.

bwa?  in english, this time? :confused:

I'd accept 1980-81 as a demarcation line, more so to include The Fantasy Trip.  If SJ hadn't taken so long to write the thing up he could have beat a 1979-1980 cut-off (5 years from D&D's first release).

I like the idea of a date, versus style of game.  The early date conveying more a sense of the beginnings of the RPG movement and hence "old-school" in the more popular hip-hop sense.

1980 is the demarcation line, though of course you'll find people coming up with old-school games and in an old-school style even today.

Quote from: XantherI'd accept 1980-81 as a demarcation line, more so to include The Fantasy Trip.  If SJ hadn't taken so long to write the thing up he could have beat a 1979-1980 cut-off (5 years from D&D's first release).

I like the idea of a date, versus style of game.  The early date conveying more a sense of the beginnings of the RPG movement and hence "old-school" in the more popular hip-hop sense.

Yeah, but even once you start drawing arbitrary demarcations like date, you can still look back and find elements of style in common anyway, and even then the lines start to blur when you talk about newer stuff with older feel.

To use your hip-hop example, Jurassic 5 have a decidedly, and deliberately old-school sound to them, but while many of the guys have been in music for a long time, they only really got wide attention in the 2000's.

Given this cacophony, it may be useful to try and define, not old school for once, but, uh, middle school. 1981 to 1990. Games before Vampire which weren't just precursors of this and that or refinements of the other thing but which were original and awesome in their own right.

So, for once, NOT James Bond as precursor of movie gaming, or C&S as the better D&D. But rather, games that worked in and of THEMSELVES, and whose in-and-of-themselvesness has meanwhile been buried by too much focus on old and new schools alike.

I think the fact that Balbinus used the word "core" pretty much requires old-school by date categorization.  I mean you don't get much older-school at heart than Aces & Eights these days, but I wouldn't be throwing it on any core old-school lists due to the fact that it was only released a few months ago.

Pierce -

The big developments in the eighties as I saw them were

1) The universal RPG - GURPS coming out of Champions/HERO, many others.

2) The highly focused setting RPG - Paranoia, James Bond, Toon, Ghostbusters, Ars Magica, etc.

Both of these were new ways of doing things in the post-old-school period. Prior to that almost everything was a broader genre RPG - Bunnies & Burrows and CoC being partial exceptions perhaps, but still.

Quote from: beeberbwa?  in english, this time? :confused:

What Cal's saying is, CoC differed strongly from what came before, and was a trend-setter for what came after. How, exactly? Following the post above, I'd suggest focus on a fairly narrow type of scenario. And, what is almost but not quite the same thing, focus on a very different type of scenario than what might be considered the default for previous games. While I don't know CoC much at all, I don't get the impression that the broad arc of game play is a sort of mythic wandering--the elaboration of character and setting which unified games as different as D&D and Traveller.

CoC permanently put the skewer in a bunch of ideas generally shared about RPGs up to that time. One big one was that long-term identification with the character and/or its improvement was at all necessary for fun play. Another, maybe even bigger, was the idea that character death was supposed to be experienced as a bad thing by the player - breaking down ego-identification with the in-game token. Not that these things suddenly became bad or wrong, just that before CoC it hadn't clearly been experienced (by a lot of people anyway) that it could be some other way.

The reversal did however come in the context of a traditional second wave, BRP driven system and adventures that involved perilous scenes of action and/or sanity assault, meaning that when the rubber hit the road play did in fact resemble most other games of the time, except that you went into it fully expecting to die or go insane, and that was part of the fun (as opposed to high-lethality D&D, where it was something to be avoided).

The longer one thinks about it the longer CoC is quite the unique entity. There's PC lethality, but on the other hand there's the model of campaign-length play, which was introduced into gaming, on a systematic basis anyway, for CoC (Shadows of Yog-Sothoth and after).

So you have a game in which your individual characters may die easily but your games last a long while. There's plot continuity, but the protagonists change all the time.

Tunnels & Trolls and Monsters! Mopnsters! are way earlier examples of D&D reversals, although a lot more obvious in their counterpointyness.

OK, I admit I had to check the rpg.net index for that Monsters thing. Love the cover!

Sett,

I get what you're saying about Monsters, Monsters, but I don't see as how that reversal is as conceptually important. I don't understand how you think T&T is doing this.

Pierce,

Actually, I think that all the campaign stuff that grew up later with CoC is more a function of the fact that 90% of non-dungeon-crawling gamers do essentially the same thing with all RPGs, and they did it with CoC too. Not to say that your possible configuration didn't also happen though.