Quote from: T. Foster;369910and Victorian-era Kipling-style adventure (politically-incorrect white men kicking asses across colonial Asia and Africa).

Well, nearly, anyhow.

Quote from: One Horse Town;369925

Well, nearly, anyhow.

Heh, I'd never noticed that in your signature before. Is there any chance this game is going to have old-schoolish design aesthetics (i.e. what Elliot Wilen described as "feels like the designers also designed/played AH and SPI games in the 70s") or is it going to have point-buy char-gen and a universal resolution mechanic and "drama-enforcing" mechanics and all that other yucky stuff that's been endemic to most rpgs from the last 20 years or so?

Quote from: T. Foster;369926Heh, I'd never noticed that in your signature before. Is there any chance this game is going to have old-schoolish design aesthetics (i.e. what Elliot Wilen described as "feels like the designers also designed/played AH and SPI games in the 70s") or is it going to have point-buy char-gen and a universal resolution mechanic and "drama-enforcing" mechanics and all that other yucky stuff that's been endemic to most rpgs from the last 20 years or so?

There's a thread in the design & development forum (neglected for a while). Not much yet bar some ideas and the dice mechanic.

No drama-enforcing, although i am including Personality quirks, which seem to be endemic in the source material.

Quote from: Melan;369908I can't speak for anyone but myself, but when I saw that mockup, I began reaching for my wallet. :cool:

Sure, but the actual designs which have emerged are a mixed bag at best.

Xanther, I think you make a better point than you're giving yourself credit for. Surely the fact that Dragon Warriors has been brought back, after umpty-ump years, with its original name and by a corporate entity makes it no less a revival than Labyrinth Lord or Swords & Wizardry. And BTW, TFT has also been cloned, at least partially, via Legends of the Ancient World.

To me, TFT is quite old school, DW is too, probably. RQ, maybe (it's not as gonzo or metal as the core games). Whenever this issue comes up I point to Under the Moons of Zoon as a new game that looks old-school to me.

Basically people are right about the D&D-centrism, and they're right that it's basically a holdover of the D&D-centrism of the entire hobby. There are probably other reasons for the D&D-centrism, too, such as the desire for simplicity and customizability goes hand-in-hand with agreeing on a common set of core structures that everyone understands. It's not that everyone has to do things the same way, but when you explain how your game works, it's easier for someone to grok it as a variant of D&D than as a whole new thing. ("In my game, I do away with demihumans but I introduce a bunch of new classes for each culture.")

Anyway, Foster, get cracking!

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;369930Anyway, Foster, get cracking!

You know that line estar is always saying about "those who do" vs. "those who talk"? I'm firmly in the latter group . I'm happy to talk about this shit and throw out idea-nuggets all day long, and can run pretty good (or so people tell me) sessions for a half-dozen strangers either using a published module or completely on the fly, but when it comes down putting ideas onto paper in something resembling professional-quality or publishable format, it ain't gonna happen. I'm too lazy, too undisciplined, and there's too little incentive involved. I'd much rather try to inspire other folks (suckers like wheggi and Matt Finch ) to do the work instead.

P.S. You've still got the link the Sett's forum in your sig but if I click it I get a "Not Found" error. Is the forum defunct or has it just moved?

Thank you, I fixed the signature.

I'm not asking you to write a whole thing. Just a conceptual outline like you said upthread.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;369930Sure, but the actual designs which have emerged are a mixed bag at best.

With respect to Wanderer and Adventurer I'd have to agree, in that they are not how I would have done it, but I give them an A for effort.  But damn the mock-up of the Wanderer box was sweet.

QuoteXanther, I think you make a better point than you're giving yourself credit for. Surely the fact that Dragon Warriors has been brought back, after umpty-ump years, with its original name and by a corporate entity makes it no less a revival than Labyrinth Lord or Swords & Wizardry. And BTW, TFT has also been cloned, at least partially, via Legends of the Ancient World.

Since I'm feeling the TFT love in my older age there is also the Warrior & Wizard "clone" here http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dcsfz7gv_9gzdh7hdz&hl=en

QuoteTo me, TFT is quite old school, DW is too, probably. RQ, maybe (it's not as gonzo or metal as the core games). Whenever this issue comes up I point to Under the Moons of Zoon as a new game that looks old-school to me.

