More and more, this place is all about Old School Gaming, and I have less and less to post about. So - in an effort to keep involved here - what is New School Gaming? What are some good examples? What are some *bad* examples? What is New School Gaming better at that Old School gaming? What is it not as good at?
-clash
You're not going to get any hard & fast definitions, of course. It may seem like "New school" ought to be the opposite of "old school" but that'd be like saying No Doubt is the opposite of Jerry Lee Lewis.
Put another way, GURPS doesn't strike me as "old school", nor does Jovian Chronicles. But they aren't "new school" either even if they were at one time.
Furthermore it's tempting to suggest that "new school" is more diverse than "old school", but it's possible that only stands up if you take an ahistorical "line of development" view. That is, pretty much all "modern" games trace their history back to D&D, ergo, one might think that as you go back in time, there are fewer and fewer styles of game until you get to Blackmoor circa 1972. But from a fairly early date, there were a bunch of diverging games, such as En Garde. They just didn't contribute their genes to the main line of rpg evolution.
Give me a minute to think, though, and I might be able to come up with some contemporary non-mainstream games that I'd like to talk about.
Well, you seem to have some definition of old school gaming and what it's about. What's your definition? And you apparently like "new school." What do you consider new school?
Personally, I only tend to think new vs. old school in terms of D&D.
Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;376422Well, you seem to have some definition of old school gaming and what it's about. What's your definition? And you apparently like "new school." What do you consider new school?
Personally, I only tend to think new vs. old school in terms of D&D.
Old School Gaming? AFAICS, it's all about playing early editions of D&D and certain D&D-like games, like Metamorphosis Alpha and old Gamma World, and the clones thereof. As for New School Gaming, I have no idea. That's why I asked. Seems like there should logically be such a thing.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;376415More and more, this place is all about Old School Gaming, and I have less and less to post about. So - in an effort to keep involved here - what is New School Gaming? What are some good examples? What are some *bad* examples? What is New School Gaming better at that Old School gaming? What is it not as good at?
-clash
Well, when 'Old School' is referenced, it talks about rules-lite, roleplay heavy, with little regard for game balance. I seem to remember a comment about, 'Heroic vs superheroic' I liked, as well as 'player skill over character skills'.
On the other hand, many people (normally myself included) include traveller, tunnells and trolls, and Runequest into Old School. SO I guess you need your definition, first.
I'd tell you, to some degree, if Old School = Vancian magic, that many gmaes of the progressive age are much more flexible than the Vancian Straightjacket.
I would also say many progressive games are better at 'out-of-adventure' gaming, and at creating a grittier game.
point of information: this place isn't really about "old school" gaming either. The rare posts that actually focus on any sort of gaming at all drop down the page.
What we're really doing now is three fold:
1. Determining who is us and who is them.
2. Exploring butthurt.
3. Giving every fucking dead horse in the world the beating it fucking well deserves; and then beating it again because we mistook the postmortem bloating for signs of life, and then beating it one last time for being dead, after all. Fucking dead horses. They make me fucking mad.
Quote from: flyingmice;376415More and more, this place is all about Old School Gaming, and I have less and less to post about. So - in an effort to keep involved here - what is New School Gaming? What are some good examples? What are some *bad* examples? What is New School Gaming better at that Old School gaming? What is it not as good at?
-clash
Well, you could always start directing people over to the Citadel in a mock irritated tone, you know. :)
Quote from: LordVreeg;376425Well, when 'Old School' is referenced, it talks about rules-lite, roleplay heavy, with little regard for game balance.
Where would rules-heavy games like "Chivalry & Sorcery" (1977) and "DragonQuest" (1980) fit into, with respect to 'Old School'?
Quote from: Aos;376426point of information: this place isn't really about "old school" gaming either. The rare posts that actually focus on any sort of gaming at all drop down the page.
What we're really doing now is three fold:
1. Determining who is us and who is them.
2. Exploring butthurt.
3. Giving every fucking dead horse in the world the beating it fucking well deserves; and then beating it again because we mistook the postmortem bloating for signs of life, and then beating it one last time for being dead, after all. Fucking dead horses. They make me fucking mad.
and your comments on the horses were kind and gentle compared to what we really do to them here.
Quote from: ggroy;376431Where would rules-heavy games like "Chivalry & Sorcery" (1977) and "DragonQuest" (1980) fit into, with respect to 'Old School'?
Well, now we are getting into the personal side of it.
I consider OS more of a game style and feel, because I left D&D decades ago and made a pretty rules-heavy, social-heavy, non-vancian, skill based system. But the net effect is still what I would consider the OS feel, in terms of many of the guidelines I mentioned.
But the requirements of
1) Rules lite
2) player skill over character skill
give lie to my opinion.
It's no cognitive dissonance, I am aware of all of this.
Based on the full set of qualifications, C&S and Dragonquest don't pass, though I am aware of their age. I'd be curious about other's opinions, as well as Clash's opinion and where he wants this thread to go. I think, ultimately, that is going to get a good result.
Quote from: Aos;376426point of information: this place isn't really about "old school" gaming either. The rare posts that actually focus on any sort of gaming at all drop down the page.
What we're really doing now is three fold:
1. Determining who is us and who is them.
2. Exploring butthurt.
3. Giving every fucking dead horse in the world the beating it fucking well deserves; and then beating it again because we mistook the postmortem bloating for signs of life, and then beating it one last time for being dead, after all. Fucking dead horses. They make me fucking mad.
Ummm, Ok - I didn't think I was doing that...
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;376434Ummm, Ok - I didn't think I was doing that...
-clash
I wasn't speaking about you. I was commenting on the forum in general- much as you were in the OP.
Quote from: StormBringer;376428Well, you could always start directing people over to the Citadel in a mock irritated tone, you know. :)
Dagnab Old Schoolers! Why don't you all take your gol dang hides over to the Citadel! They like your kind there!
How was that? :O
-clash
Quote from: Aos;376435I wasn't speaking about you. I was commenting on the forum in general- much as you were in the OP.
OK! I was a bit confused, I guess!
-clash
I'd be curious about other's opinions, as well as Clash's opinion and where he wants this thread to go. I think, ultimately, that is going to get a good result.[/QUOTE]
I wasn't thinking any direction in particular. I was just curious, LV. Whatever way people want to take it is fine with me.
-clash
Um, shut up Aos?
Since you asked so nice, sure.
Quote from: flyingmice;376436Dagnab Old Schoolers! Why don't you all take your gol dang hides over to the Citadel! They like your kind there!
How was that? :O
-clash
That works. :)
C&S and DQ are the beginning of confusing the discussion. There wasn't a clear break, but somewhere between 1980 and 1990, published games changed. Not only in terms of mechanics (to crib from LV, they got heavier, included more skills, and got more balanced) but also in outlook. Gonzo was out, world-coherence was in, and in fact world-detail was in. The two aren't the same. GURPS 3e core is non-gonzo, implicitly world-coherent, but not world-detailed even in many of the sourcebooks. On the other hand look at 2300 AD or Harn. Finally in the 90's we got splats, with a special rulebook for every character type or faction.
I think in any era you have stuff that's outside the existing mainstream, and may or may not contribute to future mainstream development. E.g. En Garde if it was published today, but it wasn't.
Forge games are an obvious place to look. Out of the ones I've seen, the really radical ones that I've liked, at least on reading, include My Life With Master and the Shab al-Hiri Roach. Both are ultra-focused, a bit boardgame-like, with stereotyped characters and situations that make it easy to get into play. (At least in theory; the funny thing here is I've read but not played MLwM, and played but not read Roach.)
Another game I'd point to is Mythic. It's more toolkit-y, inviting use and abuse in a variety of ways including hybridization with existing rules. At the extreme end, though, what you get is a generic system for improvising as much or as little detail, at whatever scale you like, and resolving whatever happens. It can be used as an RPG, or as something related but different.
Quote from: Aos;376443Since you asked so nice, sure.
The question mark makes it polite.
That was my opinion as well.
Why don't we just pick an arbitrary date? Or event? Easier than listing characteristics.
For me I would say every game from the beginning of D&D up to and including the 1989 version of 2e is a "Vintage RPG." But just the 3 core books. From the point they started making "The Complete X Handbook", to the second version of 2e, and the Players Option stuff, all the way until the current date, that's non-vintage stuff.
Isn't that easier than looking for characteristics? Just pick a date when you decided "Shit changed too much for my tastes, and I now like it less."
(Of course, I wouldn't be able to include 2e in that category if we didn't houserule away all the goody-two-shoes-ness of it, keeping the demons and devils names, assassins, etc.)
Quote from: Joethelawyer;376452Why don't we just pick an arbitrary date? Or event?
When Dragonlance was first released. :rolleyes:
I think this is one of those cases where everything is relative to the observer.
I've been in the hobby for less than ten years, and AD&D 2e might be old-school to me, since it's still AD&D and I've never played it, but AD&D 2e might not be old-school at all to someone with a few more decades experience with RPGs.
The only reason AD&D 1e and older are even called "old school" is because a group of people claimed that descriptor for a subset of RPGs within a certain timeframe while leaving out other games.
Let's see... New School games I like....
Aces & Eights
Mutants & Masterminds 2.0
Spycraft 2.0
Two of these are based on the d20/3.x rules, the other, completely new. I'd consider Castles & Crusades old school, even if it does have a few nifty and very well done new game mechanics systems...
The Shard RPG looks interesting as well.
If one uses an arbitrary date or event, it may very well be specific to the person making such a determination.
In my case, I suppose an arbitrary date I could choose for "old school" is the time before I left rpg gaming altogether for 15+ years. This would be sometime in the late 1980's before 2E AD&D was released, and after the 1E Forgotten Realms "grey box" was released.
"New school" could correspond to the era after I came back to playing rpg games after my hiatus, shortly after 3.5E D&D was released.
Offhand I don't know how I would classify the era corresponding to the years I was on hiatus away from gaming. I picked up various books over the years from that era, from various "impulse buys" at 2nd handed book stores, thrift shops, etc ... Though I don't have much first hand experience playing many of these games (ie. VtM, RIFTS, Cyberpunk 2020, Earthdawn, etc ...). The most I ever played these particular games, was several evening pickup type games over the last 5+ years.
I think the idea of this thread is: draw the line however you like, then pick some stuff on the "new school" side, and talk about what it does well.
Don't just draw the line, and don't just list names.
My own take is that the hobby has been something of a Rorschach test from the very beginning, at least once it went beyond people in Gary's group, in that people played the game in different ways, emphasized different things, and got different things out of it and I think that continues to today. That's why you'll find articles like The Metamorphosis Alpha Notebook By Bill Armintrout in 1981 about his experiences in the late 1970s (http://www.metamorphosisalpha.net/html/ma1e.html) where he talks not only about a problem-solving campaign but also playing sub-optimal characters, balance, player problem-solving, storytelling, co-GMing, and involving the players in world-building, and also articles like Aspects of Adventure Gaming by Glenn Blacow in 1980 (http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/blacow.html), which talks about different types of players. So even back in the beginning, there were people who emphasized player skill or getting into character or telling a story or something else or tried to find a balance between all of those things. And what you see after that are people trying to come up with a set of rules that changes the emphasis or promotes a certain style of play and what it all really boils down to is an attempt to create a set of rules that supports the type of play an author likes or wants to support better than some other set of rules that was often designed with a different emphasis.
So what I would argue New School is (and this definition will likely include the current OSR) is an attempt to deliberately create or encourage a particular style of play through the rules and advice rather than letting the GM and players sort it out on their own and make it their own. And what I think it missing in some ways from the current gaming culture is the sense of experimentation and freedom to change things that one can find evidence of in early gaming magazines (e.g., variant rules, new rule subsystems, random tables, and so on) to the point where one of the oft-mentioned innovations of Fudge was that it gave people "permission" to tinker with the rules. So if I had to point to something that seems to have changed, it was the idea that you don't have permission to tinker with the rules but should use the rules as written.
Is Dying Earth new school? I think it's pretty cool. I also kind of like Trail of Cthuluhu (although I remain a huge fan of BRP Call of Cthulhu). I had some fun running The Pool for my family, too.
As far as D&D goes, I consider everything up through the early 80s to be "old school." In the mid to late 80s, the focus and thinking about the game started to shift in a different direction (even during the 1e era). Late 1e and very early 2e I consider to be about the same: not exactly "old school D&D," but not completely divorced from it, either. Late 2e shifted away even more, and then 3e made the clean break into what I'd call "a related, but different game." (Which is fine; I had some fun with 3e and consider it a well-designed game, but I don't get the same game experience with it that I do with traditional D&D.) Obviously, I consider 4e in much the same way as 3e: nice design, but not the same game, despite the branding and such.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;376458I think the idea of this thread is: draw the line however you like, then pick some stuff on the "new school" side, and talk about what it does well.
Don't just draw the line, and don't just list names.
That's kinda what I was thinking, Elliot, though it was pretty unformed. I was very curious about what people thought.
-clash
This is going to be like nailing Jell-O to a wall. :)
As a suggestion, while defining what New School is, we should also be defining what New School isn't.
I always saw Old School as stuff predating 2E AD&D. That didn't mean it couldn't be good, bad, light, heavy. Just that 2E seems to be the arbitrary point people try and go back away from.
I liked 2E AD&D. Yet old school games I've seen mentioned are 007 RPG (Percentile), MSH (Percentile/chart), Star Frontiers (Percentile), Editions of D&D, The Fantasy Trip (Pre-Gurps), and the ZeFRS (Based on the Star Frontiers Zebulon's guide version of the percentile color chart, and considered "Retro" nod to old school.
The problem is it seems somewhat arbitrary to whomever is using the term.
In the above games not all are "classed", not all are percentile. Many have unified mechanics, some do not. Most of those "Old School" games rely on random PC generation. Yet a lot of new school games do as well. So that isn't apparently a factor.
I don't set myself anywhere. I'm fond of games all over. New School (Shadowrun 4E, with its mostly universal resolution) Old School (Cyclopedia D&D and relatives.
Even some "old school" aiming games I've seen take a more modern approach to the elements of play than I expected. Grubman's "X-plorers" for example.
As for "having less to say," that's just a stage the site is going through. Start some threads about what you want to talk about. Stop being a follower Clash! (Hehe..:D)
Quote from: John Morrow;376459So what I would argue New School is (and this definition will likely include the current OSR) is an attempt to deliberately create or encourage a particular style of play through the rules and advice rather than letting the GM and players sort it out on their own and make it their own. And what I think it missing in some ways from the current gaming culture is the sense of experimentation and freedom to change things that one can find evidence of in early gaming magazines (e.g., variant rules, new rule subsystems, random tables, and so on) to the point where one of the oft-mentioned innovations of Fudge was that it gave people "permission" to tinker with the rules. So if I had to point to something that seems to have changed, it was the idea that you don't have permission to tinker with the rules but should use the rules as written.
Hi John:
This definition of Old School covers everything from OD&D to Diaspora, and I think if you asked most Old School Gamers, or myself, those are two very different things. Why would this be?
-clash
Quote from: jeff37923;376463This is going to be like nailing Jell-O to a wall. :)
As a suggestion, while defining what New School is, we should also be defining what New School isn't.
I would certainly agree, Jeff!
-clash
Quote from: John Morrow;376459And what I think it missing in some ways from the current gaming culture is the sense of experimentation and freedom to change things that one can find evidence of in early gaming magazines (e.g., variant rules, new rule subsystems, random tables, and so on) to the point where one of the oft-mentioned innovations of Fudge was that it gave people "permission" to tinker with the rules. So if I had to point to something that seems to have changed, it was the idea that you don't have permission to tinker with the rules but should use the rules as written.
I think, John, that this sort of thing is actually going on quite a bit. I know that Jrients has made a million million random tables (http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/miscellaneum-of-cinder/5014145). I have rules varients on my site (http://themetalearth.blogspot.com/). Estar has a book (http://www.batintheattic.com/) out that is essentially rule variants. There's also the infamous Carcosa (http://carcosa-geoffrey.blogspot.com/), and the rarely mentioned Savage Swords of Athanor (http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/savage-swords-of-athanor/6176053) and that's just old school (oh how I've grown to loathe that lable) stuff- I'm sure there's a tone of other homemade stuff (free and for sale) out there for newer games too.
Quote from: Silverlion;376464I always saw Old School as stuff predating 2E AD&D. That didn't mean it couldn't be good, bad, light, heavy. Just that 2E seems to be the arbitrary point people try and go back away from.
I liked 2E AD&D. Yet old school games I've seen mentioned are 007 RPG (Percentile), MSH (Percentile/chart), Star Frontiers (Percentile), Editions of D&D, The Fantasy Trip (Pre-Gurps), and the ZeFRS (Based on the Star Frontiers Zebulon's guide version of the percentile color chart, and considered "Retro" nod to old school.
The problem is it seems somewhat arbitrary to whomever is using the term.
In the above games not all are "classed", not all are percentile. Many have unified mechanics, some do not. Most of those "Old School" games rely on random PC generation. Yet a lot of new school games do as well. So that isn't apparently a factor.
That agrees with what I see, though some Old Schoolers seem to only include various forms of D&D and clones, while other seem to have a specific period in mind. My quasi-definition in an earlier post was pretty much a compromise between the two.
QuoteAs for "having less to say," that's just a stage the site is going through. Start some threads about what you want to talk about. Stop being a follower Clash! (Hehe..:D)
That's what I'm attempting in this thread. :D
-clash
Using my arbitrary classification of "old school" and "new school",
http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=376456&postcount=26
here are my experiences.
old school (before 2E AD&D)
- very little to no semblance of "balance" in mechanics
- disposable characters (character death is common)
- sandbox play
- a lot of DM fiat (sometimes to the point of DM "dictatorship")
- more casual gamers
Most of my "old school" experiences are from playing D&D/AD&D and a smattering of other games like Runequest, DragonQuest, Star Wars d6, Palladium Fantasy, Marvel Super Heroes, etc ... played a lot less frequently.
new school (shortly after 3.5E D&D)
- high customization of character powers
- less and less DM fiat
- less casual gamers and more "hardcore" gamers
- attempts at balance in mechanics (more recently)
- character death becoming less and less common
- more dysfunctional players
Most of my "new school" experiences are from playing 3E/3.5E D&D and 4E D&D. Any other rpg games I've played in recent years, were mostly as one shot evening pickup type games. (Not enough information for a good assessment).
Quote from: flyingmice;376465This definition of Old School covers everything from OD&D to Diaspora, and I think if you asked most Old School Gamers, or myself, those are two very different things. Why would this be
I think this goes back to my point about how newer games "deliberately create or encourage a particular style of play through the rules and advice rather than letting the GM and players sort it out". And I think that if you look at the threads on discussion boards about why people don't like FATE, they'll focus on different things than threads where people talk about why they didn't or don't like OD&D.
Quote from: Aos;376467I think, John, that this sort of thing is actually going on quite a bit. I know that Jrients has made a million million random tables (http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/miscellaneum-of-cinder/5014145). I have rules varients on my site (http://themetalearth.blogspot.com/). Estar has a book (http://www.batintheattic.com/) out that is essentially rule variants. There's also the infamous Carcosa (http://carcosa-geoffrey.blogspot.com/), and the rarely mentioned Savage Swords of Athanor (http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/savage-swords-of-athanor/6176053) and that's just old school (oh how I've grown to loathe that lable) stuff- I'm sure there's a tone of other homemade stuff (free and for sale) out there for newer games too.
I never said it wasn't going on and I know it's still going on. The vast majority of games that I've played over the years have been with homebrew systems or, more recently, homebrew versions of Fudge. But where I think such material once seems mainstream (e.g., plenty of articles in Dragon, The Space Gamer, Different Worlds, etc.) and we have Gary Gygax imploring people to play by the rules instead of doing their own thing, we now have people arguing over the rules as written, people praising Fudge for giving them "permission" to tweak the rules, and people complaining that games are incomplete without certain rules, and companies withholding rules for supplements that they want to be sure people buy. It feels like something changed in there to me from people playing with sparse rules where they had to fill in the blanks to wanting the official rules. To give you another example, it's not that difficult to run fairly quick combats in the Hero System if you do what my group does, which is strip it down and keep it simple. The same with D&D 3.5 and other systems. Yet I've heard people complain that their groups do exactly the opposite, that if a rule exists, their group feels compelled to use it.
Okay, I'll buy that.
Quote from: John Morrow;376470I think this goes back to my point about how newer games "deliberately create or encourage a particular style of play through the rules and advice rather than letting the GM and players sort it out". And I think that if you look at the threads on discussion boards about why people don't like FATE, they'll focus on different things than threads where people talk about why they didn't or don't like OD&D.
Have you read or played Diaspora, as opposed to other Fate games? The designers have pushed almost everything down to Group level instead of Designer level. That's why I mention that game in particular.
-clash
Quote from: jeff37923;376463This is going to be like nailing Jell-O to a wall. :)
As a suggestion, while defining what New School is, we should also be defining what New School isn't.
I agree with the Jell-O analogy.
Old School is pretty much a category defined by people talking about roleplaying games. Recently it used by people talking about older editions of D&D.
There isn't anything similar around "New School". The big distinction is between OD&D/BX/BECMI/AD&D1st/AD&D 2nd vs D&D 3.X/D&D 4.0 with 4.0 the being most radical break. Because of the OGL and D&D 3.X there is now a whole family of RPGS all related to the D20 mechanics, feats, skills, classes, etc, etc.
I think it would be more useful to talk about what RPGs that are similar to each other.
For me there is a family of RPGs represented by Basic Roleplaying (Runequest), Rolemaster, GURPS, Into the Labyrinth, Hero System (Champions), many FGU games. They are all heavily skill based, with attributes and various mechanics (advantages, disadvantages, etc) to allow for more detailed character customization, and more detailed combat.
Then there are games like Marvel Super Heroes, Chills, Ghostbusters, Paranoia, Star Wars (WEG,D6). That are somewhat lighter, features universal mechanics or tables, and often highly tuned to a particular genre or setting.
Until the OGL and d20 I think most games that had a similar lineage of mechanics were the result of a single designer or publisher. For example Runequest, Elric, Call of Cthulu i.e. Chaosium. Labyrinth Lord - GURPS i.e. Steve Jackson. FGU seem to come out with very complex games. SPI RPGs Universe and Dragonquest didn't share many mechanics but they had similar presentation born of being published by a wargame company.
Certainly there the World of Darkness series of games. The Forge Games seems to me all hyper focused on specific situation and throw away the universal aspects of RPGs to even a greater extent than say Paranoia.
I don't think that there any universal category or theory that can fit RPGs other than they nearly all feature character generation, players playing individuals, with a referee adjudicating the action.
Quote from: John Morrow;376471Yet I've heard people complain that their groups do exactly the opposite, that if a rule exists, their group feels compelled to use it.
Gotcha now! What once was ordinary is now extra-ordinary. Understood. The RAW crowd bugs me too. :D
-clash
It may be better to describe games by the epoch they reside in, either by year published or by innovation they incorporated (although we'd have to nail down again what do we think of as an innovation in gaming).
If you go by years, then there is some nice 10 year groupings of 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.
What I noticed after getting back into gaming (shortly after 3.5E D&D was released), was how many hardcore players had very little to no tolerance for DM fiat. Though this trend has probably been going on for a long time.
When I first started playing 1E AD&D/D&D, some of the DMs I played with were very dictatorial. The DM's word was absolute and final. A few didn't even allow the players to own the 1E AD&D DMG. What I recall about these dictatorial DMs, was that they were older than me and came from a wargaming background.
As time went on during the 1980's, the DMs I played with were less and less dictatorial.
These days in a really railroady game, the DM isn't much more than a dice roller for the monsters and NPCs.
Quote from: ggroy;376469old school (before 2E AD&D)
- very little to no semblance of "balance" in mechanics
- disposable characters (character death is common)
- sandbox play
- a lot of DM fiat (sometimes to the point of DM "dictatorship")
- more casual gamers
2E AD&D was published in 1989. The point of those old gaming magazine articles I posted was that Bill Armintrout writes about running a game in the late 1970s with a mission-driven campaign, meaningful character story arcs, and involving players and co-GMs into things normally reserved for the GM as well as considerations of balance and recommended these things to other gamers in a 1981 article in The Space Gamer. Similarly, in Different Worlds in 1980, we have Glenn Blacow writing about role-players who are attached to their characters and where "a high casualty rate is downright counter-productive".
So while I think your list is a good list of what people mean by "Old School" these days, what the evidence and my experience shows is that people where breaking many of those principles very early in the hobby, if not from the beginning then certainly after people started teaching themselves the game from the books and were sorting out what to do on their own. And as such, "Old School" has become a particular style of play to be encouraged and instead of an absence of balance, fragile characters, or GM fiat being unintentional or unchosen byproducts of how the games evolved and were interpreted that might be considered features or bugs depending on who was using them, those features are, in the OSR, becoming intentional choices designed to produce a particular type of game. And that, along with concerns and arguments over fidelity to specific editions of old rule systems, is in itself, is very "New School" to me.
To put it another way, what separated the original Star Trek from what followed is that the original Star Trek was Gene Roddenberry's attempt to produce a "wagon train to the stars" with his own Horatio Hornblower in space and the science fiction and television writers who wrote for it were writing for a science fiction TV show and were making it up as they went. The later Star Treks, by contrast, including the latest reboot, are consciously trying to make "Star Trek". It has become a genre that people are trying to capture and, as a result, they are now working within a box that wasn't really there when the original series was made.
"There was a time when this whole quadrant belonged to us! What are we now? Twelve worlds and a thousand monuments to past glories, living off memories, stories, selling trinkets. My God, man, we've become a tourist attraction! See the great Centauri Republic, open 9 to 5, Earth time."
Quote from: flyingmice;376473Have you read or played Diaspora, as opposed to other Fate games? The designers have pushed almost everything down to Group level instead of Designer level. That's why I mention that game in particular.
No I haven't. Perhaps I should. Would you say that Diaspora is uncommon or different than what most other games are doing?
Quote from: John Morrow;376471It feels like something changed in there to me from people playing with sparse rules where they had to fill in the blanks to wanting the official rules.
Given the history of RPGs do you expect anything different? We see somethings happen because of the personalities involved and other because of the circumstances. Regardless of what Gygax, the Blumes, Williams, or any other individual in the industry the internet would have had a tremendous impact. But if Ryan Dancey and Wizards hasn't released the D20 SRD OGL how would our hobby look today?
My personal belief the situation we have today is pretty ideal as far as creativity goes. Internet and Computer have driven down the cost of production to the point where if somebody is serious about publishing an RPG they can do so and that there will an audience (probably small). Then where people are interested in just writing supplements we have a variety of open RPGs to choose from. Each with their own type of market. Plus there no real barrier to putting out free products out there.
The problem of course is basically an editorial problem. There is so much out there how we find them and pick out the ones that are worth our time. Free or commerical that is probably the #1 issue. That is also one of the biggest difference between back in the day and now.
In 1980 it was possible to keep up with what was going with all RPGs. You even had a shot at actually playing most of them. But after a point is just became too much.
Quote from: John Morrow;376471To give you another example, it's not that difficult to run fairly quick combats in the Hero System if you do what my group does, which is strip it down and keep it simple. The same with D&D 3.5 and other systems. Yet I've heard people complain that their groups do exactly the opposite, that if a rule exists, their group feels compelled to use it.
After spending 30 years roleplaying and 13 years involved in running a NERO boffer style LARP I haven't figure out any of this myself. Time and time again I ran GURPS for people and they tell the way I GM it make it easy and simple to understand and follow. Yet I use most of the rules in GURPS.
I think it simply boils that people differ in their ability to deal with complexity. That there is no single scale of complexity either. Rather there are multiple scales and everybody differs which areas they are good at. This includes rules. RPGs, by their nature, have many complex aspects so it isn't surprising to me that everything is all over the place.
All I can do while publishing is explain the stuff I am good at in the clearest way possible.
Quote from: John Morrow;376479So while I think your list is a good list of what people mean by "Old School" these days, what the evidence and my experience shows is that people where breaking many of those principles very early in the hobby, if not from the beginning then certainly after people started teaching themselves the game from the books and were sorting out what to do on their own. And as such, "Old School" has become a particular style of play to be encouraged and instead of an absence of balance, fragile characters, or GM fiat being unintentional or unchosen byproducts of how the games evolved and were interpreted that might be considered features or bugs depending on who was using them, those features are, in the OSR, becoming intentional choices designed to produce a particular type of game. And that, along with concerns and arguments over fidelity to specific editions of old rule systems, is in itself, is very "New School" to me.
This sounds like a "chicken or egg" thing, to somebody who wasn't really aware of gaming magazines back then. (I didn't read Dragon Magazine regularly in those days, and wasn't really aware of other gaming magazines).
Quote from: John Morrow;3764792E AD&D was published in 1989. The point of those old gaming magazine articles I posted was that Bill Armintrout writes about running a game in the late 1970s with a mission-driven campaign, meaningful character story arcs, and involving players and co-GMs into things normally reserved for the GM as well as considerations of balance and recommended these things to other gamers in a 1981 article in The Space Gamer. Similarly, in Different Worlds in 1980, we have Glenn Blacow writing about role-players who are attached to their characters and where "a high casualty rate is downright counter-productive".
