Old School Gaming ?


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Hi all just wondering what you think the name old school gaming means to you ?
Is it just a reference to how long someone's been gaming or do you think it describes a style of play.
Your thoughts please


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A style of play, or a method of play.

Kids these days want their numbers as big as possible and don't care what they have to sacrifice to get it, and seem to get bored of anything other than combat.

I see the numbers as secondary to pretty much everything else about the character, but still recognize the importance of those numbers, and enjoy all aspects of the game, not just combat.

*shrug*


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It's a style of play, though there is certainly a correlation with how long someone has been gaming. Old school D&D was generally more lethal and less customizeable (to include stats, races, magic items, etc.). People who prefer this style of play (to include myself), I would describe as "old school" regardless of their age.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

It really doesn't mean much of anything to me. Don't know anything about it.

Sovereign Court

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Old school to me means gaming playstyles and sensibilities of earlier editions of the game. Over the years and editions the game has evolved and game element focuses have changed for both designers and players. I think there are certainly queues that will help indicate if a person leans towards old school style or not.

Highly lethal games (save or die is A-ok)
Dungeon crawling survival focus
Combat as war
Rulings over rules

I believe 5E to be a pendulum swing back in the direction of many old school sensibilities. The interesting thing is how they reconcile those sensibilities with modern design and tastes. The game is still evolving and eventually the pendulum wing swing again towards a more combat as sport rudimentary rule system. Though along the way you really cant completely separate old from New.


I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
Nigrescence, I see what you see, but I really don't want to tar people with a single terrible brush based on mere age.

Hopefully you will understand that I say 'kids these days' as metaphorical (and honestly just jocular). Not physical age, rather, but how long they have been playing, or more precisely their maturity of play style. Completely new players can play very maturely, and people who have been playing well over a decade can be very immature in their play style. I've seen both.

Scarab Sages

Fair enough, I wasn't sure.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

A style of play that favors player knowledge and experience over character knowledge and experience. Wherein, the GM will often have to make up rules on the fly to adjudicate vast tracts of player choices, which can lead to an uneven, and often arbitrary experience.

Positive aspects of this style involve larger elements of trust of GMs and players, and a sense (real or imagined) of authenticity.


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Nigrescence wrote:

A style of play, or a method of play.

Kids these days want their numbers as big as possible and don't care what they have to sacrifice to get it, and seem to get bored of anything other than combat.

I see the numbers as secondary to pretty much everything else about the character, but still recognize the importance of those numbers, and enjoy all aspects of the game, not just combat.

*shrug*

I thought that old school was the meat grinder sort of play, where PCs dropped every session from unspeakably horrific deaths, Wizards died from a stiff breeze and had to track their bat poop on stone tablets, traps had none of this silly "take X damage" frivolity but just "save or die, b****". The sort of game where you didn't bother naming your PC for their first three levels, because it is a bad idea to form attachments to dead characters walking. The sort of play where looking into a statue's mouth puts your head into a sphere of annihilation, no save, and where getting off the cart at the tavern results in several broken bones because you need to stop the cart first, dumb***. You know, the way Gyngax intended*. None of this nonsense about "choice" or "point buys" or "Role-Playing". That gets in the way of the players learning the meaning of suffering and loss and getting crushed in hilariously unfair ways.

I guess that just goes to show that "Old School" means whatever the hell the person saying it wants it to mean, either as a pejorative or as a badge of supposed superiority.

*Yes, I know exactly how factually valid this statement is. The question is though, how many of this particular flavor of "old school" think that competitive tomb of horrors play is the way Gyngax wanted DMs to run their games in general.


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Snowblind wrote:
I thought that old school was the meat grinder sort of play, where PCs dropped every session from unspeakably horrific deaths, Wizards died from a stiff breeze and had to track their bat poop on stone tablets, traps had none of this silly "take X damage" frivolity but just "save or die, b****". The sort of game where you didn't bother naming your PC for their first three levels, because it is a bad idea to form attachments to dead characters walking. The sort of play where looking into a statue's mouth puts your head into a sphere of annihilation, no save, and where getting off the cart at the tavern results in several broken bones because you need to stop the cart first, dumb***. You know, the way Gyngax intended*. None of this nonsense about "choice" or "point buys" or "Role-Playing". That gets in the way of the players learning the meaning of suffering and loss and getting crushed in hilariously unfair ways.