You won't get an argument from me.  To me old school is more a feel, an approach, rather than tied to the copyright date of the game.  One very new game, dice pool even, that has a real "made in the 70s feel" to me is Atomic Highway.  Barbarians of Lemuria also has that feel to me.  

QuoteBasically people are right about the D&D-centrism, and they're right that it's basically a holdover of the D&D-centrism of the entire hobby. There are probably other reasons for the D&D-centrism, too, such as the desire for simplicity and customizability goes hand-in-hand with agreeing on a common set of core structures that everyone understands. It's not that everyone has to do things the same way, but when you explain how your game works, it's easier for someone to grok it as a variant of D&D than as a whole new thing. ("In my game, I do away with demihumans but I introduce a bunch of new classes for each culture.")

I guess. Then why not call it a D&D Renaissance or something?  Is it a trademark thing?  Calling it Old School Renaissance makes it sounds more inclusive than it is appearing to be in practice.

I'd figure any game worth it's old school salt would be easy to grok since it's not so much about rules mastery but player acumen.  That is, plan wisely, react to the situation with cleverness, reason and insight, and you can win the day.  The rules are there to implement your good ideas, they are not your good ideas in and of themselves.  So good tactics and ideas are still good tactics and ideas whether you roll d20, 2d6 or 3d6, and your chance of success is based on class or skill.

Quote from: Xanther;370007I guess. Then why not call it a D&D Renaissance or something?  Is it a trademark thing?  Calling it Old School Renaissance makes it sounds more inclusive than it is appearing to be in practice.

June 25th 2005 an anonymous poster on the dragonfoot forum said

QuoteThe populatity of none d20 systems is again growing with WFRP selling second only to WoTs D&D. CoC and GURPS have also seen a slight revival in their market share. Compare this to the decrease in sales of d20 material over the last year (although still high). Over production and over stock is leading many online stores to slash prices. An old school renaissance could be on the horizon. C&C is ahead of the game for the moment but this won't remain the case for long. Already Green Ronin are toying with the idea of going rules lite and have put True20 out to RPG publishers for settings an ideas.

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=198322#p198322

If you do searches on Knights and Knaves, Dragonsfoot, and dated searches using Google you can see that it is sporadically used in 05, starts to spread in 06, and by 08 becoming used commonly.

T Foster is the next person to use it on Dragonsfoot.

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18879&p=335445&hilit=+Old+School+Renaissance+#p335445

So I guess he to blame.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;369956I'm not asking you to write a whole thing. Just a conceptual outline like you said upthread.

Well, first off I'd start with the chosen genre/style and do a lot of research reading books and watching movies and tv shows (but avoiding anything anime or manga even if it fits within the genre, because I know that style, or anything that even resembles it, is a huge and instant turn-off for the vast majority of my target audience) and making a big list of its tropes -- types of characters that appear as protagonists, types of characters that appear as villains, typical settings and locations, typical plots - setups, complications, and resolutions, expected level of violence, expected level of realism, and so on.

And then, after I'd gathered all of that together, I'd begin thinking about how to best make those elements work as a multiplayer + GM (trying to get all fancy or artsy and eliminate the traditional GM role would be an almost-guaranteed turnoff for the target audience) game. It needs to be something that allows for a team of at least 2 or 3 protagonists, it needs to be something that allows for continuous episodic campaign-type play with the same characters.  And it needs to be fast-moving with a lot of physical action -- not necessarily violence and killing (depending on the genre) but probably at least chases and overcoming physical obstacles and such -- even if the source-genre features a lot of more internal or cerebral stuff (solving puzzles, or having debates) that's not what the rules are going to be about, because I know that my target audience would rather handle that stuff ad-hoc at the player level (the player solves the puzzle, the players debate each other) rather than through some abstracted rules-mechanic. A lot of modern games love the notion that the same rules are used to resolve a debate or a cooking contest or a seduction as a gun or sword fight. That's not a selling point at all to my target audience -- if anything the opposite. They want all of those things to be handled differently under the rules (and at least some of them probably not to be handled at all and left to the judgment of the GM and interaction of the players).  

