Quote from: StormBringer;377236No, clearly this isn't some doctorate level stuff here, but again, for most of the people out there, it may as well be.  Even a simple problem like 6x=3 puts people into a cold sweat.  Especially when they find out it involves a fraction.

I walked into a restaurant with my wife, father, and two daughters.  I told the woman there, "3 adults and 2 children".  She gave me a puzzled look so I added, "that's 5 total," at which point she smiled and thanked me because doing that math herself was beyond her.  I'm also told by a teacher friend about children who can't read analog clocks.

Quote from: John Morrow;377244I'm also told by a teacher friend about children who can't read analog clocks.

I invented an Abacus for that. 60 minutes. 24 hours. AM and PM using different colored beads.

Spend an hour or two with them with both the clock and the abacus, and they'll never have trouble with time and math again. I made this for a twenty-three year old woman who couldn't calculate time to turn in her time cards for a regular wage earning job.

Her motivation to learn was there. She wanted to get paid fairly. I suspect it was a unique type visual/math dyslexia. She could read well enough, and had no problems at all working a cash register, and the computers too. translating the math from the clock wasn't happening because it wasn't base 10.

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

-clash

No, only one putz thinks star frontiers is a ripoff of traveller, that's not enough debate to start a thread.

Quote from: flyingmice;377097Let'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

I think The Morrow Project came out in this timeframe too.

Quote from: John Morrow;377244I walked into a restaurant with my wife, father, and two daughters.  I told the woman there, "3 adults and 2 children".  She gave me a puzzled look so I added, "that's 5 total," at which point she smiled and thanked me because doing that math herself was beyond her.  I'm also told by a teacher friend about children who can't read analog clocks.

It's scary sometimes the stuff we take for granted as 'common knowledge' that can be sorely lacking in the 'common' department.

In any case, as an illustrative point, the New/Old dichotomy might be said to split around the complexity of the rules.  I know there have been people in this and other threads that talk about the 'improvement' of a unified mechanic, but I think even beyond that to just a simpler method of resolution could be a useful delimiter.  

Like Clash mentioned about StarCluster designs, "Thing is, the simpler you make it, the more difficult it becomes to create if you want to retain any shred of verisimilitude...".  So, for any specific genre or games in general perhaps, a good dividing line to consider might be the one that has been talked about before; rules complexity vs verisimilitude/"realism".

You know, some games do require some notable math, such as doing square roots and such. But really, you can get a pretty powerful calculator these days for like 15$ at evilmart, so doing square roots isn't that scary.

Quote from: Tavis;377239I think that's definitely part of what we're talking about here with the DIY/BIY mindset.

That's something I admire about a new-school game like Trail of Cthulu (or even a new version of an old-school game like I hear the Basic Roleplaying book does) - explicit guidance about how to customize it.

DIY is one place where I whole heartedly agree with Old School.

-clash

Quote from: Cylonophile;377252I think The Morrow Project came out in this timeframe too.

D'oh! Yep! Forgot about that one too!

-clash

Gee, BIY is catching on! I might have started a buzzword.

Quote from: One Horse Town;377284Gee, BIY is catching on! I might have started a buzzword.

I did that with Situational GMing. When I started seeing posts from people I never heard of with that phrase, it gave me a nice warm feeling, like peeing in the pool...

-clash

Quote from: TavisI think that's definitely part of what we're talking about here with the DIY/BIY mindset.

...............

That's something I admire about a new-school game like Trail of Cthulu (or even a new version of an old-school game like I hear the Basic Roleplaying book does) - explicit guidance about how to customize it.

I really wouldn't file that under BIY. One of the things I liked about 3x was its extensive advice concerning common houserules in the DMG, and the way that it was easy to pick up variant rules and classes from other games entirely (thank you OGL). Besides that, feats were small and discrete units for character building (easier to homebrew IMO) that could give some flavor to a setting. And... y'know... if I'd had my way, half the stuff in Unearthed Arcana would have been crammed into the DMG. Because that book was really useful for a noob GM looking for ways to make the game his own.

I imagine a BIY game would have it in its best interest to make homebrewing intentionally difficult. So you gotta buy more crap.

Quote from: Cylonophile;377254You know, some games do require some notable math, such as doing square roots and such. But really, you can get a pretty powerful calculator these days for like 15$ at evilmart, so doing square roots isn't that scary.

