Quote from: Old Geezer;789744I do not want this to devolve into yet another God damned fucking stupid ass argument over stats.

Stats in OD&D are neither totally irrelevant nor totally dominant.

Deal with it.  There is this little thing called "nuance" you may want to consider.

Now shut the fuck up about it.

For fuck's sake. Stats are always relevant. Without stats, you don't have game mechanics. Without game mechanics, you don't have a game. Instead, you have a group of fatbeards circle-jerking each other around a table....telling each other stories.

Without at least semi-solid game mechanics, player agency is an illusion.

"Mother May I" is not a fucking game; it's an exercise in fellating the DM.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;789800For fuck's sake. Stats are always relevant. Without stats, you don't have game mechanics. Without game mechanics, you don't have a game. Instead, you have a group of fatbeards circle-jerking each other around a table....telling each other stories.

Without at least semi-solid game mechanics, player agency is an illusion.

"Mother May I" is not a fucking game; it's an exercise in fellating the DM.

Stats ARE less relevant in OD&D, since mods are smaller. The mechanics are less dependent on folk running around with their penis-envy 16 (+3)'s in every stat. Let's face it -- player agency in a game with a narrator/ref is always gonna be an illusion. You're not gonna do a goddamn thing the GM doesn't allow you to do, either way. It's ALL "mother, may I." Any decent GM can take player agency and funnel it right where they want it to go. Now, if a player REALLY doesn't want to answer to anyone, they should play a board game, say, Carcasonne. Then they won't have to ask permission to play a tile somewhere, or answer to anyone (well, outside answering to the rules set, which, evidently is "who"  a pretentious twat like that would rather have running their game anyway).

Quote from: cranebump;789806Stats ARE less relevant in OD&D, since mods are smaller. The mechanics are less dependent on folk running around with their penis-envy 16 (+3)'s in every stat. Let's face it -- player agency in a game with a narrator/ref is always gonna be an illusion. You're not gonna do a goddamn thing the GM doesn't allow you to do, either way. It's ALL "mother, may I." Any decent GM can take player agency and funnel it right where they want it to go. Now, if a player REALLY doesn't want to answer to anyone, they should play a board game, say, Carcasonne. Then they won't have to ask permission to play a tile somewhere, or answer to anyone (well, outside answering to the rules set, which, evidently is "who"  a pretentious twat like that would rather have running their game anyway).

And this is why OD&D is utterly useless to my needs as either a DM or player. I find that game boring beyond all earthly belief, and the quasi-game mechanics it possesses do not simulate the "reality" I desire, nor does it enable the player agency that I want it to.

Maybe OD&D plays better than it reads, but it reads awful. I could be biased by the shitty art and layout, but probably not. I'd be open to playing in an OD&D game, but I would never DM it.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;789809And this is why OD&D is utterly useless to my needs as either a DM or player. I find that game boring beyond all earthly belief, and the quasi-game mechanics it possesses do not simulate the "reality" I desire, nor does it enable the player agency that I want it to.

Maybe OD&D plays better than it reads, but it reads awful. I could be biased by the shitty art and layout, but probably not. I'd be open to playing in an OD&D game, but I would never DM it.

In my experience, it's fun to DM UNLESS...I have players who expect everything to be resolved a dice roll, and they just can't get off that tack. Then I've got got problems. The players expect to have "23 ranks of skill X" instead of devising and executing a plan. They want their math to solve their problems, rather than their minds.  Because so much of old school game interaction isn't strictly mechanical. It's so non-mechanical that I'd argue agency for players is, in a sense, much greater than in a rigidly codified rules set (take 3.5, for instance), because players interact with the scenario more often, and make actual proposals, because they can't solve a problem with a dice roll (and, yeah, this approach may lead to "mother may I," but I'd rather have my GM's [who are also my friends] listen to me then make the call, rather than point to rule Z and go, "Nope!").

That's the beauty of it, when it works -- in the absence of a specific mechanic, human beings step in and think their way through it -- this may include some negotiation with the referee, sure. It may mean the ref throws a flag on me. But at least I'm playing with other folks and not the mathematical conundrums of weapon X with power Y with maneuver Z.  

Mind, I'm not saying this is YOUR preferred way of doing things. I'm just sort of free associating.

OD&D is a fantastic game — better at face value than pretty much anything that was created by re-writing it. And its formal rules are a blasted wasteland of nothingness mixed with (something often ignored by the philosopher kings of the OSR) bizarrely specific and mechanically complex bits. That is the dilemma.

Hating it is shallow. Deciding it is useless to you as a DM means you don't understand what it says outside of to hit modifiers and so hit points and so forth. Arguing it is a flawless gem is equally fatuous. And the notion that the DM was supposed to arbitrate all action is a good description of the traditional practice but not the content of the books. The books are filled with ridiculously arbitrary rules you are supposed to follow.

So, its a complicated subject. It is rare to hear anyone say anything specific and insightful about it. Which is odd given that it is essentially the original statement of the core idea of the hobby.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;789809And this is why OD&D is utterly useless to my needs as either a DM or player. I find that game boring beyond all earthly belief, and the quasi-game mechanics it possesses do not simulate the "reality" I desire, nor does it enable the player agency that I want it to.