Which made it all the more rewarding when your fun and interesting and flavorful character was able to survive. Also, I'm not sure I'd say PCs dropped EVERY session. But our GM back then wasn't afraid of killing us, and didn't hesitate to give an impossible scenario in front of us with hints at that, so that we had to find some other way around, or just avoid it entirely until another time, or become extremely clever and think of something, which the GM never anticipated, which actually surprisingly works.

Also, looking into a statue's mouth only puts your head into a sphere of annihilation if you STICK IT IN THERE to do it. There was at least some measure of fairness.

It was times like that when it mattered HOW you phrased you did something. One of my best memories was when another PC raced to get to the loot, not waiting for me, the Mage, to properly identify it. Well, the loot was a book. The PC said they were going to look through the book. The GM asked them to describe how they were doing that looking. The PC said they were just going to flip through all of the pages quickly. The book was a Book of Infinite Spells. It promptly vanished. My PC wept for the foolishness of the other. Anyone in the group could have taken advantage of it!

Fortunately the PC didn't take damage because they weren't attempting to read it, at least. The would have died if they did.

The GM giveth, and the GM taketh.


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To me, old school gaming can mean two things:
1) Rose colored glasses with a side of "get of my lawn". And I don't mean this in the context of just TTRPG, just about everything.
Everything new that's not good sucks and is a great sign of new = bad. Something old that sucked is just part of the charme/game/how gaming used to be before babies played games. Anything new that's really good actually comes from something old school and isn't really new. And anything remotely good from back in the day is uncontested.
Though this is just their vocal part, they probably play new games. They just make it harder for them selves to enjoy it.

2) Someone who isn't a hipster and can acknowledge flaws in both new and old from experience and who keeps best of both worlds around. While none-old school gamers won't really get into the old stuff because of a reversed #1.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

"Old school gaming" means to me:

People sitting around the same physical table
Physical dice rolled.
Physical copies of the rule books.
Pencils and graph paper.

As opposed to new:

Virtual table tops that allow me to continue gaming with the same friends scattered across the country.
Dice rolling programs.
PDFs on iPads or Archives of Nethys/d20pfsrd
Virtual table tops with some sleek map interfaces


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Snowblind wrote:

I thought that old school was the meat grinder sort of play, where PCs dropped every session from unspeakably horrific deaths, Wizards died from a stiff breeze and had to track their bat poop on stone tablets, traps had none of this silly "take X damage" frivolity but just "save or die, b****". The sort of game where you didn't bother naming your PC for their first three levels, because it is a bad idea to form attachments to dead characters walking. The sort of play where looking into a statue's mouth puts your head into a sphere of annihilation, no save, and where getting off the cart at the tavern results in several broken bones because you need to stop the cart first, dumb***. You know, the way Gyngax intended*. None of this nonsense about "choice" or "point buys" or "Role-Playing". That gets in the way of the players learning the meaning of suffering and loss and getting crushed in hilariously unfair ways.

I guess that just goes to show that "Old School" means whatever the hell the person saying it wants it to mean, either as a pejorative or as a badge of supposed superiority.

When taken to extremes, any ethos becomes decadent. The opposite extreme (ie. incessant stat-dumping, special snowflakism, magic item emporiums, and rampant player entitlement) isn't any better. Both ideologies have something to offer.


tony gent wrote:

Hi all just wondering what you think the name old school gaming means to you ?

Is it just a reference to how long someone's been gaming or do you think it describes a style of play.
Your thoughts please

I think it's a playstyle. Nothing to do with how long someone's been playing.

It's something loose, in my view - an amalgam of lots of different things rather than a binary definition. To me the essential element is guidelines-not-rules, although if there isnt high lethality it doesnt really feel the same to me.

Scarab Sages

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Maybe I'm misinterpreting what it means, but I find attacks on "special snowflakism" far more worrisome than the "snowflakism" itself, which I'm not sure I've ever even seen, at least not in a way I see anything terribly wrong with. It's okay to be special - more than okay. This "snowflake"-bashing I see from time to time just sounds to me like a way of picking on made-up people instead of real ones at best, and overt fascism at worst.

Maybe I should ask: What does it mean?


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This pretty much sums up my feelings on old school

It is definately an asethetic and a play style.


