Quote from: NathanIW;846574What do you think about the Swords & Wizardry rules for jumping?

Those are fine as well. You can't make rules for EVERYTHING. You'd go insane and trying results in stupid shit like there being different DCs for tumbling over even vs. uneven flagstones in 3.5ed.

The rules that S&W has are good rules. 3.5ed jumping rules are good. Lots of other 3.5ed rules are shit.

Quote from: Simlasa;846517I agree that signposts are very important... but I think there are lots of ways to do that besides predictable dungeon levels and monsters. If the orc lair has a lot of heads on posts outside and some of them are still recognizable as some seriously tough guys you met in a previous session... you might think twice about whether these are just your average pie-loving orcs.

That's not old school, though. That's building a story, around protagonists.

I think one of the most basic old school principles is the world doesn't care. Your PC is not guaranteed to be a hero, and you don't get any special breaks. The setting keeps on going, regardless of what the PCs do. It doesn't change just to accommodate them, so the world won't contort to ensure that heads of monsters who somehow survived a previous encounter are in place to warn the PCs before they face an even tougher threat.

And I also find those intangible signals never translate well. I've seen it too many times -- a DM is sure they've (repeatedly) warned the players that the upcoming threat is out of their league or dangerous, but after everyone is killed the players are like "well, that came out of the blue."

And that's not the players' fault. Because it's not player skill, it's just miscommunication. The DM is the players' eyes, ears, and other senses. Flavor text is subjective, and trying and failing to convey a message in such an oblique manner is on the DM's head. It's roughly equivalent to "you forgot to say you were pulling up your pants, so you fall down".

On the other hand, dungeon level and monster type are fairly concrete and they're both tied to game stats (wandering monster tables by level, and the stat block, respectively). As long as the DM is consistent, they're reliable markers, and they don't rely on the players successfully deciphering what the DM is saying between the lines.

Quote from: NathanIW;846568I think there's a more common form of danger signal that shows up.  A seriously deadly attack or effect that catches the players off guard and tells them they are out of their depth.  Like if they go deep into a dungeon and the first creature they encounter reduces one of the characters to ash with a gout of fire.  Character death can be a danger signal to the entire group of players.  

Monsters that are nearly invincible to the player's attacks can also be a danger signal.  A powerful attack bouncing off a good AC or a non-magical weapon proving useless against a creature can also be danger signals on the defensive side of things.

If you have kill off a PC, it can't be common.

But I think it's an excellent warning, that ties into monster type. Because that's the real threat in old school D&D -- the unknown. If you don't know what you're facing, it should be fucking scary. Swords bouncing off a rat, or lanky green thing shredding a PC with claws and teeth?

That's awesome. The terror of the unknown, and encountering something new and wondrous (and terrifying).

But it only happens once. And after they run into their first troll, they'll know what they're facing the next time they seem something green, thin, shambly, and droopy-nosed in the distance. And that's part of the fun, too. Learning how the world works.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;846539But having every level be magically a set difficulty destroys it too.

Are you familiar with the wandering monster charts, by level?

Dungeon level isn't a perfect indicator. It's always possible to roll up a troll on the 3rd level of a dungeon. So deaths will happen. But it gives the players a tool they can use routinely to forestall death.

Quote from: Pat;846582That's not old school, though. That's building a story, around protagonists.

I think one of the most basic old school principles is the world doesn't care. Your PC is not guaranteed to be a hero, and you don't get any special breaks. The setting keeps on going, regardless of what the PCs do. It doesn't change just to accommodate them, so the world won't contort to ensure that heads of monsters who somehow survived a previous encounter are in place to warn the PCs before they face an even tougher threat.

I see your meaning and I agree... I left out the backstory of how the heads got there which was obvious to the Players when they encountered them. Basically a competing group of adventurers who'd already beaten them to the punch a few time earlier.
The heads would have been there regardless of whether the PCs went to the cave or not. Only at that cave, they're not quantum totems of warning.
I still prefer signals like that, as Player and GM, over assumptions about what level a monster is or how dangerous a level of a dungeon might be. Yeah, people miss them sometimes... in which case they might have to flee from a battle they can't win. I like it when that happens sometimes as well.

Quote from: Simlasa;846594I see your meaning and I agree... I left out the backstory of how the heads got there which was obvious to the Players when they encountered them. Basically a competing group of adventurers who'd already beaten them to the punch a few time earlier.
The heads would have been there regardless of whether the PCs went to the cave or not. Only at that cave, they're not quantum totems of warning.
I still prefer signals like that, as Player and GM, over assumptions about what level a monster is or how dangerous a level of a dungeon might be. Yeah, people miss them sometimes... in which case they might have to flee from a battle they can't win. I like it when that happens sometimes as well.

Yes, that's definitely a different approach. I'm okay if it comes up naturally, but I don't want to build it in, or rely on it.

I see level (dungeon and monster) as a dial that allows players to set the difficulty rating. It's up to them, and I want them to have that control because it means I don't have feed them a steady diet of appropriate challenges. And I don't want to do that, because it removes one way they can make decisions that matter.