So while I think your list is a good list of what people mean by "Old School" these days, what the evidence and my experience shows is that people where breaking many of those principles very early in the hobby, if not from the beginning then certainly after people started teaching themselves the game from the books and were sorting out what to do on their own. And as such, "Old School" has become a particular style of play to be encouraged and instead of an absence of balance, fragile characters, or GM fiat being unintentional or unchosen byproducts of how the games evolved and were interpreted that might be considered features or bugs depending on who was using them, those features are, in the OSR, becoming intentional choices designed to produce a particular type of game. And that, along with concerns and arguments over fidelity to specific editions of old rule systems, is in itself, is very "New School" to me.
To put it another way, what separated the original Star Trek from what followed is that the original Star Trek was Gene Roddenberry's attempt to produce a "wagon train to the stars" with his own Horatio Hornblower in space and the science fiction and television writers who wrote for it were writing for a science fiction TV show and were making it up as they went. The later Star Treks, by contrast, including the latest reboot, are consciously trying to make "Star Trek". It has become a genre that people are trying to capture.
"There was a time when this whole quadrant belonged to us! What are we now? Twelve worlds and a thousand monuments to past glories, living off memories, stories, selling trinkets. My God, man, we've become a tourist attraction! See the great Centauri Republic, open 9 to 5, Earth time."
I buy all of that, John. We were doing most of that stuff ourselves back in the 70s. Hell, I ran a D&D game from 77 to 97, and we went into only about half a dozen dungeons. I was playing when Old School *was* the new school. I remember this stuff. So the current OSR is a post modernist reconstruction of a certain playstyle? I can buy that.
-clash
Quote from: John Morrow;376480No I haven't. Perhaps I should. Would you say that Diaspora is uncommon or different than what most other games are doing?
Different? Yes. I found it fascinating, yet it has a lot of echoes in what some OSR folks are doing.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;376484So the current OSR is a post modernist reconstruction of a certain playstyle?
Or some people's revisionist interpretation of the "good old days"?
Quote from: ggroy;376486Or some people's revisionist interpretation of the "good old days"?
I don't know. I was there and adult at the time, but I can only speak for my group. We hardly ever went underground, politics, religion, and character lovelives were all important, they hated for their characters to die, and the longer they played a character, the better they played.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;376487I don't know. I was there and adult at the time, but I can only speak for my group. We hardly ever went underground, politics, religion, and character lovelives were all important, they hated for their characters to die, and the longer they played a character, the better they played.
And I think if you look at that Glenn Blacow article (1980) and the Bill Armintrout article (1981 about the late 1970s) and others from that period, I don't think it was only your group or my (younger) group or Bill Armintrout who were experimenting and not doing the things that now apparently define Old School as a style.
The few hardcore "old school" types I know in person, have admitted that they are basically "brain damaged" and have a hard time accepting anything new.
They have described themselves as similar to the type of hardcore Beatles fans who think that anything released after the "Let It Be" record, is shit and not worthy of any consideration. (ie. The solo records of John Lennon, etc ...).
One of these persons also admitted that if they were born 20 years later, they probably would have became a hardcore fanatic of 3E/3.5E D&D. If they were born 10 years later, they probably would have became a hardcore fanatic of 2E AD&D.
Another one of these persons were willing to admit that the "object" of their fanaticism may very well be a fluke of the time period they grew up in, and a fluke of whatever series of circumstances which led them to it. In this sense, their choice of being fanatical about 1E AD&D may very well have been incidental. One admitted that if he had been born 20 years earlier, he most likely would have became a fanatical LSD guru in Haight-Ashbury during the 1960's. If he had been born 40 or 50 years earlier, he thought he most likely would have became a fanatical communist or zionist.
Quote from: John Morrow;376479And as such, "Old School" has become a particular style of play to be encouraged and instead of an absence of balance, fragile characters, or GM fiat being unintentional or unchosen byproducts of how the games evolved and were interpreted that might be considered features or bugs depending on who was using them, those features are, in the OSR, becoming intentional choices designed to produce a particular type of game. And that, along with concerns and arguments over fidelity to specific editions of old rule systems, is in itself, is very "New School" to me.
The Old School Primer takes the issues you mentioned and turns it into something playable. However to characterize the OSR as being about that style is a mistake. The only thing the OSR is about is playing older editions of D&D. There are several active OSR participants/publishers, like myself, who run older editions of D&D in styles that would be recognizable to anybody playing a newer RPG.
Quote from: estar;376491The Old School Primer takes the issues you mentioned and turns it into something playable. However to characterize the OSR as being about that style is a mistake. The only thing the OSR is about is playing older editions of D&D. There are several active OSR participants/publishers, like myself, who run older editions of D&D in styles that would be recognizable to anybody playing a newer RPG.
This is more what I had expected from reading folks here talking.
-clash
I don't think it was just two eras.
D&D went through:
1. Old School Wargaming style
2. Epic Fantasy(LotR/Dragonlance style) (late 1E through 2E)
3. Sim/character building(early 3E)
4. Anime/exotic/Lazor Beamz(late 3E)
5. Balance is King/Tactical based combat encounters/Freeform noncombat(4E)
I'm not familiar with the first wave of non-D&D games, but I saw a lot of complicated simulation style games with a lot of detail come out of the 80s. The 90s saw White Wolf and more experimental type games(at least I think so on the experimental games, they looked newer in production values compared to the Sim games I saw while gaming in the 90s). The 2000s were defined by the 3E/OGL/d20 bomb that produced the d20 booms and busts and sucked a lot of the life out of everything else.
Quote from: John Morrow;376488And I think if you look at that Glenn Blacow article (1980) and the Bill Armintrout article (1981 about the late 1970s) and others from that period, I don't think it was only your group or my (younger) group or Bill Armintrout who were experimenting and not doing the things that now apparently define Old School as a style.
Oh, I remember those articles. I tossed a complete library of Dragons dating back to the late seventies about 5 years ago. :D
-clash
Got to understand I love Old School Marvel Superheroes, and I'm going to do something remarkably old school with--make a game about Fantasy Swat Teams meet D&D tropes, in a corrupt and massive city that is filled with levels of terrible things--as each expansion and ruin of the city is built on top of the other.
On the other hand. It's very "new school" in that the idea has some humor, lots of violence, and a recognition of being a demi-Police procedural but in a world where magic allows you to do a lot of things, but shorten the legwork..:D
I think a lot of people doing the Old school thing---are in many ways trying to step back to a stage where gaming could be had for a small rule book, and a bunch of friends. Not big 100 dollar boxed sets, or 90 dollar tell you how to do everything rules-sets. Nothing wrong with amending the rules, but starting with something onerous and burdensome doesn't make it easy to streamline, anymore than starting with something light makes it easy to build desired heavy complexity. Sometime you need to start somewhere else to get where you are going. I think some OSR ideas are intentionally sort of what I did when I read preview/playtest material for BESM 3E. Realized "Well they wrote me out of this game, but I liked 1E, so I'll just go back and use that,."
D&D has written so many people out of the game play, that they decided to in short--go back to a point where the game play fit them.
Me? I say more power to em.
Clash! Go look at my H&S post! Get Klaxon to look :D
Other people. Go look!
Let's examine whacky new stuff and old school stuff..
At least it isn't a resolution mechanic based on roulette.
Quote from: flyingmice;376494Oh, I remember those articles. I tossed a complete library of Dragons dating back to the late seventies about 5 years ago. :D
-clash
Defiler!
Why didn't you tell me! I'd found a way to pay for postage! Even if I don't use AD&D/D&D much, I'd still loved the old Ares section, MSH sections, and stories!
*weeps*
I think Old School / New School is just the new GNS. It's a vague argument over the right way to pretend you're an elf.
Now, I do think there are broad movements in game design: random class and level games, life path and skill games, point balanced skill games, point balanced class and level games, open concept character creation, unified mechanic games, abstract combat games, tactical combat games, games with social skills, games with no social skills, games with social combat mechanics, open ended games, closed concept games (in the sense that you aren't really ment to make up your own stuff generally this is a feature of setting specific games but AD&D had a bad case of it).
So let's see
Tunnels and Trolls is a random class and level game with abstract combat and open ended play.
Dungeons & Dragons is a random class and level game with tactical combat (which nobody uses) and closed concept play.
The Fantasy Trip is a point balanced skill game with tactical combat and closed concept play.
Runequest is a random skill game with tactical combat and closed concept play.
Gamma World is a random game without skills or classes but with levels and open concept play.
Anyhow, I think that shows that just about all of the variations seem to come up before 1980. The one that doesn't happen is open concept character creation with closed concept play which is what most of the Forge games seem to be.
"New school's" main feature seems to be the movement of core material into supplements in order to force the purchase of additional books. I would argue that one feature of old school would be "self contained."
Quote from: Silverlion;376497Defiler!
Why didn't you tell me! I'd found a way to pay for postage! Even if I don't use AD&D/D&D much, I'd still loved the old Ares section, MSH sections, and stories!
*weeps*
You can get them on CD-rom a lot cheaper than it would cost to ship them, Tim! That's being silly!
-clash
Quote from: David Johansen;376498I think Old School / New School is just the new GNS. It's a vague argument over the right way to pretend you're an elf.
Swine Part II? ;)
(According to pundit's vernacular).
Quote from: flyingmice;376500You can get them on CD-rom a lot cheaper than it would cost to ship them, Tim! That's being silly!
-clash
I doubt that. Have you looked at the CD-Rom prices on Ebay? :D
Edit: I say that then go look and some are reasonable. They won't be when I have cash, but ah well.
Surely Exalted is New School and OD&D is Old School - the only way to judge a game is to compare it to these two?
as I said:
Quote from: Aos;3764261. Determining who is us and who is them.
The problem, as usual, is defining this shit based on D&D.
To be frank, D&D didn't mean a fucking thing to my gaming until I re-discovered NWN maybe 5 years ago, tops.
Quote from: J Arcane;376512The problem, as usual, is defining this shit based on D&D.
To be frank, D&D didn't mean a fucking thing to my gaming until I re-discovered NWN maybe 5 years ago, tops.
Especially since D&D and the rest of the RPG world have often gone in completely different directions
I don't think there is such a thing as New School.
The list of "historical trends in RPGs" oh John Kim's site might be useful in this discussion (http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/fashions.html (http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/fashions.html) ).
To address the OP, I guess one could pick a game from each groups and explain why it works so well .
From a structuralistic perspective, anything outside the dungeon or a hex map is new school. All real and major differences come back to this fact, trumping authorship, time of publication or aesthetic. That´s also why 2e is mostly New School whereas 3.x is AD&D1E on steroids and thereby old school in so many ways nobody could ever suceed in a debate against me proving otherwise.
The interesting part is where the outer trappings of the Dungeon become conflated into non-Dungeons, this is called Encount4rdisation and it created a D&D school of it´s own that lead to Pathfinder MODULES and the 4e SYSTEM.
If we ignore the encount4rdised D&D schools, which happen in a Dungeon but aren´t old-school, New school is everything that´s not in a Dungeon.
The baseline for New School is a focus on character creation in the main rulebook, a skills section and a combat section. Most New School stops there, but the good ones add something else, something undungeon, that is the meat of the games; its 'about' that undungeon element(s).
Keep in mind while reading the above, that:
non-Dungeon vs. not a Dungeon vs. undungeon all mean specific things different from each other.
I think it's less about a time period and more about mechanics and mindset.
I would say that unified mechanics is the demarkation point between old school and new school. That and less of a focus on DIY and more of a focus on BIY (buy it yourself).
Quote from: ggroy;376478As time went on during the 1980's, the DMs I played with were less and less dictatorial.
These days in a really railroady game, the DM isn't much more than a dice roller for the monsters and NPCs.
I never really noticed the wargamers in the D&D crowd, maybe because I was one of them. I adopted RPGs in their infancy though before many of my peers, because RPGs brought something more to my gaming table than wargames did.
I wouldn't, by any stretch of the imagination, confine dictatorial GMs to the ranks of wargamers alone... There were plenty of bad GMs that did damage by providing inconsistent or poor game rulings which ruined the experience for the players at their table. This and the screwed up game companies that promoted inconsistent play via incompetence, mismanagement, deliberate attempts to corner the market on free thinking in RPGs (Like that could be done, ha!), have pretty much given away their markets to the CRPG Industry.
Good gaming is alot like good dating when you get down to the heart of the matter.If you want a great time, you are going to take your babe to a fine French restaurant, and follow that up with a trip to a hot nightclub, and then finally get around to some intimate time, preferably in an exotic retreat.
The food is great in a French Restuarant, because it's cooked by a chef that has spent years in training. He knows all the shortcuts to preparing great dishes, and has his prep time down to a minimum to focus on bringing a great culinary experience to a large number of people.
Think of the GM in this role.
Then there's the hot nightclub, The band/singers have to be good, There has to be a place to dance, it has to be a hotspot where there's lots of other trendy folks with exotic backgrounds, and great stories.
You can think of the rules and the campaign setting in this role. Some old settings are good, but someone is always coming up with something new as well, that's refreshing and stimulating. (Well not so much with RPGs, but hey, it could happen).
Finally there's the exotic retreat where you finish the evening. As a GM, you can think of
this as your campaign or adventure. How you decorate your home, If you keep it clean, the knick-knacks that show what you value, the other decorations that show your social connections, and your artistic style and preferences all go the distance to demonstrating to your hot date whether you are a partner worthy of long-term consideration.
So too with your adventures. As a GM, you are in the entertainment business. Your exotic retreat that is your campaign has to show it. All these things combined, make for a great game, a great experience worthwhile to repeat on or at a later date.
You don't have to do it this way of course, you can always just take your date to McDonalds, and then to the Mall. Just don't act surprised, if you won't find me there...
The existence of old school doesn't imply a single new school.
Old school is where it started, but after that there was an explosion, stuff flying in all directions. Many of those games have little to do with each other, old school has stuff in common because there were so few games early on they inevitably influenced each other and shared some common assumptions. That's no longer true.
There is I think an old school, I don't think there is a new school, which is why nobody uses that term.
As for what gets discussed here, it goes in waves I find. I'll be playing Bash soon, and hopefully running some S1889, I'll try to post about those when they kick off. In the meantime it's S&W, which I appreciate is of less value in this context...
Quote from: estar;376491The Old School Primer takes the issues you mentioned and turns it into something playable. However to characterize the OSR as being about that style is a mistake. The only thing the OSR is about is playing older editions of D&D. There are several active OSR participants/publishers, like myself, who run older editions of D&D in styles that would be recognizable to anybody playing a newer RPG.
And this is what I think Old School really was and how people were playing, even back in the day.
Quote from: flyingmice;376415More and more, this place is all about Old School Gaming, and I have less and less to post about. So - in an effort to keep involved here - what is New School Gaming?
Point buy?
Quote from: John Morrow;376459So what I would argue New School is (and this definition will likely include the current OSR) is an attempt to deliberately create or encourage a particular style of play through the rules and advice rather than letting the GM and players sort it out on their own and make it their own.
I think this is a good definition of new-school, especially if we tweak it to better apply to D&D (which is, I agree with others, the axis along which I normally make this distinction) to say that there is also an attempt to make the rules:
- unified and coherent: new school games choose one resolution system (e.g. d20 + stats + modifiers, roll high) and use it for everything, old school games use a grab-bag of different sub-systems for different things
- predictable; random events won't make Trail of Cthulu a game about Inspector Clouseau failing to pick up clues, or D&D 4E a game about sad-sack heroes getting TPK'd by goblins or winning because of a single lucky spell choice, but a few rolls on wandering monster & treasure tables can abruptly make an OD&D or Gamma World game a story about miserable losers or world-conquering superheroes
I disagree with John's puzzling assertion that the OSR is new-school - I know I have enthusiastically created new subsystems and gonzo random tables for an OSR audience - but all is forgiven for that awesome MA Notebook link, which goes into more detail about fascinating things Chris Clark was telling me at Gary Con about how he loved MA because it had an explicit endgame. (Which was very different than the game-show deathtrap Jim Ward ran, but maybe that's just his adaptation to the convention format).
EDIT1: I think I have a better idea now of where John is coming from. New-school games have rules with a laser-like focus on the thing they're meant to do, and give advice about what that thing is, how the rules are supposed to achieve it, and (implicitly) how to tell if that's something your group is into. Old-school games have rules that are meant to do lots of different things, and give no advice about what any of them are; lots of important design principles have to be figured out by deconstruction of charts and tables (like OD&D fighters getting their unique higher-level powers from the magic swords only they can use & which show up as random treasure much more often than magic maces etc.). The OSR is engaged in explicating what the old-school rules are meant to do and giving advice about how to bring those principles to life; and because the rules are the opposite of coherent, different people have different perspectives on that. So it's new-schoolifying things to some extent. But I think that, as OSR people are customizing their own houserules, they're leaning towards a "neo-classical approach" where you design rules to frame the central activity of play, without filling in the frame with mechanics.
Let's say your group wants a game that's about seduction. An old-school game says "well, you've got a Charisma score, you could use that as a tool if you want some guidance about how to adjucate seductions" (and it sets examples for other system tools, so that Bledsaw knew that the City State of the Invincible Overlord would need encounter charts for houris and random tables to determine their "vital statistics"). A new-school game says "OK, since this is the key aspect of play, all the character stats relate to aspects of seduction, and there's a tight mechanic for resolving seduction attempts". A neo-classical game says "let's leave it up to individual groups how they want to handle the seduction and not reduce it to a mechanical exercise; instead the system will provide structure for related stuff, so we'll need a pursuit sub-system for jumping out of windows and fleeing jealous husbands, hiding-in-the-closet rules, and a mini-game for dueling that can be adapted to two suitors trying to out-do each other, or to pistols at dawn."
EDIT2: I totally agree that even back in the day there were a zillion different playstyles that people used whatever RPG they had to support. What's different is the approach to designing rules to explicitly enforce a specific playstyle. I think this is not at odds with what Kim is saying about styles in RPGs. Different playstyles come in and out of fashion; but the longer that RPGs have been around, the more tools have been created with each style in mind, and the more RPG designers there are whose raison d' etre is making systems out of those tools.
Quote from: Settembrini;376519From a structuralistic perspective, anything outside the dungeon or a hex map is new school.
So, New School started in (at least) 1977, because that's when I started running mostly dungeonless? Somehow that doesn't sound right to me.
-clash
Quote from: One Horse Town;376523I think it's less about a time period and more about mechanics and mindset.
I would say that unified mechanics is the demarkation point between old school and new school. That and less of a focus on DIY and more of a focus on BIY (buy it yourself).
OK, that makes sense. Care to expand, Dan?
-clash
Quote from: Balbinus;376526The existence of old school doesn't imply a single new school.
Old school is where it started, but after that there was an explosion, stuff flying in all directions. Many of those games have little to do with each other, old school has stuff in common because there were so few games early on they inevitably influenced each other and shared some common assumptions. That's no longer true.
There is I think an old school, I don't think there is a new school, which is why nobody uses that term.
As for what gets discussed here, it goes in waves I find. I'll be playing Bash soon, and hopefully running some S1889, I'll try to post about those when they kick off. In the meantime it's S&W, which I appreciate is of less value in this context...
Heh! So RPGing is like a bush, with D&D and the D&D-alikes being the trunk, and there being a number of branches, all independent?
-clash
Quote from: GameDaddy;376524I never really noticed the wargamers in the D&D crowd, maybe because I was one of them. I adopted RPGs in their infancy though before many of my peers, because RPGs brought something more to my gaming table than wargames did.
I was a wargamer since the late 60s early 70s as a young teen. I can tell you I didn't bring my game mastering over from wargaming. Hell, I didn't use hex mapping outside of wargaming! What I did bring over was a willingness to kitbash and houserule right from the get go.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;376539Heh! So RPGing is like a bush, with D&D and the D&D-alikes being the trunk, and there being a number of branches, all independent?
-clash
That's pretty much how I see it to be honest.
Quote from: One Horse Town;376523I think it's less about a time period and more about mechanics and mindset.
This is where I stand on this.
I would add in that creating a duality of 'OS' vs 'Non OS' is a false duality. I would rather see the different metrics we jusge games by (the heaviness of the rules versus the Liteness (hah), Prime Focus (Encounter, Dungeon, Adventure, Campaign), lethal/heroic/superheroic, simulationist vs gamist, etc) be the way this is judged. I could easily see a gaming equiv to the five factor model here.
I'll look at this later after more coffee, but in this way, C&S and Arduin and Runequest make more sense to me.
Quote from: flyingmice;376540I was a wargamer since the late 60s early 70s as a young teen. I can tell you I didn't bring my game mastering over from wargaming. Hell, I didn't use hex mapping outside of wargaming! What I did bring over was a willingness to kitbash and houserule right from the get go.
It may very well be a coincidence that the dictatorial DMs I gamed with back in the day, predominantly had a wargaming background.
Back when I was a young teen, I went semi-regularly to a gaming club at a nearby university for about a year or so. Many of the players there were around 5-10 years older than me. It was the only venue I knew about at the time, which had people who played regularly. (Outside of the university gaming club, my home/neighborhood games in those days were more like evening pickup games and/or games which fell apart after several sessions). At the time, wargames were still somewhat popular amongst this crowd. RPG games like D&D were in the minority at most game days.
Apparently quite a number of the DMs thought wrongly that D&D was to be played like a wargame, where the objective was to kill off one another. Most likely they just read the combat rules section, without reading much else in the D&D books.
Quote from: Balbinus;376541That's pretty much how I see it to be honest.
Cool! Thanks Balbinus! :D
-clash
What I'm seeing here so far is that any effort at determining what is OS *or* NS is very much idiosyncratic and fairly arbitrary. Nailing jello to the wall in Elliot's colorful term. In other words, I'm getting a lot of "OS|NS is very like a snake" responses, which leads me to suspect the blind men are possibly noting different aspects of the same thing. That, coupled with the fact that my own memories of gaming at the time do not line up at all with what OS was supposed to be like, outside of a willingness to improvise rules-wise, leaves me very confused.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;376548What I'm seeing here so far is that any effort at determining what is OS *or* NS is very much idiosyncratic and fairly arbitrary. Nailing jello to the wall in Elliot's colorful term. In other words, I'm getting a lot of "OS|NS is very like a snake" responses, which leads me to suspect the blind men are possibly noting different aspects of the same thing. That, coupled with the fact that my own memories of gaming at the time do not line up at all with what OS was supposed to be like, outside of a willingness to improvise rules-wise, leaves me very confused.
How much of this may be due to selective memory in recalling the "good old days"?
Quote from: flyingmice;376548What I'm seeing here so far is that any effort at determining what is OS *or* NS is very much idiosyncratic and fairly arbitrary. Nailing jello to the wall in Elliot's colorful term. In other words, I'm getting a lot of "OS|NS is very like a snake" responses, which leads me to suspect the blind men are possibly noting different aspects of the same thing. That, coupled with the fact that my own memories of gaming at the time do not line up at all with what OS was supposed to be like, outside of a willingness to improvise rules-wise, leaves me very confused.
-clash
well, that's because, as I was postulating, the duality is false. Completely.
It doesn't help that the terms are based on a chronology but the actaul delineators are absolutely not.
Quote from: ggroy;376549How much of this may be due to selective memory in recalling the "good old days"?
Possibly the part about me remembering - I'm old as dirt, and old people have fallible memories. OTOH, I don't recall those as the "good old days" at all. My gaming is *far* better today than it ever was back then. It wasn't even in the same
league. I have never been a person particularly afflicted with nostalgia. My games, gamers, GMing, and group dynamics are all off the charts compared to back then.
-clash
Quote from: ggroy;376549How much of this may be due to selective memory in recalling the "good old days"?
Not a whole lot, I'd say. I like the idea of Old School, but I will be the first to point out that AD&D had some major flaws (like grappling) and its retro-clone OSRIC also has major flaws (like not having XP values for magic items).
Quote from: flyingmice;376552Possibly the part about me remembering - I'm old as dirt, and old people have fallible memories. OTOH, I don't recall those as the "good old days" at all.
Same here. My early experiences consisted of a series of dictatorial DMs, until I decided to try DMing myself.
Quote from: flyingmice;376552My gaming is *far* better today than it ever was back then. It wasn't even in the same league. I have never been a person particularly afflicted with nostalgia. My games, gamers, GMing, and group dynamics are all off the charts compared to back then.
My first attempts at DM'ing were somewhat lackluster, though I got better at it as time went on.
I suppose any "nostalgia" I have for older editions of D&D/AD&D, may very well be "brain damage" of my early life experiences. Possibly similar to reasons I still listen to music from that same time period, even though most of it was admittedly crap. Somehow my brain is better at remembering stuff from that time period, than anything after or before.
Your reaction doesn't surprise me at all. Think about it. Just how flexible are roleplaying games? While not infinite the combination of elements that make up an RPGs can be use to create a huge variety of situations and scenarios. Like the tools of novel writing, theater, and film can be used to tell all kinds of stories.
From where I am standing it natural for two people using the same rules to wind up with difference experiences depending on location, their group, etc, etc.
I know for me the Old School Primer was helpful in reminding me how I dealt with the issues of AD&D which after years of playing Fantasy Hero, Harnmaster, and GURPS. That the biggest difference between me now and me then is that I have 30 years worth of life experience on which to make rulings. So the second time around is considerably easier.
I still don't particularly care for the class level system but the lower power levels of Swords & Wizardry/OD&D vs AD&D has left me pretty satisfied. Plus there is the upside of using all my old modules and plenty of new stuff as is without the conversions I used to do for GURPS.
At some point I may give Runequest/BRP a try to see how that is.
I know what you can get out of these observation but I hope it helps.
Quote from: flyingmice;376548What I'm seeing here so far is that any effort at determining what is OS *or* NS is very much idiosyncratic and fairly arbitrary. Nailing jello to the wall in Elliot's colorful term. In other words, I'm getting a lot of "OS|NS is very like a snake" responses, which leads me to suspect the blind men are possibly noting different aspects of the same thing. That, coupled with the fact that my own memories of gaming at the time do not line up at all with what OS was supposed to be like, outside of a willingness to improvise rules-wise, leaves me very confused.
Quote from: ggroy;376554Same here. My early experiences consisted of a series of dictatorial DMs, until I decided to try DMing myself.
I started as a GM so I have no-one to blame but myself. :D
QuoteI suppose any "nostalgia" I have for older editions of D&D/AD&D, may very well be "brain damage" of my early life experiences. Possibly similar to reasons I still listen to music from that same time period, even though most of it was admittedly crap. Somehow my brain is better at remembering stuff from that time period, than anything after or before.
Not for me. I like current music better than my son does, and he's 23. He's currently hung up on classic rock, and I'm not.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;376558Not for me. I like current music better than my son does, and he's 23. He's currently hung up on classic rock, and I'm not.
-clash
One sign of an agile, evolving mind.
What did I download this week? Some Glenn Miller (not kidding), Seabound, and Ade Fenton. New Horizons....
Quote from: flyingmice;376558Not for me. I like current music better than my son does, and he's 23. He's currently hung up on classic rock, and I'm not.
You and your son's brains, are probably wired quite differently than mine. ;)
I haven't listened to much if any new or current music, since the early 1990's. I couldn't tell you want happened after grunge. That's how much out of the loop I've been, when it comes to music.
As far as I'm concerned, "nostalgia" is a minor to medium annoyance that plays tricks on my brain. I try not to think too much about it, though it's not always that easy.
Point of order: I didn't come up with the jello metaphor.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;376568Point of order: I didn't come up with the jello metaphor.
Dang! You're right! It was Jeff! Stupid old brain!
-clash
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;376458I think the idea of this thread is: draw the line however you like, then pick some stuff on the "new school" side, and talk about what it does well.
Don't just draw the line, and don't just list names.
That I can play with!
I started gaming in the ides of 1992, with Basic D&D (black box with big red dragon vs. lone axe-swinging guy on the cover, Zanzer Tem dungeon solo adventure inside). In short order, I picked up the D&D Rules Cyclopedia (which, as you can see, I'm still very fond of), and I was introduced to AD&D 2e (which a bunch of older kids assured me was "vastly superior" to my own RC, between hours-long arguments on the finer points of Dragonlance and Forgotten realms trivia), GURPS 2e (which I was, in turn, assured was also "superior" to any version of D&D, ever), MERP, Rolemaster, Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars (D6), Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP), DC Heroes (MEGS) and Rifts. Shortly after that, Vampire: the Masquerade got translated, and the old World of Darkness took over the local gaming scene by storm. We picked up all sorts of wonky Vampire: the Masquerade 1e books, like A World of Darkness 1e and the Diablerie series.
So this may come as a shock to some, but I consider all of the above "old school" (
including the 1e WoD books) in that most of them contained elements that several later games tend to de-emphasize.
So what's my definition of new school? The cop-out answer would be to say that anything not old school is new school, but in this I leave out several books I consider "transitional" like AD&D "2.5e" and the Player's Option books, or (horror of horrors!) Vampire: the Masquerade 2e.
