What is Old School Gaming?

[Frost]

I'm surprised no one has posted Matt Finch's Old School Primer: free link

I'd like to add one might argue that "old school" is also a mentality more than a rule set.  I run a 3.5 D&D campaign and I feel it's very old school.  PCs die regularly, there is no over-arching plot apart from plunging the depths of the dungeon (Rappan Athuk in this case), etc.

[Frost]

I'm surprised no one has posted Matt Finch's Old School Primer: free link

I'd like to add one might argue that "old school" is also a mentality more than a rule set.  I run a 3.5 D&D campaign and I feel it's very old school.  PCs die regularly, there is no over-arching plot apart from plunging the depths of the dungeon (Rappan Athuk in this case), etc.

[jason]

More than any other document, the Quick Primer for Old School Gaming convinced me that everything I hate in gaming today is a hallmark of "old school" gaming that we haven't killed yet. I had more rants per sentence towards that little book than anything I've touched since Ayn Rand.

[Evernevermore]

And you wont kill them, just because you don't like it doesn't mean others don't Jason. What you'd kill is a significant portion of why I do RPGs at all. If I want just stories I have books to read by authors who can tell far better stories than any gamer Ive ever met. If I want combat Ive got miniatures games that are more fun and tactical than any rpg Ive played, even 4e. Its only where story meets game that I get something I dont have in any other hobby.

[jason]

See, that's what I enjoy in RPG's, too. But the Quick Primer makes it pretty clear that things like story, character, and collaboration simply have no place in "old school" gaming. Random example, the "First Zen Moment." "Rulings, not Rules" means that in the end, we're just playing whatever the referee wants to play. If "[t]he referee, in turn, uses common sense to decide what happens," then it's just the referee deciding it arbitrarily (since "common sense" means nothing more than "whatever idiosyncratic collection of things that seem evident to me and might not mean anything to you"). I agree that the best stories come from those points where we can all collaborate, and where randomness even plays a decent role. But since "[r]ules are a resource for the referee, not for the players," that can't be a part of "old school" play. We only get to collaborate as much as the referee will allow, which isn't really collaboration at all. Even in games, there's never such a thing as a benevolent dictator.

One of these days, when I'm feeling particularly bored and full of bile, I'm thinking I might go through the Quick Primer, and for each paragraph, write up why I think it's one of the worst ideas in gaming--and in too many cases than should legitimately come up in a book about games, some of the very worst things you can do to another person in a social setting.

[Evernevermore]

That is entirely your perogative Jason, however since you've decided what you believe on OSR is I'm not going to waste my breath arguing with you

[Random]

The Old School Primer did a good job of summing up old school gaming for me.  He described what I remembered just how I remembered it.  Only he did so with a very positive spin on everything, although frankly I remember it having more problems because of the very things he found exciting with it.

I ran a 7 year old-school D&D gaming campaign back when it was "new".  We started with D&D, migrated to AD&D, migrated to 2.0, then later to 2.5 over the course of the game.  It got better as the rules got more refined, but I never want to run a game using those systems again.

The biggest problem was the DM having so much power with the ability to write rules as they went along.  As the DM, I found this frustrating more than useful because:

• It was hard to keep rulings consistent when the game stretched over a long period (like 7 years).  One week I'd rule that grapple works one way, then a year later I'd have to come up with all new rules on the spot to cover it again when it came up.  I ended up with a 20 page DM supplement with my collected rules, several of which SHOULD HAVE been in the books to begin with, but never were.
• I had nothing to compare even basic actions to.  Without a more robust skill system, it was hard to remember who was good at what, and the non-weapon proficiency system they added in later editions was far less than adequate for that.
• Because the system relied so much on honesty and not hard facts, I repeatedly had players lie to me that their character was experienced in a certain area that they weren't.  I started forcing them to write this stuff down on the character sheets, but one crafty player moved his sheet to a word processor and reprinted it, then hand-wrote in the things he needed at the moment he needed them when he thought I wasn't looking.  It is far harder to catch cheaters in a system with flexible rules than a system with fixed rules.
• Balance was a joke.  I had no way to compare my monster's strength against that of the party, so I got used to adding and subtracting powers and abilities on the fly.  My old monster notes read like "14th-ish level monster", "18th-ish level monster", and so on.  What really happened was that I as the DM was simply going into every combat knowing in general how bad the party was going to come out of it, who would live and who would die, and what the general result should be.  My players kept coming back for more, but I never thought it was right that the fights were never "fair".

