FLASH REPLY: Mostly because it reminds me of when I was in elementary school, even if in my old school the quality of the reading materials was higher.

Old school games seemed to be focused on the dungeon crawl. D&D 4e seems to be focused more on the dungeon crawl and the encounters found therein. That may be why some consider it to have an "old school" feel.

Quote from: B.T....a positively hateful game that systematically fucked players over and pitted them against the DM in repeated "fuck you" scenarios.

There are two levels of (mis)understanding here.

1) B.T. has a notion of what old D&D is that is perhaps analogous to a conception of Ice Hockey based on selected games in which players used their sticks to hit each other to the neglect of passing the puck. Perhaps it is analogous to Professional Wrestling being taken as representative of the academic and Olympic sport.

Now, people happen to enjoy both of those entertainments, however unrepresentative of "the real thing" they may be. If B.T. has not seen such enjoyment of his supposed "D&D", if he thinks the view of the game as "hateful" and of players as "systematically fucked" reflects not just his personal preference but that of most participants in "old school D&D" -- then he should get a clue that what he has in mind is NOT what they have in mind.

2) There is the real thing, the game as actually designed and sometimes actually played. That involves a thoroughly different set of fundamentals than what today's Conventional Wisdom about RPGs assumes.

I will draw a comparison with video games.

"Old school" video gamers can appreciate tough games and mark down games that are too hard (especially when that's due to poor control or collision-detection routines).

The RPG scene today is analogous to a video-game scene full of people who would consider "hateful" what joystick wielders of the 1980s considered "a good challenge". It's analogous to people who just would not get thing one about, say, Defender, even if it were much less challenging -- because the basic concept of being challenged to beat a game would be alien to them.

== NOTE, HOWEVER ==
...that by the time 2e AD&D came along, many people were already playing a fundamentally different game -- and that 2e AD&D pushed a fundamentally different game as normative.

I'm talking about the larger-order structure that had provided the context for a lot of little "game mechanical" bits. People dropped (or never even learned) that, and tried to hack the disjointed bits into a tool for doing what they really wanted -- or thought they were supposed -- to do.

That is not what "D&D" means to me, but it's what "D&D" has meant to many people for a quarter-century or more.

==WHICH "NEW SCHOOL" IS THE CONTEXT?==
...is an important question when parsing someone's concept of an "old school feel".

If 3e epitomizes the "new school feel", then the contrast may be between "how we played 3e" and "how we played 2e".

Again, how Billy Jean and Bobby Sue played 2e does not necessarily have much to do with how Arneson or Gygax or you or I played D&D.

Quote from: Reckall;462077FLASH REPLY: Mostly because it reminds me of when I was in elementary school, even if in my old school the quality of the reading materials was higher.

Similar sentiment here.

When I got back into playing rpg games shortly after 3.5E D&D was released (after taking a 15+ years hiatus), I thought 3E/3.5E didn't have the same feel and excitement I had for 1E AD&D and B/X D&D back in the day.

When I first played 4E D&D during the summer of 2008, for some strange reason it brought back that same feeling of excitement from when I was a kid.  (In hindsight, I attribute this largely to the "shiny new thing" smell of 4E D&D at the time, and several other factors).  Though by the time it was early-2009, that feeling of excitement was completely dissipated and largely gone by then.

The so-called Arneson/Gygax "town to dungeon" formula was left behind before the book went to print with its "outdoor/wilderness" so there is no "authentic grounding" for these "2e era railroaders". The way I see it is they just want a pedigree so they can call themselves "old school" and go straight in with prepared "tactics/countertactics" SHIFT back to town storytime REPEAT. Give it all to them thats what I say.

They all want to say in a spontaneous revelation that they gamed with the immortal Ted Riley (the guy who gave Arneson the idea in 1969) anyway...

"Ted Riley?"

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Yes, things haven't been the same since Riley left...

Who the fuck is Ted Riley? And who gives a shit?

This is the mentality on the internet regarding D&D for years. I'm so sick of the constant reinvention of perspectives.