The question persists and I have no straight answer, but here's some stuff I typically associate with "new school":
- Character Optimization, and Rewarding System Mastery. It's one thing for a game (like GURPS or Rolemaster) to have fiddly character creation, which is prone to abuse (I fondly remember "Master-Blaster", two players who created a giant, dumb warrior with ST 20, ridiculously low IQ and a bunch of mental Disadvantages, who was a bodyguard to the ST 4, IQ 20, albino, dwarf, hunchback wizard). But "CharOp" to me conjures the image of carefully planning a pathway to power (which is hardly as obvious as ST 20 ands a couple of Advantages) even as you create your character. Games like D&D 3.5e and Exalted are the ones I most associate this with. In fact, not only is this a major feature (and to some, a selling point) of both games, but also something of an expectation that you will optimize your character. It's not unusual to see someone complain at a D&D 4e forum, that the Defender is "not doing his job" because he's not "optimized" for it.
- Balance Fetish. The expectation that every PC should contribue equally to the party's success was present at our table, but we just thought that it was the GM's job. There should be traps and an ambush for the Thief to shine, or an electronic intrusion is necessary to justify bringing along the Decker. Lately I've seen some games trying to hard-wire this directive into the rules, a tricky proposition at least.
- Strong Adherence to Rules As Written. What happened to houserules? Granted, they were never big in the local scene. And yet I've always houseruled my games (again, admittedly with mixed results, trial and error and all that).
- Shared Narrative Control. The idea that the GM should not be the only one doing the narration, and/or that players' input needs not end at their characters' actions and words.
- Gaming The Story. The idea that "intangible" properties of the story ("soft facts" as opposed to "hard facts") can be fashioned into game elements, typically applied to enhance genre emulation. Call of Cthulhu probably pioneered the concept with the "soft" Sanity stat. Vampire: the Masquerade, for all of its fanfare, didn't do much more, and "hard" stats like Strength or Manipulation were still, for the most part, more important than the "soft" ones of Willpower and Humanity. Sorcerer was the first game I read that really took this concept and went all the way with it, making intangibles ubiquitous and even more important than "hard facts" in game play. The finest example I can think of is FATE 3.0, in which "soft facts" (Aspects) which measure "the way the story should turn out" become a story-centric resource management mini-game of their own.
TL;DR. Old school is whatever I was playing before 1997. New school are all those games with their fancy character optimization, rewarding system mastery, fetish for balance, strong adherence to RAW, shared narrative control and/or making intangible story elements into gameable resources. Yes, I'm lumping a lot of incoherent stuff together.
I'm sure I'm not making any sense here :o but here it is.
Quote from: Peregrin;376454I think this is one of those cases where everything is relative to the observer.
I agree.
It's possible to pinpoint a rough "old school" area of games and times, because some people using the label will agree roughly on these sorts of things, but any sort of scrutiny will show many differing opinions as it concerns its (rather large) edges (is RuneQuest "old school"? Is AD&D2 "old school"? And so on so forth).
For me, in particular, "old school" is like porn: I know it when I see it.
The difficulty then, as far as "new school" is concerned, is that very few people actually use it as a denominator for games or gaming. So we end up with very few elements to actually try to understand what this "new school" would and would not be.
Quote from: The Butcher;376575- Strong Adherence to Rules As Written. What happened to houserules? Granted, they were never big in the local scene. And yet I've always houseruled my games (again, admittedly with mixed results, trial and error and all that).
.
This .
In the olden days you were encouraged to make shit up. Now you are encouraged to follow the Designers intentions and deviation will result in you playing a different game and making a mess of it.
Interestingly though you get this from old school gamers who encourage you to play old games RAW which is odd cos in my experience hardly anyone did that in the olden days.
I think this partly comes from the creation of the professional designer. Where as the old designers were just people that make shit up and had access to some publishing mechanism the new designers are seen as skilled experts. I think this is in part due to the democratization of publishing via the Internet leading to a need to differentiate the mass of crap from the professionally published stuff. Which itself stems from a capitalist concept that means branded goods are better than non-branded [back when we bought soap flakes from the grocer by the cup and took it home in a paper bag to buying Ultra-Daz in an environmentaly recycled box for 8 time the price ].
We started playing S&W in my group when someone pitched it to us, saying it would be old school swords and sorcery.
Unfortunately, none of us had played it back in the day, and we had very different ideas of what those terms meant.
He meant a megadungeon. Myself and another player, both of whom had played in the early '80s though not the '70s had never heard of such a thing. We assumed the dungeon we went into was something for that week or a couple of weeks, the GM wondered why we seemed almost immediately to expect to move on.
Classic miscommunication. The other player who'd played a bit before suggested rotating the GM chair, which I thought was a great idea because to me old school was lots of loosely connected adventures with an S&S vibe and we used to rotate DM all the time back when I started out playing D&D. The original GM felt his idea had been hijacked, which in fairness it had but not remotely intentionally.
That's the thing, back in the day people played lots of ways. It doesn't surprise me that plenty of real old schoolers don't recognise the old school. After all, we only made it up recently.
Quote from: jeff37923;376463This is going to be like nailing Jell-O to a wall. :)
That rocks :D New one to me, and I'm going to shamelessly steal it and tell everyone I thought of it. Everyone look away...
Quote from: Settembrini;376519From a structuralistic perspective, anything outside the dungeon or a hex map is new school.
Even though the statement seems a bit extreme, I think there's something to it, in the sense that it is what people refer to as "sandbox game play" as one characteristic of old school gaming. The notion that you have a locale or area, and the PCs are basically unleashed there, without any script or preconceptions as to "stories" or "plots". These things emerge from actual play, as the exploration occurs.
This ties into what Dan was saying:
Quote from: One Horse Town;376523I think it's less about a time period and more about mechanics and mindset.
I would say that unified mechanics is the demarkation point between old school and new school. That and less of a focus on DIY and more of a focus on BIY (buy it yourself).
Set's remarks are bound to the "DIY more than BIY" remark here. You build sandboxes and hex maps, you DIY. You have a problem with your game system? You DIY. You're not waiting for the next errata or supplement to fix it for you.
If there's a characteristic of New School, imo, this is it: the reliance on the supplements and errata to fix perceived faulty design in the game. The game provides you with rules, and if rules are missing in some situations, then something's wrong with the game (which is why complaining that 4e doesn't have role playing rules is a tad disingenuous, IMO - if anything, scripting personalities traits and having extensive mechanics revolving around these traits could qualify as "new school". You sure have alignments in OD&D and Sanity in CoC, but the actual ways to roleplay these elements is up for grabs, i.e. adjudication and interpretation, whereas a trait like say Humanity in Vampire has a whole system revolving around it and pretty clear guidelines as to what it means in terms of rules to have Humanity 7, say).
If there's a loophole, the game's at fault. If the GM has to adjudicate, then it's "GM fiat", and "GM fiat" is badwrongfun. Making stuff up is bad, that means the game the publisher sold you is "not finished".
Another characteristic of "not old school" is the belief that you always have to have meaningful mechanical choices to differenciate your character from others.
The game is the rules. The rules are the game. If there's no way to differenciate your construct from another that is hardcoded in the game rules, then these things are the same and can't possibly play differently in the game as it occurs.
I'm sure there's more to it. Just a few ideas.
One positive aspect to the "not old school" belief that you have to have extensive rules sets covering most if not all possible interactions in the game, is that, given the number of publishers, there's a lot more work for them to do in order to differenciate their game systems from the competitor's.
So statistically, you're bound, as an old-schooler, to find some idea, somewhere, in a "not old school game", that is worth stealing for your old school gaming.
What might mitigate this positive is that many "not old school games" have integrated mechanics, where it might be more complex to just cut-and-paste some interesting bit without having to import a whole bunch of mechanics you don't really want in order for that bit to work in your game as you want it to. It's not a generality, though.
I'm just going to say WFRP 3 and be done with it. I don't think it can get much more new school then that.
Pretty much my thoughts exactly, Benoist. I was just more economical and mysterious in relaying them. ;)
There you go, Clash. I think The Butcher and Benoist have expounded on my views nicely.
Alternate, crassly stated definitions:
"Old school" - clinging pathetically to ancient versions of D&D as if it were a religion.
"New School" - actually having the balls to try something new.
Quote from: J Arcane;376599Alternate, crassly stated definitions:
"Old school" - clinging pathetically to ancient versions of D&D as if it were a religion.
OD&D LBB's = holy writ
:rolleyes:
Quote from: jibbajibba;376579Interestingly though you get this from old school gamers who encourage you to play old games RAW which is odd cos in my experience hardly anyone did that in the olden days.
Quote from: Balbinus;376580That's the thing, back in the day people played lots of ways. It doesn't surprise me that plenty of real old schoolers don't recognise the old school. After all, we only made it up recently.
Or, what John Morrow and Tavis have written upthread, which taken together has finally articulated a convincing case for the revisionism of OSR. I'll quote Tavis to highlight one of his points:
QuoteEDIT1: I think I have a better idea now of where John is coming from. New-school games have rules with a laser-like focus on the thing they're meant to do, and give advice about what that thing is, how the rules are supposed to achieve it, and (implicitly) how to tell if that's something your group is into. Old-school games have rules that are meant to do lots of different things, and give no advice about what any of them are; lots of important design principles have to be figured out by deconstruction of charts and tables (like OD&D fighters getting their unique higher-level powers from the magic swords only they can use & which show up as random treasure much more often than magic maces etc.). The OSR is engaged in explicating what the old-school rules are meant to do and giving advice about how to bring those principles to life; and because the rules are the opposite of coherent, different people have different perspectives on that. So it's new-schoolifying things to some extent. But I think that, as OSR people are customizing their own houserules, they're leaning towards a "neo-classical approach" where you design rules to frame the central activity of play, without filling in the frame with mechanics.
The new-school or revisionist element of the OSR is that unlike the old days, they're doing a much more critical (and sympathetic) deconstruction of the rules-as-written, in the process reconstructing the ethos of Gygax's and others' style. In the old days people simply houseruled unconsciously based on their own habits and preconceptions.
Edit
Quote from: J Arcane;376599Alternate, crassly stated definitions:
"Old school" - clinging pathetically to ancient versions of D&D as if it were a religion.
"New School" - actually having the balls to try something new.
EDIT:
(content removed by me)
Clash is right, I will try to turn over a new leaf.
Quote from: StormBringer;376607Or:
"Old school" - the ability and spine to play the game and make it your own through imagination and group dynamics in order to have engage in the primary purpose, which is to have fun
"New school" - waiting for someone to change your shitty diapers while you are bawling about your Dragonborn Spellstealer being gimped in the latest errata because you won't get as much spotlight time at the table now
I mean, we get it. 'Old School' pissed in your Cheerios.
I have been trying to avoid this crap, gentlemen. Up to now, we have been doing very well. Can we please avoid reflexively slinging poo at each other?
I'm very well aware that jarcane started it, btw. I don't care. I just grabbed this post as the latest in a series of things I wanted to stop. I could have grabbed any one of several. We've gone 100 posts speaking like civilized adults. Let's go back to that, shall we?
-clash
Actually it comes to me that this issue is why some folks can see 4e as more of a "return to old school" kind of game, and some of us can't. The terms are so subjective because of the tendency of late '70s to '80s gaming to be so "DIY" and varied in style. To some folks dungeon-focused "kill them and take their stuff"/combat-focused/high-power games are the "old school", while to many folks, myself included, it was more to do with more player-DM interaction/exploration/sandbox/impacting the gameworld/building strongholds stuff. I did my share of dungeon-crawling, but at the Boy's Club where I did that stuff we played them tournament style. We had between 15-20 D&D players for the one DM, so we'd do overnights and run timed dungeon module runs using the pregens, and the winning teams got to keep the pregens :) In my normal weekly games we very much did sandbox style almost from the beginning. There's so many folks, though, that played very different games and I guess to many I suppose 4e really is more "old school" than stuff like d20. Huh, I'm probably a little slow thinking about this, but there it is :)
In reading the thread the thought that kept hitting me was that for me the release of 3e was a real turning point in how we looked at what we wanted from games. Before all the bloat and power-creep, d20 D&D and the OGL enabling many games with a similar mechanic really rocked. For awhile there we literally played little else but d20 games, using them for espionage, fantasy, sci-fi, etc... The only exceptions were CoC and classic Deadlands. So I guess I'm saying for me d20 brought on the "new school", so it's not much a playing style, since my preferred gaming style can be supported by a great many games. It's a time & unified mechanics thing. Before d20 my favorite games were D&D (pre-d20 obviously), Dragonquest, Shadowrun, Top Secret, Cyberpunk, and Traveller.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;376603The new-school or revisionist element of the OSR is that unlike the old days, they're doing a much more critical (and sympathetic) deconstruction of the rules-as-written, in the process reconstructing the ethos of Gygax's and others' style.
I don't know about revisionist; the whole thing about "D&D is always right" is to say that you should try to understand the rules-as-written for what they are, not try to shoehorn them into your preconceptions, revisions, etc.
An example is my fellow Mule-poster James' explication of the design consequences of Vancian spellcasting (http://muleabides.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/as-it-was-in-grand-mothlam/) and experience for gold (http://muleabides.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/theres-experience-in-them-thar-hills/).
In the comments to the former, James is explicitly thinking about this deconstruction as a step toward yielding pieces you could use to kitbash something else:
QuoteI'm not saying the Old Ones designed the system intentionally to achieve all of these effects; they're consequences or epiphenomena of a design choice.
But if you're a designer in 2010, and you say, "I love 90% of D&D play, but this sub-system involving fire-and-forget spell slots is a loser! How can I replace the sub-system without affecting the rest of the game?" then these are some design goals to the extent you want to preserve the existing game.
So: Stan Lee may not have intended to write corny dialogue, but if you're going to play an ultra-faithful Silver Age comics game, corny dialogue is one goal among many.
It's entirely possible that a new designer won't LIKE point #8 – frankly I dislike #8 rather a lot, and it's the thing that kills Vancian magic for me. But getting rid of it is going to have an important effect on the experience of play.
Quote from: Sigmund;376582That rocks :D New one to me, and I'm going to shamelessly steal it and tell everyone I thought of it. Everyone look away...
Good luck. 'Nailing jelly to a tree' has been around the web since ARPAnet, and was used in various geek cultures since well before that.
You've got to plagiarize from obscure sources if you want to get away with it. ;)
Quote from: flyingmice;376609I have been trying to avoid this crap, gentlemen. Up to now, we have been doing very well. Can we please avoid reflexively slinging poo at each other?
I'm very well aware that jarcane started it, btw. I don't care. I just grabbed this post as the latest in a series of things I wanted to stop. I could have grabbed any one of several. We've gone 100 posts speaking like civilized adults. Let's go back to that, shall we?
-clash
You are right, my old friend. I will go back and edit that, sometimes my 'counter the stupid' reflex kicks in before I know what is going on.
Quote from: Sigmund;376610In reading the thread the thought that kept hitting me was that for me the release of 3e was a real turning point in how we looked at what we wanted from games. Before all the bloat and power-creep, d20 D&D and the OGL enabling many games with a similar mechanic really rocked. For awhile there we literally played little else but d20 games, using them for espionage, fantasy, sci-fi, etc... The only exceptions were CoC and classic Deadlands. So I guess I'm saying for me d20 brought on the "new school" (...)
That's an interesting point. When did Dragonsfoot go online?
Quote from: StormBringer;376616Good luck. 'Nailing jelly to a tree' has been around the web since ARPAnet, and was used in various geek cultures since well before that.
You've got to plagiarize from obscure sources if you want to get away with it. ;)
Meh, my friends are all internet challenged, I think my diabolical plan will succeed :hmm:
Quote from: Tavis;376612I don't know about revisionist
I'm not sure I understand the nit you're picking with regard to my use of that term, just as I would quibble with the epiphenomena characterization*, but I certainly agree that the process of deconstruction is important if you want to modify the game while keeping an eye on unintended consequences.
(*I believe that many of the phenomena in the posted lists are either deliberate, engineered design choices (though often ad-hoc), or the product of an ethos ("feel") towards which Gygax and Arneson were grasping.)
Quote from: StormBringer;376617You are right, my old friend. I will go back and edit that, sometimes my 'counter the stupid' reflex kicks in before I know what is going on.
Thanks, SB! You are a gentleman and a scholar - who occasionally flings poo, but regrets it after!
:D
-clash
Quote from: Benoist;376620That's an interesting point. When did Dragonsfoot go online?
According to the page archived at //www.achive.org it started in May 2000.
Quote from: flyingmice;376624Thanks, SB! You are a gentleman and a scholar - who occasionally flings poo, but regrets it after!
:D
-clash
:hatsoff:
Quote from: sigmund;376621meh, my friends are all internet challenged, i think my diabolical plan will succeed :hmm:
muahahaha! :)
Ya'll forced me to change my signature...
Quote from: estar;376625According to the page archived at //www.achive.org it started in May 2000.
Now, would it be accurate to say that the "old school" label really took off with Dragonsfoot's audience?
After thinking about it most of the morning, the one point which really differentiates New School from Old School in my mind doesn't have much to do with RPGs as it does with console and computer gaming. New School games are influenced more by tropes and standards of computer gaming while Old School games are the ones that most influenced computer gaming. New School gamers come from a computer game background where they were exposed to games first while Old School gamers come from a tabletop RPG background and then migrated over to computer games to add to their gaming.
That's true of some, but not all new-school games...in fact, I think it's pretty much true only of a few D20 derivatives (including 4e).
Quote from: jeff37923;376630After thinking about it most of the morning, the one point which really differentiates New School from Old School in my mind doesn't have much to do with RPGs as it does with console and computer gaming. New School games are influenced more by tropes and standards of computer gaming while Old School games are the ones that most influenced computer gaming. New School gamers come from a computer game background where they were exposed to games first while Old School gamers come from a tabletop RPG background and then migrated over to computer games to add to their gaming.
A good point, I would go one step further and say 'old school' was influenced by earlier literature, while 'new school' is influenced by previous games, including the feedback loop of RPGs and computer versions of same.
Not that this feedback loop is necessarily a cul-de-sac or anything, but there is a distinct point where RPGs stopped drawing from 'unrelated' literature and started drawing from the body of writing and other media that developed around it from previous games/tropes.
Quote from: Benoist;376629Now, would it be accurate to say that the "old school" label really took off with Dragonsfoot's audience?
You have to go over to Knight & Knaves and ask there to be sure. Using my Google-fu it seems that Dragonsfoot was the first major concentration of older edition fans. I think mainly because they had free high production value modules available.
Quote'old school' was influenced by earlier literature, while 'new school' is influenced by previous games, including the feedback loop of RPGs and computer versions of same
That, I can partially get behind.
Although, thematically, I don't necessarily see "new school" games as necessarily commonly drawing from other games so much as drawing from geek culture. (And even then, not always: look at Grey Ranks.) Even when there isn't a direct geek culture referent, the point of commonality is still visible in the willingness to invent concepts whole-cloth, instead of referring to external traditional culture. Many new games seem to be game-ifying the ideas of jaded GMs who've already seen & done everything.
Rules-wise, "new school" games are certainly very game-referent. The technology is mature, even in the sense of seeing it as a technology. Whereas old-school games were often working from a very limited toolkit, or obviously working from a completely clean sheet.
New School is defined by the second school of gaming you encountered. For me, New School is best epitomized by Over the Edge, Feng Shui, and Everway. The primary characteristics of a New School game are freeform combat, loose character definition, and the embrace of player input for certain aspects of play at the scene level.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;376638That, I can partially get behind.
Although, thematically, I don't necessarily see "new school" games as necessarily commonly drawing from other games so much as drawing from geek culture. (And even then, not always: look at Grey Ranks.) Even when there isn't a direct geek culture referent, the point of commonality is still visible in the willingness to invent concepts whole-cloth, instead of referring to external traditional culture. Many new games seem to be game-ifying the ideas of jaded GMs who've already seen & done everything.
Rules-wise, "new school" games are certainly very game-referent. The technology is mature, even in the sense of seeing it as a technology. Whereas old-school games were often working from a very limited toolkit, or obviously working from a completely clean sheet.
This... This makes a lot of sense, at a fundamental level. New School RPGs would be, in a rules sense, self-referential. That links into post-modernist design everywhere.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;376642This... This makes a lot of sense, at a fundamental level. New School RPGs would be, in a rules sense, self-referential. That links into post-modernist design everywhere.
So is Castles and Crusades a New School game? It's a self-aware merger of 3e and early D&D.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;376638That, I can partially get behind.
Although, thematically, I don't necessarily see "new school" games as necessarily commonly drawing from other games so much as drawing from geek culture. (And even then, not always: look at Grey Ranks.) Even when there isn't a direct geek culture referent, the point of commonality is still visible in the willingness to invent concepts whole-cloth, instead of referring to external traditional culture. Many new games seem to be game-ifying the ideas of jaded GMs who've already seen & done everything.
Rules-wise, "new school" games are certainly very game-referent. The technology is mature, even in the sense of seeing it as a technology. Whereas old-school games were often working from a very limited toolkit, or obviously working from a completely clean sheet.
And excellent clarification. I was searching for a term besides 'previous games', but it eluded me.
Quote from: Thanlis;376643So is Castles and Crusades a New School game? It's a self-aware merger of 3e and early D&D.
By my own subjective definitions of old and new school, C&C I would place in the new school category. The one big reason is that it doesn't use descending AC. :rolleyes:
Quote from: StormBringer;376634A good point, I would go one step further and say 'old school' was influenced by earlier literature, while 'new school' is influenced by previous games, including the feedback loop of RPGs and computer versions of same.
Not that this feedback loop is necessarily a cul-de-sac or anything, but there is a distinct point where RPGs stopped drawing from 'unrelated' literature and started drawing from the body of writing and other media that developed around it from previous games/tropes.
I don't agree about this. D&D very quickly turned into its own genre with its own tropes. That is, a typical 1E AD&D adventure written out as a story bears little resemblance to Tolkien or Vance or anyone. And an awful lot of 70s and early 80s RPGs were created as a reaction to D&D (i.e. "D&D in Space") rather than as independent adaptations of literature. Many later games often drew inspiration from literature - like Lovecraft for Call of Cthulhu, superhero comics for Champions, Zelazny for Amber Diceless, Anne Rice for Vampire: The Masquerade, R.E. Howard for the Conan RPG, and pulp stories for Spirit of the Century - not to mention the horde of movie and TV emulating games, like Star Wars, BESM, etc. Genre emulating games like these are more New School than Old School, I'd argue.
Now, like some here, my experience is that later RPG play (aka "New School") tends to be less do-it-yourself, with players sticking closer to published material. However, I suspect that the main reason for this isn't that RPG players changed their tastes, but rather that the RPG market got better at designing books that matched what players wanted. Most people who were do-it-yourself-ing in 1980 were probably glad to get RPG books that better fit their style and drop DIY, leaving a minority of disgruntled folk who preferred the more DIY days.
There is no new school (which also explains why people don't sit down and say "We're going to play this New School style" unless they are trying to denigrate it or be ironic). "New school" is just a label for whatever normal gaming is taking place now.
Old school, by definition, is reconstruction of what gaming might have been or "must" have been.
When you were playing AD&D in 1983 or whatever, it was (by definition) new school at the time. And nobody was making an attempt to reconstruct anything, because there wasn't anything to reconstruct.
Quote from: jhkim;376646I don't agree about this. D&D very quickly turned into its own genre with its own tropes. That is, a typical 1E AD&D adventure written out as a story bears little resemblance to Tolkien or Vance or anyone. And an awful lot of 70s and early 80s RPGs were created as a reaction to D&D (i.e. "D&D in Space") rather than as independent adaptations of literature. Many later games often drew inspiration from literature - like Lovecraft for Call of Cthulhu, superhero comics for Champions, Zelazny for Amber Diceless, Anne Rice for Vampire: The Masquerade, R.E. Howard for the Conan RPG, and pulp stories for Spirit of the Century - not to mention the horde of movie and TV emulating games, like Star Wars, BESM, etc. Genre emulating games like these are more New School than Old School, I'd argue.
The end results may not have often been Tolkien- or Vance-like, but the influence in the rules is clear. More recent games are just as clear in elevating tropes that came from within the gaming genre itself, as you say, in reaction to original gaming ideas or tropes.
QuoteNow, like some here, my experience is that later RPG play (aka "New School") tends to be less do-it-yourself, with players sticking closer to published material. However, I suspect that the main reason for this isn't that RPG players changed their tastes, but rather that the RPG market got better at designing books that matched what players wanted. Most people who were do-it-yourself-ing in 1980 were probably glad to get RPG books that better fit their style and drop DIY, leaving a minority of disgruntled folk who preferred the more DIY days.
I would disagree that is necessarily what the players wanted. Like most products in any field, they tend to be designed from scratch, and then a market is created for them. Steve Jobs has crafted a multi-billion dollar company based on this.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;376638That, I can partially get behind.
Although, thematically, I don't necessarily see "new school" games as necessarily commonly drawing from other games so much as drawing from geek culture. (And even then, not always: look at Grey Ranks.) Even when there isn't a direct geek culture referent, the point of commonality is still visible in the willingness to invent concepts whole-cloth, instead of referring to external traditional culture. Many new games seem to be game-ifying the ideas of jaded GMs who've already seen & done everything.
Rules-wise, "new school" games are certainly very game-referent. The technology is mature, even in the sense of seeing it as a technology. Whereas old-school games were often working from a very limited toolkit, or obviously working from a completely clean sheet.
Yeah, I can see that fitting better, especially the self-referential gaming part.
Quote from: jeff37923;376630After thinking about it most of the morning, the one point which really differentiates New School from Old School in my mind doesn't have much to do with RPGs as it does with console and computer gaming. New School games are influenced more by tropes and standards of computer gaming while Old School games are the ones that most influenced computer gaming. New School gamers come from a computer game background where they were exposed to games first while Old School gamers come from a tabletop RPG background and then migrated over to computer games to add to their gaming.
I am not so sure. There were and there are computer games that strike me as fundamentally old school in approach or aesthetic -
Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant, the
SSI Gold Box series or from the more recent crop, even
Deus Ex come to my mind. We can say then that these are the games that were inspired by old school gaming, but then the whole point would become quite meaningless.
Most of the old school players I know are, or have been exposed to computer gaming. In fact,
Crusaders of the Dark Savant seems to be an important shared experience for us - I have discovered that a lot of people whose gaming preferences are closed to me have played and enjoyed that game, and used it as a wellspring of inspiration. There may be more recent ones for others (GTA as a sandbox game? I have never played it, but it may fit the bill) - I may have to think about this more.
Quote from: jeff37923;376649Yeah, I can see that fitting better, especially the self-referential gaming part.
Yep! This is clicking with me too. Are we actually coming to something like a consensus? :O
-clash
Quote from: StormBringer;376648The end results may not have often been Tolkien- or Vance-like, but the influence in the rules is clear. More recent games are just as clear in elevating tropes that came from within the gaming genre itself, as you say, in reaction to original gaming ideas or tropes.
Actually, I was saying the opposite.
I'm saying that games like Gamma World or Star Frontiers (i.e. Old School) were inspired more by gaming tropes than by literature. They were more D&D in space, rather than an attempt to really emulate any sci-fi literature. The same goes for the numerous early D&D clones, which were reactions to D&D rather than adaptations of literature.
In contrast, recent sci-fi games like Star Wars D6 or Burning Empires or Star Blazers (i.e. New School) were clearly inspired by film/literature and that influence is clear in the rules. Star Wars D6 may have used many of the Ghostbusters RPG mechanics, but it wasn't an effort to be Ghostbusters in space - it was emulating Star Wars, and you can see that.
This isn't absolute, by any means. D&D4 definitely does have many CCG and computer game influences, for example. If we were talking only about D&D rather than RPGs more broadly, my view would be different. However, across RPGs, I think that direct literature-to-game influences are at least as common in post-1985 games.
Quote from: flyingmice;376651Yep! This is clicking with me too. Are we actually coming to something like a consensus? :O
In 20 years, people will still be having this debate.
Though by then, what we call presently call "old school" will be called "ancient school" and what we presently call "new school" will be called "old school".
;)
Quote from: flyingmice;376651Yep! This is clicking with me too. Are we actually coming to something like a consensus? :O
-clash
I can't think of any objection.
That certainly is a part of what we're talking about, for sure.
Interesting. Most of my game writing ideas are external--inspired by non-gaming media, and ideas. Except for Derelict Delvers, which is an alternate realities D&D...
So. Would it be fair to talk of a sort of "echo chamber" as far as "new school" game design is concerned?
Quote from: Silverlion;376656Interesting. Most of my game writing ideas are external--inspired by non-gaming media, and ideas. Except for Derelict Delvers, which is an alternate realities D&D...
I'll buy that. And I think that's true for a lot of other designers. Truth & Justice, Zorcerer of Zo, In Harm's Way, and so forth are all strongly tied to a literary genre. Further, attempts to do variant D&D aren't new at all - going back well into the 70s.
