If I set up at a table at the games shop, someone "old school" to the extent of playing 1E AD&D might think the original Men & Magic rules too harsh. A serious debate would involve factors from Monsters & Treasure and The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, but I'm not interested in getting into that debate with him. He can find another game, or start his own; I'm still likely to have plenty of eager players.

My regular "game night" group is first and last a social engagement of friends. I already know such things as that 3E D&D has been tried and found wanting, and that a superhero game is a non-starter. There are many things they would give a chance, but if they weren't in the groove after two or three sessions, then it would be time to set it aside.

It's really no different with RPGs than with board or card games.

Quote from: Haffrung;700442Backstory =/= Personality.

A character can have one without the other.

Agreed but seriously 3-4 sentences with a couple of story hooks can't be more than 5 minutes of thought?

The backstory is there mostly for the player so the GM might give an opportunity for the player to attempt to go after her intended concept without GM wankery. Secondarily it gives the GM easy hooks to get the player immersed in the world without being obvious or stilted.

Quote from: dragoner;700441Five pages is too long, but usually it is a paragraph or three; but it grows, GM notes, reasons for this or that. I think even in the first RPG's I played, it was almost always a paragraph at least; but hell, if someone can't put a paragraph together ... scary. How are they going to role play?

Well, to be fair - from what I've seen, pretty well . Too long of a backstory can be a sign of a "starlet player" as well. Personally, I can usually scribble a paragraph pretty quickly, usually focusing on relationships with some backstory NPCs, as it's something I as a GM mostly look for, and I suspect GMs also mostly look for that, because it's stuff you can use very directly in actual game.

Quote from: Haffrung;700442Backstory =/= Personality.

A character can have one without the other.

True - as I edited in, the last backstories I've read were about 2 years ago, and I did regularly game since then (though now as I set up for some Pendragon/Crusader Kings - style politics game, I'll probably demand at least a family tree). For me though, a backstory helps with personality. Just how I roll. Then again, I usually shamelessly steal backstories from literature.

Quote from: Marleycat;700444My typical limit is a paragraph, maybe 3 paragraphs if I am playing Mage or Lot5R. Regardless I like your idea up thread.

I usually do a paragraph as well. As a GM I like to be able to connect the character with the adventure, it gives more depth to the game.

Quote from: Benoistwith the idea there is a world and the player characters just happen to be some of the people doing stuff in it, characters live and die and are replaced, whereas the setting lives on.

That's the old meaning of "campaign" in the RPG context. The shift in what that means, along with what "adventure" means, between 1978 and today, perhaps sums up a whole broad trend.

Quote from: Rincewind1;700447Well, to be fair - from what I've seen, pretty well . Too long of a backstory can be a sign of a "starlet player" as well. Personally, I can usually scribble a paragraph pretty quickly, usually focusing on relationships with some backstory NPCs, as it's something I as a GM mostly look for, and I suspect GMs also mostly look for that, because it's stuff you can use very directly in actual game.

True about the starlet player, that can be annoying. When I interview people, often I require a written paragraph which it is surprising how terrible some of them can be, so it isn't surprising people can't do it. Then again I can whip up a six page report for work pretty quick, and I know it is to be taken to meetings with higher ups who will use it like a GM in a game - doesn't hurt to be able to create catchy sound bites as well.

Quote from: Phillip;700450That's the old meaning of "campaign" in the RPG context. The shift in what that means, along with what "adventure" means, between 1978 and today, perhaps sums up a whole broad trend.

Agreed. If you tell me my character is just some "shlub" doing stuff in your made up "real" world you deserve the contempt MY "shlub" will treat YOUR "real" world as it deserves.

Remember it's all make believe.

Quote from: Benoist;700148It is assumed that the G series are part of a greater setting of course, and that the adventure sites are dynamic et al, but if you don't know what you're doing, that the DMG advice flies over your head and that you construe the modules as scripts, as opposed to settings, and there is a part of that fault that befalls to the way the modules are linked to each other in the text itself, let's be clear, then it becomes all too easy to run them as 2D hackfests where problems of "story continuity" creep in.

The A series suffers from the same issues, though I somehow feel they are worse in that context.

The original Slavelords tournament round structure meant that advancing players automatically ended up in the next scheduled scenario. The modules were expanded a bit, but more in the way of adding to the locales than in providing guidance for integrating them into an ongoing campaign.

I've met a number of DMs who would have used some "fiat" to prevent the kind of spree Rob Kuntz went on in the ToEE. In recent years, the disparity in PC levels that may have left Gary less than fully thrilled with that, and the opposition among PCs that led to the eventual intervention of other parties, are often simply not allowed to come into existence in the first place.