I had a 2e troll creature that I came up with to put on the TSR website (it was up there for years). Heck I'll use that exactly how it looked today as it is.

If stats mean nothing to a user therefore editions mean nothing to a user. If a spell or a monster sucks don't use it. If this is the defining of 4e as old school then so be it. Who gives a flying shit?

Quote from: Phillip;462083There are two levels of (mis)understanding here.

One thing should be very, very clear in this thread: B.T. is a troll. He posted his thing to see fireworks. He actually doesn't give a shit one way or the other. That's it. Period. The end.

Personally, I don't mind using his troll thread to actually talk about interesting stuff, but one thing that we really should keep in mind is that B.T. had no point at all beyond starting a fight. So let's not act like he was posting in good faith or believes half the stuff he posted or whatnot.

Quote from: Gene Weigel;462059I just don't see guys like that interacting here in NYC. Maybe there is some big love-in going in Baltimore where the drug dealers "go take Morrey for a sandwich" but it doesn't happen here "crime reporter" or not. They'd be raping his ass in an entryway within five minutes and thats just the NYPD with their batons...

Thanks for the answer, which is that you have not read anything that the guy has written and don't know anything about him or his methods or approaches, nothing, less than nothing, worse than nothing.

Quote from: PaladinCA;462080Old school games seemed to be focused on the dungeon crawl. D&D 4e seems to be focused more on the dungeon crawl and the encounters found therein. That may be why some consider it to have an "old school" feel.

i think that is a part of it. 3e took dnd away from the dungeon. 4e took dnd back to the dungeon *and* simplified the rules quite a bit from 3e. when people say that it has that old school feel, i think they mean that it has that feel *when compared to 3e*

Quote from: Gene Weigel;462087"Ted Riley?"

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Yes, things haven't been the same since Riley left...

Is it Gene who is color blind, or me?

I could not read that lime green on the blue-gray background. Maybe in a bigger font?

Here's a public service for those who want to read the Weigel prose in full:

1st bit = "Ted Riley?"

2nd bit = Yes, things haven't been the same since Riley left...

Quote from: B.T.;461974And yes, this is trollbait/trollface but whatevs.

A little sincerity goes a long way.

Quote from: brettmb;4619764E love is the new storygames

We have always been at war with Eurasia.

Quote from: JDCorley;461985Maybe not everyone has the same thing in mind when they say 'old school'?

/thread

Quote from: Claudius;462020Good point. Old School is fashionable nowadays. I think the Pundit said some time ago there were even Old School swine.

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

I've heard this argument being made before, I've never found anything to be convincing about it.  Perhaps someone could really make a huge effort to play 4e in an old-school style, but there's practically nothing old school about it.  Chief evidence for that is the near-total lack of random tables, even things like treasure are pre-determined according to level.

RPGPundit

Quote from: ICFTI;4621123e took dnd away from the dungeon.

Nope, wrong.  When 3e came out, the focus was totally on going back to the dungeon.  They based their entire marketing campaign and module support around that concept.

Quote from: danbuter;462007Wow, you are so clever. I feel smarter just knowing you are in the world.

wait for it...

Quote from: mhensley;462149Nope, wrong.  When 3e came out, the focus was totally on going back to the dungeon.  They based their entire marketing campaign and module support around that concept.

well, i know that's what they said, but i don't really think it was true. that just seemed like marketing blather to me. 3rd party publishers did much more to take it back to the dungeon than wotc did, imo.

Quote from: anonymous cocksmock"Old school" D&D (we'll say 2e or below) was a positively hateful game that systematically fucked players over and pitted them against the DM in repeated "fuck you" scenarios.

Yes but that was fun.

Quote from: Benoist;462094One thing should be very, very clear in this thread: B.T. is a troll. He posted his thing to see fireworks. He actually doesn't give a shit one way or the other. That's it. Period. The end.

And he's posting under a pseudonym. Another anonymous cocksmock, what a surprise