It isn't scary, but it isn't necessary either. Throwing equations around is the easy way, but not the only way.

-clash

Quote from: StormBringer;377236Of course it isn't rocket surgery, nor calculus, or advanced theoretical discrete mathematics.

Hehe! Albert Bailey used to say "This isn't brain surgery! It's just rocket science!"

-clash

Quote from: StormBringer;377253In any case, as an illustrative point, the New/Old dichotomy might be said to split around the complexity of the rules.  I know there have been people in this and other threads that talk about the 'improvement' of a unified mechanic, but I think even beyond that to just a simpler method of resolution could be a useful delimiter.  

Like Clash mentioned about StarCluster designs, "Thing is, the simpler you make it, the more difficult it becomes to create if you want to retain any shred of verisimilitude...".  So, for any specific genre or games in general perhaps, a good dividing line to consider might be the one that has been talked about before; rules complexity vs verisimilitude/"realism".

The Old/New School thing is not about rules complexity. AD&D is enormously more complex than - say - Risus. Let's talk about levels of design. This is from my blog, august 2009:

   The Levels of Design

There are three levels of engagement with any ruleset. Designer level, Group level, and Individual level. Where certain rules are located makes a big difference in the feel of that ruleset.

Designer level states the rules unequivocally. This is so. That is different. This subsystem is used in these circumstances. The feel is "take it or leave it." Changing rules on the Designer level requires a commitment of anyone wishing to change those rules. Will doing this change affect play in unexpected ways? Will play become unwieldy? Will one thing become too important to the detriment of the game? One must be bold and cautious at the same time. Weigh the expected consequences and institute the change. In the early development of RPGs, GMs were expected to meddle in this area, and the systems were designed with loose tolerances to facilitate these changes - like an AK-47, it would still work even full of mud. This is one of the charms of Old School design. As RPG design developed, developer level design tightened up considerably. Streamlining mechanics forced greater interdependence of components, and tinkering on this level became hazardous to games.

Group level gives groups options. Here are modifiers you can use. Award these points as you see fit. Interpret this broadly. Use common sense. The feel is free and open. Rules on the Group level are designed to be changed, modified, messed with. Group- level rules recognize and deal with the fact that what fits one group may not fit another. As noted above, almost all Designer level rules were also Group level in the beginning. As RPG design developed, Group level rules became a separate distinguishable level. The designer is saying "Here - you can mess with this all you like, and it  won't screw anything vital up."

Individual level rules have always been there. You have X points to allocate to Y attributes. Roll XdY and choose the attribute. Choose your profession. Roll or choose from table A. The feel is complete freedom within parameters. The more freedom given on this level, the more wide open the game feels to a player. Constriction of choice at this level is a consequence of the focus of the game. Games more focused on a genre, theme, or story generally restrict player choices more than more general games.


That's my take here.

-clash

Quote from: beejazz;377287I really wouldn't file that under BIY. One of the things I liked about 3x was its extensive advice concerning common houserules in the DMG, and the way that it was easy to pick up variant rules and classes from other games entirely (thank you OGL).

I like Clash's description of the loose tolerance that made old-school games functional even if you gunked up the works with whatever came to hand.

I think the way that 3.x became BIY was that its unified, rationalized, tightly interconnected design tended to make people treat it as a precision-engineered machine. Arcana Unearthed is a good example of a 3.x product that went against this philosophy - "look, here's how to get under the hood and swap things around" - but didn't change the play culture in my experience.

At some point - and it'd be interesting to think about the circumstances that led to this - it became really common for 3.x players to say "this is broken". Balancing challenges and equalizing everyone's awesome was clearly a job for a precision machine. You couldn't trust third party designers to get it right, and they're professionals; why should you expect yourself or your neighborhood DM to do a better job? The BIY mentality was that you had to look to official sources to avoid the dreaded possibility of brokenness.

I introduced a bunch of houserules, new classes, etc. in the last 3.5 campaign I ran, and bought Fantasy Craft because the idea of a crunchy D&D toolkit still appeals to me. One of the things that brought down that campaign, though, was people worrying about whether someone else's character was more powerful than theirs - and by 2008 official was no longer seen as a guarantee; I saw as much carping about people who did "cheesy" multiclassing or took "broken" feats straight out of the WotC books as I did my homebrew classes.