I found this link.

It defines old school rpg's with four different attributes:

• Simulation: Roots in wargames
• Strong central narrative: Default format
• Garage production values: Crafted by hobbyists
• Lack of conventional wisdom: Undefined target demographic

Out of these attributes are point 1 and 2 the most interesting I think. Point 3 and 4 have everything to do with amateurism and the fact RPG's were still in it's early phase. When the industry became professional those things were gone.

Point 1 is something I don't really miss. It's still the default for most fantasy RPG's even the modern ones. Point 2 is a broad description of what the characters do. For example in Cthulhu you investigate weird stuff, which is way above your pay grade and you end up dead or crazy.

So do modern RPG's differ so much from old school RPG's? And on what points?

Edit:

Also found this link.

Modern RPG's have the following attributes:

• Narrative structure is just as important as mechanics
• Unified mechanics instead of numerous special cases
• Options to depart from the central narrative
• A raised bar in terms of layout, graphics, and editing

So it looks like new RPG's are more streamlined, but also less focused.

Doesn't accurately reflect my experience. Just to take the very first point: hand someone red box bd&d and a copy of d&d 4th ed: which is more like a wargame?

Quote from: jan paparazzi;804518Simulation: Roots in wargames

Correct.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;804518Strong central narrative: Default format

If you define "central narrative" as "standard mode of play" (as the article does -- poor choice of words IMO), well, Vampire: the Masquerade 1e applies too. So does Shadowrun. And in both instances, even more so than, say, AD&D 1e or Classic Traveller.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;804518Garage production values: Crafted by hobbyists

Fair enough, though I'd offer DCC and LotFP (at very least) as counterpoints.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;804518Lack of conventional wisdom: Undefined target demographic

Utter bullshit. Fuck this guy and horse he rode on.

Quote from: The Butcher;804528.



Utter bullshit. Fuck this guy and horse he rode on.

Definitely agree with you about this point.

There's a difference between old, original role-playing games and old school role playing aka Old School Renaissance type role-playing as a hobby.

Quote from: Lynn;804542There's a difference between old, original role-playing games and old school role playing aka Old School Renaissance type role-playing as a hobby.

Right, and the emergence of "new schools" and their application specifically to D&D - not Chivalry & Sorcery, En Garde, Bunnies & Burrows, Traveller, RuneQuest, Champions, etc. - is what defined an even newer "old school" in opposition.

Quote from: Lynn;804542There's a difference between old, original role-playing games and old school role playing aka Old School Renaissance type role-playing as a hobby.

There absolutely may be, depending on how far back we're dialing this particular DeLorean.

Not that the article's author addresses it, natch.

In my experience, the most common problem with the "old school" label is that everybody seems to define "old school" as "stuff the people who introduced me to RPGs used to play" and we're left with a distinct universe of games lumped under the "old school" banner for each successive generation of gamers.

RPGs vary so much that you need to judge each on their own merits. For example Runequest 2nd edition, AD&D 1st edition, and Dungeons & Dragons are all "old school" but very different games.

The same with some newer concepts like narrative roleplaying. The 1st and 2nd edition of Runequest were heavily flavored with the myths and mores of Glorantha. Games like Chivalry & Sorcery tried to promote medieval realism. Nearly the whole of 2nd edition AD&D was filled with products catering to settings with grand narratives like Forgotten Realms, Birthright, etc.

What is true that RPG diversified and continue to diversify. For each major them, concept, or play style there are several alternatives for a gamer to choose from. Some popular, some not well known.

The use of old school roleplaying for marketing depends on who you are exactly talking about. The audience for Runequest is not the same as Classic Traveller nor it is the same as classic D&D. There is some overlap but the various communities and fanbases have their own distinct characteristics. There is no magic "old school" key that make marketing to these groups a successful aside from doing the grunt work of learning what they like and how they operate.

It's a D&D-centric thing, and the game of trying to label other old games "old school or not" is fatuous because there was no such 'school' back in the day. People made up stuff they found fun to play, and that was it.