Quote from: Marleycat;700427I would add "if a wizard all deaths by cats must be included" given they are the MOST dangerous thing alive to a typical wizard.

In one session a MU was in some wizards lab with a few potions laying around. Theyd offed the owner of the tower and the "former" familliar, a cat, was skulking around.

The MU, (who was not me for once, I was the bard that time,) had been reading the DMG and saw the potion miscibility section... sooooooo...
He mixes two potions of four... First was miscible... (DM was rolling in secret for obvious reasons) Think it was a combo healing and Treasure finding potion.

Emboldened the MU tried the next two. I do not know what the result really was. But the effect was the MU was polymorphed into a mouse and the familliar zipped out and ate him... "gulp" roll new character...

I took the cat as my familliar.
"But you cant have a familliar! You are a bard!"
"Are you going to argue with a cat that eats wizards in one gulp?"
"well.... no..."

(personal guess was the result was lethal poison and the DM got creative with the death.)

Quote from: Marleycat;700455Agreed. If you tell me my character is just some "shlub" doing stuff in your made up "real" world you deserve the contempt MY "shlub" will treat YOUR "real" world as it deserves.

Remember it's all make believe.

Yes, I don't want players to be shlubs, my world is more like the forest where they are the wolves running free. The only problem is sometimes when they become too powerful, then it can be hard to keep them all going in the same direction.

Quote from: Old Geezer;700232The G modules are published versions of convention tournaments.  Of COURSE they have fuckall to do with D&D.

I reckon Gary Gygax was in a better position to decide the official denotation of D&D, and in that case he in fact did. The tournament game form is essentially a subset of the full-scale form, and much the same could be said of other variations that have become normative while that fell into obscurity.

O

Quote from: Omega;700458In one session a MU was in some wizards lab with a few potions laying around. Theyd offed the owner of the tower and the "former" familliar, a cat, was skulking around.

The MU, (who was not me for once, I was the bard that time,) had been reading the DMG and saw the potion miscibility section... sooooooo...
He mixes two potions of four... First was miscible... (DM was rolling in secret forobvious reasons) Think it was a combo healing and Treasure finding potion.

Emboldened the MU tried the next two. I do not know what the result really was. But the effect was the MU was polymorphed into a mouse and the familliar zipped out and ate him... "gulp" roll new character...

I took the cat as my familliar.
"But you cant have a familliar! You are a bard!"
"Are you going to argue with a cat that eats wizards in one gulp?"
"well.... no..."

(personal guess was the result was lethal poison and the DM got creative with the death.)

That is something 3/4e got wrong. Potion mishaps and wizard killing cats.

Quote from: dragoner;700434I just don't get the hate towards wargamers; as far as pc backstories, sure I don't want to read a novella, but there is nothing wrong with a page to give me motivations, or ideas on how to torture them if they are players ... muahaha
/evil GM laugh

NPC's as well, I'll often copy parts of the roleplay dialog into their sheets, like when the party bought an android that was a steward, but just a re-skinned warbot:

... so basically the rich players bought an obstinate, lethal npc?

That still makes me laugh.

I was more poking fun at the whole low level lethality of some RPGs. Hence the closing comment of... again. Downtime while dead is not fun. Unless the DM lets you haunt the survivors...

I like a good backstory. In fact for my main RPG project way back it was mandatory as I absolutely needed to get into the characters heads.

Some would submit a page or two of prose. Two TSR book authors who opted in sent in about 4 pages of background each. Others would send in maybee a paragraph at best. Those tended to be the "develop as I adventure" sorts which is fine with me.

Quote from: dragoner;700459Yes, I don't want players to be shlubs, my world is more like the forest where they are the wolves running free. The only problem is sometimes when they become too powerful, then it can be hard to keep them all going in the same direction.

Agreed but there must be a balance and it isn't that hard to achieve, seriously. I think Ben would be a great DM to play under but remember he is OSR Taliban so has to keep to a certain line regardless.

(When I do Dnd I use FantasyCraft which flat out doesn't allow these abuses, other than that; I run or play Mage the Awakening mostly) so this is largely a non-issue to me.

Quote from: Rincewind1This is probably the single most important issue with "Old School Mortality" - the lack of personality/backstory until the character reaches "x" level, because what's the point to bother, if he might be Mario 5.0 in a moment?

I don't recall Simbalist and Backhaus explicitly drawing that connection in Chivalry & Sorcery (1977), but it makes some sense from the perspective that sees "lack" where other gamers see "enough." Another factor was that, without computer assistance, simply generating stats was more labor intensive than rolling up a figure for D&D or T&T.

There would seem to be some synergy among these things.