When I think of RPGs that draw from literature or other genre, I think of Call of Cthulhu, James Bond 007, Star Wars D6, Amber Diceless, etc. When I think of variant D&D RPGs, I think of Gamma World and Rolemaster first, although there are plenty of later ones.
Quote from: jhkim;376652Actually, I was saying the opposite.
I'm saying that games like Gamma World or Star Frontiers (i.e. Old School) were inspired more by gaming tropes than by literature. They were more D&D in space, rather than an attempt to really emulate any sci-fi literature. The same goes for the numerous early D&D clones, which were reactions to D&D rather than adaptations of literature.
This is where you lose me. Star Frontiers didn't cite any direct influences, and it is difficult to pin it down with a specific genre, but it is pretty clearly pulp action in space and not D&D in space. I would contend there are not many games out there of any genre that are farther from D&D than Star Frontiers.
Gamma World may be closer to your point, because that used a system that was very similar to D&D in many ways, so in one sense, it would have been difficult to separate the two in terms of game play. But even then, it is kind of a stretch. GW was much closer to hexcrawling than dungeoncrawling.
Quote from: jhkim;376658When I think of variant D&D RPGs, I think of Gamma World and Rolemaster first, although there are plenty of later ones.
Gamma World is even more of a bastardisation because it derives from Metamorphosis Alpha which was about a generation starship (the original D&D dungeon in space). So things that made sense in MA, like the universal colour coded access keys, found there way into Gamma World and stayed there as far as the 4th edition.
Both MA and Gamma World of course cite various books and movies as inspiration , but there was no attempt in the actual mechanics, character build or GM advice to really capture the sources.
Quote from: StormBringer;376662This is where you lose me. Star Frontiers didn't cite any direct influences, and it is difficult to pin it down with a specific genre, but it is pretty clearly pulp action in space and not D&D in space. I would contend there are not many games out there of any genre that are farther from D&D than Star Frontiers.
Gamma World may be closer to your point, because that used a system that was very similar to D&D in many ways, so in one sense, it would have been difficult to separate the two in terms of game play. But even then, it is kind of a stretch. GW was much closer to hexcrawling than dungeoncrawling.
Early Gamma World adventures, for instance, "Legion of Gold", where in the vein of "Keep on the Borderland" (I think), a mini campaign setting with a lot of dungeons. 3rd edition gamma World adventuers were more hex crawls like "Isle of Dread" (although there was an over arching goal linking all the 3rd edition modules). 4th edition Gamma World modules were more like the Marvel Super Hero adventures - linear, scripted plots with boxed text to read out.
Quote from: Soylent Green;376666Early Gamma World adventures, for instance, "Legion of Gold", where in the vein of "Keep on the Borderland" (I think), a mini campaign setting with a lot of dungeons. 3rd edition gamma World adventuers were more hex crawls like "Isle of Dread" (although there was an over arching goal linking all the 3rd edition modules). 4th edition Gamma World modules were more like the Marvel Super Hero adventures - linear, scripted plots with boxed text to read out.
I don't think I ever got a GW module, so I will defer to your analysis.
Quote from: StormBringer;376667I don't think I ever got a GW module, so I will defer to your analysis.
And should I get my Gamma World facts wrong, I am sure Tetsubo or Silverlion will set me straight :)
Quote from: Soylent Green;376669And should I get my Gamma World facts wrong, I am sure Tetsubo or Silverlion will set me straight :)
They are pretty good about that. :)
Quote from: StormBringer;376607EDIT:
(content removed by me)
Clash is right, I will try to turn over a new leaf.
Probably for the best considering you missed both the point and the mark in relying yet again on a totally D&D centric world view.
Perhaps the more elegant, less butthurt inducing way to put it would be that new school acknowledges the existence and contribution of other games and styles that have come since the original D&D. The point remains the same. It also squarely markes 3e and later as "new school" as that was the first that really acknowledged the additions of other games to the designer's toolbox.
Quote from: J Arcane;376672Probably for the best considering you missed both the point and the mark in relying yet again on a totally D&D centric world view.
Perhaps the more elegant, less butthurt inducing way to put it would be that new school acknowledges the existence and contribution of other games and styles that have come since the original D&D. The point remains the same. It also squarely markes 3e and later as "new school" as that was the first that really acknowledged the additions of other games to the designer's toolbox.
But that was virtually inevitable, although still avoidable. There were no other games to draw from in the OD&D days. I am not saying either of these is good or bad, simply the way things turned out.
Quote from: StormBringer;376674But that was virtually inevitable, although still avoidable. There were no other games to draw from in the OD&D days. I am not saying either of these is good or bad, simply the way things turned out.
See I'd go so far as to put the mark well into the 2e. I always get the sense from TSR's stuff that they basically felt they were pretty much in their own little world and felt no need to acknowledge anything else or had even read anything else, besides D&D.
You especially see it in their attempts at doing other games, in stuff like Alternity and Gamma World 4e, like their trying to puzzle out on their own mechanical concepts that were quite familiar by that time to everyone else, and winding up with this weird convoluted half-formed thing.
Like those moments when you come up with what seems like a good idea, and you're struggling to explain it to a friend, and then the friend says, "Oh, you mean this?" and you realize that's exactly what you were trying and failing to get at and if you'd only been more literate on the subject you'd already know it.
Quote from: StormBringer;376674But that was virtually inevitable, although still avoidable. There were no other games to draw from in the OD&D days. I am not saying either of these is good or bad, simply the way things turned out.
I don't feel that's true. OD&D came out of the wargaming and Braunsteins that preceded it. Really, I'd say that OD&D derives from earlier wargaming at least as much as many later games like Traveller or Amber derive from OD&D. Further, within just a year or two of the publication of OD&D, there were games that derived from it - i.e. Tunnels & Trolls and Metamorphosis Alpha.
Could gaming theory make the difference here? I.e. in older days, designing a new game that was inspired from another was about adding some cool bit like percentage skills or cultures to make it "more realistic", or "more lethal", whereas today it's about copying design patterns, systems, having "narrative control" and "cinematic combat" with a game more or less fitting in a sort of GNS clusterfuck of game design. Am I making any sense, here?
Quote from: Benoist;376685whereas today it's about copying design patterns, systems, having "narrative control" and "cinematic combat" with a game more or less fitting in a sort of GNS clusterfuck of game design. Am I making any sense, here?
I think that in a vast majority of cases, this isn't correct. Folk just design stuff that they think will be fun.
Quote from: One Horse Town;376688I think that in a vast majority of cases, this isn't correct. Folk just design stuff that they think will be fun.
*nod* I can sort of feel what the difference is between the designs then and now, but can't put my finger on it.
Just trying to figure it out.
Quote from: Benoist;376685Could gaming theory make the difference here? I.e. in older days, designing a new game that was inspired from another was about adding some cool bit like percentage skills or cultures to make it "more realistic", or "more lethal", whereas today it's about copying design patterns, systems, having "narrative control" and "cinematic combat" with a game more or less fitting in a sort of GNS clusterfuck of game design. Am I making any sense, here?
Kind of depends what counts as "older days". A lot of 80's games were not just tweaking the existing games. Games like Ars Magica, Pendragon, WEG Star Wars took the hobby in different directions and are clearly designed to be played in a certina way with mechanics the reinforce this.
I swear I replied to this before.
Quote from: J Arcane;376678See I'd go so far as to put the mark well into the 2e. I always get the sense from TSR's stuff that they basically felt they were pretty much in their own little world and felt no need to acknowledge anything else or had even read anything else, besides D&D.
You especially see it in their attempts at doing other games, in stuff like Alternity and Gamma World 4e, like their trying to puzzle out on their own mechanical concepts that were quite familiar by that time to everyone else, and winding up with this weird convoluted half-formed thing.
I can see that, especially the first part. I don't know for sure if they were quite so isolated as you claim, but likely they were to some degree.
I was using OD&D as the extreme outside example, ie, the first point of reference. I would probably put the latest marker a bit earlier, perhaps around mid- to late- 1st edition. Certainly around UA and Dungeoneer's there started to be a large enough body of RPGs that a certain 'cannibalization' started up in earnest.
While I appreciate the possibility that I may have stumbled onto some insight (in collaboration with SB), and I think that John is somehow latching onto a peripheral issue, I'd like to remind folks, again, that definitional wrangles really aren't what Clash is after.
Pick a few games you think are "new school", explain why they're new school if you like, but most important say what you think are their strengths compared to whatever you think of as "old school".
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;376700While I appreciate the possibility that I may have stumbled onto some insight (in collaboration with SB), and I think that John is somehow latching onto a peripheral issue, I'd like to remind folks, again, that definitional wrangles really aren't what Clash is after.
Pick a few games you think are "new school", explain why they're new school if you like, but most important say what you think they do that's better than whatever you think of as "old school".
I will take co-sponsorship of your insight, if you think it is appropriate. :)
The definitional stuff was me talking out loud, mostly. Hopefully, it didn't throw the thread too far off track. With this in mind, I would say 'old school' for me is somewhere around the early 90s. Perhaps a couple of years before White Wolf hit the scene, there was an incubator of story driven games that gave rise to the sensibilities that coalesced in V:tM. Certainly, 2e AD&D contributed, as well as some other games.
I am unable to get much more specific than that. For sure, EotPT is old school, as is the early editions of Rolemaster. Traveller, Tunnels and Trolls, Palladium Fantasy... For me, it is more of a feel of the rules: messy, cobbled together, tenuous connections between them; and how this led to a less organized style of play like hexcrawling through a sandbox, occasionally stumbling on a dungeon or something.
Essentially, there was a story waiting to be told, but it was told during the course of the game,
post facto. The events of the game made the story you would tell later rather than engineering events in the game to satisfy the outline of a story you had in mind beforehand. 'Old School' games are the former, 'New School' games are the latter.
And...are there any "New School" games that have strengths vis à vis the "old school"?
Quote from: jhkim;376652Actually, I was saying the opposite.
I'm saying that games like Gamma World or Star Frontiers (i.e. Old School) were inspired more by gaming tropes than by literature. They were more D&D in space, rather than an attempt to really emulate any sci-fi literature. The same goes for the numerous early D&D clones, which were reactions to D&D rather than adaptations of literature.
Really? What Tropes? Sometime in 1975-1976 I read a dog earred, run down very old copy (the 1954 edition?) of
Starman's Son 2250 A.D. by
Andre Norton. Imagine my delight when I bought a copy of Gamma World
when it was new, in 1978-79. Back then, I thought
Gamma World was built, just so I could run my own Starman's Son game with remarkable coherence that matched the spirit of Andre Norton's most excellent novel. It was about as far from D&D as you could get becuase there was nothing else to compare it to back then. (Maybe Traveller, but the coherence seemed more than coincidental)
Reference:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/n/andre-norton/daybreak-2250-ad.htm (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/n/andre-norton/daybreak-2250-ad.htm)
Quote from: jhkim;376652In contrast, recent sci-fi games like Star Wars D6 or Burning Empires or Star Blazers (i.e. New School) were clearly inspired by film/literature and that influence is clear in the rules. Star Wars D6 may have used many of the Ghostbusters RPG mechanics, but it wasn't an effort to be Ghostbusters in space - it was emulating Star Wars, and you can see that.
Totally agree here. Adding the special effects and moves from the movies was a high priority for the game designers, often at the expense of the game mechanics (Specifically not talking about d6 here, don't have enough experience running d6 WeG SW), however for the other games SW d20, Fudge SW and their ilk. Definitely saw this in the game mechanics.
Quote from: jhkim;376652This isn't absolute, by any means. D&D4 definitely does have many CCG and computer game influences, for example. If we were talking only about D&D rather than RPGs more broadly, my view would be different. However, across RPGs, I think that direct literature-to-game influences are at least as common in post-1985 games.
Perhaps more so nowadays, but not as obvious? Which games stand out in this respect?
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;376706And...are there any "New School" games that have strengths vis à vis the "old school"?
Spycraft and Mutants and Masterminds are both full of awesome compared to old school.
GM prep is fast, Chargen can be fast or slow. Games are action-packed adventures, mixed with short down times between major events as the players gear up for the next gaming round. The mechanics for these are so smooth I routinely use character sheets and just a two-page quick-reference handout for the players, even players that have never played RPGs before.
C&C almost makes this category, but it still has alot of baggage that requires some hand-waving on the part of the GM.
Quote from: GameDaddy;376709Imagine my delight when I bought a copy of Gamma World when it was new, in 1978-79. Back then, I thought Gamma World was built, just so I could run my own game with remarkable coherence that matched the spirit of Andre Norton's most excellent novel.
Likewise, Metamorphosis Alpha is very directly based on Aldiss's
Non-Stop and Heinlein's
Orphans in the Sky. The argument that the system is designed specifically to evoke either source is weakened by the fact that the rules differences between MA and GW are minor - but I feel without reservation that the changes from D&D (non-existent or minimal experience point advancement, no class/level system, lethal poison/radiation, emphasis on figuring out technology and making alliances as the routes to character growth) were and are substantial.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;376706And...are there any "New School" games that have strengths vis à vis the "old school"?
I still don't exactly know what game could be considered "New School". What does that mean? Anything that is "Not Old School"?
Quote from: GameDaddy;376710C&C almost makes this category, but it still has alot of baggage that requires some hand-waving on the part of the GM.
C&C is "New School"?
Quote from: Benoist;376685Could gaming theory make the difference here? I.e. in older days, designing a new game that was inspired from another was about adding some cool bit like percentage skills or cultures to make it "more realistic", or "more lethal", whereas today it's about copying design patterns, systems, having "narrative control" and "cinematic combat" with a game more or less fitting in a sort of GNS clusterfuck of game design. Am I making any sense, here?
The games I played that I would consider "new school" in any sense rather predate the "GNS clusterfuck", and lumping them together is an unfair portrayal of the breadth of the non-D&D world.
Even Vampire, much as it is loathed around here as some "story gaming" bugaboo, really has very little to nothing in the way of mechanics that would consititute "narrative control".
What people seem to forget about the Forge is that the Forge wasn't created to counter D&D for not being "story", it was created to counter games like Vampire for not being "Story" enough.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;376706And...are there any "New School" games that have strengths vis à vis the "old school"?
I think that in having a rationalized and coherent rules framework that enabled by-the-book rulings instead of DM/group arbitration and used design principles from other games (Eurogames, MMOs, CCGs) to provide lots of balanced choices tightly focused around detailed tactical combat, D&D 3E did exactly what a lot of people wanted AD&D to do all along. (In many cases 3E did so by adopting popular AD&D houserules.) I see people online say that this is true for them for 4E, but unlike 3E I don't have the personal experience of having met people who have been running D&D campaigns for 20+ years and switched to the new edition happily and seamlessly because it let them better do the kind of game they'd already been playing.
I quibbled about being revisionist because to me that implies imposing one hindsight-colored vision on the past & prioritizing it over the actual evidence. I don't at all deny that from the day someone first wrote a letter to Dragon about a rules clarification, or first tried to organize a convention tournament, there has been a demand for "rules not rulings". I think the OSR is focused on the more creative-arbitration, exploration-based, random-improv style of play because a) there's plenty of things in the original texts, esp. OD&D, that support that style, so it's not an ahistorical imposition and b) there's a lack of modern games that do, so there's a need to re-discover that element. (I'll check out Diaspora someday and would be interested in other modern suggestions).
If the evolution of games had gone otherwise, we might have an OSR calling attention to the tactical combat elements of OD&D that had been lost by subsequent RPGs; in either case you don't need to deny that there were people who played it a different way to point out the virtues of a game that wasn't laser-focused on one thing and had sub-systems that supported some other thing that is worthy of re-discovery.
Quote from: J Arcane;376715The games I played that I would consider "new school" in any sense rather predate the "GNS clusterfuck", and lumping them together is an unfair portrayal of the breadth of the non-D&D world.
Even Vampire, much as it is loathed around here as some "story gaming" bugaboo, really has very little to nothing in the way of mechanics that would consititute "narrative control".
What people seem to forget about the Forge is that the Forge wasn't created to counter D&D for not being "story", it was created to counter games like Vampire for not being "Story" enough.
Granted.
Quote from: Benoist;376713C&C is "New School"?
Finally back.
Yeah, I was running into this earlier in the thread. "Old School" is a crappy term, because this is about a style and substance first and a time period second. C&S is a good example of early 'Rules Heavy-simulationist', 2 things that OS is not, no matter that it was introduced in 1977.
(One thing that comes out of this...the term Old School frankly barely applies and is part of the problem...who coined this idiotic term?)
Quote from: GameDaddy;376709Really? What Tropes? Sometime in 1975-1976 I read a dog earred, run down very old copy (the 1954 edition?) of Starman's Son 2250 A.D. by Andre Norton. Imagine my delight when I bought a copy of Gamma World when it was new, in 1978-79. Back then, I thought Gamma World was built, just so I could run my own Starman's Son game with remarkable coherence that matched the spirit of Andre Norton's most excellent novel. It was about as far from D&D as you could get becuase there was nothing else to compare it to back then. (Maybe Traveller, but the coherence seemed more than coincidental)
Reference:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/n/andre-norton/daybreak-2250-ad.htm (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/n/andre-norton/daybreak-2250-ad.htm)
I agree mostly, but, with it's focus on mutant animals as full on characters and secret societies, I've always found it a bit more like
Hiero's Journey, but just a bit.
Quote from: LordVreeg;376722Finally back.
Yeah, I was running into this earlier in the thread. "Old School" is a crappy term, because this is about a style and substance first and a time period second. C&S is a good example of early 'Rules Heavy-simulationist', 2 things that OS is not, no matter that it was introduced in 1977.
(One thing that comes out of this...the term Old School frankly barely applies and is part of the problem...who coined this idiotic term?)
You mean
Chivalry & Sorcery, right?
I meant
Castles & Crusades.
Good points though. I don't know if I would necessarily say that OS is about rules light. I mean, we're having OD&D next to First Ed AD&D there, and then maybe a game like RuneQuest, depending on people... that's not exactly what I'd call rules-light.
Quote from: LordVreeg;376722(One thing that comes out of this...the term Old School frankly barely applies and is part of the problem...who coined this idiotic term?)
I don't know, but apparently, T. Foster had a hand in it (http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6873&start=0)! :D
Quote from: Benoist;376744I don't know, but apparently, T. Foster had a hand in it (http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6873&start=0)! :D
well, count how many posts in the two threads people try to stick a line in the sand that deals with a date or an edition...it is part of the confusion.
It's possible that Old School is more of a self-identifying tribe than a design idiom, too.
Oy, if one wants to get academic about it, I suggest revisiting the first couple posts I made to this thread. I'll expand by saying that the idea of RPG evolution as a "bush" is misleading, because it suggests increasing diversity over time. While I think that may be somewhat true, one should also consider all the diversity that's been lost over time.
In short the "bush" view is like this:
(http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/5185/bushq.jpg) (http://img171.imageshack.us/i/bushq.jpg/)
Where 1973 is at the bottom and modern times is at the top.
I suggest that a "tree" view is more accurate:
(http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/4575/treer.jpg)
What my crappy graphics are trying to convey is that far more diversity existed in the past than we are perhaps inclined to see, because much of that diversity went extinct, only to be revived and then die off again, in an ongoing process.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;376706And...are there any "New School" games that have strengths vis à vis the "old school"?
I would really have to think about this one. I am not categorically denying any improvements whatsoever, but I would have to dig through some of the newer stuff I have. In regards to D&D, the skill system is certainly an improvement. I dig skills. But like most things since about 2e, TSR/WotC has always been long on ideas and very short on execution. I have mentioned it before, but the Monstrous Manual was a fantastic idea. They really botched the delivery. Feats in 3.x, very innovative. Completely failed in implementation.
Outside of D&D, Cyberpunk 2020 was an unquestionable improvement over the original. Gamma World got better up through the fourth edition. Blue Planet v2 is good stuff. A lot of the stuff kind of passed me by, as I spent several years broke as hell and couldn't much keep up with new material.
Quote from: Tavis;376533I think this is a good definition of new-school, especially if we tweak it to better apply to D&D (which is, I agree with others, the axis along which I normally make this distinction) to say that there is also an attempt to make the rules:
- unified and coherent: new school games choose one resolution system (e.g. d20 + stats + modifiers, roll high) and use it for everything, old school games use a grab-bag of different sub-systems for different things
- predictable; random events won't make Trail of Cthulu a game about Inspector Clouseau failing to pick up clues, or D&D 4E a game about sad-sack heroes getting TPK'd by goblins or winning because of a single lucky spell choice, but a few rolls on wandering monster & treasure tables can abruptly make an OD&D or Gamma World game a story about miserable losers or world-conquering superheroes
I think these are good points that go beyond D&D. The unified mechanics go back to my point about being deliberate in design choices. The move toward predictability (and control) from "random events" include not only wandering monsters, treasure tables, and artifact experimentation flowcharts but also a move from randomly rolling up characteristics to buying them with points and from random skill generation that we see in the original Traveller to, again, point buy schemes to allow players to build characters. And why games moved away from that can be seen in the opening of the article
Plotting a Course for Choosy Players in Dragon 51 (1981):
QuoteMy friend Chaim is a Star Wars freak. His favorite character in
all fiction is Han Solo. He lives, breathes, talks, and (unfortu-
nately) drives like Han Solo. To be a hotshot pilot, throwing his
spaceship through a maze of uncharted planets, is his greatest
dream.
When Chaim plays Traveller he invariably rolls things like
Administration skill, or Battle Dress. He’s rolled Demolition,
Medical, Recruiting; he’s rolled Blade and Bow Combat . . . but
almost never Piloting.
This is somewhat unjust. Traveller, with its provision for rol-
ling skills randomly, necessarily involves injustices of this sort.
Proposed below is a variation on the standard Traveller charac-
ter generation routine, emphasizing freedom of choice.
Quote from: Tavis;376533EDIT1: I think I have a better idea now of where John is coming from. New-school games have rules with a laser-like focus on the thing they're meant to do, and give advice about what that thing is, how the rules are supposed to achieve it, and (implicitly) how to tell if that's something your group is into. Old-school games have rules that are meant to do lots of different things, and give no advice about what any of them are; lots of important design principles have to be figured out by deconstruction of charts and tables (like OD&D fighters getting their unique higher-level powers from the magic swords only they can use & which show up as random treasure much more often than magic maces etc.). The OSR is engaged in explicating what the old-school rules are meant to do and giving advice about how to bring those principles to life; and because the rules are the opposite of coherent, different people have different perspectives on that. So it's new-schoolifying things to some extent.
I'd go a step further and say that I think "explicating what the old-school rules are meant to do" doesn't allow for the reality that there wasn't always a "principle" behind the rules. For example, Old Geezer talks about why they added clerics to their game. It was because someone wanted a counter to another player's vampire PC. It wasn't a carefully considered and deliberate choice so much as a matter of, "Hey, I'd like to play..." and a "Sure, let me throw together some rules for that..." and I think many of the attempts to explicate what the rules were meant to do in some holistic sense fail to understand the often ad hoc nature of the originals.
Hmm, I think newer games generally have more varied takes on conflict resolution at multiple levels rather than just simple task resolution for most things.
QuoteI'd go a step further and say that I think "explicating what the old-school rules are meant to do" doesn't allow for the reality that there wasn't always a "principle" behind the rules.
This may be the smartest damn thing you've ever said on this forum, Mr. Morrow. And about RPGs too!
A lot of the "OSR" business seems to be about assuming some grand philosophy behind old school play, when in reality there wasn't any such thing, just people playing stuff, and making shit up as they went along.
That's what the whole Shook thing was about that everyone failed to grasp.
Quote from: jhkim;376646Genre emulating games like these are more New School than Old School, I'd argue.
Now, like some here, my experience is that later RPG play (aka "New School") tends to be less do-it-yourself, with players sticking closer to published material.
Yes, because they are deliberately designed to be played a certain way and to encourage a certain type of play. The earliest games were sparse enough that they acted like a sort of Rorschach test that people interpreted differently while later games provide a much more defined picture of what's going on.
Quote from: jhkim;376646However, I suspect that the main reason for this isn't that RPG players changed their tastes, but rather that the RPG market got better at designing books that matched what players wanted. Most people who were do-it-yourself-ing in 1980 were probably glad to get RPG books that better fit their style and drop DIY, leaving a minority of disgruntled folk who preferred the more DIY days.
See the quote that I posted from Dragon #51 above. The new games were reactions to the old games and thus sought to fix perceived problems in those old games, and that discussion still goes on (e.g., the pros and cons of classes, the realism problems with hit points, etc.). That's great when a game better fits someone's style but it can also make things worse when the style of the game and the style of the group don't match.
Quote from: Tavis;376712Likewise, Metamorphosis Alpha is very directly based on Aldiss's Non-Stop and Heinlein's Orphans in the Sky.
I suspect it was also influenced by memories of The Starlost (http://www.snowcrest.net/fox/star.html), which aired in the early 1970s.
The 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
Quote from: jeff37923;376628Ya'll forced me to change my signature...
Curses... foiled again! :rant:
Quote from: John Morrow;376767II'd go a step further and say that I think "explicating what the old-school rules are meant to do" doesn't allow for the reality that there wasn't always a "principle" behind the rules. For example, Old Geezer talks about why they added clerics to their game. It was because someone wanted a counter to another player's vampire PC. It wasn't a carefully considered and deliberate choice so much as a matter of, "Hey, I'd like to play..." and a "Sure, let me throw together some rules for that..." and I think many of the attempts to explicate what the rules were meant to do in some holistic sense fail to understand the often ad hoc nature of the originals.
The ability to throw together rules for a new class comes from design principles that are clearly stated in OD&D: the system is a loose framework that is meant to be built upon ad-hoc by the players.
In my OD&D game the choices for class are "fighter, cleric, magic-user, or whatever you want." If you choose the latter we whip something up at the table before play begins; the new classes feel like an organic part of the system because they're just as jury-rigged as the cleric!
4E gives you many more pre-defined options, but making a new class is weeks of work unless you take shortcuts that highlight how it's not an organic part of the system. You could make a case that making it difficult for players to build new stuff is a deliberate choice - part of a "buy it yourself" strategy - and that the designers didn't explicitly talk about this principle because it'd be bad business. I don't think you need to go that far, though; some things do arise out of other choices.
Quote from: Tavis;376807The ability to throw together rules for a new class comes from design principles that are clearly stated in OD&D: the system is a loose framework that is meant to be built upon ad-hoc by the players.
In my OD&D game the choices for class are "fighter, cleric, magic-user, or whatever you want." If you choose the latter we whip something up at the table before play begins; the new classes feel like an organic part of the system because they're just as jury-rigged as the cleric!
4E gives you many more pre-defined options, but making a new class is weeks of work unless you take shortcuts that highlight how it's not an organic part of the system. You could make a case that making it difficult for players to build new stuff is a deliberate choice - part of a "buy it yourself" strategy - and that the designers didn't explicitly talk about this principle because it'd be bad business. I don't think you need to go that far, though; some things do arise out of other choices.
D&D was not a framework system, Tavis. It was an
Accretive system - Rules are added ad hoc to the existing rules as problems are encountered. Each problem has a separate but equal solution, and exceptions are handled via judgement calls. Rules inter-relate in strange and unpredictable ways. There is a lot of flavor inherent to this model - quirky, messy, and interesting.
Framework systems are designed - a set of abstract interfaces, to which modular sub-systems can be attached if they have matching interfaces. Sub-systems return a value which can be handled by the framework. Problems are resolved by application of a sub-system, with exceptions handled by other sub-systems added as needed. This model necessitates a high degree of abstraction, due to the need to standardize interfaces, but is extremely flexible - both in application and in design.
-clash
Thanks for the interesting definition of framework, Clash - I used the term in a half-assed way but it's nice to have tools to think about it more rigorously! What's an example of a framework game?
Also thanks for the tip on the Starlost, John!
Quote from: Tavis;376817Also thanks for the tip on the Starlost, John!
If interested, grab the book
Phoenix Without Ashes by Harlan Ellison, who wrote the Pilot and Treatment for that show - also included is the essay
Somehow, I Don't Think We're In Kansas Anymore, Toto which is about his crappy experience writing for that show.
Quote from: Tavis;376817Thanks for the interesting definition of framework, Clash - I used the term in a half-assed way but it's nice to have tools to think about it more rigorously! What's an example of a framework game?
PIG's Genre Diversion.
-clash
Quote from: J Arcane;376770This may be the smartest damn thing you've ever said on this forum, Mr. Morrow. And about RPGs too!
A lot of the "OSR" business seems to be about assuming some grand philosophy behind old school play, when in reality there wasn't any such thing, just people playing stuff, and making shit up as they went along.
That's what the whole Shook thing was about that everyone failed to grasp.
That's what it was about, yes.
Quote from: J Arcane;376678See I'd go so far as to put the mark well into the 2e. I always get the sense from TSR's stuff that they basically felt they were pretty much in their own little world and felt no need to acknowledge anything else or had even read anything else, besides D&D.
That's very true. When I visited TSR in 1991 I was asked which games I played, or liked. I didn't expect them to have heard of
Midgard, my then-favourite (German) RPG, but they didn't know
Ars Magica either.