Maybe OD&D plays better than it reads, but it reads awful. I could be biased by the shitty art and layout, but probably not. I'd be open to playing in an OD&D game, but I would never DM it.

People who can't understand a game written for grown ups shouldn't play it.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;789800For fuck's sake. Stats are always relevant. Without stats, you don't have game mechanics. Without game mechanics, you don't have a game. Instead, you have a group of fatbeards circle-jerking each other around a table....telling each other stories.

Without at least semi-solid game mechanics, player agency is an illusion.

"Mother May I" is not a fucking game; it's an exercise in fellating the DM.

The middle called, it feels bad because you're excluding it.

Quote from: Ladybird;789712...then the attributes wouldn't have much of an effect on the character anyway, regardless of if they were rolled or picked or just not bothered with.

The attributes may not have much of an effect on the mechanics of characters, but they can still have a massive effect on the characterization of characters. It also means that 18 strength and 8 int wizards (and vice versa for fighters) are just as viable as the reverse, which opens up classes to stat arrays, and therefore potential characterizations, that are never seen in newer versions of D&D because they aren't "viable" characters.

Quote from: apparition13;789848The attributes may not have much of an effect on the mechanics of characters, but they can still have a massive effect on the characterization of characters. It also means that 18 strength and 8 int wizards (and vice versa for fighters) are just as viable as the reverse, which opens up classes to stat arrays, and therefore potential characterizations, that are never seen in newer versions of D&D because they aren't "viable" characters.

This old argument always drives me batshit crazy because it is so obviously a rationalization for a badly written couple pages of rules.

Stats didn't exist at all in Chainmail - a perfectly playable game that is really little different from OD&D if you choose to play it that way. So, you should think of stats as a mechanical complexity no different from skills or feats or any other extra goo-gah that's been tacked onto the game since 1970-whatever. They are not essential pieces of a game having the structure of D&D.

So they should only be bothered with if they are useful in some way. As it stands, they don't really mean anything that couldn't have been covered by saying, 'think of some words that describe your character, like smart of strong or puny, and try to remember them'.

You don't have to be a build-a-bear tweeker to think it is stupid for a game to make you generate numerical stats that have no effect on the game. So, people make up rules for what they do. And so it begins...

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;789809And this is why OD&D is utterly useless to my needs as either a DM or player. I find that game boring beyond all earthly belief, and the quasi-game mechanics it possesses do not simulate the "reality" I desire, nor does it enable the player agency that I want it to.

Maybe OD&D plays better than it reads, but it reads awful. I could be biased by the shitty art and layout, but probably not. I'd be open to playing in an OD&D game, but I would never DM it.

I'm curious as to how you define player agency.

For myself, OD&D provides some of the best player agency to be found in rpgs. I measure player agency by the amount of impact my decisions at the table during actual play have on the game. OD&D features few if any mathematical formulae for task resolution. This means that my input as player during the actual game matters quite a bit. I am engaged in the game and interested in exploring the presented world because I can have an effect on it as a player.

In a 3.5 game which supposedly features greater player agency, I am less engaged with the game and more engaged with the mechanics. If, as a player, I know that everything comes down to the brass tacks of beating a target number with a roll, all my agency is bound up in character building, not actual play. Once all the factors have been synergized to maximize bonuses at what I want my character to excel in, my input as a player is largely done.

I can technically still engage with the setting but it has much less impact on actual events. That DC whatever is still staring you in the face and you must beat it in order for anything relevant to take place.

The player can easily be replaced with a die roller app.

Once my contributions at the table start to diminish in importance, my interest in what's going on follows soon after.

How again is player agency considered greater in such a game?

God damn it.

Since the stupid fucking "stats" argument appears to be going to happen anyway, here.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?633165-So&p=15784375#post15784375

Start at 662 and end at 719.  And if you want to continue to wave your dick around about stats, do it in that thread.

"All this has happened before, and it will all happen again."  -- J.M Barrie, Peter Pan

OG, quit beating around the bush and answer the goddamn question: do you like old assholes or not?

Quote from: Old Geezer;789825People who can't understand a game written for grown ups shouldn't play it.

  Should I start placing bets on whether it will be you or Pundit who issues the first "Convert to Old School, Leave the Hobby, or Die" fatwa?

Quote from: Old Geezer;789926Start at 662 and end at 719.  And if you want to continue to wave your dick around about stats, do it in that thread.

Too many dicks are banned from TBP. Create a new dick just to post there again? Nope, just as it was with Bewitched, you just can't switch dicks midstream.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;789933Should I start placing bets on whether it will be you or Pundit who issues the first "Convert to Old School, Leave the Hobby, or Die" fatwa?

Meh.  I don't care what people do around their own tables.  I care when people talk shit about a game I happen to like, especially when they put it in semi objective terms.

Some people don't like OD&D.  Then they probably shouldn't come into a thread talking about it.

1) Anybody who's been here for more than a few weeks and has the brains of a planarian knows I like OD&D.
2) I started this thread to talk about things I like.
3) This then would include OD&D.
4) If you don't like OD&D, why are you here?

Generic you, not specific you.