Something that most modern games do and that I would avoid is that they try to stay too faithful to the stories of their source material rather than just using the feel and tropes of it as inspiration for an action-based game. Books, movies, and tv shows aren't games, and vice versa, so they have different priorities, different narrative rules. In a game, for instance, it's pretty much assumed that the protagonists are going to be less competent than the protagonists in the source material, and are going to have a much higher chance of failing so rather than trying to add elements to make the characters seem more competent and reduce their chance of failure, just accept it. A session of this game won't exactly resemble a book, movie, or tv episode from the source genre in story, but it will look and feel recognizably close. It's not a Kipling story -- it's Kipling-like characters playing a game in a Kipling-like world.

So, once I've got a firm grasp on the tropes of my genre and have decided how to represent them in a (team-based, action-oriented) game, I start making up rules as seems appropriate. This will likely come as a surprise to a lot of outside observers of the old-school scene, but I can state with confidence that if I've got the aesthetics of the genre down and have got a solid basis for gameplay, that the actual mechanics are pretty much immaterial. Just make up whatever seems to fit the genre and gameplay experience you're after and don't worry if you're using d% or d20 or d6s or dice-pools, if you've got classes or skills, if you've got hit points or a wound-track system or something else -- as long as it fits the genre and the expected gameplay experience. There are a few things -- something that can be learned and taught fairly quickly (say 1 sentence to explain the basic premise, 2-3 minutes to explain the basics of how to play, 15 minutes to generate a character) is preferable; not a lot of variables and record-keeping required for the characters (ideally they shouldn't need more than one side of a single sheet of notebook paper -- though perhaps use of optional or advanced rules might break that); some random element to char-gen (not point-buy) but not so much that players are going to get stuck with entirely unsympathetic characters (unless the expected character-turnover rate is really high -- if there's a good chance the character isn't going to last more than a second or two it can be almost entirely random, but if it's more likely a well-played character will be sticking around for a few months then the player needs more input); combat that moves quickly and ideally can be done without a visual representation -- definitely nothing that requires counting out squares and reach effects and stuff -- we're going for a visceral emotional experience rather than a dispassionate intellectual one -- but even these are more guidelines than immutable rules (which is, of course, another one -- that the game rules should probably be presented more in the spirit of guidelines than immutable rules).  

Production on the game-book itself doesn't need to be anything fancy -- a few pieces of art that fit with the genre/style (and have absolutely no recognizable anime/manga influence), that favor active scenes over characters posing like models. As long as the subject matter and aesthetic choices are "right" they don't need to be of particularly high (certainly not professional) quality. Layout can be completely plain as long as I make sure to minimize typos and weird formatting glitches. Tone should be straightforward but not dry and technical -- informal but not casual. No fiction interludes or pretentious epigrams or sidebars in which I talk about how clever or awesome I am. Ideally the game is complete in a single book of no more than 120pp -- there can be room for possible expansion, but no other books or purchases should be needed to play the basic game.

Once all that's done I have to make my target audience aware of the game and interested in it. This requires a very soft touch, because my target audience is very jaded and resistant to sales-techniques -- they've all been playing rpgs for ages, they've all bought games that sounded interesting and turned out to be crap, so a direct sales pitch isn't going to work, and is just likely to piss them off. Instead I just talk about my own positive experiences designing and playing the game and how happy I am with how it turned out. The first couple folks who express interest and I think are actually likely to play the game and talk about it get sent complimentary copies. I don't want to ram it down their throats but I want pretty constant low-level visibility so that it works its way into their subconscious and even if they haven't been paying attention, or even deliberately avoiding, talk about it they'll still recognize the name and that it's "that game T. Foster likes so much." My goal isn't to become anybody's primary game, but rather to make my way onto the short-list of alternatives -- so if someone feels like buying a game-book they'll consider buying mine. And once they have it, if an opportunity comes up where they're looking for something to play other than their primary game -- they want a little break from it, or they find themselves with a different mix of players from the usual, they'll consider playing my game instead. Maybe they'll just play it as a one-shot, but hopefully they'll like it enough that they'll want to continue with it at least for awhile.

