Quote from: John Morrow;377039Hey, I tried to put your thread back on track...

Yep! I made my summation - my "What did we learn on the show tonight Craig?" - and one person was kind enough to comment. Either I perfectly expressed everyone's views, or no one much cares. That means this thread is dead, either way. Continuing the SF-Trav discussion in this thread will only hurt that discussion, ergo it needs it's own thread.

-clash

Talking as a gamer mostly indifferent to D&D, the old school/new school classification doesn't mean much to me. But the conversation is very interesting, especially the perceived history of the hobby.  

The move from diy to biy, as a general tendency, seems a valid interpretation. Though the more I think about it, the more I realize my friends and I were biy kind of guys when it comes to game rules, even back in the 80s. A system like BRP seemed so elegant and simple, there was no real arguing why we would stick with clunky D&D-like games. We just adopted the system that looked easier to learn and play rather than fiddle with house rules. But another aspect was that D&D type of fantasy wasn't aligning with our local geek culture, and it might have been as important than system considerations.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;377026Whether it was good or not depends largely on who you are. Certainly, if you were Wizards of the Coast it is difficult to cast it in anything but a positive light. They made huge money during that period. As you noted, they displaced much o the non-D&D landscape, and they sold Player's Handbooks to all that land. That's a good thing, for them.

But yeah, I'm on record as hating d20 Modern. I think it's a crap system that doesn't work at all. The whole d20 premise was a bad one for precisely the reason that the cross genre attempts to port GURPS or HERO were bad ideas - a system really does influence what kind of story it tells. And HERO tells 4 Color Supers stories, and Fantasy HERO can suck my nuts. D&D tell stories about iron age heroes who stab monsters in the face for money, and d20 Future sucks.

Which means that I'll agree with you that the over-all positivity of the OGL revolution is grossly overstated by many people. But I don't believe that over estimating its impact is done very often. Sure Eclipse Phase is an innovative percentile based system now, but if it had been made five years ago, it would have been like T20 - another half assed attempt to make the square peg of D&D hit points and exponential levels fit into the round hole of space ships, credit cards, and plasma cannons.

-Frank

Arguing with OGL worshipers on ENWorld and reading industry/WotC posts on the OGL, I've come to a few conclusions:

1. The OGL didn't really help or hurt WotC financially
2. WotC turned its back on the OGL early, before the release of 3.5E
3. The main issue why WotC soured on the OGL wasn't money, but a loss of creative control of the D&D brand
4. The main accomplishment of the OGL in D&D's eyes was in the form of good PR, which D&D needed after the last days of TSR.

Quote from: flyingmice;377037The matter of whether Star Frontiers is or is not Traveller Lite deserves its own thread, don't you think?

-clash

But it can also mark another division for you, when sci-fi games moved away from needing a degree in astrophysics to make sense of them, and some calculus to work out all the mechanics.  As Mr. Morrow intimates above, you could pretty much crack the seal and sit down with some Star Frontiers for good pulpy fun right out of the box.  I think this may have set the tone for Star Wars five years later, at least as much as WEG's system and the licensing.  d6 could have easily been wrought into a complex, highly detailed system, especially with the inclusion of Force powers.  Instead, West End took the more cinematic approach, as with Star Frontiers, and made a much more accessible game.

Star Frontiers came out in 1982, so if anyone has a good timeline of sci-fi games, that might make a good place to start this investigation.

Quote from: Koltar;377008Oh Please....

Star Frontiers WAS TRAVELLER-Lite.

TRAVELLER was and is pretty darn Space-Opera ish to start with.
Only reason it gets the 'Hard-Sci Fi' reputation is because it doesn't waste space with tons of illustrations. You actually have text to read.

The artwork on the box, the look of it, the cheezy ads in comic books - that this was clearly aiming at the 7th to 9th grade crowd.

- Ed C.

No, Ed.  Just... no.

Quote from: flyingmice;376982Hi John!

Insight? Yes. It has been very interesting so far. A good discussion. I'm getting a much better handle on what constitutes Old School, and thus what constitutes the fictitious New School. One thing I'm seeing is that there is no New School, because Old School is a new concept. Old School is really a retroactive conceptualization of play, one which we who were running and playing games at the time had no idea of. Old School games are the way they are because of the limitations of the state of game design at the time, not because of conscious choice. Serendipitously, these very limitations of design created room for a certain freedom of play which has a real appeal.

Certainly I think there is some confusion in the ranks of the Old School adherents as to whether the "Old School feel" is an artifact of simulacra, or whether it can be consciously designed into a new game. If the latter is correct, which is my gut feeling, then the appeal of actual simulacra is a gestalt thing, which possibly may help in non-linear appreciation, and most definitely in nostalgia, both genuine and artificial - a considerable number of Old School adherents are too young to have real nostalgia for these products. In any case, the Old School movement is hardly monolithic. The variety of answers here confirms that if anyone doubted.

As for the Framework thing, that was an aside. I'm a framework designer,so it was important to me, but not at all germane to the discussion. AFAIK, there are no Old School Framework systems.