The final year of the 7 year campaign was run with d20 3.0, and I was able to throw out 80% of my DM supplement book, have a fair(er) way to judge monsters against party talent, and finally had a decent and usable skill system that rewarded characters for being better at some things than other characters.  That said, I do find that they went a bit overboard with having so many rules in 3.5, but that's a different discussion.

[Baron Von Harper]

You can hate, or strongly dislike old school gaming for whatever reason you can come up with, and that's fine.  Play other games.  There are lots of RPGs out there.  I like these games too, and lately I seem to like them more so than many other games that are out there.  I actually enjoy the small amount of prep work I have to do for my Darves Hill LL game. 

[Frost]

I certainly can respect one's individual preference.  If you don't care for OSR-gaming, so be it.  I don't understand the mentality that it needs to be "killed" though. I freakin' hate Monopoly, but don't think it needs to be eliminated.

[jason]

The Old School Primer did a good job of summing up old school gaming for me.  He described what I remembered just how I remembered it.  Only he did so with a very positive spin on everything, although frankly I remember it having more problems because of the very things he found exciting with it.

Very much agreed. I've learned that what I used to play doesn't count as "old school,"* but the stuff he celebrates is the very stuff that I always found dysfunctional in my older games.

* Side note: Apparently, "old school" has developed the "indie" elite-ness so often found in indie music (though, ironically enough, generally missing from indie RPG's): whatever you're playing is apparently not "old school," but whatever I'm playing is.

You can hate, or strongly dislike old school gaming for whatever reason you can come up with, and that's fine.  Play other games.  There are lots of RPGs out there.

And I do. Though, I always like to try new things, so if John ever does run that "old school" one-shot he mentioned before, I'd love to play. But we can still discuss why we like one game and why we don't like another. Me saying that I strongly disagree with the Quick Primer doesn't stop anybody from playing an "old school" game.

I certainly can respect one's individual preference.  If you don't care for OSR-gaming, so be it.  I don't understand the mentality that it needs to be "killed" though. I freakin' hate Monopoly, but don't think it needs to be eliminated.

When I say "killed," I meant that it's gone out of style. For instance, the idea that players should not know the rules. That's an idea that modern games have killed.

[Evernevermore]

Indie rpgs don't have elitist attitudes?! Try telling the fans (not the designers I've spoken with and listened to, who have all been cool) that you play old school. And of course there will always be snobby jerks - the Simpsons Comic Book Guy is a stereotype for a reason.

And I've run some old school games, mostly at the con, but until space opens up in the schedule I'm kinda stuck. And no, running sometime other than Gamesdays is not an option.

[jason]

Indie rpgs don't have elitist attitudes?! Try telling the fans (not the designers I've spoken with and listened to, who have all been cool) that you play old school.

Old school seems pretty popular on Story Games. But then, Story Games seems to mostly be designers. Are you talking about RPG.net? Truthfully, I could never spend more than a few minutes there.

And I've run some old school games, mostly at the con, but until space opens up in the schedule I'm kinda stuck. And no, running sometime other than Gamesdays is not an option.

I hear ya. The con is usually the one time that I can reliably pack my schedule with games I've been looking forward to all year long. But if you get one going at Games Day, I'll definitely play. I don't think I'd want to commit to a campaign, but I'd definitely play a one shot.

[Evernevermore]

Rpg.net and another one that had some interesting initial posts but the comments went down hill fast.

As to the players not knowing all the rules, why do the players need to know the rules for things like treasure distribution, npc party generation and all the tasks that go into maintaining the campaign world? Or my biggest pet peeve, what is gained at all by players knowing the stats and rules of monsters they HAVEN'T encountered before? In OSR games the players have a rulebook that is theirs, but the DM has books that are his. The players knowing how the rules and stats in those books are is like reading a mystery novel that you know the ending to.

@Random - dude if your players were cheating that badly then the rules don't matter. Either they were so frustrated about being able to do something or winning is the only thing that matters to them, neither attitude is conductive to roleplaying.

[Frost]

I thought this was a fantastic post about what "old school gaming" is about
(from Playing D&D with P0rn Stars): link

[Evernevermore]

Well it is Zac writing, he comes up with some interesting stuff. Ive been reading some other thoughts about emergent story and sandbox games and this dovetails nicely, thanks