When I hear old school (tabletop) gaming, I think of gaming strongly derived from it's military wargame roots. Something like a dungeon crawling adventure where the player characters are just pawns to be recycled as they the GM and players see how big a body count can be racked up in a singular dungeon.

On the other hand if I were on say, a WoD board, I would imagine something with barely any dice rolls that was more like an entirely collaborative storytelling experience.

So then I suppose it depends on the type of game. I just try to imagine where the original iteration of the game sprung from.


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Zombieneighbours wrote:

This pretty much sums up my feelings on old school

It is definately an asethetic and a play style.

Yeah, that's not a bad summation of old school gaming, with all of its warts. Older versions of D&D (and I say D&D because it was arguably the only "old school" roleplaying game) tended to be much more open-ended in terms of rules, and the interpretations thereof. This could work out well if the DM and players worked well together, but it also often led to arbitrariness on the part of the DM and the railroading of players along the tracks of a certain preordained plotline.

This is where new school gaming gets it right, with systems which are much more like contracts between DM and players rather than DM-controlled autocracies, and an aesthetic which favors sandbox style gaming over dungeon slogs and body counts. But of course, new school gaming has its excesses, as well, with 3.5 probably representing the nadir.

In my experience, striking a balance between the styles leads to the most engaging play.


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Near as I can tell Old School Gaming means one of two things, depending on who's talking:
1) All the things I liked about the game back in the day before these modern versions screwed it all up.
or
2) All those stupid ways people used to play back in the day before modern versions fixed most of those problems.

It's usually obvious from context which is meant, but it's not so clear which specific things fit in which category.


the secret fire wrote:
Snowblind wrote:

I thought that old school was the meat grinder sort of play, where PCs dropped every session from unspeakably horrific deaths, Wizards died from a stiff breeze and had to track their bat poop on stone tablets, traps had none of this silly "take X damage" frivolity but just "save or die, b****". The sort of game where you didn't bother naming your PC for their first three levels, because it is a bad idea to form attachments to dead characters walking. The sort of play where looking into a statue's mouth puts your head into a sphere of annihilation, no save, and where getting off the cart at the tavern results in several broken bones because you need to stop the cart first, dumb***. You know, the way Gyngax intended*. None of this nonsense about "choice" or "point buys" or "Role-Playing". That gets in the way of the players learning the meaning of suffering and loss and getting crushed in hilariously unfair ways.

I guess that just goes to show that "Old School" means whatever the hell the person saying it wants it to mean, either as a pejorative or as a badge of supposed superiority.

When taken to extremes, any ethos becomes decadent. The opposite extreme (ie. incessant stat-dumping, special snowflakism, magic item emporiums, and rampant player entitlement) isn't any better. Both ideologies have something to offer.

The point I was trying to make wasn't that any particular style is better. Note the italicized.

thejeff wrote:

Near as I can tell Old School Gaming means one of two things, depending on who's talking:

1) All the things I liked about the game back in the day before these modern versions screwed it all up.
or
2) All those stupid ways people used to play back in the day before modern versions fixed most of those problems.

It's usually obvious from context which is meant, but it's not so clear which specific things fit in which category.

This guy gets it.

It is a loaded word with a lot of baggage, and I would either avoid it like the plague or be prepared to make it clear what the hell I happen to think the term means in the context I use it, and even then be prepared for unnecessary drama because everybody else thinks they know what the term means but very few of them agree with me or each other. Its kind of like "Power Gamer" or "Role-Player", in that trying to make claims about it is a sure way of getting a 100+post thread and lots of headaches for the Paizo moderators.


Generally it's used as a decleration of which side you're on in the D&D Edition Wars. Sometimes it's also a way to involve people who don't even know what it refers to but who are playing older games and can therefore be declared as supporting earlier D&D editions. Thereby making the "Old School" as defined by the person supporting it seem more common.


Snowblind wrote:
It is a loaded word with a lot of baggage, and I would either avoid it like the plague or be prepared to make it clear what the hell I happen to think the term means in the context I use it, and even then be prepared for unnecessary drama because everybody else thinks they know what the term means but very few of them agree with me or eachother. Its kind of like "Power Gamer" or "Role-Player", in that trying to make claims about it is a sure way of getting a 100+post thread and lots of headaches for the Paizo moderators.