Which was even more puzzling as their game library (the room where they spent their lunch breaks playing Cosmic Encounter) full of competing RPGs (and a few foreign editions of D&D, such as the Japanese bunko edition).
Guess what,
Ars Magica was there, as well.
QuoteYou especially see it in their attempts at doing other games, in stuff like Alternity and Gamma World 4e, like their trying to puzzle out on their own mechanical concepts that were quite familiar by that time to everyone else, and winding up with this weird convoluted half-formed thing.
That's even true of D&D3. I remember one reviewer who put it this way: "3e pulls D&D kicking and screaming into the nineties."
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;376838That's even true of D&D3. I remember one reviewer who put it this way: "3e pulls D&D kicking and screaming into the nineties."
That's a good way to put it. 3e D&D probably made the nineties last an extra six or seven years.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;376842That's a good way to put it. 3e D&D probably made the nineties last an extra six or seven years.
-Frank
It must have been a hard time for the swine.
Quote from: J Arcane;376678You especially see it in their attempts at doing other games, in stuff like Alternity and Gamma World 4e, like their trying to puzzle out on their own mechanical concepts that were quite familiar by that time to everyone else, and winding up with this weird convoluted half-formed thing.
Like those moments when you come up with what seems like a good idea, and you're struggling to explain it to a friend, and then the friend says, "Oh, you mean this?" and you realize that's exactly what you were trying and failing to get at and if you'd only been more literate on the subject you'd already know it.
Star Frontiers and
Alternity were pretty blatent attempts to be competitive with
Traveller, from what I read of them.
Quote from: jeff37923;376850Star Frontiers and Alternity were pretty blatent attempts to be competitive with Traveller, from what I read of them.
Then you must not have read very much, Jeff. Star Frontiers was about as far from Traveller as it was from D&D.
Quote from: StormBringer;376854Then you must not have read very much, Jeff. Star Frontiers was about as far from Traveller as it was from D&D.
And Dark Matter was Alternity's best setting, which was so not Traveller.
Quote from: StormBringer;376854Then you must not have read very much, Jeff. Star Frontiers was about as far from Traveller as it was from D&D.
Bullshit. Everything in their
Knight Hawks expansion was an attempt to copy
Traveller's free trader campaign style with riffs on
Beltstrike and
Broadsword.
Quote from: Sigmund;376855And Dark Matter was Alternity's best setting, which was so not Traveller.
Yet the rules for creating star systems and worlds was a dumbed down version of
Traveller's star system generation rules while their Progress Levels was a compressed take on
Traveller's Tech Levels.
You are talking setting where I am talking rules.
Quote from: jeff37923;376856Bullshit. Everything in their Knight Hawks expansion was an attempt to copy Traveller's free trader campaign style with riffs on Beltstrike and Broadsword.
What? Knight Hawks? That was first and foremost a space battles miniatures game. The ship design and incorporation into the role playing part was secondary. There may have been some indications of a free trader kind of campaign, but that was really minor, and just a natural consequence of having ships with cargo space in the first place.
You know I am a big Traveller fan, so this isn't any kind of denigration of that, but I think you are pretty far off the mark on this one.
Quote from: jeff37923;376857Yet the rules for creating star systems and worlds was a dumbed down version of Traveller's star system generation rules while their Progress Levels was a compressed take on Traveller's Tech Levels.
You are talking setting where I am talking rules.
Think about it, Jeff - the star system creation rules were attempts at modeling physical fact as understood at the time. There really aren't many ways to do that. I see it as a less well implemented version of the same concepts. As for the tech/progress levels, both come from the ages of man (stone age, bronze age, iron age, etc.) concept that was prevalent at the time. Did they model them after Traveller? If they did, they should have done a better job - after all, the work was already done. As others have pointed out, TSR had a corporate obliviousness to other RPGs that was staggering.
Now, were these games *responses* to Traveller's popularity? Absolutely! Did they copy from Traveller? I really doubt it. They probably never actually read it.
-clash
Quote from: StormBringer;376858What? Knight Hawks? That was first and foremost a space battles miniatures game. The ship design and incorporation into the role playing part was secondary. There may have been some indications of a free trader kind of campaign, but that was really minor, and just a natural consequence of having ships with cargo space in the first place.
You know I am a big Traveller fan, so this isn't any kind of denigration of that, but I think you are pretty far off the mark on this one.
If
Knight Hawks was primarily a space miniatures battle game, then why were most of its contents designed to be a supplement for
Star Frontiers, a RPG?
I think you may be misremembering the product.
Quote from: flyingmice;376859Think about it, Jeff - the star system creation rules were attempts at modeling physical fact as understood at the time. There really aren't many ways to do that. I see it as a less well implemented version of the same concepts. As for the tech/progress levels, both come from the ages of man (stone age, bronze age, iron age, etc.) concept that was prevalent at the time. Did they model them after Traveller? If they did, they should have done a better job - after all, the work was already done. As others have pointed out, TSR had a corporate obliviousness to other RPGs that was staggering.
Now, were these games *responses* to Traveller's popularity? Absolutely! Did they copy from Traveller? I really doubt it. They probably never actually read it.
-clash
While I understand your line of arguement here regarding TSR's obliviousness.
Alternity is I think a special case since it came out not long after the harrassment lawsuit filed against GDW by TSR over Gary Gygax's involvement with
Dangerous Journeys for GDW. So I'd venture to say that TSR knew about GDW and its product line.
Quote from: jeff37923;376861If Knight Hawks was primarily a space miniatures battle game, then why were most of its contents designed to be a supplement for Star Frontiers, a RPG?
I think you may be misremembering the product.
Umm look here (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10676/knight-hawks). KH was an RPG supplement, but it was playable as a stand alone board game. That is *exactly* what it was. I never got it, as Star Frontiers never clicked with me, but it's a real miniature war game.
-clash
Quote from: jeff37923;376862While I understand your line of arguement here regarding TSR's obliviousness. Alternity is I think a special case since it came out not long after the harrassment lawsuit filed against GDW by TSR over Gary Gygax's involvement with Dangerous Journeys for GDW. So I'd venture to say that TSR knew about GDW and its product line.
OK - I can't argue. I'm not familiar enough with Alternity to say one way or another.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;376863Umm look here (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10676/knight-hawks). KH was an RPG supplement, but it was playable as a stand alone board game. That is *exactly* what it was. I never got it, as Star Frontiers never clicked with me, but it's a real miniature war game.
-clash
I'm not arguing against the fact it was an RPG supplement that could also be a standalone miniatures wargame. I am arguing against the idea that
Knight Hawks was
only a standalone miniatures wargame.
Quote from: jeff37923;376857Yet the rules for creating star systems and worlds was a dumbed down version of Traveller's star system generation rules while their Progress Levels was a compressed take on Traveller's Tech Levels.
You are talking setting where I am talking rules.
Well heck, even Clash uses Tech levels. It just works, as does the system and world generation stuff. I still got little to no Traveller vibe while running Alternity, either with Dark Matter or Star Drive. Different feel (setting stuff), different mechanics, just... different. I wouldn't argue that Traveller was a big influence, but I wouldn't call Alternity "dumbed-down" Traveller unless most subsequent license-free sci-fi games are "dumbed-down" traveller.
P.S. I'd say Traveller is a hard act to follow, so of course anyone with half a brain is going to rip off at least a little bit, because it's good stuff. The settings are what really set it apart though, which is why I mentioned Dark Matter first. I suppose it doesn't really matter though. Maybe they should have ripped off more from Traveller actually, the game might have had a longer production run :D
Quote from: jeff37923;376861If Knight Hawks was primarily a space miniatures battle game, then why were most of its contents designed to be a supplement for Star Frontiers, a RPG?
I think you may be misremembering the product.
No, I have the product on a shelf less than 2m away.
Naturally, there will be a larger portion of it related to RPGs, there are more hooks into the larger body of rules. That doesn't mean they were trying to pander to the Traveller crowd. The games are so far apart in terms of tone and approach, about the only similarity they share is space and space ships. The space combat part was pretty much stand alone, and the RPG portion was entirely optional.
The original Star Frontiers didn't have space ship rules, obviously, so it was pretty much all handwaved. That didn't change all that much when the Knight Hawk's rules came out, except now there were rules for mass combat in space.
The similarities you are pointing out are entirely genre related. It may as well be said that Star Wars was a rip off of Traveller.
Quote from: StormBringer;376867No, I have the product on a shelf less than 2m away.
Naturally, there will be a larger portion of it related to RPGs, there are more hooks into the larger body of rules. That doesn't mean they were trying to pander to the Traveller crowd. The games are so far apart in terms of tone and approach, about the only similarity they share is space and space ships. The space combat part was pretty much stand alone, and the RPG portion was entirely optional.
The original Star Frontiers didn't have space ship rules, obviously, so it was pretty much all handwaved. That didn't change all that much when the Knight Hawk's rules came out, except now there were rules for mass combat in space.
Go flip through the rules and compare their content to that of
Traveller from the same era. It goes a bit deeper than just genre conventions.
Quote from: StormBringer;376867The similarities you are pointing out are entirely genre related. It may as well be said that Star Wars was a rip off of Traveller.
OK, now you have entered into hyperbole.
Quote from: Sigmund;376866Well heck, even Clash uses Tech levels. It just works, as does the system and world generation stuff. I still got little to no Traveller vibe while running Alternity, either with Dark Matter or Star Drive. Different feel (setting stuff), different mechanics, just... different. I wouldn't argue that Traveller was a big influence, but I wouldn't call Alternity "dumbed-down" Traveller unless most subsequent license-free sci-fi games are "dumbed-down" traveller.
P.S. I'd say Traveller is a hard act to follow, so of course anyone with half a brain is going to rip off at least a little bit, because it's good stuff. The settings are what really set it apart though, which is why I mentioned Dark Matter first. I suppose it doesn't really matter though. Maybe they should have ripped off more from Traveller actually, the game might have had a longer production run :D
Honestly, I think the worst thing that
Alternity had going for it was their task resolution system. God, that made me cringe...
But I think you have hit upon something important here. It is pretty well recognised that D&D was the grand-daddy of all fantasy RPGs and every fantasy game that came after is compared to it. A similar case can said for Traveller in that it is the grand-daddy of all science fiction RPGs and every science fiction game after gets compared to it as well.
Now, can these be then considered the pillars of Old School design thought?
Quote from: jeff37923;376870Go flip through the rules and compare their content to that of Traveller from the same era. It goes a bit deeper than just genre conventions.
I think Clash said it better earlier, I will defer to him.
QuoteOK, now you have entered into hyperbole.
Obviously. It's like we have never met before. :)
Quote from: StormBringer;376884Obviously. It's like we have never met before. :)
LOL That's what I was gonna say.
Besides, the first version of Traveller came out almost simultaeniously with the premier of Star Wars.
Did one steal from the other? No. Yet both products drew from the same source material in science fiction.
Quote from: StormBringer;376854Then you must not have read very much, Jeff. Star Frontiers was about as far from Traveller as it was from D&D.
Nope.
Back when it first came out - I bought a copy of
Star Frontiers. It read like
TRAVELLER dumbed down for Junior High School kids. It was very much an attempt to copy
TRAVELLER. The only thing I liked about it was the shopping mall map in the boxed set. That got used for a CAR WARS battle at a convention. (We were inspired by THE BLUES BROTHERS movie)
As odd as it seems, I pretty much gotta agree with Jeff on this one and his next 3 pages of comments.
- Ed C.
Quote from: Koltar;376899Back when it first came out - I bought a copy of Star Frontiers. It read like TRAVELLER dumbed down for Junior High School kids. It was very much an attempt to copy TRAVELLER.
- Ed C.
This is possibly one of the most ridiculous things you have ever said, Ed.
Quote from: StormBringer;376900This is possibly one of the most ridiculous things you have ever said, Ed.
Huh! StarCluster is definitely influenced by Traveller - along with SPI Universe and Ringworld - and I've never made any bones about that. I own Star Frontiers - bought it when it came out - but never got a whiff of Traveller off it. I'd have liked it better if I had. :D
-clash
Quote from: StormBringer;376900This is possibly one of the most ridiculous things you have ever said, Ed.
Yeah, I have to agree. I much preferred Star Frontiers to Traveller because it is space opera like Star Wars. Traveller is much more like Star Trek or Babylon 5.
Quote from: flyingmice;376810D&D was not a framework system, Tavis. It was an Accretive system - Rules are added ad hoc to the existing rules as problems are encountered. Each problem has a separate but equal solution, and exceptions are handled via judgement calls. Rules inter-relate in strange and unpredictable ways. There is a lot of flavor inherent to this model - quirky, messy, and interesting.
Framework systems are designed - a set of abstract interfaces, to which modular sub-systems can be attached if they have matching interfaces. Sub-systems return a value which can be handled by the framework. Problems are resolved by application of a sub-system, with exceptions handled by other sub-systems added as needed. This model necessitates a high degree of abstraction, due to the need to standardize interfaces, but is extremely flexible - both in application and in design.
So what's your take on the discussion at this point. Are you getting any usable insight out of Old School and New School out of this? Is this part of that or should it be a different discussion?
Quote from: John Morrow;376947So what's your take on the discussion at this point. Are you getting any usable insight out of Old School and New School out of this? Is this part of that or should it be a different discussion?
Hi 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
Quote from: FrankTrollman;376781But 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
Spoken like a true OGL worshipper.
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 concept 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 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
I think its a bit simpler than that. Arguing with Old School people, the one unique point of difference, which only occurs when arguing with them, is the philosophy of challenging the player directly. Everything else is generally a matter of taste, tastes that can be held by people who aren't "Old School". At some point in the 80s, RPGs broke away from that philosophy, and until the OSR never went back. Even D&D itself abandoned it.
If one were to define "New School" as everything that isn't "Old School", it would cover almost everything released after the original wargaming phase, and have challenging the players by challenging their playing pieces(characters) instead of challenging the players directly as a core concept, and the philosophy that playing the game is an end in and of itself.
Quote from: StormBringer;376900This is possibly one of the most ridiculous things you have ever said, Ed.
I also have to agree. I owned and played both games back then (hell, I still own them), and one of the things that excited my group about Star Frontiers was how different it was from Traveller in both tone and mechanics. To see it referred to as a "Traveller Lite" knock-off now is hard to grok.
We liked Traveller, but it was much more "hard scifi," like a lot of scifi literature of the time (think of the stuff Pohl, Clarke, and Niven were producing in the 70s and early 80s); Star Frontiers was like Star Wars, which had pretty much grabbed us by the throats when it came to scifi gaming.
Quote from: StormBringer;376900This is possibly one of the most ridiculous things you have ever said, Ed.
The Doomsday Clock just moved ahead five minutes to 11:59.
Quote from: flyingmice;376982Insight? 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.
I think this is a great summary, without bias in either direction and which accurately reflects my perception. For whatever that's worth.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;376986I think its a bit simpler than that. Arguing with Old School people, the one unique point of difference, which only occurs when arguing with them, is the philosophy of challenging the player directly.
And while I think that was certainly true of how some people played and may even have been true of the games that Gary Gygax ran, himself, what the articles I posted earlier in this thread shows is that very early in, before the 1970s were over, there were people already not playing those games that way. And what I suspect is that as soon as people started teaching themselves the hobby, the relatively sparse rules in those early games became the Rorschach test I mentioned earlier.
At the risk of getting lynched, let me offer this from an old rec.games.frp.advocacy FAQ from 1998 written by John Kim (http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/threefold/faq_v1.html):
"gamist": is the style which values setting up a fair challenge for the players (as opposed to the PCs). The challenges may be tactical combat, intellectual mysteries, politics, or anything else. The players will try to solve the problems they are presented with, and in turn the GM will make these challenges solvable if they act intelligently within the contract.(Yes, I've just added another 59 seconds to the Doomsday clock...)
Or how about Glenn Blacow from 1980 (http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/blacow.html):
QuoteIII. WARGAMING
Here one might say that the emphasis is almost the reverse of the role-playing oriented game. The most important facets of this type of game are the tactical abilities of the players and GM, and the mechanics of play. There is a strong tendency towards a relatively low level of magic here, both in quantity and quality, since it is upsetting the GM to have a tactically brilliant setup destroyed when a character pulls out a gadget.
Wargaming FRP is a competition between the players (as a group) and the GM in which they match wits and skills. He sets up tactical problems which they have to solve for their experience and treasure. Knowhow is all-important, and detailed knowledge of rules a vast help. Since there is a fine edge of danger in the game, developing a character's personality may result in it doing things dysfunctional to survival. Hence the role-playing aspect of the "pure" wargaming approach is often minimal.
It should be obvious that in a game dominated by this way of thinkng, soft-keying is an extremely dubious practice. The ethic demands that the players survive by their wits, with bad play being rewarded by death. For the GM to arbitrarily reduce the opposition in order to save the party would be as much cheating as adding monsters to raise the death rate would.
Unlike role-playing based games, killing player characters is an integral and logical part of the game; in fact, many Gms of this school set themselves a desired kill ratio and try to meet it. While this fosters a competitive approach between the GM and players, it usually tends to reduce inter-character fighting. The world is foe enough...
Quote from: John Morrow;376996And while I think that was certainly true of how some people played and may even have been true of the games that Gary Gygax ran, himself, what the articles I posted earlier in this thread shows is that very early in, before the 1970s were over, there were people already not playing those games that way. And what I suspect is that as soon as people started teaching themselves the hobby, the relatively sparse rules in those early games became the Rorschach test I mentioned earlier.
At the risk of getting lynched, let me offer this from an old rec.games.frp.advocacy FAQ from 1998 written by John Kim (http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/threefold/faq_v1.html):
"gamist": is the style which values setting up a fair challenge for the players (as opposed to the PCs). The challenges may be tactical combat, intellectual mysteries, politics, or anything else. The players will try to solve the problems they are presented with, and in turn the GM will make these challenges solvable if they act intelligently within the contract.
(Yes, I've just added another 59 seconds to the Doomsday clock...)
Or how about Glenn Blacow from 1980 (http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/blacow.html):
I don't disagree in the slightest. The RPG and D&D community started moving away from that stuff very early. I'm just saying that there are many aspects of what I've experienced of the "Old School Philosophy" and that particular one is the only part of it you see nowhere else.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;376983Spoken like a true OGL worshipper.
I don't think that's fair. Whether you "worship" or even
like the OGL games, it's completely impossible to ignore the massive
impact that the OGL had. When 3rd party producers were allowed to make minor D&D supplements and sell them, they could make more money making D&D supplements than pushing their own system. Stuff like Tales From the Floating Vagabond and Toon just didn't get shelf space for several years.
It makes for a very clear and substantial break between new games made in the late nineties and games made in the late oughts. There's a reservoir in the middle where all the shelf space was given over to D&D and d20 stuff, which is turn very much a 90s game in its general feel.
-Frank
Oh 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.
Quote from: flyingmice;376982Hi John!
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
Tunnels and Trolls (the second game system after D&D, AFAIK) is probably close, though it actually has two core mechanics - combat and everything else (saving rolls). Though I'm commenting from the perspective of the 5th and 7th editions, so its possible some subsystems might have been stripped out that I'm not aware of.
Quote from: StormBringer;376900This is possibly one of the most ridiculous things you have ever said, Ed.
Amen.
Anyone with a head located outside his ass could see that star frontiers was an attempt to do a star wars RPG without having to bow to Lord Lucas. It was nowhere near traveller in any way and was mainly another "Let's cash in on the star wars phenomena!" (At the time Lucas was demanding too much for the license for a star wars rpg.)
Traveller was more about making a buck and making the ship's mortgage payment any way you could, while star frontiers was more about racking up XP, killing bad guys, being heroes and getting more powerful gear.
Traveller frequently took a dark side approach with many players being mercs, smugglers, pirates, etc. Star frontiers was more about players being good guys and working for the system.
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.
Lots of games were marketed to kids in those days- especially TSR games; that has nothing to do with Traveller. I played both games and they were nothing at all like one another.
To sum up: Bitch, you crazy.
Star Frontiers was typical TSR approach to gaming, making whatever core product an extension of D&D into that genre. Boot Hill was a D&D Western while Gamma World was Post-Apocalyptic D&D. Star Frontiers wasn't so much Star Wars as it was generic TV action-adventure science fiction adapted D&D.
Knight Hawks came about, I think, because sales of Star Frontiers were slumping since most science fiction games need space travel as a part to maintain interest. It was thrown together haphazrdly with parts stolen from wherever like the UPF (not a Star Trek UFP rip-off at all), and the trade section from Traveller along with the weapon vs defense concept from High Guard in the miniatures combat portion.
TSR tried to get some hard science cred with Star Frontiers when they did the 2001 and 2010 modules, but it is really hard to do a novel as a module without it becomming a plothammer railroad.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;377007I don't think that's fair. Whether you "worship" or even like the OGL games, it's completely impossible to ignore the massive impact that the OGL had. When 3rd party producers were allowed to make minor D&D supplements and sell them, they could make more money making D&D supplements than pushing their own system. Stuff like Tales From the Floating Vagabond and Toon just didn't get shelf space for several years.
It makes for a very clear and substantial break between new games made in the late nineties and games made in the late oughts. There's a reservoir in the middle where all the shelf space was given over to D&D and d20 stuff, which is turn very much a 90s game in its general feel.
-Frank
I don't think the OGL was as massive as some people think, and I don't think it was as positive as some people think. I don't think the OGL really grew the hobby, it just displaced much of the non-D&D landscape. I also think it really muddied the concept of what D&D was and what it was not, between 3E trying to be everything to everybody(and ending up being half-assed or conflicted in the process) and the OGL allowing 3rd parties to take things even further from the base.
Quote from: jeff37923;377017Star Frontiers was typical TSR approach to gaming, making whatever core product an extension of D&D into that genre. Boot Hill was a D&D Western while Gamma World was Post-Apocalyptic D&D. Star Frontiers wasn't so much Star Wars as it was generic TV action-adventure science fiction adapted D&D.
Knight Hawks came about, I think, because sales of Star Frontiers were slumping since most science fiction games need space travel as a part to maintain interest. It was thrown together haphazrdly with parts stolen from wherever like the UPF (not a Star Trek UFP rip-off at all), and the trade section from Traveller along with the weapon vs defense concept from High Guard in the miniatures combat portion.
TSR tried to get some hard science cred with Star Frontiers when they did the 2001 and 2010 modules, but it is really hard to do a novel as a module without it becomming a plothammer railroad.
Now that makes sense. :)
I still have to check the rules from High Guard, but I will provisionally agree on that.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377018I don't think the OGL was as massive as some people think, and I don't think it was as positive as some people think. I don't think the OGL really grew the hobby, it just displaced much of the non-D&D landscape. I also think it really muddied the concept of what D&D was and what it was not, between 3E trying to be everything to everybody(and ending up being half-assed or conflicted in the process) and the OGL allowing 3rd parties to take things even further from the base.
Whether 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
Quote from: Koltar;377008Star Frontiers WAS TRAVELLER-Lite.
I'm not seeing this, either.
At the time, I opened up Star Frontiers and thought it was more like D&D in Spaaaaace! And with respect to Star Frontiers, Traveller, and "Hard-Sci-Fi", one of the first things you should notice about Traveller in combat is that most people are walking around with automatic pistols and assault rifles that shoot bullets. In Star Frontiers, there are 20 shot laser pistols with small energy packs and things like gyrojet guns and sonic stunners. Traveller's iconic bad guys were humans with telepathy while Star Frontiers had nasty space snakes. Traveller characters could have skills in Administration, Streetwise, Steward, but you don't find anything like that in Star Frontiers. In fact, Star Frontiers originally assumed that PCs would be getting paid to do missions and that's pretty much it.
The matter of whether Star Frontiers is or is not Traveller Lite deserves its own thread, don't you think? :D
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;377037The matter of whether Star Frontiers is or is not Traveller Lite deserves its own thread, don't you think? :D
Hey, I
tried to put your thread back on track...
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. :D
-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? :D
-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
Quote from: Koltar;377096TRAVELLER and STAR WARS came out within two months of each other.
Yes, but Star Frontiers was out five years before WEG's Star Wars.
I don't know what you are all squirrely about lately, Ed, or if there is just something going around where people want to gainsay all my posts, but you need to read stuff before posting.
Quote from: StormBringer;377102but you need to read stuff before posting.
No he doesn't. ;)
Quote from: StormBringer;377102Yes, but Star Frontiers was out five years before WEG's Star Wars.
STAR WARS - The MOVIE is what I was referring to. Which was already referenced earlier in the thread.
Third week of MAY 1977 - STAR WARS is in movie theaters.
Second or third week of July 1977 - TRAVELLER is released.
For the next three to four years it was VERY obvious to anyone looking at issues of the JTAS or the Adventures and Supplements that came out that the GDW guys were very much inspired by the look of the first two STAR WARS movies and the related artwork connected to it.
Also both
STAR WARS and
TRAVELLER were very much inspired by Science Fiction artwork and illustrations that was appearing the late '70s and early '80s.
As to the "hard Science Fiction" label and that TRAVELLER wasn't swashbuckler/Space Opera enough - Bullshit!
Thats why effing SWORD skills are featured prominently in character creation.
TRAVELLER was inspired pretty much by the more Adventure/swashbucker type books of Harry Harrison, Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov.
STAR WARS pretty much borrowed or stole concepts and images books by those
same authors.
- Ed C.
Quote from: One Horse Town;377103No he doesn't. ;)
Touché. :)
Quote from: StormBringer;377094The 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.
The problem here is that you are using a popular fallacy that
Traveller was too heavy math and too hard science fiction to be accessible or enjoyable to a broad audience, even though it was the standard at the time of science fiction role-playing.
The link between
Star Wars and
Star Frontiers is tenuous at best. The only commonality between the two is that they are Science Fantasy genre RPGs.
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
FASA
Star Trek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_role-playing_game_(FASA)) came out in 1982.
Gamma World was out for awhile by then and it is considered post-apocalyptic science fantasy. Even though it could be just considered an extension of
Metamorphosis Alpha.
Quote from: Koltar;377105TRAVELLER was inspired pretty much by the more Adventure/swashbucker type books of Harry Harrison, Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov.
- Ed C.
But it was also heavily influenced by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, especially their shared CoDominion universe. IIRC, Jerry Pournelle attempted to sue GDW over copyright infringement on that one.
Quote from: jeff37923;377111The problem here is that you are using a popular fallacy that Traveller was too heavy math and too hard science fiction to be accessible or enjoyable to a broad audience, even though it was the standard at the time of science fiction role-playing.
The link between Star Wars and Star Frontiers is tenuous at best. The only commonality between the two is that they are Science Fantasy genre RPGs.
And that's what SB actually means. We're hitting shifting vocabulary - this happens all the time with SF. Hard used to mean something different than it does now, more like "firm, pays attention to science". Niven was considered "Hard" SF, even with PSI and FTL, because science was important in his stories. Space Opera used to mean what we call Science Fantasy now. So if someone calls Trav "Hard", they are using the old meaning. If someone calls Star Frontiers "Space Opera", they mean "Science Fantasy". I grew up reading SF that stretched back into the thirties and forties from my father, and directly experienced Sixties and up from my own collection. I saw the shifts in vocabulary happen.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;377120And that's what SB actually means. We're hitting shifting vocabulary - this happens all the time with SF. Hard used to mean something different than it does now, more like "firm, pays attention to science". Niven was considered "Hard" SF, even with PSI and FTL, because science was important in his stories. Space Opera used to mean what we call Science Fantasy now. So if someone calls Trav "Hard", they are using the old meaning. If someone calls Star Frontiers "Space Opera", they mean "Science Fantasy". I grew up reading SF that stretched back into the thirties and forties from my father, and directly experienced Sixties and up from my own collection. I saw the shifts in vocabulary happen.
-clash
Exactly. A game where you are calculating the gravity at certain radii out from the surface isn't what I would call 'space opera'. :)
Quote from: jeff37923;377115FASA Star Trek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_role-playing_game_(FASA)) came out in 1982.
Did it? Didn't remember that one. I thought that was a bit later. Cool, though. So there were two Trek games out in 82 - SFV and ST? I wonder if Scotty was writing under the Amarillo Design license... Must have been! He was limited to TOS and the cartoon.
QuoteGamma World was out for awhile by then and it is considered post-apocalyptic science fantasy. Even though it could be just considered an extension of Metamorphosis Alpha.
Yeah - I still have a first edition set, though the box has long since bit the dust. I was considering it as Post-apoc, which is a separate genre.
-clash
Quote from: StormBringer;377121Exactly. A game where you are calculating the gravity at certain radii out from the surface isn't what I would call 'space opera'. :)
Yep! Space Opera is no longer the same either! :D
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;377124Yep! Space Opera is no longer the same either! :D
-clash
Very true. I think Doc Smith was closer to 'space opera' back in the day, right? He was certainly no slave to science. :)
Quote from: flyingmice;377120We're hitting shifting vocabulary - this happens all the time with SF. Hard used to mean something different than it does now, more like "firm, pays attention to science". Niven was considered "Hard" SF, even with PSI and FTL, because science was important in his stories. Space Opera used to mean what we call Science Fantasy now. So if someone calls Trav "Hard", they are using the old meaning. If someone calls Star Frontiers "Space Opera", they mean "Science Fantasy". I grew up reading SF that stretched back into the thirties and forties from my father, and directly experienced Sixties and up from my own collection. I saw the shifts in vocabulary happen.