Does this satisfy the requirements of the challenge or do I need to go into more specifics? I don't really want to do that, both because coming up with the specifics of how I would design a particular game is pretty much actually designing it (i.e. if I have to actually do the research about the genre and come up with the game-play paradigm in order to decide what the appropriate mechanics are to model it) and because I honestly don't think those specifics actually matter in the big picture -- that the high-level cross-genre conceptual points (use the traditional players + GM model, make it fast-moving and action-oriented, capture the feel and tropes of the genre rather than trying to exactly replicate the stories in it, don't use anime influences, don't try to market it through a hard-sell, etc.) are MUCH more crucial to ANY game's success or failure with this market than what type of dice it uses, whether it has classes or skills, what goes on the equipment price-lists (or whether there even are equipment price-lists, etc.).

Excellent, thanks. I was really hoping for a specific genre outline but even so I didn't expect the level of detail you've given.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;369930Basically people are right about the D&D-centrism, and they're right that it's basically a holdover of the D&D-centrism of the entire hobby. There are probably other reasons for the D&D-centrism, too, such as the desire for simplicity and customizability goes hand-in-hand with agreeing on a common set of core structures that everyone understands.

I wonder if it's because OSR creators are small-scale, mostly one-person operations. Therefore they can't adequately support their products themselves, and therefore they need to be compatible with others. Whereas a big company could make its own set of rules and bring out products for it as long as people kept buying them.

Anyway I was thinking about the idea of having adventures for non-fantasy, but related, genres, compatible with D&D. For example you could have a Victorian supplement with some relevant classes, rules for things like guns, and an adventure based around a lost city in the jungle. If you wanted to put the lost city into your D&D campaign it'd be easy, or you could use the Victorian classes and they could find a 'lost world' filled with dragons and dungeons.

Quote from: Age of Fable;370030Anyway I was thinking about the idea of having adventures for non-fantasy, but related, genres, compatible with D&D. For example you could have a Victorian supplement with some relevant classes, rules for things like guns, and an adventure based around a lost city in the jungle. If you wanted to put the lost city into your D&D campaign it'd be easy, or you could use the Victorian classes and they could find a 'lost world' filled with dragons and dungeons.

Something like this is already available, although it has a bit of a steampunk focus: Engines & Empires Campaign Compendium.

Quote from: flyingmice;369902No, so his game does not fit the OSR criteria, and it would be stupid to attempt to market to them. *I* have been saying this since the beginning of this thread - post #13, page 2. Pete realized this - by page 3 at the latest

Page 1, post 9 actually. I just failed my explanation check.

Quote from: Xanther;370007I guess. Then why not call it a D&D Renaissance or something?  Is it a trademark thing?  Calling it Old School Renaissance makes it sounds more inclusive than it is appearing to be in practice.l.

Yes. That was the misconception I had, which prompted this thread.

Pete

Quote from: flyingmice;369902No, so his game does not fit the OSR criteria, and it would be stupid to attempt to market to them. *I* have been saying this since the beginning of this thread - post #13, page 2. Pete realized this - by page 3 at the latest

Page 1, post 9 actually. I just failed my explanation check.

Quote from: Xanther;370007I guess. Then why not call it a D&D Renaissance or something?  Is it a trademark thing?  Calling it Old School Renaissance makes it sounds more inclusive than it is appearing to be in practice.l.

Yes. That was the misconception I had, which prompted this thread.

Pete

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;369289The percentile skills are the Thief stuff...hard to miss, but maybe easy to forget.

Saves BTW are another "pebble" in the conglomerate. Yes, they use a d20 but you need a completely different chart--it's quite different from to-hit.

I realize that's been simplified and regularized in some of the recent clones (S&W? C&C?) so that it could be seen as part of a generic base-bonus-plus-advancement approach. But originally they were separate.

I had forgotten about thief skills. I guess thinking back it's more the gameplay that makes it old school for me. The mechanics might not have been universal but the games played fast and smooth. The only page flipping I remember was with spells. That's basically the same feeling I get with Genrediversion and the D6 System, both of which feel very old school to me.

Pete