OTOH, it does have a fairly clear meaning when talking about something like the "Old School Revival": Games that are attempting to recreate variants of the old D&D games. (AD&D, Basic, OD&D)

Of course, exactly what they're aiming for with those recreations leads us back down the rabbit hole.


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the secret fire wrote:
Snowblind wrote:

I thought that old school was the meat grinder sort of play, where PCs dropped every session from unspeakably horrific deaths, Wizards died from a stiff breeze and had to track their bat poop on stone tablets, traps had none of this silly "take X damage" frivolity but just "save or die, b****". The sort of game where you didn't bother naming your PC for their first three levels, because it is a bad idea to form attachments to dead characters walking. The sort of play where looking into a statue's mouth puts your head into a sphere of annihilation, no save, and where getting off the cart at the tavern results in several broken bones because you need to stop the cart first, dumb***. You know, the way Gyngax intended*. None of this nonsense about "choice" or "point buys" or "Role-Playing". That gets in the way of the players learning the meaning of suffering and loss and getting crushed in hilariously unfair ways.

I guess that just goes to show that "Old School" means whatever the hell the person saying it wants it to mean, either as a pejorative or as a badge of supposed superiority.

When taken to extremes, any ethos becomes decadent. The opposite extreme (ie. incessant stat-dumping, special snowflakism, magic item emporiums, and rampant player entitlement) isn't any better. Both ideologies have something to offer.

As for the special snowflakism thing, the "OGs" are known for the exact opposite, stereotypism.

Older games tended to have a "civilization vs monsters" feel. If you were not a "civilized race" ypu are a monstrr that needed killing. Culture flushing for m PP nsters was not really a thing (unlike now where even goblins have a indepth and rich history and culture).

Also there is a nit more "Tolkien-ism" in D&D, especially with.racial requirements for base classes. If ypu were an elf, YOU PLAYED MR LEGOLAS. If your a dwarf, best be ready to.love your beard.

Oh and finally, older gaming often had much less player chouce. You rolled your stats (traditionally straight down. None of this mix and match business) ame made did with what ya got. Wanted to play a wiz but got poor int? Tpught, play something else.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Pixie, the Leng Queen wrote:


Also there is a nit more "Tolkien-ism" in D&D, especially with.racial requirements for base classes. If ypu were an elf, YOU PLAYED MR LEGOLAS. If your a dwarf, best be ready to.love your beard.

Actually in the original game, dwarf, elf, and hafling WERE classes.


LazarX wrote:
Pixie, the Leng Queen wrote:


Also there is a nit more "Tolkien-ism" in D&D, especially with.racial requirements for base classes. If ypu were an elf, YOU PLAYED MR LEGOLAS. If your a dwarf, best be ready to.love your beard.

Actually in the original game, dwarf, elf, and hafling WERE classes.

And the elf being a caster (preserved in AD&D where elves could be fighter/magic users, among other things) he wasn't much like Legolas at all.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
thejeff wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Pixie, the Leng Queen wrote:


Also there is a nit more "Tolkien-ism" in D&D, especially with.racial requirements for base classes. If ypu were an elf, YOU PLAYED MR LEGOLAS. If your a dwarf, best be ready to.love your beard.

Actually in the original game, dwarf, elf, and hafling WERE classes.
And the elf being a caster (preserved in AD&D where elves could be fighter/magic users, among other things) he wasn't much like Legolas at all.

When I think of elves and old D+D, Legolas is the last thing that comes to mind. It's more Machine Gun Archer from "Hawk The Slayer".

Grand Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Can you guys take the fascism discussion to another thread? It's OT here.

To me Old School means one of three things:
1) The class of games that are retro clones of older versions of D&D.
2) A playstyle that emphasises roleplay over game mechanics and is characterized slower game progestin and higher lethality.
3) Players or GMS that developed their style playing older versions of the game and carried that style forward into Pathfinder or other games.

-Skeld

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Skeld wrote:

Can you guys take the fascism discussion to another thread? It's OT here.

To me Old School means one of three things:
1) The class of games that are retro clones of older versions of D&D.
2) A playstyle that emphasises roleplay over game mechanics and is characterized slower game progestin and higher lethality.
3) Players or GMS that developed their style playing older versions of the game and carried that style forward into Pathfinder or other games.