-clash
To me hard scifi is what you described "firm, pays attention to science".
I don't understand what is the alternative understanding of hard scifi. Or the shift in meaning that happened since.
Quote from: jeff37923;377116But it was also heavily influenced by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, especially their shared CoDominion universe. IIRC, Jerry Pournelle attempted to sue GDW over copyright infringement on that one.
Actually the co-dominion universe is all Pournelle's. The Mote in God's Eye and the Gripping Hand were set in his existing universe.
-clash
Quote from: boulet;377127To me hard scifi is what you described "firm, pays attention to science".
I don't understand what is the alternative understanding of hard scifi. Or the shift in meaning that happened since.
Hard currently means "violates no physical laws as currently understood." No FTL, no PSI, etc.
Space Opera currently means "colorful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, or on planets in faraway space. It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues and very large-scale action, with large stakes." (from wikipedia) Meaning it can be either hard, soft, firm, or whatever.
-clash
Those terms passed me by then. I have been cogitating using the old definitions myself.
Quote from: Sigmund;377134Those terms passed me by then. I have been cogitating using the old definitions myself.
I have found quite a few strange SF arguments on the web to have been caused by people using differing vocabularies. When I see it, I try to step in.
-clash
As long as no one starts going on about "proper sci-fi".
That one pisses me off. Most pretentious fucking term ever.
Quote from: J Arcane;377139As long as no one starts going on about "proper sci-fi".
That one pisses me off. Most pretentious fucking term ever.
Yep! Agreed there, J!
-clash
Quote from: StormBringer;377121Exactly. A game where you are calculating the gravity at certain radii out from the surface isn't what I would call 'space opera'. :)
And you have hit upon another fallacy! It is your lucky day! :D
While there were simple algebraic equations in
Traveller, they primarily were for parts of the game that the Referee dealt with. The parts that the Players dealt with regularly had nothing more complicated than addition and subtraction. However, this led to the alure of
Traveller as hard science fiction.
Quote from: flyingmice;377120And that's what SB actually means. We're hitting shifting vocabulary - this happens all the time with SF. Hard used to mean something different than it does now, more like "firm, pays attention to science". Niven was considered "Hard" SF, even with PSI and FTL, because science was important in his stories. Space Opera used to mean what we call Science Fantasy now. So if someone calls Trav "Hard", they are using the old meaning. If someone calls Star Frontiers "Space Opera", they mean "Science Fantasy". I grew up reading SF that stretched back into the thirties and forties from my father, and directly experienced Sixties and up from my own collection. I saw the shifts in vocabulary happen.
-clash
Good point. I've ranted elsewhere about everything being labelled Space Opera in science fiction.
Quote from: jeff37923;377142While there were simple algebraic equations in Traveller, they primarily were for parts of the game that the Referee dealt with. The parts that the Players dealt with regularly had nothing more complicated than addition and subtraction. However, this led to the alure of Traveller as hard science fiction.
That's fine, I don't think I specified that it was exclusively the players that needed to do all that. But it was more math than just about any other game out there.
And I think you will find something like 70% of the general population can't even handle 'simple algebraic equations', even when they are just plugging in numbers and getting an answer.
EDIT:
Quicky skim through my LBB reprints: Book 2, Space Combat, pg 30.
While it is optional, they describe
vector addition. The book says you should probably just lay out string or wire and connect the points. Nonetheless, vector arithmetic is a bit beyond 'simple algebraic equations', and one would expect the players are engaged in manoeuvring their own ships at some point.
A few pages later, on pg 36, Planetary Templates. We are presented with four formulae to lay out a template for planets.
R=8D
M=K(D/8)³
G
s=K(D/8)
L=64√M/G
R = Radius (in scale millimetres)
M = Mass (in Earth masses)
G = Gravity (in Earth Gs)
G
s = Gravity at the surface
L = Distance from the planetary center at which gravity equals the value of G for a planet of mass M (When G
s is equal to G, L should equal R)
Hardly 'simple algebra' at this point, even if it is just the referee using it.
Quote from: StormBringer;377126Very true. I think Doc Smith was closer to 'space opera' back in the day, right? He was certainly no slave to science. :)
His Skylark and Lensman series pretty much defined "space opera".
Quote from: StormBringer;377146A few pages later, on pg 36, Planetary Templates. We are presented with four formulae to lay out a template for planets.
R=8D
M=K(D/8)³
Gs=K(D/8)
L=64√M/G
R = Radius (in scale millimetres)
M = Mass (in Earth masses)
G = Gravity (in Earth Gs)
Gs = Gravity at the surface
L = Distance from the planetary center at which gravity equals the value of G for a planet of mass M (When Gs is equal to G, L should equal R)
Hardly 'simple algebra' at this point, even if it is just the referee using it.
It is simple algebra. I'm busy during the day helping my 5th and 6th Graders learn how to solve equations like this.
Whenever the kids get smart with me, I asked them if they can figure out how to get to a stable moon orbit from a low earth orbit, and how to use the Sun to get to Mars faster than going direct. So far, I haven't had anyone take me up on these last two becuase they require the additional knowledge of orbital mechanics and differential calculus equations (neither of which, is featured in Traveller). Most of the fifth and six graders haven't been exposed to this yet, Though I do have a couple eighth graders working on differential calculus for finance stuff (I think, maybe it's just part of I-step or College Prep).
P.S. They kids did take me up on a NASA design challenge, and ended up designing a new type of Coke Can (More like a pouch, really, with a snorkel type of straw) so the astronauts could have their favorite carbonated beverage in space...
Quote from: StormBringer;377146That's fine, I don't think I specified that it was exclusively the players that needed to do all that. But it was more math than just about any other game out there.
And I think you will find something like 70% of the general population can't even handle 'simple algebraic equations', even when they are just plugging in numbers and getting an answer.
EDIT:
Quicky skim through my LBB reprints: Book 2, Space Combat, pg 30.
While it is optional, they describe vector addition. The book says you should probably just lay out string or wire and connect the points. Nonetheless, vector arithmetic is a bit beyond 'simple algebraic equations', and one would expect the players are engaged in manoeuvring their own ships at some point.
A few pages later, on pg 36, Planetary Templates. We are presented with four formulae to lay out a template for planets.
R=8D
M=K(D/8)³
Gs=K(D/8)
L=64√M/G
R = Radius (in scale millimetres)
M = Mass (in Earth masses)
G = Gravity (in Earth Gs)
Gs = Gravity at the surface
L = Distance from the planetary center at which gravity equals the value of G for a planet of mass M (When Gs is equal to G, L should equal R)
Hardly 'simple algebra' at this point, even if it is just the referee using it.
You forgot to mention the convenient table on the same page where the authors did your math for you regarding those pesky Planetary Templates.
While the math incompetance of 70% may be true as you say, this was no more complicated than what I was being taught in Middle School back in 1982.
I gotta say Game Daddy and Jeff are right here, SB. That's not exactly rocket science. Still, it's more than most people want to deal with. When I wrote StarCluster I, I was working with Al Bailey, who is an actual, honest-to-god rocket scientist. This stuff to him was utterly trivial, but he was aware of it, and did his best to streamline it for regular Joes. StarCluster 2E was even simpler, and Cold Space/FTL Now was simpler yet. Part of it was that I made all the calculations myself for world generation, and presented the reader with a finished setting.
Now I'm working on StarCluster 3E, and I've worked out ways for the group/GM to do the planetary system generation without any calculations at all. Thing is, the simpler you make it, the more difficult it becomes to create if you want to retain any shred of verisimilitude - this took me years - and a mental breakthrough - to perfect. Those equations in Classic Trav were dead simple compared to the real equations, but they managed to retain about 95% of the verisimilitude of the results compared to the (faulty) theory held at the time. They really did a marvelous job cutting things down to essentials. If you don't care about verisimilitude, then it's overkill, but if you go, it's really well done.
-clash
Thanks for posting that, Clash, because I've been trying to phrase it. While Diaspora was still Spirit of the Far Future, the turning point between gag and game was the realization that there doesn't need to be an association between hard sf and doing math. The math has to be right (or close, or at least believable), but there's absolutely nothing about the genre that requires the players do a whole lot of it.
Oh and I'll chime in and say that the LBB Traveller math is certainly elementary algebra (at least the time/distance/acceleration functions). The vector addition is, what, grade 11 physics? But it is daunting to a lot of the potential audience and it isn't essential to hard sf.
Quote from: Halfjack;377220Thanks for posting that, Clash, because I've been trying to phrase it. While Diaspora was still Spirit of the Far Future, the turning point between gag and game was the realization that there doesn't need to be an association between hard sf and doing math. The math has to be right (or close, or at least believable), but there's absolutely nothing about the genre that requires the players do a whole lot of it.
Oh and I'll chime in and say that the LBB Traveller math is certainly elementary algebra (at least the time/distance/acceleration functions). The vector addition is, what, grade 11 physics? But it is daunting to a lot of the potential audience and it isn't essential to hard sf.
Hah! The "mental breakthrough" I made was while reading Diaspora and seeing what you had done! The two things had been linked in my mind so long, they seemed inseparable, but on reading Diaspora I understood that linkage was not really necessary, and things just fell into place in my mind. That is why I had to entirely re-write In Harm's Way: StarCluster, and why I credited you guys. That concept was mind-blowing. In the process, I also decided to let the group decide how "hard" the game would be, as you did. It's not
my choice that's important.
-clash
Quote from: GameDaddy;377209It is simple algebra. I'm busy during the day helping my 5th and 6th Graders learn how to solve equations like this.
Quote from: jeff37923;377210You forgot to mention the convenient table on the same page where the authors did your math for you regarding those pesky Planetary Templates.
While the math incompetance of 70% may be true as you say, this was no more complicated than what I was being taught in Middle School back in 1982.
Quote from: flyingmice;377218I gotta say Game Daddy and Jeff are right here, SB. That's not exactly rocket science.
Of course it isn't rocket surgery, nor calculus, or advanced theoretical discrete mathematics. I already mentioned, I like hyperbole, and the 'complicated math' meme has a kernel of truth to it in this case, which is why...
Quote from: flyingmice;377218Still, it's more than most people want to deal with.
Quote from: Halfjack;377220Oh and I'll chime in and say that the LBB Traveller math is certainly elementary algebra (at least the time/distance/acceleration functions). The vector addition is, what, grade 11 physics? But it is daunting to a lot of the potential audience and it isn't essential to hard sf.
...it may as well be advanced theoretical discrete mathematics for most people, for all they care about the difference between that and basic algebra. If something like 70% of your potential audience isn't going to grasp the basic mechanics for one reason or another, you kind of have a problem with the rules. HERO has been the butt of similar jokes because they use
fractions! :jaw-dropping: The horror! And yet, most people out there hate fractions, because they don't know how to work with them. 34 divided by 7? Where's my calculator? Without even realizing that sometimes you want to use a fraction.
No, 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.
It's a humorous way of overstating the amount of extra math needed to play, nothing more.
Quote from: flyingmice;377225It's not my choice that's important.
I think that's definitely part of what we're talking about here with the DIY/BIY mindset.
To my mind, OD&D is more old-school because d6 damage for all weapons it leaves it up to you what weapon choices are important; AD&D starts to be new-school because it takes the first steps down a path of "Gygax chose to make this polearm better than that one." (Yes, that happened in Supplement I;
OD&D doesn't get in the way of players making choices, and it often forces them to by virtue of being fragmentary and incomplete. Both of those are awesome IMO. However, it lacks a guide to help players make their own choices.
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.
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? :D
-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. :D
-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.
Quote from: John Morrow;377244I'm also told by a teacher friend about children who can't read analog clocks.
Digression: I couldn't read analog clocks till a pretty late date. I blame the idiotic teaching method. When it's 6:30, the big hand is on the 30, but the little hand is NOT on the 6. Also, an insistence on teaching "quarter past, quarter of" without explaining how that relates to the number of minutes in an hour. Ultimately after working with digital clocks for a few years, I developed my own (accurate) model of how an analog clock works, and I could tell time.
Had similar problems with tying my shoes. What is this "make a loop, over, under" malarky? My big sister (who's left-handed, so had to teach herself) finally showed me.
The problem in both cases is that the grade-school method is based on an inflexible rote that doesn't really explain anything.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;377337Digression: I couldn't read analog clocks till a pretty late date. I blame the idiotic teaching method. When it's 6:30, the big hand is on the 30, but the little hand is NOT on the 6. Also, an insistence on teaching "quarter past, quarter of" without explaining how that relates to the number of minutes in an hour. Ultimately after working with digital clocks for a few years, I developed my own (accurate) model of how an analog clock works, and I could tell time.
The problem in both cases is that the grade-school method is based on an inflexible rote that doesn't really explain anything.
Whoa! I had the same problem, for the same reasons, Elliot! The little hand not being on the number really threw me.
I taught myself to read by the time I was 4 - my dad would read the funnies to me, and ran his finger under the words as he read. One day he skipped a word, and I said "You didn't say "butter" (or whatever the word was!) Dad! It says "butter" here and you didn't say it." That's when they knew I was reading already. When I went to kindergarten, the school officials yelled at my mother for teaching me to read! They wanted to teach me to read
their way! Idiots!
-clash
Quote from: Tavis;377334I 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 trashed that post because it seemed to gum things up here. It was ust a copy/paste from my blog though - here if you want to read it in context (http://iflybynight.blogspot.com/2009/08/levels-of-design.html).
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;377097Let's see - here's all the SF games I know about, up to StarFrontiers:
Here's some I own/have owned/have played, published 1976 to 1982:
1976
Metamorphosis Alpha
Starfaring
1977
Flash Gordon and the Warriors of Mongo (No GM, sort of an early choose your own adventure with a game system)
Space Quest
Space Patrol
Traveller
1978
Gamma World
Realm of the Yolmi
Starships and Spacemen
Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier
1980
The Morrow Project
Space Opera
Star Patrol
1981
Aftermath
Fringeworthy
The Mechanoid Invasion
Star Rovers
Universe
1982
FTL:2448
Space Infantry
Starfleet Voyages
Star Frontiers
FASA Star Trek
Timeship
To Challenge Tomorrow
Worlds of Wonder (3 BRP rules: one fantasy, one SF, one superheroes)
Quote from: RandallS;377201His Skylark and Lensman series pretty much defined "space opera".
Yeah, I thought it was something like that, but I am not a huge historian in that genre.
Quote from: RandallS;377351Here's some I own/have owned/have played, published 1976 to 1982:
Starships and Spacemen
I heard a rumour on Facebook or somewhere that a re-make is in the works.
So, two big lists, anyone care to tackle a synopsis of the rules?
Quote from: StormBringer;377352Yeah, I thought it was something like that, but I am not a huge historian in that genre.
Oh, it's definitely like that! :D
A Lensman would mop the floor with a Jedi...
-clash
I'd like to point out that, despite the lies Elloit and Clash are telling, stupid people who can't do simple math, tie their shoes, or read clocks are an invention of the 21st century. Like dice pools and preprinted character sheets, they are merely milestones on the road to Armageddon.
Perhaps if we give Kong a new bride, there is time to avert catastrophe. I nominate Koltar.
QuoteLike 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".
I think it was late at night or something, but that last part didn't come out right.
How about a delineation of 'rules complexity vis-Ã -vis verisimilitude/realism simulation' vs 'rules simplicity/streamlining vis-Ã -vis plot/story emphasis'?
So, an 'old school' game would have lots of wonky rules and subsystems to emulate the author's view of 'reality' (as in Rolemaster) or to emulate a certain genre (as in AD&D), but in both cases characters are mundane overall in the sense that they are subject to everyday experiences. Even with the escalating hit point pool, I think AD&D was still very grounded in the mundaneness of the characters, with save or die effects, level draining, and any number of diseases (arcane or not) that had very debilitating effects outside of hit points. In these kinds of games, there is very much the feel that your character is in some respects
exceptional, perhaps even
extraordinary, but not in a way that would be nigh impossible for anyone else in the campaign world with similar drive, if not similar ability scores. In other words, actions make heroes; kind of a long explanation of 'player skill'. Character skills highlight what you are best at, but don't define the character. Essentially, PCs don't glow.
A 'new school' game would delegate that to the background to varying degrees, in that most actions would have a generally higher chance of succeeding overall, and in any case, the player would have all the tools necessary to overcome most obstacles in the form of skills, powers, talents or what have you. These tend to define the character to a large degree. The player only has to concentrate on wielding those abilities in a manner that is appropriate to the story of a hero, as they start out closer to or exceeding that threshold. They are clearly the protagonists of the campaign, of a story that is meant to revolve around and respond to their actions. One can always tell where the PCs are 'on screen' because of the coloured circle around their feet; PCs glow.
Quote from: Aos;377371Perhaps if we give Kong a new bride, there is time to avert catastrophe. I nominate Koltar.
It makes no difference. Even if Kong is appeased, Mothra hates your story-based games, and will rain destruction upon your decadent gaming style.
Quote from: StormBringer;377376So, an 'old school' game would have lots of wonky rules and subsystems to emulate the author's view of 'reality' (as in Rolemaster) or to emulate a certain genre (as in AD&D), but in both cases characters are mundane overall in the sense that they are subject to everyday experiences. Even with the escalating hit point pool, I think AD&D was still very grounded in the mundaneness of the characters, with save or die effects, level draining, and any number of diseases (arcane or not) that had very debilitating effects outside of hit points. In these kinds of games, there is very much the feel that your character is in some respects exceptional, perhaps even extraordinary, but not in a way that would be nigh impossible for anyone else in the campaign world with similar drive, if not similar ability scores. In other words, actions make heroes; kind of a long explanation of 'player skill'. Character skills highlight what you are best at, but don't define the character. Essentially, PCs don't glow.
I'm not sayin' your definitions aren't good, but that definition removes Tunnels and Trolls from the old school category, right?
Quote from: StormBringer;377377It makes no difference. Even if Kong is appeased, Mothra hates your story-based games, and will rain destruction upon your decadent gaming style.
At least Ed will get laid.
Quote from: TavisI 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 somewhat agree with the idea of loose tolerance vs precision, but 3x was in no way precise. It was a framework system, which made it pretty easy to hack stuff off or paste stuff in from other games, but the things hanging off the framework interacted with each other in ways the designers themselves couldn't predict. A handful of things were easy to homebrew (feats, spells, PrCs to a lesser extent) while a handful of other things were uneccesarily difficult (save and bab progression made core class construction a chore, and there was little good advice for it, plus the CR system was made of bad math and failure... monster class levels, HD advancement, and templates gave us options but upped prep time). Nothing was so bad by itself that if we needed to we couldn't find a fix for it. But the "designer level" was a laughable concept for lots of us because we could see that the wrong combination of psychic powers would allow a player to play as a sandwich or nuke an entire city with a divination spell or use vorpal pillows (that last one requires a little interpretation). We might have built stupid broken characters for fun outside the games, but most GMs had a list of "shit that won't fly, official or no" and a "run it by me first" policy towards anything out of a book not mentioned on the list. Of course, this was back in high school. Nowadays, I'm running, I'm the only one with books, and I decide what's kosher for my game and what variant rules to use.
QuoteI 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.
I think 3.x did foster the idea that tinkering with the system would change the way the game played, but I think most of us that played all that much or toyed with the idea of power gaming knew that the game could be broken by the unintended interaction of rules from books that weren't supposed to interact (like using metamagic from complete arcane or what have you to stack damage onto a find city spell). This worked against official supplements as much as unofficial or homebrew material IME. If anything, we felt the need to constantly mess with the game.
QuoteAt 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.
Like I said above, brokenness is not small disparities in power. Brokenness is divination nukes and vorpal pillows... rules modifying rules and unintended interactions that lead to omnipotent offense (which changes the game for the worse) invincible defense (ditto) or stupid things like psychic sandwiches.
QuoteI 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.
Yeah... fantasy craft is a good looking game, either to cannibalize or use as an alternate base to port stuff into. I don't know what to tell you about the mentality that characters should be uniformly powerful. The old toughness alone should tell you that wasn't the intention of the design. For me and mine, we reserved the term broken for the truly absurd, knew the math well enough to know the designers didn't know shit, and half of us tinkered with the system until it was unrecognizeable.
Quote from: Thanlis;377382I'm not sayin' your definitions aren't good, but that definition removes Tunnels and Trolls from the old school category, right?
I dunno, honestly, I don't have the older versions. I was under the impression that it has a fairly wonky set of rules that, while not as Byzantine as AD&D or Rolemaster, aren't exactly streamlined, either.
I think we might need some new terminology for this stuff. With apologies to Clash, I think he has a valid question, it may just be one I am not answering. I think I have a different question in my mind about all this, so perhaps a new thread regarding that would be in order.
Quote from: Aos;377384At least Ed will get laid.
Uuuughhhhh, thanks for that image.
I'm going to be in the shower.
For a long, long time.....
Quote from: StormBringer;377392I dunno, honestly, I don't have the older versions. I was under the impression that it has a fairly wonky set of rules that, while not as Byzantine as AD&D or Rolemaster, aren't exactly streamlined, either.
I think we might need some new terminology for this stuff. With apologies to Clash, I think he has a valid question, it may just be one I am not answering. I think I have a different question in my mind about all this, so perhaps a new thread regarding that would be in order.
Nah; T&T is super-simple. I mean, there's a spell list, but the core rules are teeny. Which is not to say it's a rules-lite game, per se. I think you're right, there are terminology issues.
Quote from: beejazz;377387I don't know what to tell you about the mentality that characters should be uniformly powerful. The old toughness alone should tell you that wasn't the intention of the design. For me and mine, we reserved the term broken for the truly absurd, knew the math well enough to know the designers didn't know shit, and half of us tinkered with the system until it was unrecognizeable.
The problem with 3x in this regard isn't that some characters are more powerful than others, its that some characters are so much more powerful they essentially weren't playing the same game as the weaker characters anymore. It wasn't a problem of nature, but degree. The degree to which overpowered/weak characters could occur was unacceptable, and unacceptable imbalance could occur simply by playing the game as intended.
And yet it's only a "problem" for mindless fucking sheep who buy every piece of shit splatbook Wizards pumps out.
Funny that.
Quote from: J Arcane;377567And yet it's only a "problem" for mindless fucking sheep who buy every piece of shit splatbook Wizards pumps out.
Funny that.
You can break the game in two with a Druid or Wizard with just the PHB.
The only way 3.x doesn't break is if you have a gentleman's agreement in place to not break the game, or for everyone to break the game to an equal degree.
Quote from: Aos;377384At least Ed will get laid.
Never had a problem with that - but thank you for the kind thoughts.
In all the discussion, GURPS seems to have not been declared "old school" or "new school" in its design style.
- Ed C.
You took me off your IL?
That's cheating.
Quote from: Thanlis;377543Nah; T&T is super-simple. I mean, there's a spell list, but the core rules are teeny. Which is not to say it's a rules-lite game, per se. I think you're right, there are terminology issues.
This is why I prefer to use 'vintage games'. On the one hand, it is distinct from the OSR, so it's already about more than just D&D. Secondly, I use it to delimit a specific time-frame: 80s and earlier. Pretty much anything from 1989 or before is a 'vintage game'. Right on the cusp of 2nd edition AD&D, in that regard, but before White Wolf demonstrated that TSR wasn't the only game in town.
So, for me, that catches most of the stuff I want to discuss (over at the Citadel, for sure). Part of that is due to enlisting in the Air Force in '89, so there wasn't a lot of time to keep up on the hobby for at least a year through basic and tech school. By the time I was getting back around to it, the landscape had changed pretty drastically, and the newer games didn't hold much appeal. Had I been continuously involved, it might have been a different story.
Quote from: Koltar;377579Never had a problem with that - but thank you for the kind thoughts.
In all the discussion, GURPS seems to have not been declared "old school" or "new school" in its design style.
- Ed C.
That is because GURPS is crap and no one likes it.
Quote from: Aos;377582You took me off your IL?
That's cheating.
A person's IL should be unpredictable.
Besides - apparently you and I seem to agree on liking
TRAVELLER. (At least in another thread)
- Ed C.
Quote from: Tavis;377334At 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.
As someone who has played and designed many homebrew games for years, I never felt comfortable just winging it with 3.5 because it was so it was so tightly integrated. In fact, if I were to run 3.5 again, I probably wouldn't use anything but the PHB material for classes and that includes not using the rest of the material from WotC.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377572You can break the game in two with a Druid or Wizard with just the PHB.
The only way 3.x doesn't break is if you have a gentleman's agreement in place to not break the game, or for everyone to break the game to an equal degree.
That's reasonably common for RPG systems, really. With 4e, elf rangers one-shotted Orcus before the PHB was even released. Then there's orbizards. Generally speaking, if your players are jerks they
will break a system.
Anyway in any design, there's a tradeoff between flexibility and balance, just like there is for playability vs. realism. Also, the more safeguards a system has engineered into it to prevent characters becoming uber, the harder it becomes for NPCs to catch up with a PC who does still manage to get ahead of the power curve.
QuoteGenerally speaking, if your players are jerks they will break a system.
Exactly. Time was, this was acknowledged as a social problem, and dealt with like one.
Now it's dealt with as a mechanical problem, players whine about how "broken" something is, and demand designers fix it, and the problem is that it's a completely futile task that can only be accomplished by stripping every bit of mechanical differentiation from the system.
Frankly I think the fetish for OD&D's 1d6 weapons even shows shades of this.
Quote from: J Arcane;377567And yet it's only a "problem" for mindless fucking sheep who buy every piece of shit splatbook Wizards pumps out.
Funny that.
I don't think any of us owned the entire supplement line. Just two or three books for each of us. If we went out and bought something, we tried to get something nobody had yet. And we borrowed a bunch. And... y'know... we were discriminating customers who knew the math, read the books ahead of time in the store, and would just skip the absolutely stupid stuff. Or (for those of us that didn't know the math at the time) would just get the stuff we were interested in (UA, and Heroes of Horror for me... wanted to get Lords of Madness but somebody already had it). Or most of us did that anyway.
But really, this can be a problem for anyone who has even just two supplements.
You really think in a bunch of high school kids each has several hundred dollars to drop on this stuff?
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;377612That's reasonably common for RPG systems, really. With 4e, elf rangers one-shotted Orcus before the PHB was even released. Then there's orbizards. Generally speaking, if your players are jerks they will break a system.
Anyway in any design, there's a tradeoff between flexibility and balance, just like there is for playability vs. realism. Also, the more safeguards a system has engineered into it to prevent characters becoming uber, the harder it becomes for NPCs to catch up with a PC who does still manage to get ahead of the power curve.
Trying to safeguard a system against abuse is not only futile, it gets in the way of everyone, good and bad players alike. S. John Ross told me that back in 2001 or so, and I never forgot it. Design the games for the good players, not for the bad players.
-clash
Quote from: beejazz;377642You really think in a bunch of high school kids each has several hundred dollars to drop on this stuff?
Don't be silly. They DL them for free off a torrent site, just like their music and their movies.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;377645Don't be silly. They DL them for free off a torrent site, just like their music and their movies.
The first group I played 3E/3.5E with, didn't own any of the books. They just used the 3.5E D&D SRD and downloaded all the other books off some file sharing networks like Kazaa, Morpheus, etc ...
Quote from: flyingmice;377645Don't be silly. They DL them for free off a torrent site, just like their music and their movies.
-clash
I saw this too, but not until after getting out of high school. We kept in touch online, played games online, and because we couldn't borrow physical copies anymore, "borrowed" them another way. Some of us did anyway.
I don't think anyone thought to do this until then though. YMMV and all that. This is all anecdote, and after high school (for a while at least) my sample size went from around 30 to around 10. So I'm sure others may have picked up on the idea more quickly.
Quote from: beejazz;377662I saw this too, but not until after getting out of high school. We kept in touch online, played games online, and because we couldn't borrow physical copies anymore, "borrowed" them another way. Some of us did anyway.
I don't think anyone thought to do this until then though. YMMV and all that. This is all anecdote, and after high school (for a while at least) my sample size went from around 30 to around 10. So I'm sure others may have picked up on the idea more quickly.
I'm old as dirt - 53 last November - but I'm not blind. It's not a matter of high school, It's a matter of the times. Casual electronic distribution has been around since before the internet - it used to be through bulletin boards. Now, though, they are shitting on their own carpets. Unlike music and movies, there is no other way for designers/publishers to make money at this. They can't tour, or release to theatres.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;377680I'm old as dirt - 53 last November - but I'm not blind. It's not a matter of high school, It's a matter of the times. Casual electronic distribution has been around since before the internet - it used to be through bulletin boards. Now, though, they are shitting on their own carpets. Unlike music and movies, there is no other way for designers/publishers to make money at this. They can't tour, or release to theatres.
-clash
I would pay to see Clash Bowley live in concert.
Quote from: StormBringer;377703I would pay to see Clash Bowley live in concert.