-clash

As others have noted, thought, 'Old School' is almost entirely concerned with xD&D.  There are a few others that held some interest back in those days that have retro-clones with some followers; ZeFRS for the Conan RPG, 4C for the Marvel Super Heroes game, Berin Kinsman is on-again off-again working on a clone of Mayfair's 007 game, and of course there is the Star Frontiersman.  I am trying to rectify that in my own little corner of the web, but for the most part, if you are talking about 'Old School', you are more or less exclusively talking about the various incarnations of D&D.

Were you looking to expand the conversation to other games?  I would certainly like to.  There is a rich history there to be mined, in my opinion.  It's kind of like the parties I used to go to in high school; I would bring a bunch of AC/DC tapes, and a few friends would bring some others, but 'Back in Black' was seemingly the only thing anyone wanted to listen to.  

Quote from: FrankTrollman;376781The key to consider is that "Old School" generally refers to a specific movement of creating Games - predominantly the works of Gygax and Arneson. There isn't a single "New School" to compete with it, because there have been many movements that sprung up at various points in time in response to the situation in gaming a their historical point. And honestly, it mostly has to do with how the games handle task resolution.

In the late 70s, you got people worrying about how abstract D&D was, and desirous of putting more detail into things. So they brought out finer random number generators like percentile dice and charts. You got things like Warlock (Caltech D&D rules), Aftermath!, and Rolemaster.

In the early 80s you got people concerned about how limited a class was, and how likely and common a natural 20 actually was. And so they made universal systems that used curved random number generators. And there were a lot of these things, but the only ones that survive are GURPS and HERO.

And in the late 80s you got people wanting more complex probabilities and more focused, human centric gaming. So you got the dice pool systems of Shadowrun and Storyteller.

And so on. You got late 90s era "fast and furious" games that intend to have as short an action resolution system as possible. That design philosophy gave us BESM and Feng Shui.

But the real turning point of "New School" that you're probably thinking of happens in 2000. The year of d20. That's when the gaming world got turned upside down again by the fact that the 500 pound gorilla had made a new edition that was modern enough to appeal to the cheese eating gaming snob crowd. For several years, innovation pretty much stood on its head as people found that they couldn't make something that could compete with d20's combined assets of being something people already owned and also good enough.

And yeah, 2008 came around, D&D made a new edition that doesn't have that commanding position anymore, and people are making new games. And what boils out as the dominant paradigm of game design for this generation will be interesting history.

-Frank

This. I would say that the "school" to which D&D 3.x belonged existed before D&D 3.x. I see a lot in RQ that I as a 3.x fan like and can relate to.

The qualifiers of the school include

-flexible character generation
-standardized task resolution
-integrated mechanics
-balance between characters
-skills

Qualifiers that 3.x brought to the table that were new (ish) to that school
-fragmented character generation
-the OGL
-balanced challenges (an old concept in GM advice, but mechanical implementations were new)
-deliberate focus on optimization
-D&Disms (class/level/race, D20, abstract combat)
-clearly defined skill uses and difficulties for tasks

4e breaks away a bit from the new school of 3x. It borrows more from what was unique to 3x than from what 3x borrowed from. I suppose it also borrows more from prominent OGL works too. I see echoes of M&M, IH, or even True20 in the design of 4e. I'd say it belongs to its own school, and that maybe the new Warhammer RPG follows in this school.

There are other new schools. I would say FUDGE and FATE have their own following, their own reasons for being popular in different places, and their own relationship to the "new school" of D&D's mechanics and philosophy. Then there's story games. Then there's the indie publishing thing, including the trad indie publishers who post here. I might even say that the OSR is a new school, for reasons mentioned upthread.

I'd strongly disagree with the idea that DIY/BIY is the difference. It's just not how I or anyone I know who plays "new school" plays. If anything, a flexible core mechanic, smaller character building units (like feats), and the OGL (which allowed us to treat standalone games as supplements filled with variant rules) encouraged us to houserule, kind of like Dragon did for the old school. I know few if any people who buy premade settings and uses them as such (we bought and used Eberron as a supplement in homebrew worlds), and published adventures are practically unheard of, so issues folks have with linear adventure writing are pretty much irrelavent for us. This is just my experience with OGL/D20/3x. I don't know how 4e players do things.

Quote from: StormBringer;377057As others have noted, thought, 'Old School' is almost entirely concerned with xD&D.  There are a few others that held some interest back in those days that have retro-clones with some followers; ZeFRS for the Conan RPG, 4C for the Marvel Super Heroes game, Berin Kinsman is on-again off-again working on a clone of Mayfair's 007 game, and of course there is the Star Frontiersman.  I am trying to rectify that in my own little corner of the web, but for the most part, if you are talking about 'Old School', you are more or less exclusively talking about the various incarnations of D&D.

Yep! Understood. It's one of the reasons I'm so late to the party, asking these foolish questions long after everyone else had determined what was going on and decided where they stood. I'm no longer into D&D, at all, so I was pretty much figuring this all has nothing to do with me.