-Skeld

You're deadly wrong about Number 2, save where it came for lethality.

If you want an expression of what Number 2 was like, dig up the original Tomb of Horrors. Old School gaming was about extremely lethal traps and dead-ends, puzzles, and making the assumption that your players would do stupid things like sticking their head in the mouths of statues, and placing an Orb of Annihilation there to reward such foolishness. Another example is Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, in which the roleplaying is notable mainly in it's absence... save for that the players provided themselves.

The purpose of roleplaying in the mods of that time was mainly to get you into the dungeon to start your hack and slash. Frequently, they did not even bother with that much.


Also older editions had a lot of "gotcha!" Creatures. I remember reading an article where they were talkin about some of the rediculous things in DD, like how you can have a whole room try and.kill you with "trap monsters". Between mimics, that which lurks above/below, the ooze that looks like a normal wall, and Gelatinous Cubes you can easily have a literal attempt to kill ypu...

And as I alluded to earlier, RP was there... so long as you followed the tropes established by Gygax. Want to play an Elf druid? WELL SCREW YOU NO! (Well in 2e).

Oh and the old DD is qhere the idea of "you need a fighter to hit things, a rogue for traps, a wizard to answer non combat threats like chasms, and a cleric to ne healer" came from. You NEEDED rogues since they are the only trap guys. You NEEDED a healer cleric. Unless you wanted to die... a lot... (now a days, there are so many options that you do not needed a dedicated healer, amd this was intentional)


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LazarX wrote:
Skeld wrote:

Can you guys take the fascism discussion to another thread? It's OT here.

To me Old School means one of three things:
1) The class of games that are retro clones of older versions of D&D.
2) A playstyle that emphasises roleplay over game mechanics and is characterized slower game progestin and higher lethality.
3) Players or GMS that developed their style playing older versions of the game and carried that style forward into Pathfinder or other games.

-Skeld

You're deadly wrong about Number 2, save where it came for lethality.

If you want an expression of what Number 2 was like, dig up the original Tomb of Horrors. Old School gaming was about extremely lethal traps and dead-ends, puzzles, and making the assumption that your players would do stupid things like sticking their head in the mouths of statues, and placing an Orb of Annihilation there to reward such foolishness. Another example is Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, in which the roleplaying is notable mainly in it's absence... save for that the players provided themselves.

The purpose of roleplaying in the mods of that time was mainly to get you into the dungeon to start your hack and slash. Frequently, they did not even bother with that much.

Well, I'd say, based on my experience and discussions here, that old school gaming had an incredibly broad range in lethality and roleplaying and nearly everything else. Partly because of the lack of an internet, so people and groups developed off in their own directions.

For the first part of Skeld's 2) - Character differentiation was done more through roleplay than through mechanics. The lack of the build game is an important distinction, for good or ill.

Sovereign Court

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Like the movie Cube but with monsters too.


thejeff wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Skeld wrote:

Can you guys take the fascism discussion to another thread? It's OT here.

To me Old School means one of three things:
1) The class of games that are retro clones of older versions of D&D.
2) A playstyle that emphasises roleplay over game mechanics and is characterized slower game progestin and higher lethality.
3) Players or GMS that developed their style playing older versions of the game and carried that style forward into Pathfinder or other games.

-Skeld

You're deadly wrong about Number 2, save where it came for lethality.

If you want an expression of what Number 2 was like, dig up the original Tomb of Horrors. Old School gaming was about extremely lethal traps and dead-ends, puzzles, and making the assumption that your players would do stupid things like sticking their head in the mouths of statues, and placing an Orb of Annihilation there to reward such foolishness. Another example is Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, in which the roleplaying is notable mainly in it's absence... save for that the players provided themselves.

The purpose of roleplaying in the mods of that time was mainly to get you into the dungeon to start your hack and slash. Frequently, they did not even bother with that much.

Well, I'd say, based on my experience and discussions here, that old school gaming had an incredibly broad range in lethality and roleplaying and nearly everything else. Partly because of the lack of an internet, so people and groups developed off in their own directions.

For the first part of Skeld's 2) - Character differentiation was done more through roleplay than through mechanics. The lack of the build game is an important distinction, for good or ill.

