Quote from: Pat;1087079Grab a copy of Philotomy's Musings, they probably do a better job of covering the basic assumptions than any other single source.
http://grey-elf.com/philotomy.pdf

It's more ranty and a lot of people don't like the tone, but if that doesn't bother you the Old School Primer is good introduction to the main differences between old and new school styles.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/matthew-finch/quick-primer-for-old-school-gaming/ebook/product-3159558.html

The "Primer" is very fine material. It really exposes the break points in so-called "old-school" and so-called "storygame".

Quote from: Pat;1087149Old school is more a philosophy than a ruleset, and that's why people who like the ethos keep coming back to OD&D -- it captures that spirit in a purer form than any other edition. And of all the clones, Swords & Wizardry was the one most designed with those principles at the forefront. For rules, any ruleset up to (and even including) third edition work fine.

How do we even call 3E "D&D"? It changed everything that mattered at a SYSTEMATIC level. I see 3E, 3.5, PF, 4E, & 5E as some other thing that fails to capture the true essence of BECMI + AD&D.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1087183How do we even call 3E "D&D"? It changed everything that mattered at a SYSTEMATIC level.

It still has classes, levels, the 6 stats, and fireballs. And dungeons.

3e certainly narrowed the scope of play and introduced huge class imbalances. That doesn't make it 'not D&D'.

The quantity and quality of some of this stuff everyone posted is amazing, I've read and printed ton of it.

Quote from: Crusader XI found this rather useful. How To Get Started Playing Old-School D&D For Free:

https://dungeonspossums.blogspot.com...-school-d.html

This is pure gold, amount of additional links and content is awesome.

Matt Finch's A Quick Primer on Old School Gaming - great for someone who has a little or no clue about OSR, for me Principia Apocrypha seemed better.

estar - sir, the material about Sandbox creation and blog is great, added to favourites.

Quote from: finarvynIf you started out with AD&D 2E you aren't that far from the right place already.

Maybe, but just after the fall of socialism/communism in Poland role playing games were something extremely rare and niche, so when we discovered them we had no clue about how to play. We only could reference them to some games like Betrayal at Krondor and we were simulating stories. It was great, but far from what it was meant to be played. Then came 3rd edition of D&D which pushed away from old-school approach, so me & my group in Poland are noobs when it comes to old school and sandbox despite having over 20 years of gaming under our belts. But we are looking forward to it. After playing some 5th edition we came to conclusion it is so full of unimportant choices, it is so hard to die there and so easy to replace everything with a dice roll it's far from our tastes. And we started digging. Now we're playing Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea but already looking forward t buying and running more OSR systems.

Thanks everyone for great posts, I won't hesitate to post some insight or questions. I think I need to perform some kind of briefing to my players and tell them what's gonna be different in our playing style because they have the same amount of assumptions as I do I guess. The mentioned Principia Apocrypha has special section "for players" with some great advice.

Quote from: S'mon;1087228It still has classes, levels, the 6 stats, and fireballs. And dungeons.

3e certainly narrowed the scope of play and introduced huge class imbalances. That doesn't make it 'not D&D'.

Agreed.  There's a good game in there somewhere.

Quote from: Razor 007;1087278Agreed.  There's a good game in there somewhere.

E6, E8, and (at a stretch) E10 are all good.

Quote from: kanePL;1087078So far my assumptions are:
- I run sandbox style campaign
- I stick to rulings adapted to specific situation, not rules
- I'm not creating a story, rather environment for story to unfold by player actions
- I'm not enforcing balance, I represent the world that is sometimes brutal and unfair
- There is a lot of randomness in the game world

While there are voices on the internet who declare these concepts mandatory for "old school" play, many groups back in the actual day didn't adhere to some, most or all of those. As someone who gamed in the ancient times, I would declare those "rules" to be part of the modern OSR, moreso than how early games were played.

BTW, Kevin Crawford / Sine Nomine (Stars without Number, Godbound) is a huge proponent of "sandbox" campaigns and he wrote a great OSR-ish Swords & Sorcery RPG called "Exemplars & Eidolons" which has a great adventure generating ideas. And its free.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144651/Exemplars--Eidolons

As for "rulings, not rules", the rulings need to be grounded in something and represent some consistency. Every "old school" DM is free to decide how to do "ability checks", but it helps the players if your method is consistent during the campaign. For instance, you may use D20 roll under, or 1D6 roll 1-2 + modifier, or even just eyeball it based on the numbers. Whatever method, the players should understand the How and Why so its not just DM fiat or "Mother May I" as is often quoted.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1087284While there are voices on the internet who declare these concepts mandatory for "old school" play, many groups back in the actual day didn't adhere to some, most or all of those. As someone who gamed in the ancient times, I would declare those "rules" to be part of the modern OSR, moreso than how early games were played.

*looks at thread title*

Quote from: Spinachcat;1087285BTW, Kevin Crawford / Sine Nomine (Stars without Number, Godbound) is a huge proponent of "sandbox" campaigns and he wrote a great OSR-ish Swords & Sorcery RPG called "Exemplars & Eidolons" which has a great adventure generating ideas. And its free.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144651/Exemplars--Eidolons

I wish someone was running this so I could play it!! :cool:

Quote from: Theory of Games;1087183How do we even call 3E "D&D"? It changed everything that mattered at a SYSTEMATIC level. I see 3E, 3.5, PF, 4E, & 5E as some other thing that fails to capture the true essence of BECMI + AD&D.

Ha, making all the rolls go the same way and fixing AC so that as it improves it does not go down makes DnD not DnD.

Classic.

Quote from: kanePL;1087078How to switch to OSR?

Buy AD&D 1st Edition. Then play using only the rules as they're written.

Quote from: kanePL;1087078Hi everyone,

Searched through the forums and couldn't find exactly what I was looking for. I am looking for some advice on what all this OSR is about. I have the general knowledge, some (probably right and wrong) assumptions, but I started gaming from AD&D 2ed which was non-oldschool.

So what I'm looking for is some advice how to 'unglue' myself from two decades of new-school gaming and make it right. Now I'm not looking for specifics, precise instructions but rather guidelines, an introduction.

So far my assumptions are:
- I run sandbox style campaign
- I stick to rulings adapted to specific situation, not rules
- I'm not creating a story, rather environment for story to unfold by player actions
- I'm not enforcing balance, I represent the world that is sometimes brutal and unfair
- There is a lot of randomness in the game world

Searched YouTube and the internet but all I found was scraps of information to collect and I thought since a lot of interest is in OSR, maybe there is some introduction somewhere.

Based on your appraoch - you're already doing it, dude! And 2e is old school, too. Who says it isnt?

Quote from: Psikerlord;1087610And 2e is old school, too. Who says it isnt?

1e fans!

Quote from: Psikerlord;1087610Based on your appraoch - you're already doing it, dude! And 2e is old school, too. Who says it isnt?

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1087498Buy AD&D 1st Edition. Then play using only the rules as they're written.

Yeah, good luck with that...  It's awesome, but not due to its clarity.