The first 'school' I recall was the 'realism' fetish chatted up in promotion of C&S and RQ (with a riposte from Gygax in AD&D calling the conceit ludicrous in fantasy games).

Quote from: jan paparazzi;804518I found this link.

It defines old school rpg's with four different attributes:

• Simulation: Roots in wargames
• Strong central narrative: Default format
• Garage production values: Crafted by hobbyists
• Lack of conventional wisdom: Undefined target demographic

#2 isn't connected to old-school gaming. At best, it's a way to distinguish "universal" systems or later versions of D&D that tried to be closer to universal. And its definition of "strong central narrative" doesn't match what most people would think of when they heard that phrase; it makes me think more of tightly-focused indie RPGs, which are definitely not "old school".

#4 is nonsense. Basically, the writer of the article wanted to lump together all games published before a certain cut-off point, couldn't think of what theme united them all, so they defined "practically any theme" as a theme. "Old school games are old school because everyone did their own thing!"

#1 and #3 are closer to being accurate, but aren't. But that's a topic for later, maybe.

The source of pretty much all the problems behind the article is the mistaken belief that "old school" means "old". Outside of RPGs, "old school" refers to a way of doing things that is being challenged by a newer way of doing things... for example, I once tracked down an example from around the '20s or '30s exploring whether "old school Anglican" was identical to "high church" or merely overlap.

What makes the old school "old school" was the fact that some people objected to the way some of the original RPGs did things. The first proto-new school games came out within a few years of the originals. They were challenges to the old way of thinking, and the OSR, in turn, is a challenge of the new school. But some people have a lot of problems with the idea of any game challlenging the principals of other games.

There is no such thing as "old school"; there's only games that inspire nostalgia and those which do not.

Every time some moron tries to define the term "old school" I come to despise the term that much more.

Quote from: Omega;804588Every time some moron tries to define the term "old school" I come to despise the term that much more.

I think I know how you feel. We spend so much time arguing what's "old school" and what's not that we've reduced the label to a ragged, unindentifiable mess.

Which is why I like to be specific about my tastes. "I like RPGs with traditional mechanics and open-ended campaigns that don't follow a prederminate plot, set in worlds that respond to PCs' actions in a lifelike manner."

Sure, you can still poke holes in this, but I still think it's a hell of a lot more conductive to meaningful debate than "I like old school hurr durr".

Quote from: The Butcher;804566In my experience, the most common problem with the "old school" label is that everybody seems to define "old school" as "stuff the people who introduced me to RPGs used to play" and we're left with a distinct universe of games lumped under the "old school" banner for each successive generation of gamers.

That's true.

I think the real problem is that some people are hanging labels seemingly in an effort to define an evolution of games as something that replaces rather than co-exists, and not necessarily version successive ones, but also in quality and "right to exist".

The games are only progressive in a linear way based on how the companies originally sold them, 1st, 2nd, 3rd editions, etc, rather than how gamers actually play these games, which treats various "editions" as standalone games in their own right.

Quote from: The Butcher;804566In my experience, the most common problem with the "old school" label is that everybody seems to define "old school" as "stuff the people who introduced me to RPGs used to play" and we're left with a distinct universe of games lumped under the "old school" banner for each successive generation of gamers.

That's been my longstanding assertion.  These are the definitions I've been using for years:

Old School: That which was standard practice (or what I thought to be "standard practice," or how people at my school gaming club played, anyway) the month I discovered the hobby.

New School: Any way of doing things popularized starting about 9-18 months later, most of which is crap.

Ancient History: Anything people did before I discovered the year before I discovered the hobby, of which I will only begrudgingly acknowledge the existence if someone flashes me a publication date, most of which is crap.

What really is Old School/New School?  Honestly, I believe the serious advocates first decide whether "Old School" or "New School" is the side they want to pick, based either on the "lame geezer antique/modern, hip, cool" or the "first & greatest/all glitz no substance newbie crap" dichotomies. The games and styles they like are slotted into the one side, the garbage they dislike into the other, and a gentlemen's agreement is made to ignore the dozens of games contradicting the premise on the wrong side of the agreed-upon date. Voila.