The thing is also though, parties also tended to be very similair because of the absolute NEED of the big 4 and the idea of exclusivity of certain abilities, thereby FORCING certain classes to exist (no trap disarming wizard for u... or even trap finding for that matter...). For instance, you NEEDED a rogue, ranger, or monk to even FIND a trap. None of the above? Well your SOL.

So you want to play a wizard but your the last person invited to a table and they have no rogue? Tough nuts, your playin a rogue.


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Pixie, the Leng Queen wrote:
And as I alluded to earlier, RP was there... so long as you followed the tropes established by Gygax. Want to play an Elf druid? WELL SCREW YOU NO! (Well in 2e).

Personally I see being able to play an elf druid as completely orthogonal to having roleplay in the game. Character design isn't roleplaying.


thejeff wrote:
Pixie, the Leng Queen wrote:
And as I alluded to earlier, RP was there... so long as you followed the tropes established by Gygax. Want to play an Elf druid? WELL SCREW YOU NO! (Well in 2e).
Personally I see being able to play an elf druid as completely orthogonal to having roleplay in the game. Character design isn't roleplaying.

You want yo play a nature.worshipping and theme Elf (you know... like how the race was portryed in the first place... still never understood this...). I.e. you want to play a druid. But you cant... and no matter how hard you try, thr cleric is nothing like the druid in 2e. Their spell lists were VERY different. They had WAY differnt XP tracks, and they were just... very differrnt. And it was much harder to play a "nature themed cleric" since domains an such didnt exist yet, so most all clerics hadt he same spells.


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thejeff wrote:
Well, I'd say, based on my experience and discussions here, that old school gaming had an incredibly broad range in lethality and roleplaying and nearly everything else. Partly because of the lack of an internet, so people and groups developed off in their own directions.

Yeah. Old School D&D was all about table variation, since it put a much heavier emphasis on the DM as the creator of rules and rulings, versus modern gaming where GMs are usually closer to arbiters of the rules in the book.


thejeff wrote:
Pixie, the Leng Queen wrote:
And as I alluded to earlier, RP was there... so long as you followed the tropes established by Gygax. Want to play an Elf druid? WELL SCREW YOU NO! (Well in 2e).
Personally I see being able to play an elf druid as completely orthogonal to having roleplay in the game. Character design isn't roleplaying.

I broadly agree with this sentiment, but Pixie has a good point in that the fantasy tropes were so rigid that it severely limited player choice in character creation, even irrespective of "builds". Player choice and roleplaying are not equivalent terms, but not getting to play even essentially your concept of a character (though I do not believe in giving players literally everything they want) does tend to throw a bit of water on one's motivation to roleplay.


the secret fire wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Pixie, the Leng Queen wrote:
And as I alluded to earlier, RP was there... so long as you followed the tropes established by Gygax. Want to play an Elf druid? WELL SCREW YOU NO! (Well in 2e).
Personally I see being able to play an elf druid as completely orthogonal to having roleplay in the game. Character design isn't roleplaying.
I broadly agree with this sentiment, but Pixie has a good point in that the fantasy tropes were so rigid that it severely limited player choice in character creation, even irrespective of "builds". Player choice and roleplaying are not equivalent terms, but not getting to play even essentially your concept of a character (though I do not believe in giving players literally everything they want) does tend to throw a bit of water on one's motivation to roleplay.

Yeah. I lucked out in that i LIKED playing rogues (or thiefif you prefer lol) so I had no issues.

But yeah, that is actually why i like paizos class and archetypes since you can have a certain character idea and build it 10 different ways to help the party.

For instance, the nature themed elf from earlier.

Now you can ay a druid... or a.cleric with nature domain.. or an oracle with nature mystery, or a witch, or a sylvan sorcerer, or a hunter... i mean there are a lot of options to have your character idea but still fill a.role in a party (wel need a person to hit things, well hunter gives you a pet and druid has wild shape. We need a rogue! Again, hunter is good here, druid, nature oracle works well as well)

Sovereign Court

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I think its important to recognize that an old school playstyle isnt married to early game design. If you were to compare a recent OSR product with original D&D I think you would see the advancement. Those crappy game design limitations gave way to innovation and modern gaming. There is still some great inspiration from that early era no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Zombieneighbours wrote:
This pretty much sums up my feelings on old school

I feel the need to offer this counterpoint every time I see this linked.

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