QuoteWere you looking to expand the conversation to other games?  I would certainly like to.  There is a rich history there to be mined, in my opinion.  It's kind of like the parties I used to go to in high school; I would bring a bunch of AC/DC tapes, and a few friends would bring some others, but 'Back in Black' was seemingly the only thing anyone wanted to listen to.  

I would certainly not dissuade anyone from bringing up other games! Please feel free, SB!

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;377081Yep! Understood. It's one of the reasons I'm so late to the party, asking these foolish questions long after everyone else had determined what was going on and decided where they stood. I'm no longer into D&D, at all, so I was pretty much figuring this all has nothing to do with me.

Well, that is part of where I went with 'vintage games' instead(it has yet to catch on    ), because it should have something to do with you.  While you may not be interested in playing older games at all, there is still some pretty cool and innovative stuff buried in there.

QuoteI would certainly not dissuade anyone from bringing up other games! Please feel free, SB!

-clash

Since the topic has already be breached(by myself no less!)  I guess sci-fi is a good place to start.  I have already planted my flag there.  I think Star Frontiers was a turning point, but I am not terribly familiar with games prior to that.  Anyone care to jump in?

Quote from: StormBringer;377082I think Star Frontiers was a turning point, but I am not terribly familiar with games prior to that.  

Turning point in what manner? How can you be sure it was a turning point if you are not terribly familiar with science fiction games prior to that?

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377053Arguing with OGL worshipers on ENWorld and reading industry/WotC posts on the OGL, I've come to a few conclusions:

1. The OGL didn't really help or hurt WotC financially
2. WotC turned its back on the OGL early, before the release of 3.5E
3. The main issue why WotC soured on the OGL wasn't money, but a loss of creative control of the D&D brand
4. The main accomplishment of the OGL in D&D's eyes was in the form of good PR, which D&D needed after the last days of TSR.

I don't know whether any of this is true or not.

What I know, however, is that I do not give a flying fuck what WotC thinks of the OGL now. It was the greatest gift D&D fans could ever get: it of course provided a lot of product variety to all sorts of different D&D audiences during its glory days, for sure (and a lot of chaff as well, we'll agree on that), but it also ensures that D&D will survive, whatever WotC chooses to do with the brand, including and not limited to a complete crash and/or abandonment of its ownership.

That's what I call a win for us.

Quote from: Benoist;377089What I know, however, is that I do not give a flying fuck what WotC thinks of the OGL now. It was the greatest gift D&D fans could ever get: it of course provided a lot of product variety to all sorts of different D&D audiences during its glory days, for sure (and a lot of chaff as well, we'll agree on that), but it also ensures that D&D will survive, whatever WotC chooses to do with the brand, including and not limited to a complete crash and/or abandonment of its ownership.

That's what I call a win for us.

I agree with this.

Quote from: jeff37923;377085Turning point in what manner? How can you be sure it was a turning point if you are not terribly familiar with science fiction games prior to that?

The manner I already mentioned, the move from hard sci-fi to something more casual or cinematic.  I think Aftermath was out around then, as well as the early versions of Metamorphosis Alpha, but I don't know the exact time line.  Star Wars came out five years later, so it would be a continuation rather than a catalyst, and we have already established Traveller as the vanguard of heavy math, hard sci-fi gaming.

Um NO.....


TRAVELLER and STAR WARS came out within two months of each other.

In a blog post or web page , Loren Wiseman one time mentioned that they were 95% done with original three TRAVELLER Little black books and it was on the way or at the printers when the writers decided to check out a new movie togetjher. That movie was STAR WARS.

STAR WARS released = May 1977

TRAVELLER released = July 1977

That means they were writing the basic TRAVELLER books at least 4 to 5 months before any of them had seen STAR WARS.

TRAVELLER is as much 'old school' or original gamester as D&D is.

There is/was nothing revolutionary about STAR FRONTIERS.


- Ed C.

Quote from: jeff37923;377085Turning point in what manner? How can you be sure it was a turning point if you are not terribly familiar with science fiction games prior to that?

Let's see - here's all the SF games I know about, up to StarFrontiers:

1976 - Metamorphosis Alpha (TSR) - not your typical spaceships and lasers game, but technically SF!

1977 - Star Patrol by Michael Scott
        - Starfaring by Ken St. Andre
        - Traveller (GDW)

1978 - Starships & Spacemen (FGU)
        - Star Trek - Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier by Michael Scott

1980 - Space Opera by Ed Zimbalist

1981 - Universe (SPI)

1982 - StarFleet Voyages by Michael Scott
        - Star Frontiers (TSR)

Anyone have comments on these? My buddy Michael Scott wrote three of them. His Star Patrol was real light and Space Opera-ish, and his Trek games were appropriately Treky. If StarFaring was anything like T&T it wasn't exactly hard & crunchy either. Space Opera was nothing like the name implied. Universe was pretty hard & crunchy. I don't know about S&S.

-clash

Added - looked up Starfaring in John Kim's Encyclopedia. It's humorous and space-opera-ish. Each player plays a starship and crew.

Added - apparently I haven't written anything since Cold Space in 2005 according to the RPG Encycopedia! :O