Quote from: Pat;846612I see level (dungeon and monster) as a dial that allows players to set the difficulty rating.

I think it's still there even if I do stick in a puppy level... because deeper is further... further you're going to have to make your way back out of, possibly wounded and low on resources. Just like heading out of the city and out into the wilderness is accepting certain difficulties that you wouldn't have had if you'd stayed at home or on well-traveled roads.

Quote from: Pat;846582If you have kill off a PC, it can't be common.

Yeah.  A sufficiently ferocious non lethal attack can also do.

QuoteBut I think it's an excellent warning, that ties into monster type. Because that's the real threat in old school D&D -- the unknown. If you don't know what you're facing, it should be fucking scary.

One thing I've been doing for quite some time is to not use any normal monsters.  If I'm going to have something that's like an orc, I'll take a random mutation table from somewhere and apply a trait or two.  To the point where the strange ends up being the centre of the description.  For example, what about a skinless corpse floating an inch off the ground like it is hanging from an invisible noose.  It floats rapidly towards you and only when it is near enough to strike does it look at you and reach out to grab you.  No one is going to look back over 40 years of D&D and go, "that's a wight, break out the silver weapons."

Quote from: NathanIW;846564And yet people are consistently achieving the kind of play described in this thread as old school.  Some have never stopped going back decades.

Yup!  And as posts on this very site proves, they can do it with 5E.

I'm not saying it's impossible to capture a mood.  Especially for experienced DMs, they could probably do it with most systems.  It would not be particularly hard to run a game of Fate Accelerated with an old-school feel.  Hell, when I played it we were fairly close - we removed Fate Points and played that if you were "invoking" (which we narrowed to strictly getting an advantage over them) then you got +1, +2 max if you did it twice.  Remove Fate's signature lack of lethality by actually making stress levels kill you or inflict permanent injury that matters without the "knock out" stuff, and you're playing for real stakes.

Meanwhile I'm sure there's someone running Lamantations and fudging the die rolls or making poison do d6 damages rather than kill.

Quote from: RandallS;846503B) System mastery is not required. Players do not need to know the rules to play (and play well). They can simply describe what their character is doing in plain language (not gamespeak) and the GM will tell them the results of their action or what they need to roll.

D) The system mechanics are not purposely designed to be interesting for players to manipulate but to get out of the way so the stuff going on in the campaign is the center of attention. It's not about what mechanical features a character gets as the campaign progresses but about what the character does in the campaign.

Yes.

Quote from: Pat;846582I think one of the most basic old school principles is the world doesn't care. Your PC is not guaranteed to be a hero, and you don't get any special breaks. The setting keeps on going, regardless of what the PCs do.

And this. So much this. Even when WotC returns to a sandboxy, site-based adventure model, there's an overriding premise that D&D has to be heroic and heroism means saving world.

Quote from: Ravenswing;846579
The first gaming book I ever bought was D&D's first edition of Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes.  It was published in 1976.  The volume attempted, in part, to solve a common issue in gaming circles of that day, and this paragraph in the foreword explains that:

"This volume is something else, also: our last attempt to reach the 'Monty Hall' DM's.  Perhaps now some of the 'giveaway' campaigns will look as foolish as they truly are.  This is our last attempt to delineate the absurdity of 40+ level characters.  When Odin, the All-Father has only(?) 300 hit points, who can take a 44th level Lord seriously?"

Of course, we know what happened there: far from being deterred, the players aforementioned 40+ level characters chortled in delight, shouting "Whoa, the most powerful GODS only have 300 hit points?  LET'S KILL 'EM AND TAKE THEIR STUFF!"  And did.

:boohoo:

This is also true. One of my issues with the old-school revival is the shameless revisionism that its advocates employ. It's as though power-gaming and Monty Haul campaigns never existed, instead of being so commonplace that Gygax tore his hair out trying to combat it. 30th level fighters with 15th level henchmen, armed with +5 vorpal blades mowing down fire giants by the dozen, while their magic-user buddy waltzed around protected by a cube of force, letting his army of ogres do most of his fighting. In fact, I'd say that style of play (which my friends and I called 'fakey' D&D) was the most common style that I encountered in 1980-83, at the crest of the game's popularity. It was damned awkward when two players showed up to the game who both had characters equipped with Thor's hammer. Read Day of the Dwarf from Dragon magazine (circa 1980) sometime, with the Cleric who has two golf-bags full of wands and staffs, a Paladin with seven holy swords, a gold dragon PC, and a PC who has a machine-gun. D&D was way more out-there than the OSR Taliban would have us believe.

Quote from: GreyICE;846754Yup!  And as posts on this very site proves, they can do it with 5E.

Definitely.  And I've enjoyed the article sseries on the topic as well.

QuoteI'm not saying it's impossible to capture a mood.  Especially for experienced DMs, they could probably do it with most systems.

I don't think it's a mood thing.  I think it's about actual concrete sstuff people are doing and not doing in real games.  And you can have the approach with multiple moods, tones, themes, styles, whatever.