You're almost as nutty as Aos, SB! :D
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;377704You're almost as nutty as Aos, SB! :D
-clash
He does set the bar.
Quote from: StormBringer;377706He does set the bar.
He sets the bar, passes it, then won't leave it at closing time.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;377707He sets the bar, passes it, then won't leave it at closing time.
-clash
Two guys walked into the bar, which is stupid cuz you'd think the first guy woulda walked into it and the second guy woulda seen it.
Quote from: Sigmund;377708Two guys walked into the bar, which is stupid cuz you'd think the first guy woulda walked into it and the second guy woulda seen it.
A skeleton walks into a bar and orders a beer...
... and a mop.
-clash
A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a bar. The bartender says "What is this - some kinda joke?"
-clash
(http://www.eatliver.com/img/2010/5626.jpg)
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;377612That's reasonably common for RPG systems, really. With 4e, elf rangers one-shotted Orcus before the PHB was even released. Then there's orbizards. Generally speaking, if your players are jerks they will break a system.
Anyway in any design, there's a tradeoff between flexibility and balance, just like there is for playability vs. realism. Also, the more safeguards a system has engineered into it to prevent characters becoming uber, the harder it becomes for NPCs to catch up with a PC who does still manage to get ahead of the power curve.
In 3.x, you don't need to be a jerk. Playing a single classed Druid and picking the smart and obvious options is enough to unbalance the game.
Quote from: flyingmice;377680I'm old as dirt - 53 last November - but I'm not blind. It's not a matter of high school, It's a matter of the times. Casual electronic distribution has been around since before the internet - it used to be through bulletin boards. Now, though, they are shitting on their own carpets. Unlike music and movies, there is no other way for designers/publishers to make money at this. They can't tour, or release to theatres.
-clash
I mention high school and my particular situation because I think it's relavent. I think it's easier in high school to borrow and lend physical copies than it is when you get forced by necessity into playing online.
I also think it's relavent that if there weren't so many damn books we (they, rather) wouldn't have felt the need to lend around or pirate. I'm pretty sure almost everyone had a physical copy of the PHB, and a significant majority had the DMG and MM. Even though there was the perfectly legal free SRD.
I'm thinking part of the reason everybody had a physical copy of the corebooks is the same reason I've never used a PDF adventure (and there are plenty of free ones): it's easier to use an electronic book away from than at the table. Some PDFs are more difficult to look stuff up in and not everybody has a laptop. Sure you can print out all those free adventures (haven't done that either, more because as a rule I distrust published adventures on a whole other level from supplements), but corebooks are big and colorful and not necessarily good for printing.
The solution for everybody but D&D, IME is to sell several stand alone games instead of one game and a bunch of supplements, and to sell print copies. Both of which I'm pretty sure you do.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377714In 3.x, you don't need to be a jerk. Playing a single classed Druid and picking the smart and obvious options is enough to unbalance the game.
I guess I'm just stupid then, because I never had a problem with it.
It's odd how that works out when your mindset isn't to be constantly looking for what's "optimal".
Since my shtick in this thread has been deliberately uncharitable definitions of term, I'd like to propose another "New School":
Treating the game likes it's a fucking MMO.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377714In 3.x, you don't need to be a jerk. Playing a single classed Druid and picking the smart and obvious options is enough to unbalance the game.
I'm pretty sure a druid doesn't fight better than a fighter, wiz better than a wizard, cler better than a cleric, or rogue better than a rouge... it's just too close to a fighter, wizard, and cleric simultaneously to have a clearly defined niche. It's not invincible, doesn't one-shot ridiculously tough foes, and healing/blasting/fighting aren't niches that become redundant when filled (the way, say, the roll of hacker or lockpick does). It's poor design yes, but not one that makes the game significantly less fun.
Though a good enough example of why no one in their right mind took the RAW seriously.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377714In 3.x, you don't need to be a jerk. Playing a single classed Druid and picking the smart and obvious options is enough to unbalance the game.
1) Some players and groups don't care about the "smart and obvious options," they select options based on their desires for their character (which aren't always "maximize personal power") and the group's needs and goals. Not all groups revolve around combat or other activities where rules min-maxing matters. In other groups it does. This is why many 3.x groups never had much trouble with Druids or other classes that are unbalanced as written. Different group goals.
2) Many GMs are quite capable of handling characters of very different power levels in one party. I realize that the rules as written for 3.x and 4e assume parties will be made of of characters who are all about the same level and base their guidelines for encounters on that, but that doesn't mean that GMs can't do it their own way. Mixed parties of low and high level monsters will handle it for combat. The nasties target the powerful characters first while the weaker monsters go after the less powerful characters. It's not rocket science and it works just as well for parties which are all the same character level but not the same character power.
Does this mean that unbalanced classes don't matter? Of course not, it just means that how likely they are to "ruin" a campaign depends on player and group goals -- and GM skill. Balance is very important for some styles of play and not so important for other styles of play.
Quote from: RandallS;377725Many GMs are quite capable of handling characters of very different power levels in one party.
This.
The notion that somehow all characters should be strictly equal all the time whatever the circumstances is laughable. If you exclude circumstances, whether they are theoretically equal or not doesn't matter once the rubber hits the road in-game. Any way you slice it, strictissimo, hardcore rules balance is a misguided design tenet, at best.
Quote from: Benoist;377727This.
The notion that somehow all characters should be strictly equal all the time whatever the circumstances is laughable. If you exclude circumstances, whether they are theoretically equal or not doesn't matter once the rubber hits the road in-game. Any way you slice it, strictissimo, hardcore rules balance is a misguided design tenet, at best.
Absolutely! Agreed and quoted, just to give it a better chance of being read.
-clash
Quote from: beejazz;377718The solution for everybody but D&D, IME is to sell several stand alone games instead of one game and a bunch of supplements, and to sell print copies. Both of which I'm pretty sure you do.
Yes, that is what I do.
-clash
Quote from: Benoist;377727Any way you slice it, strictissimo, hardcore rules balance is a misguided design tenet, at best.
Not if your game is built around the notion that people are playing capable adventurers who mainly engage in combat.
It's a different game these days. One that I don't entirely dislike for what it is.
Despite my limited experience, from what I've seen and read, D&D as a game with a broad focus, from dungeoneering all the way to social-political engineering, was lost as soon as they cut the endgame out of it, with future designers just kind of going with the assumption that the party will always be a wandering band of adventurers encountering ever more powerful beasties, rather than settling down and ruling their own little fiefdoms.
When you take out the game-play assumption that the PCs may one day be rulers, there's no need for fighters to grow their own entourages or armies rather than relying solely on their own exponentially increasing fighting prowess, and wizards being more powerful at endgame and doing world/nation-shattering things has no meaning, and so you build the game differently.
Quote from: Peregrin;377798Not if your game is built around the notion that people are playing capable adventurers who mainly engage in combat.
Wrong.
Quote from: Benoist;377727This.
The notion that somehow all characters should be strictly equal all the time whatever the circumstances is laughable. If you exclude circumstances, whether they are theoretically equal or not doesn't matter once the rubber hits the road in-game. Any way you slice it, strictissimo, hardcore rules balance is a misguided design tenet, at best.
It creates the situation where the setting revolves around the players, which is exactly the opposite of the 'world in motion' tenet for creating versimilitude. Rules that balance the party within itself, or worse, the party with the world, are rules in oppostion to immersion and versimilitude.
Versimilitude=taking things too seriously IMO.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377846Versimilitude=taking things too seriously IMO.
God you're an idiot to say such a thing.
I don't even know where to begin. I just won't.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377846Versimilitude=taking things too seriously IMO.
You know how some people say they can't get into worlds like Tekumel or Glorantha because they are just too weird? That's exactly what I think of any campaign that lacks a fair emphasis on versimilitude: such worlds are just too weird for me to enjoy playing in.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377846Versimilitude=taking things too seriously IMO.
I'm sure I take it far more seriously than most. But that's because I believe that verisimilitude is one of the most important ingredients to roleplaying.
I see your response the equiv of saying that people who run campaigns take roleplaying games too seriously.
But that's ok, not eveyone sees immersion or roleplaying as goals in their games, I guess.
Benoist, I can kind of see what Peregrin is saying, though I agree with you. Peregrin is saying that in a GM's combat/encounter-heavy Game (and he used that term in the possessive, which is important) , where you have boiled much of the rest of an RPG away, rules balance can be achieved. Does it make sense from an immersive logic, I doubt it. I mean, to me, (and for those who know my game, PCS only get better in skills they use, etc), it would be impossible, as once one player does something and gains experience in that skill, *wham*, we are already on our way to imbalance.
But Peregrin was infering (and correct me if I am wrong) that by removing the side-games and fiddly parts, balance becomes more doable. And I can see this, tho closer the game gets back to the roots of all of this (war gaming), the easier it becomes to balance.
Quote from: LordVreeg;377867Benoist, I can kind of see what Peregrin is saying, though I agree with you. Peregrin is saying that in a GM's combat/encounter-heavy Game (and he used that term in the possessive, which is important) , where you have boiled much of the rest of an RPG away, rules balance can be achieved.
What I was saying was this: "Any way you slice it, strictissimo, hardcore rules balance is a misguided design tenet, at best."
To which Peregrin answered: "Not if your game is built around the notion that people are playing capable adventurers who mainly engage in combat."
Nobody's discussing that
some amount of balance can be a worthy design goal, particularly if the game focuses heavily on a treatment of combat with lots of mechanical options.
Absolute, hardcore game balance is what my post was talking about, however. Which is why I posted "wrong".
I'm about as likely to strive for balance as I am for consistency.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377846Versimilitude=taking things too seriously IMO.
Next time, pull your head out of your ass before responding.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377846Versimilitude=taking things too seriously IMO.
(http://www.enrill.net/images/forump/thestupiditburns.jpg)
Well, I'll ask to have "hardcore" defined then, or at least have a reference point for discussion, since I don't see 4e game-balance as all that extreme (or even all that great), it's just balanced around the notion that everyone will take part in an encounter, vs the other modern design trend, which is to balance people around either being mediocre in everything, or "specialized" -- ie, Character A is most useful in X scene/situation, Character B is most useful in Y scene/situation, etc.
So, whereas certain clans in Vampire might be most useful as diplomats and have comparable dice-pools for social abilities that a violent character would in fighting abilities, D&D4e just refocuses the notion of specialization down to the encounter level, where people are most effective in their given role during a fight, rather than during an adventure.
Strikers will always be better at doing damage, defenders will always do better at holding lines, controllers will always be best at handling large amounts of enemies and so on. They're not directly balanced against one another, they're balanced relative to one another against possible challenges pitted against the party, so that the GM has better tools when making judgments about building encounters.
Quote from: Peregrin;377878Well, I'll ask to have "hardcore" defined then, or at least have a reference point for discussion, since I don't see 4e game-balance as all that extreme (or even all that great)
Prefer "absolute". Also, my original quote is:
The notion that somehow all characters should be strictly equal all the time whatever the circumstances is laughable. If you exclude circumstances, whether they are theoretically equal or not doesn't matter once the rubber hits the road in-game. Any way you slice it, strictissimo, hardcore rules balance is a misguided design tenet, at best.I'm talking of notions, aims and design tenets, not actual results.
The notion is garbage, and will always lead to faulty results. And please, stop being butthurt about 4e. It's not about 4e. It's about a whole bunch of games that suffer from the same misconceptions about what "game balance" is, isn't, and how it relates to actual rules. Speaking of D&D, it actually started with 3.x, if not earlier. So you can stop white-knighting 4e.
Quote from: Benoist;377870What I was saying was this: "Any way you slice it, strictissimo, hardcore rules balance is a misguided design tenet, at best."
To which Peregrin answered: "Not if your game is built around the notion that people are playing capable adventurers who mainly engage in combat."
Nobody's discussing that some amount of balance can be a worthy design goal, particularly if the game focuses heavily on a treatment of combat with lots of mechanical options.
Absolute, hardcore game balance is what my post was talking about, however. Which is why I posted "wrong".
and we are also speaking of a design goal, which have to be prioritized. So placing it too high in the chain pushes down other goals that might feed the roleplay side more and the game side a little less. I can see lots of games this applies to.
Quote from: Benoist;377880The notion is garbage, and will always lead to faulty results. And please, stop being butthurt about 4e. It's not about 4e. It's about a whole bunch of games that suffer from the same misconceptions about what "game balance" is, isn't, and how it relates to actual rules. Speaking of D&D, it actually started with 3.x, if not earlier. So you can stop white-knighting 4e.
I never said it didn't start earlier, in fact my other post stated that I thought the cause was the removal of the endgame of D&D (way before 3rd ed), thus the result in a focus on wandering parties fighting ever more powerful foes in more exotic locations, rather than owning land, or leading armies, or engaging in diplomacy.
And I'm not white-knighting 4e. For as much as I've bashed it about the things I don't like about it (and making it known it's far from my first choice when it comes to RPGs), I'm surprised I'm being called out on it. I'm just stating things that I, personally, believe to be true about the design. I never said it resulted in a superior campaign, or that the results would work for everyone, or that it would even work well as a game in-and-of-itself. I've played it quite a bit (and starting a new run now with a different DM), and those are just my observations.
If it's about my statement that striving for such balance has resulted in tools that make it easy for the GM to judge encounters, then yes, I believe that to be true, but that doesn't automatically make the game better.
Who came up with the retarded notion that "game balance" actually means "rules balance", completely excluding actual game play thereof, by the way? Is there anyone to point the finger at on this one? Because that has to be one of the stupidest game design concepts of the later years of the hobby, up there with GNS. Seriously.
Quote from: Benoist;377888Who came up with the retarded notion that "game balance" actually means "rules balance", completely excluding actual game play thereof, by the way?
I suspect the idea got its start with the corporate incarnation of Gary Gygax talking about AD&D 1e in The Dragon (1977-1982 or so) and how if you changed any of the carefully balanced rules your game would fall apart badly. TSR was trying hard to put the genie back in the bottle at the time (so people would buy and use their stuff instead of creating their own or buying stuff produced by other companies) and Gary said a whole lot of nonsense that he obviously did not believe enough to actually put into practice himself. However, I am pretty sure that this is where the idea of that "rules balance" was the same thing as "game balance" got its start. Even the idea that "balance" was a high priority in RPG design probably got its start there.
My beef with Versimilitude is that its used by certain people to label other people's games badwrongfun.
Quote from: RandallS;377927I suspect the idea got its start with the corporate incarnation of Gary Gygax talking about AD&D 1e in The Dragon (1977-1982 or so) and how if you changed any of the carefully balanced rules your game would fall apart badly. TSR was trying hard to put the genie back in the bottle at the time (so people would buy and use their stuff instead of creating their own or buying stuff produced by other companies) and Gary said a whole lot of nonsense that he obviously did not believe enough to actually put into practice himself. However, I am pretty sure that this is where the idea of that "rules balance" was the same thing as "game balance" got its start. Even the idea that "balance" was a high priority in RPG design probably got its start there.
Balance is important because not everybody's gaming group is love and rainbows. Most games do a good enough job of balance that it isn't an issue. AD&D 1E/2E is an example of what I would call a tolerably balanced game. Balance is the biggest problem in games with freeform character creation, either point buy or a hybrid point buy like 3.x D&D(the points you spent were levels in individual classes). These games sacrifice balance for freedom in character creation, and balanced is sacrificed as you can powergame beyond the games underlying assumptions, and you are also free to create a character well below the game's power assumptions.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377936My beef with Versimilitude is that its used by certain people to label other people's games badwrongfun.
So, in response, you call verisimilitude badwrongfun?
Quote from: John Morrow;377941So, in response, you call verisimilitude badwrongfun?
No, its just something I think some people take too seriously and something people use as a club to attack other peoples preferences.
Quote from: RandallS;377927I suspect the idea got its start with the corporate incarnation of Gary Gygax talking about AD&D 1e in The Dragon (1977-1982 or so) and how if you changed any of the carefully balanced rules your game would fall apart badly. TSR was trying hard to put the genie back in the bottle at the time (so people would buy and use their stuff instead of creating their own or buying stuff produced by other companies) and Gary said a whole lot of nonsense that he obviously did not believe enough to actually put into practice himself. However, I am pretty sure that this is where the idea of that "rules balance" was the same thing as "game balance" got its start. Even the idea that "balance" was a high priority in RPG design probably got its start there.
I remember this time period. The period were they started realizing they needed to continue the cash flow, and there was a palpable change from the hobbyists telling readers that, 'the rules were just guidelines' to, 'buy only official products' and, 'we've carefully constructed these rules for balance, so don't screw with them.' I think the 'rules balance = game balance' started a little before that, but that you are right in pinpointing that time as the time it srated to matter (when people would really say, "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!")
In another thread, we were talking about race/class limits and the humancentric construction of early D&D. I think this is where we see it really coming up. But I have always felt it was a question of creating a rule set that gives a GM tools to balance the game, because enforcing game balance through rules balance never worked.
(I literally changed the my AD&D campaign when I first got the PHB. I changed class limits for race into an % experience point penalty for certain races after a certain point.)
Quote from: LordVreeg;377948I remember this time period. The period were they started realizing they needed to continue the cash flow, and there was a palpable change from the hobbyists telling readers that, 'the rules were just guidelines' to, 'buy only official products' and, 'we've carefully constructed these rules for balance, so don't screw with them.' I think the 'rules balance = game balance' started a little before that, but that you are right in pinpointing that time as the time it srated to matter (when people would really say, "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!")
I don't really know - but I have a suspicion that it may pre-date role-playing games. i.e. I suspect hobbyists might have talked about the game balance within, say, the Chainmail miniatures rules.
It's true that when role-playing exploded onto the scene, there were a lot of new players who were not previously miniature or wargame players. And they were often very do-it-yourself with no particular cares about rules balance. However, the usage may have already existed in some groups rather than being a wholly new invention by Gary Gygax to sell more product.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377945No, its just something I think some people take too seriously and something people use as a club to attack other peoples preferences.
I think it's a preference, just as balance is a preference. Some prefer one and some the other. You just can't have both.
-clash
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377940Balance is important because not everybody's gaming group is love and rainbows.
Balance is important, but RULES can't balance games where the GM, world, and play-styles vary. Realistically only the GM (and the group playing) can balance their campaign.
To provide balance at the rules level, you need to be able to control all the variables: the setting, the play-style, what character concepts the players will use, what the stress of game-play is, etc. If you want the rules to provide the balance you are stuck creating an RPG that will either feel like a prewritten railroad adventure with pre-generated characters who can only do what their character sheets say (something like Pacesetter's Sandman RPG from 1985) or feel like a boardgame or a card game (that is with extremely limited options).
Getting the rules to be the main source of balance in an RPG strikes me as counterproductive in more ways than it is productive. As counterproductive as a literal word for word translation of a foreign film or novel. Yes, it is strictly an accurate translation, but it loses much of the flavor and meaning that a idiomatic translation provides. It's so busy concentrating on the trees that it completely loses sight of the forest.
I create my own worlds, adventures, etc. and I need RPG rules that support many different styles of play. I will provide the balance needed for my campaign, my players, and our style of play when I design the campaign. Games that try to provide the balance in the rules just get in my way because it's very unlikely that my campaign, player mix, and style of play are going to be a close match to that of the game designer.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;377940Balance is important because not everybody's gaming group is love and rainbows.
Rules don't fix people's attitudes. Ever.
Quote from: Benoist;377971Rules don't fix people's attitudes. Ever.
In practice the only "rules" that ever fixed people's attitudes, is when somebody is holding a real gun to their heads with automatic death for noncompliance.
Quote from: jhkim;377953I don't really know - but I have a suspicion that it may pre-date role-playing games. i.e. I suspect hobbyists might have talked about the game balance within, say, the Chainmail miniatures rules.
Game balance in a wargame context is a legitimate concept, because wargames are highly procedural and by-the-rules. Miniatures wargaming varies slightly from that but usually not significantly relative to board wargaming.
In RPGs it's something entirely else, because the procedures of the games are (or can be) highly open-ended. I do think that many attempts to balance RPGs come from imposing boardgaming or wargaming concepts on roleplaying. There are two kinds of balance, the competitive balance between opposing sides, and the tactical balance between options and unit types. The former is fairly straightforward; the latter basically means there are interesting alternatives available to a player, and different alternatives might have advantages in different situations.
In RPGs, though, so much depends on the context created by the group, that balance is a chimera unless the context itself can be fixed by the designer, or all options are made equivalent in all contexts. In the process, RPGs become more like boardgames.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;377982Game balance in a wargame context is a legitimate concept, because wargames are highly procedural and by-the-rules. Miniatures wargaming varies slightly from that but usually not significantly relative to board wargaming.
In RPGs it's something entirely else, because the procedures of the games are (or can be) highly open-ended. I do think that many attempts to balance RPGs come from imposing boardgaming or wargaming concepts on roleplaying. There are two kinds of balance, the competitive balance between opposing sides, and the tactical balance between options and unit types. The former is fairly straightforward; the latter basically means there are interesting alternatives available to a player, and different alternatives might have advantages in different situations.
In RPGs, though, so much depends on the context created by the group, that balance is a chimera unless the context itself can be fixed by the designer, or all options are made equivalent in all contexts. In the process, RPGs become more like boardgames.
Right.
Without knowing the exact game context/mix (and this is meant multidimensionally), one cannot use the rules to balance the game.
I will say that the broader the mandate, the better suited a simpler, universal mechanic will perform. But the narrower the scope, the more the advanced systems can shine.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;377982In the process, RPGs become more like boardgames.
If boardgames didn't exist, that argument wouldn't mean anything, and so I'm not sure it does.
I think something being more or less "board-gamey" is a matter of style and means of conflict resolution and the tools involved (the use of a board, or chits and other accessories) rather than being rooted in a designer's want for game-balance.
If you want to argue that they're more focused, then sure, I'll give you that.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;377982Game balance in a wargame context is a legitimate concept, because wargames are highly procedural and by-the-rules. Miniatures wargaming varies slightly from that but usually not significantly relative to board wargaming.
In RPGs it's something entirely else, because the procedures of the games are (or can be) highly open-ended. I do think that many attempts to balance RPGs come from imposing boardgaming or wargaming concepts on roleplaying. There are two kinds of balance, the competitive balance between opposing sides, and the tactical balance between options and unit types. The former is fairly straightforward; the latter basically means there are interesting alternatives available to a player, and different alternatives might have advantages in different situations.
In RPGs, though, so much depends on the context created by the group, that balance is a chimera unless the context itself can be fixed by the designer, or all options are made equivalent in all contexts. In the process, RPGs become more like boardgames.
Wargame balance is a big deal because games are competitive. It's that simple.
RPG balance is more similar to a videogame's concept of balance: Player options that are grossly suboptimal will never be used (and therefore are a waste of space). Player options that are grossly overpowered will be used every time, and eliminate the fun of choosing (which is somewhat worse, as it makes everything else look like wasted space). That's the theory anyway, and only based on its extremes (moderately suboptimal options or moderately more powerful options are pretty okay).
Old school RPGs are sometimes different from new school RPGs in that you don't always have a choice. You roll abilities randomly, and your abilities determine which class you can join. If you can be a paladin or a fighter, you might pick paladin, but for someone else, the optimal choice is wizard. Lifepath generation is similar.
New school RPGs are *still* different from computer games in that computer games come with premade worlds or levels, so which skills are more useful are pretty easy to determine, whereas skills can become optimal or suboptimal based on highly variable gameplay in tabletop RPGs.
"Rules balance" is a weird phrase to me because rules apply to everybody and are therefore balanced. "Game balance" is weird because what you do varies game to game. "Options balance" is the most sensible concept, but is still limited by the fact that you do different things in different games. Another way to put it may be "role balance." Especially since this applies mostly to character creation. When there are multiple options (say) in combat and you've got to choose between (say) disarming, tripping, punching, whatever, that might be more of a "gameplay balance."
Balance means a bunch of stuff... sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't. New school players like making choices to be built into the rules. Which means that many if not most choices must be valid.
Quote from: Benoist;377971Rules don't fix people's attitudes. Ever.
Rules don't fix people's attitudes, but rules can lessen the impact. Rules can't fix a jerk, but rules can lessen the effect of a powergamer to the point where it bothers the other players less.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;378017Rules don't fix people's attitudes, but rules can lessen the impact. Rules can't fix a jerk, but rules can lessen the effect of a powergamer to the point where it bothers the other players less.
I don't even think that's true.
Rules are built to reward people who want particular things out of a game, not dissuade "bad" behavior. Even Forge theory doesn't try to create mechanics to "keep people in line."
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;378017Rules don't fix people's attitudes, but rules can lessen the impact. Rules can't fix a jerk, but rules can lessen the effect of a powergamer to the point where it bothers the other players less.
Nope.
I'm kind of sad for you that you seemingly keep running into assholes at game tables and have no idea how to handle them.
Quote from: Peregrin;377984If boardgames didn't exist, that argument wouldn't mean anything
And if I had wheels, I'd be a trolley car.
My point is not that RPGs are or are not like some hypothetical category known as boardgames, but that attempts at balance are derived
from actual cultural expectations derived from actual experience with competitive games. While you can make a game that fits those expectations of competitive balance, an insistence on "balance or it's broken" restricts design and play far more than necessary.
I'm a rocketship!
Quote from: Peregrin;378018I don't even think that's true.
Rules are built to reward people who want particular things out of a game, not dissuade "bad" behavior. Even Forge theory doesn't try to create mechanics to "keep people in line."
It doesn't and it does. The typical method in Forge games is to remove all the tools that might enable a power gamer to seek advantage, thus diminishing the impact of tactical thinking and forcing everything through a moral conflict resolution lens.
Sometimes they fail to ward off tactical thinking, only simulationist dynamics, while allowing tactical powergaming through dissociative mechanics. E.g. DitV. Other times, they do succeed, but either way it severely impairs the use of character-perspecive thought.
Quote from: Aos;378024I'm a rocketship!
I knew that already.
Quote from: beejazz;377994Wargame balance is a big deal because games are competitive. It's that simple.
[snip]
New school RPGs are *still* different from computer games in that computer games come with premade worlds or levels, so which skills are more useful are pretty easy to determine, whereas skills can become optimal or suboptimal based on highly variable gameplay in tabletop RPGs.
I agree. This is what I'm talking about when I refer to controlling the context. If you get to define the game's goals in terms of winning/losing, and you get to define the win/loss conditions, and you get to define the challenges that the players have to overcome, then it's possible to define balance into the game. Otherwise it's a questionable concept.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;378022And if I had wheels, I'd be a trolley car.
My point is not that RPGs are or are not like some hypothetical category known as boardgames, but that attempts at balance are derived
from actual cultural expectations derived from actual experience with competitive games. While you can make a game that fits those expectations of competitive balance, an insistence on "balance or it's broken" restricts design and play far more than necessary.
I don't see the type of "balance" in most RPGs as competitive, though. As others have said, it's more or less a way to allow diversity while downplaying the uselessness or neglect that some options have throughout the life of the game as a franchise or whatever.
It's basically just acknowledging that people avoided playing certain options in games, like bards in 3.x, and attempting to introduce methods to make sure that all options are viable in what is perceived to be the most common form of play.
I'm all for options, and breadth of a ruleset, but if it's one of those cases where I have to sacrifice playing a competent character (not even optimized), and the only reason to play a suboptimal character is some sort of high-brow "roleplaying a less-than-average character because I'm a method actor" BS that gets tossed around in White-Wolf circles a lot, then I'm not going to bother with those options.
Options are fine, as long as they're significant for the type of game I'm playing. I'm not into charop or anything, but the choices I make should mean something within the context of play. It's why I enjoy OD&D and BD&D so much -- there is a much better noise to signal ratio. That, and within the context of older TSR editions, game-balance in OD&D is much better than 3.x.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;378025It doesn't and it does. The typical method in Forge games is to remove all the tools that might enable a power gamer to seek advantage, thus diminishing the impact of tactical thinking and forcing everything through a moral conflict resolution lens.
Sometimes they fail to ward off tactical thinking, only simulationist dynamics, while allowing tactical powergaming through dissociative mechanics. E.g. DitV. Other times, they do succeed, but either way it severely impairs the use of character-perspecive thought.
I just mean that most are built with the assumption that you're going into it together acknowledging that you want the same sorts of things from the game, not pulling out a Forge game one night because Billy keeps being a jerk.
Quote from: beejazz;377994RPG balance is more similar to a videogame's concept of balance: Player options that are grossly suboptimal will never be used (and therefore are a waste of space).
One RPG campaign or play style's "waste of space" is another campaign or play style's "must have." This is especially true in a general purpose RPG like D&D has been (up until 4e when it suddenly became far more specialized for a specific style of play). Player options that might never be used in the campaigns and styles of play you enjoy might always be used in those enjoyed by another person.
Perhaps this is a possible old school/new school divide? Popular old school games tended to be more general (useful for a wide variety of campaigns and styles of play) whereas popular new school games tend to be less general (more focused on a specific style of play -- or a related group of styles of play).
QuoteThat, and within the context of older TSR editions, game-balance in OD&D is much better than 3.x.