 

QuoteIt would not be particularly hard to run a game of Fate Accelerated with an old-school feel.  Hell, when I played it we were fairly close - we removed Fate Points and played that if you were "invoking" (which we narrowed to strictly getting an advantage over them) then you got +1, +2 max if you did it twice.  Remove Fate's signature lack of lethality by actually making stress levels kill you or inflict permanent injury that matters without the "knock out" stuff, and you're playing for real stakes.

Yep.  All real things you did at the table to make the game how you wanted.

--

The biggest weakness of the term "old school" and its derivations like OSR is that it has come to exclude approaches to play that were around in the 70s.  Just think about that for a second.  An approach like RuneQuest's skills (they existed as house rules to D&D prior to being made into their own rules) or the kill the gods and take their stuff groups  that Ravenswing mentioned are all present very, very early.

I used to say that any definition of old school that excludes stuff from as early as that is stupid.  But that was me being stupid and not recognizing that definitions just describe how something is already being used in communication.  When we talk about "old school" or OSR, it's okay that it excludes things that are old but are different than what those using the terms are interested in.  It's about communication so people are on the same page and that's it.

Quote from: NathanIW;846771The biggest weakness of the term "old school" and its derivations like OSR is that it has come to exclude approaches to play that were around in the 70s.  Just think about that for a second.  An approach like RuneQuest's skills (they existed as house rules to D&D prior to being made into their own rules) or the kill the gods and take their stuff groups  that Ravenswing mentioned are all present very, very early.

That's because the OSR arose out of frustration with modern play styles, in particular the style fostered by 3E D&D. So anything old that was different from 3E was championed, while anything old that was similar to 3E (and other popular modern games) was ignored or suppressed. It's a kind of political revisionism that's more about defining identity and differences than recognizing and acknowledging the truth.

I noticed a shift when 4e came out and suddenly all these OSR proponents were all suddenly okay with Pathfinder.  It was hilarious.

Anyway, despite my favorite game from the 70s (RQ) not counting, I'm generally okay with the narrow definition for Old School or OSR because it is useful in immediately communicating what someone is talking about.

Quote from: NathanIW;846773I noticed a shift when 4e came out and suddenly all these OSR proponents were all suddenly okay with Pathfinder.  It was hilarious.

I wasn't. Pathfinder has the exact same problems 3.x (or, for that matter, 2e with the Player's option stuff or 4e) does for me. Combat takes far, far longer than I have any interest in, system mastery is still all but required and characters take far too long to create.

Hell, from my limited experience, 5e combat still takes longer than I am willing to put up with. And while 5e requires less system mastery than any version of D&D since plain 2e and BECMI/RC, it still requires more than I want at my table -- which is usually filled with causal gamers who have near zero-interest in reading rulebooks, let alone studying them enough to master the mechanics.

Quote from: RandallS;846775I wasn't. Pathfinder has the exact same problems 3.x (or, for that matter, 2e with the Player's option stuff or 4e) does for me. Combat takes far, far longer than I have any interest in, system mastery is still all but required and characters take far too long to create.

Me neither. I just found it funny how what is essentially the same game suddenly got a lot more acceptable when it wasn't WotC publishing it.  For those of us who were concerned about how it actually worked at the table, the "it's an underdog competing against big bad WotC" narrative was just silly.

QuoteHell, from my limited experience, 5e combat still takes longer than I am willing to put up with. And while 5e requires less system mastery than any version of D&D since plain 2e and BECMI/RC, it still requires more than I want at my table -- which is usually filled with causal gamers who have near zero-interest in reading rulebooks, let alone studying them enough to master the mechanics.

I think fast combat is likely a quality of old school gaming as well.  I don't even shift game modes to combat mode anymore.  I just describe what the monsters are doing, have the players describe what they do and resolve things in an order that makes sense.

Quote from: RandallS;846775I wasn't. Pathfinder has the exact same problems 3.x (or, for that matter, 2e with the Player's option stuff or 4e) does for me. Combat takes far, far longer than I have any interest in, system mastery is still all but required and characters take far too long to create.

I'd never claim Pathfinder is an OSR game but based on what I've experienced in our weekly group I can attest to it being run in an OSR manner... I have no 'rules mastery', I just say what I'm doing and the GM lets me know if I need to roll. He runs it as a sandbox and we've had our share of TPKs... new PCs roll up pretty fast (He's using Hero Lab). One guy at the table, our resident min-maxer and suspected cheat, occasionally grumbles that we're doing it wrong... that we should be playing like we're Navy Seals and grasping after every bonus we can get in combat... and we probably wouldn't make it through any official PF adventures as written... but the game he's describing doesn't sound like much fun and that's not how we play. Maybe that means we're not really playing Pathfinder, I don't know.

I admit it - I don't know what "OSR" means other than someone's concept of what they want to play.

As for the way my friends and I played back in the 70's, Point-buy was non-existent.  Coming to a game with a "character concept" was non-existent.

You came to a game with no expectations except the pitch the GM gave.  You role-played the character you rolled - that was a big part of the game.  You character could die at any time - that was part of it.  Getting to 5th level in D&D was doing well; 10th level was fantastic. And the GM was the final arbiter of the rules, although only bad ones changed these from session to session.