They both strike me as being fairly poorly balanced at the rules level, that is they depend on the GM to keep things balanced for his campaign by saying "no" to over-the-top (for a particular campaign) power-gaming. Note that this is the best type of "balance" IMHO.
Quote from: Peregrin;378038I don't see the type of "balance" in most RPGs as competitive, though.
I don't even see RPGs as automatically competitive, although they certainly can be played that way. They don't have to be, however, and often are not played as a competition. That was one of the things that drew me from boardgames and miniatures wargaming in the 1970s: the lack of winners and losers.
Quote from: RandallS;378051They both strike me as being fairly poorly balanced at the rules level, that is they depend on the GM to keep things balanced for his campaign by saying "no" to over-the-top (for a particular campaign) power-gaming. Note that this is the best type of "balance" IMHO.
What I mean is, that it's balanced in the sense that all of your options matter, and one class does not necessarily outshine the others by miles.
That, and casters are far more limited for far longer. The chance of ending up with an uber-caster is far lower, and takes a fair bit of skill and luck on the players part. It seems to me that in 3e, they boosted the casters' abilities without any significant drawbacks, but didn't really do much for the martial-focused classes (feats were a nice try, but didn't do much and were often just tedious to sift through).
In 3e, by the time a caster reaches the high single digits, you've got enough spell slots and enough powerful spells that you can abuse nearly any situation, regardless of whether you're optimized. Playing the same level character in OD&D would involve much more deliberation over spell slots and whatnot.
Depends on how you run OD&D I guess, but I'm working with the assumption of the MU having to find or purchase his spells for significant sums of money (with the possibility that they may not even understand certain spells, ever).
Quote from: Peregrin;378053It seems to me that in 3e, they boosted the casters' abilities without any significant drawbacks, but didn't really do much for the martial-focused classes (feats were a nice try, but didn't do much and were often just tedious to sift through).
True, but it is relatively easy to fix. First and foremost: Get rid of feats and other abilities which allow casters to avoid losing spells when they take damage or are otherwise interrupted when casting a spell and make casting high level spells slow as in almost everyone else gets to move/attack first. Second, limit spell availability -- make finding those powerful spells hard, don't let them buy them or just have them. Third: limit magic item creation somewhat. This will not stop power-gamers (the GM still has to have the guts to say "no" and stick with it), but it will make casters less able to walk all over everyone else without trying. These changes will not solve all of the problems but they are easy and will solve many of the problems.
Rules balance isn't there to circumvent assholes, rules balance is to ensure each of the participant players can be of equal relevance to the game.
Leaving balance up to the GM is just as bad as leaving up interpretation of the rules solely to the GM since it leads to "Mother, may I?" scenarios since most GMs who practice this often reserve mutable say on any and every ongoing of the game. That kills the pace of the game and more likely than not creates inconsistencies which harms, not helps, any verisimilitude.
Peregrin, I think this part of the conversation is going off the rails a bit, possibly because of an over-polarized atmosphere, or simply the disjointed nature of forum threads. For example,
Quote from: Peregrin;378038I don't see the type of "balance" in most RPGs as competitive, though. As others have said, it's more or less a way to allow diversity while downplaying the uselessness or neglect that some options have throughout the life of the game as a franchise or whatever.
If you look upthread you'll see I raised this, it just fell by the wayside as the conversation moved on. But usefulness and uselessness are still only absolute in situations where there are certain, specific defined goals, ways of achieving them, and closed procedures. Otherwise, if the GM isn't operating in a cooperative fashion, balance is virtually impossible*; if the GM does cooperate, balance is relatively easy.
A simple example, if the GM only populates an AD&D campaign with undead as potential enemies, then clerics become essential while thieves are fairly crap. If instead there are almost no "monsters" in the campaign, but lots of intrigue and infiltration, then thieves and certain magic users will dominate. OTOH if the game offers a little of this and a little of that, then the game is balanced. This can be achieved by the GM observing the character types chosen and tailoring the campaign--or the GM & players can also agree more or less up front as to what the campaign will be like, and the players can create their characters accordingly.
The asterisk (*) above is to note that balance can be imposed on a game
without having strict procedures, by making all the characters equivalent (or equally useful) in all situations. So for example if you make all characters equally important in all kinds of combat, and you leave out mechanical non-combat elements of character entirely, you'll have a "balanced" game, for sure.
QuoteI'm all for options, and breadth of a ruleset, but if it's one of those cases where I have to sacrifice playing a competent character (not even optimized), and the only reason to play a suboptimal character is some sort of high-brow "roleplaying a less-than-average character because I'm a method actor" BS that gets tossed around in White-Wolf circles a lot, then I'm not going to bother with those options.
Of course not, but again, the competence (or more broadly, relevance) of a character depends on the campaign context. A game that insists on balance at the design level, instead of relying somewhat on the social decisions of the group, is probably either based on a narrow concept of what the game will be "about", or else I believe it'll impose a sameness on all characters. That's my hypothesis; I'd be very interested in seeing it disproved.
Quote[About using rules to reign in power gamers, and how Forge games do it:] I just mean that most are built with the assumption that you're going into it together acknowledging that you want the same sorts of things from the game, not pulling out a Forge game one night because Billy keeps being a jerk.
I think this is true to an extent, but in discussions at the Forge and related places, there's a real sense of rules being designed to remove the temptation to powergame or engage in other undesired behaviors. E.g. you'll find criticisms of Amber on these grounds. And indeed if you distrust the role of the GM and social agreement, you won't have faith in the GM's ability to form a balanced campaign in conjunction with the players. The only solution then is engineering via rules.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;378067A game that insists on balance at the design level, instead of relying somewhat on the social decisions of the group, is probably either based on a narrow concept of what the game will be "about", or else I believe it'll impose a sameness on all characters. That's my hypothesis; I'd be very interested in seeing it disproved.
It was my contention earlier than system flexibility and balance are fundamentally antithetical as well, so I'd agree. Just a thought but it seems that there are alot of point-based systems out there (say GURPS,for the sake of argument) that are in theory very versatile and also theoretically very balanceable in that everyone gets the same number of points, but certain advantages/disadvantages will immediately be much more valuable in certain campaign play styles (e.g. social disadvantages may not matter as much in a combat heavy game, whereas in a combat heavy game combat skills are all-important). Good design might mitigate the effect (e.g. diminishing returns per point spent can prevent the focussed melee character from being invincible in hand-to-hand combat compared to the social character) but only by so much.
In other words, in theory the system is rules balanced by point costs, but if you can create any sort of character, there's no guarantee of 'game balance' for the individual campaign. A character might burn 90% of their points on combat skills and then be useless in the RP-based campaign, or get left behind when everyone else makes sneaky thieves because he makes too much noise. Alternatively, the super-social character might potentially end up enslaved and killed immediately in the GMs Arena of Death.
Quote from: DeadUematsu;378064Rules balance isn't there to circumvent assholes, rules balance is to ensure each of the participant players can be of equal relevance to the game.
It can't even do that. For example, I could create a campaign where the setting greatly favors one or two classes. Even if the rules perfectly balanced the game system for any of eight classes, my setting could easily marginalize any of them, making them very poor choices for players who want "equal relevance" to the game. Or the GM could simply focus his attention on one or two "best friend" players and give less time and attention to the characters of other players, again reducing their "relevance" and there is nothing the rules can do to stop it.
Worse, what a player considers "equal relevance" varies. To some players it means always able to contribute equally no matter what the situation. To others it means they get about as much "face time" as the other PCs in every session. To others it means that each character has a couple of things that only they can do and that each character get the "be the hero" with some of those things every session. Etc. Note that these definitions of "equal relevance" may not even be compatible with each other. The player who wants his character able to contribute equally in all situations is not going to be happy with a player who wants each character to be the only one good at a couple of things. Chances are good that any "equal relevance" written into the game rules will not be what all the players consider "equal relevance".
QuoteLeaving balance up to the GM is just as bad as leaving up interpretation of the rules solely to the GM since it leads to "Mother, may I?" scenarios since most GMs who practice this often reserve mutable say on any and every ongoing of the game. That kills the pace of the game and more likely than not creates inconsistencies which harms, not helps, any verisimilitude.
All my games leave balance and rules interpretation up to the GM and many, many players haven't had a bit of problem with them over 30+ years of playing. I strongly suspect that your statement is not some type of rule for good design/good play so much as it is a personal preference. That is, whether leaving balance and/or rules interpretation up to the GM is good or bad (or indifferent) is simply subjective personal preference, not something that can be shown to be objectively true or false.
Quote from: DeadUematsu;378064Rules balance isn't there to circumvent assholes, rules balance is to ensure each of the participant players can be of equal relevance to the game.
Rules can't do that either. Oops. Burned by Randall. See his post.
I think the problem is lots of people are assuming campaign context, when most of the balance is usually within a smaller context.
Something like 4e is only "balanced" within the encounter context, with certain classes having auxiliary powers that absolutely outshine the others in different situations. A fighter will never be able to outdo a bard when it comes to getting the duke's help, since the bard can weave magic into their words and win him over almost instantly, assuming he's not super-strong-willed. Likewise a city-slicker thief's powers won't do much for him in the middle of a jungle or forest, but a ranger will absolutely shine.
It doesn't work for me because I don't buy the notion that everyone has to be combat effective in a fantasy world (and it works against the type of worlds I like), but I don't see equal combat relevance cutting into a class' usual niche, just accentuating it enough so that they're able to contribute something during the most common activity in WotC D&D.
If you could provide some examples of games where all characters are all equal all the time (or nearly), then I'd appreciate it.
As for leaving balance up to the GM, the main argument is that it just creates more work for the GM, although the workload varies based on how badly balance was neglected (RIFTS being on the far end).
Here's a half-formed thought on this:
For me, Champions was the dividing line between Old School games and New School Games -- and GURPS consciously identified the line and codified it.
Here's what I'm thinking:
The original gaming paradigm (set out by D&D) provided a certain kind of structure for the game and the game-world, which included things like lists of spells, monsters, magic items, and defined the game world through structures like random tables, character classes, randomized statistics and so-on.
New School would be a different kind of gaming framework, where the play group provides a significantly different kind of input -- especially about what exists in the world, how it works, etc.
I think both models provide the same amount of freedom, but they provide significantly different *kinds* of freedom and freedom along different axis.
I'll admit that this may all be my own personal and idiosyncratic reaction to these games, rather than an objective dividing line that others would agree with, but -- for example -- the various hero games products for Fantasy Hero, with lists of spells and monsters always felt way out-of-place to me and far less categoric than the iconic lists in D&D.
I think GM-less games and incredibly highly focused games (a lot of the indie games which sort of automate a specific scenario) represent a different paradigm / branch, and would orthogonal to new-school / old-school.
Anyway, I doubt this makes a lot of sense to anyone, but that's where I'd draw the line.
Cheers,
-E.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;378022And if I had wheels, I'd be a trolley car.
My point is not that RPGs are or are not like some hypothetical category known as boardgames, but that attempts at balance are derived
from actual cultural expectations derived from actual experience with competitive games. While you can make a game that fits those expectations of competitive balance, an insistence on "balance or it's broken" restricts design and play far more than necessary.
When I think about balance in RPG's, I find that I'm looking *specifically* at two kinds of RPG's -- super-hero games and D&D type games. Both explicitly suggest (but do not mandate)
1) A lot of combat where the whole party will be involved
2) A certain degree of fun in the game will come from tactical decisions made during character creation which relate to the character's effectiveness in combat
For these kinds of games I want the game to provide
a) Lots of different viable* strategies for character build approaches
b) A way for the GM to easily and accurately calibrate potential enemies to the PC's power-level
c) Rewards for clever character builds--but not such significant rewards that it limits viable builds
I find that "balance" is a good way to talk about those things. Games that I like for those kinds of games have lots of options (e.g. lists of powers and feats), but do not have a single or minimal set of builds which are all-around better than the others in just about every likely condition.
They also often define niches and provide some kind of niche protection (again, where niches in this sense refers to combat capability).
I find that this kind of balance is hard to achieve for a non-abstract or highly detailed system and I appreciate it when it comes up. I don't think aiming for this kind of combat necessarily restricts games, although demanding that it be *perfect* would basically exclude all games except the extremely abstract from play.
Cheers,
-E.
* viable, in this case means the character performs about as well in combat as his peers
Quote from: StormBringer;377583This is why I prefer to use 'vintage games'. On the one hand, it is distinct from the OSR, so it's already about more than just D&D. Secondly, I use it to delimit a specific time-frame: 80s and earlier. Pretty much anything from 1989 or before is a 'vintage game'. Right on the cusp of 2nd edition AD&D, in that regard, but before White Wolf demonstrated that TSR wasn't the only game in town.
I'm with you---I like vintage games as well.
Both should be just as open in definition, but I agree that it hasn't worked out that way.
Plus, "vintage" just sounds cooler.
Quote from: Peregrin;377798Not if your game is built around the notion that people are playing capable adventurers who mainly engage in combat.
It's a different game these days. One that I don't entirely dislike for what it is.
Despite my limited experience, from what I've seen and read, D&D as a game with a broad focus, from dungeoneering all the way to social-political engineering, was lost as soon as they cut the endgame out of it, with future designers just kind of going with the assumption that the party will always be a wandering band of adventurers encountering ever more powerful beasties, rather than settling down and ruling their own little fiefdoms.
When you take out the game-play assumption that the PCs may one day be rulers, there's no need for fighters to grow their own entourages or armies rather than relying solely on their own exponentially increasing fighting prowess, and wizards being more powerful at endgame and doing world/nation-shattering things has no meaning, and so you build the game differently.
I just recently decided that with my group I am no longer going to be playing the my wizard. I realized the intra-group conflict comes from me focused on the endgame, and trying to conquer and rule the world, and the rest of the group focused on a mission to mission basis and trying to save the world. Figured I may as well save myself the aggravation and join them, and am rolling up a paladin today.
Quote from: Joethelawyer;378126I just recently decided that with my group I am no longer going to be playing the my wizard. I realized the intra-group conflict comes from me focused on the endgame, and trying to conquer and rule the world, and the rest of the group focused on a mission to mission basis and trying to save the world. Figured I may as well save myself the aggravation and join them, and am rolling up a paladin today.
Aww. But it's so much fun when the next group of adventurers is storming your old character's tower! ;)
Quote from: StormBringer;377583This is why I prefer to use 'vintage games'. On the one hand, it is distinct from the OSR, so it's already about more than just D&D. Secondly, I use it to delimit a specific time-frame: 80s and earlier. Pretty much anything from 1989 or before is a 'vintage game'. Right on the cusp of 2nd edition AD&D, in that regard, but before White Wolf demonstrated that TSR wasn't the only game in town.
Ditto.
I just ran across a sentence in the Black Gate: Interview With Marc Miller (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=17149) about gaming that points out an essential difference between the newest of New School gaming and Old School gaming for me.
Quote from: Marc MillerYou're under the thumb of the referee who guides you because he is assumed to be competent.
Especially in 4E, there is an underlying assumption that the Referee or GM is not competant and may be even adversarial.
Quote from: J Arcane;378125Both should be just as open in definition, but I agree that it hasn't worked out that way.
Plus, "vintage" just sounds cooler.
It's much classier. :)
Quote from: Joethelawyer;378124I'm with you---I like vintage games as well.
Quote from: J Arcane;378125Both should be just as open in definition, but I agree that it hasn't worked out that way.
Plus, "vintage" just sounds cooler.
Quote from: Benoist;378129Ditto.
That is three votes, I guess we have a new movement? :)
Quote from: jeff37923;378132Especially in 4E, there is an underlying assumption that the Referee or GM is not competant and may be even adversarial.
There's nothing built into 4e to keep an adversarial GM from completely screwing stuff up. It doesn't go as far as Agon, where the players know how much currency the GM is given to spend on challenges.
Quote from: StormBringer;378134That is three votes, I guess we have a new movement? :)
Nope. I don't want any of that "movement" shit again.
Let just people who like games talk about them, express their opinions, agree, disagree, etc.
Quote from: Benoist;378142Nope. I don't want any of that "movement" shit again.
Let just people who like games talk about them, express their opinions, agree, disagree, etc.
No movement for me - especially with my last name. Bowley movement is just so unsavory...
-clash
@RandallS: In catering to whatever classes, the GM is being an ass if the RAW doesn't support this at all. If players are going to be contrary to what the game's about as established by the rules, then they're being asses as well. Equating relevance with screentime is pretty obnoxious since, in practice, most people who clamor for that don't feel the need to justify their screentime by actually providing utility to the rest of the ensemble. As for GMs handling balance and making rulings and it not being a problem, I'd say it's a problem people are afraid of recognizing and dealing with.
@Benoist: I wonder if you would so willing to instigate with me if I was within one meter of you. Knock it off.
Quote from: flyingmice;378147No movement for me - especially with my last name. Bowley movement is just so unsavory...
-clash
I fail to see what is unsavory about a movement towards excellence in science fiction gaming.... ;)
Quote from: Benoist;378142Nope. I don't want any of that "movement" shit again.
Let just people who like games talk about them, express their opinions, agree, disagree, etc.
Man, I wanted to have my own movement.
I guess I will just have to continue avoiding any clubs that would have me as a member. :)
Quote from: DeadUematsu;378149@Benoist: I wonder if you would so willing to instigate with me if I was within one meter of you. Knock it off.
To tell you that what you were saying was bullshit, you mean? Bet your ass, I would! If you'd take that as some sort of invitation for a physical fight, you'd not only be a weakling and a moron for not being able to take disagreements like a man, you'd be a weakling and a moron with problems with law enforcement. YOU knock it off, asswipe.
Quote from: Benoist;378154To tell you that what you were saying was bullshit, you mean? Bet your ass, I would! If you'd take that as some sort of invitation for a physical fight, you'd not only be a weakling and a moron for not being able to take disagreements like a man, you'd be a weakling and a moron with problems with law enforcement. YOU knock it off, asswipe.
Take it easy on DeadUematsu. He's just a puppy attempting to look fierce.
Quote from: -E.;378120For me, Champions was the dividing line between Old School games and New School Games -- and GURPS consciously identified the line and codified it... The original gaming paradigm (set out by D&D) provided a certain kind of structure for the game and the game-world, which included things like lists of spells, monsters, magic items, and defined the game world through structures like random tables, character classes, randomized statistics and so-on.
...
I'll admit that this may all be my own personal and idiosyncratic reaction to these games, rather than an objective dividing line that others would agree with, but -- for example -- the various hero games products for Fantasy Hero, with lists of spells and monsters always felt way out-of-place to me and far less categoric than the iconic lists in D&D.
This makes sense to me in the context of Gygax's famous quote about how 3E had been turned into a superhero game. (I feel like I just re-read this somewhere, but my Google fu is weak; maybe someone else can provide the link).
I think a lot of people read this as saying "characters are overpowered" and I agree that bumping up the toughness of the average (and especially starting) PC is some of what he was reacting to.
However, I think the biggest changes from 2E to 3E, and the ones that were least based on existing houserules, were things that let you design your character to match your vision of them, the way you would in Champions, instead of going through a process of rolling dice and choosing from a very narrow palette of choices, the way you would in D&D or Traveller.
The 3E scene in which point-buy stats become the norm, you customize your character with feats (similar to Champions advantages), you build up your own class one multiclass-build choice per level, etc. doesn't intrinsically make your characters into superheroes - but it does make the experience of D&D feel a lot more like the experience of playing a superhero RPG, as those had been understood up 'til that point.
Quote from: jeff37923;378158Take it easy on DeadUematsu. He's just a puppy attempting to look fierce.
Who would have suspected? DU, Internet tough guy. :rolleyes:
Whether in real life, or on the internet, once you start threatening violence over an argument, you've officially declared your own failure.
I know there's not much that can be done to fix things at this point- things have been said; feelings have been hurt; egos have been bruised.
However, gentlemen, let us lay all that aside, so that, for a moment, we can all contemplate what is truly important, and that is, of course, the modern beacon of sanity that is The Princess Leia Slavegirl Carwash (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpzTPukouu8&feature=player_embedded).
Quote from: J Arcane;378163Whether in real life, or on the internet, once you start threatening violence over an argument, you've officially declared your own failure.
Especially on the internet.
Deaduematsu never threatened anyone. Do any of you guys ever go back and actually see where these things fall of the rails?
Quote from: Tavis;378161The 3E scene in which point-buy stats become the norm, you customize your character with feats (similar to Champions advantages), you build up your own class one multiclass-build choice per level, etc. doesn't intrinsically make your characters into superheroes - but it does make the experience of D&D feel a lot more like the experience of playing a superhero RPG, as those had been understood up 'til that point.
Yes -- exactly what I was thinking. It's not about power at all, it's about the experience of the game and the type of support the game framework gives you.
Cheers,
-E.
Actually I highly doubt Benoist and others would be so obnoxious face-to-face. The fact that he (and others) construed my response as a threat as opposed to a call to reality (that such behavior wouldn't fly in person with normal people) is testament to how internet anonymity only helps to feed antisocial behavior.
Quote from: DeadUematsu;378174...is testament to how internet anonymity only helps to feed antisocial behavior.
You have become more self-reflecting of late.
Quote from: DeadUematsu;378174Actually I highly doubt Benoist and others would be so obnoxious face-to-face.
Nice backpedaling, tough guy.
If disagreeing with you constitutes "being obnoxious" by your book, and it looks like it does, then yes, I certainly would be just as "obnoxious" face-to-face.
Obnoxious individuals in person, resemble clowns than anything intimidating. Just like the sidewalk preacher on a street corner, or a homeless bum yelling their heads off at nobody.
@StormBringer: Hahaha... stay out of this. We know you're psychotic.
@Benoist: No backpedaling at all. Seriously, the reason why you and others first thought of violence is... because if somebody instigated with you in RL, you would have caved their face in. Be honest, Ben. The reason why you're on the internet is because you can't have a conservation IRL without mauling someone.
(http://www.superdimension.net/gifs/memes/01/im-a-chikin-lol.jpg)
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;378028I agree. This is what I'm talking about when I refer to controlling the context. If you get to define the game's goals in terms of winning/losing, and you get to define the win/loss conditions, and you get to define the challenges that the players have to overcome, then it's possible to define balance into the game. Otherwise it's a questionable concept.
What if options were only balanced against comparable options?
For example: There are many options for combat specialisation (melee, ranged, defensive, offensive, groups or high damage, etc), each of which is equal-ish... or at least they allow you to fill different roles in combat. And then there are many options for social specialisation (political power, wit and charm, scariness, whatever). And so on and so forth.
Would that be a better description of a "balance" worth striving for? If for no other reason than so that one can relate to the striving for balance.
Quote from: RandallS;378051One RPG campaign or play style's "waste of space" is another campaign or play style's "must have." This is especially true in a general purpose RPG like D&D has been (up until 4e when it suddenly became far more specialized for a specific style of play). Player options that might never be used in the campaigns and styles of play you enjoy might always be used in those enjoyed by another person.
Perhaps this is a possible old school/new school divide? Popular old school games tended to be more general (useful for a wide variety of campaigns and styles of play) whereas popular new school games tend to be less general (more focused on a specific style of play -- or a related group of styles of play).
Eh... I addressed this in my post somewhat, and as you mention 3.x kind of straddles the border between old and new in that case. 3.x is not what anyone would really consider old school, however general it is.
Quote from: Tavis;378161However, I think the biggest changes from 2E to 3E, and the ones that were least based on existing houserules, were things that let you design your character to match your vision of them, the way you would in Champions, instead of going through a process of rolling dice and choosing from a very narrow palette of choices, the way you would in D&D or Traveller.
This is probably one of the most accurate "dividing lines" drawn in this thread. I'm liking this part of the conversation.
But it's reminding me that the only supers games I've played are Marvel FASERIP, which is way too rolly and random for me, and M&M which is way to in-depth buildy for me... is Champions okay?
@Benoist: I'm not a chicken. If you want to fight so much, where's the offer of a boxing match? Since this is something you're pestering me about, you can do the footwork and pay for my travel, room, and board expenses. Let me know if this suits you.
Quote from: DeadUematsu;378181@StormBringer: Hahaha... stay out of this. We know you're psychotic.
That's what my psychiatrist said in the Air Force, too.
(http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9610/1265261683034.gif)
Seriously, guys?
Quote from: DeadUematsu;378195@Benoist: I'm not a chicken. If you want to fight so much, where's the offer of a boxing match? Since this is something you're pestering me about, you can do the footwork and pay for my travel, room, and board expenses. Let me know if this suits you.
Benoist, among others, likes to think he's not elitist despite acting so, and no amount of arguing or name calling will enlighten him on this.
Quote from: beejazz;378187But it's reminding me that the only supers games I've played are Marvel FASERIP, which is way too rolly and random for me, and M&M which is way to in-depth buildy for me... is Champions okay?
Word of warning: I picked up Champions as a .pdf fairly recently off DriveThru, assuming that something with that many pages would have complete core rules, and it turned out to mostly be guidelines for using the full Hero System book (I now have that too).
If you find M&M too in-depth buildy, I'd back away slowly from Champions. Its ultra-detailed and detail-heavy to a great extent -including basic figured attributes like OCV there's about 17 basic statistics, and its a bit clunky - tonnes of exceptions and specific subsystems for everything. I know plenty of people love it, but I think its an acquired taste.
Quote from: Peregrin;378197(http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9610/1265261683034.gif)
Seriously, guys?
That one's awesome. Made me laugh!
I love the elevated level of discussion here. Good things there's no moderation - otherwise we'd miss out on people calling each other cunts all the time.
Quote from: beejazz;378187But it's reminding me that the only supers games I've played are Marvel FASERIP, which is way too rolly and random for me, and M&M which is way to in-depth buildy for me... is Champions okay?
Champions is around 4x more complex than Mutants and Masterminds, both in character building and in actually playing.
Quote from: Abyssal Maw;378249Champions is around 4x more complex than Mutants and Masterminds, both in character building and in actually playing.
Pfft. Character building is a pain; playing is simple. Best superhero game ever.
Quote from: Thanlis;378263Pfft. Character building is a pain; playing is simple. Best superhero game ever.
Champions is the game I learned to hate d6 dice pools with.
Quote from: DeadUematsu;378174Actually I highly doubt Benoist and others would be so obnoxious face-to-face. The fact that he (and others) construed my response as a threat as opposed to a call to reality (that such behavior wouldn't fly in person with normal people) is testament to how internet anonymity only helps to feed antisocial behavior.
You know, I took it that way as well.
I look back, and your comment was more of a 'I bet you would not act that way face-to-face' type of comment. I internally translated it as something pugnacious, due to the 'internet anonymity=brass balls' corrollary, but I see now that the comment could have been read in different ways.
I guess in terms of balance and New School, I really don't believe there is a 'new school', and that the term 'Old School' still needs to be clarified when used.
Vintage works, but it really could encompass too much. I still consider RQ and C&S vintage.
Quote from: LordVreeg;378284I guess in terms of balance and New School, I really don't believe there is a 'new school', and that the term 'Old School' still needs to be clarified when used.
Vintage works, but it really could encompass too much. I still consider RQ and C&S vintage.
Runequest was published in 1978, why would that not be vintage? If you are talking about one of the newer versions, I can't say for sure, I don't know how much it has changed. I would certainly say Mongoose Traveller has kept the feel of the original, if not most of the mechanics. I have no problems with that being referred to as 'vintage'. If the current version of RQ is substantially similar to the original, I would advance no arguments to say it is not 'vintage' as well.
I am having some trouble placing C&S, though, unless you mean C&C? Castles and Crusades? Whether or not that is 'retro-clone', 'old school' or 'vintage' will likely be hotly debated for years to come. :) Personally, I wouldn't put it on my list of vintage games, I think it has too many d20 elements in it. Put I an neither the purveyor nor prophet of what is and is not vintage. If you dig it, great. I don't care for that unified task resolution stuff. Even on a basic, probability level, there is something that feels off about the using the same odds progression for everything, especially when it is so granular. It's like everything comes in 5% chunks of possible success.
Quote from: LordVreeg;378284I really don't believe there is a 'new school', and that the term 'Old School' still needs to be clarified when used.
Agree.
Quote from: StormBringerQuote from: Originally Posted by LordVreeg I guess in terms of balance and New School, I really don't believe there is a 'new school', and that the term 'Old School' still needs to be clarified when used.
Vintage works, but it really could encompass too much. I still consider RQ and C&S vintage.
Runequest was published in 1978, why would that not be vintage? If you are talking about one of the newer versions, I can't say for sure, I don't know how much it has changed. I would certainly say Mongoose Traveller has kept the feel of the original, if not most of the mechanics. I have no problems with that being referred to as 'vintage'. If the current version of RQ is substantially similar to the original, I would advance no arguments to say it is not 'vintage' as well.
I am having some trouble placing C&S, though, unless you mean C&C? Castles and Crusades? Whether or not that is 'retro-clone', 'old school' or 'vintage' will likely be hotly debated for years to come. Personally, I wouldn't put it on my list of vintage games, I think it has too many d20 elements in it. Put I an neither the purveyor nor prophet of what is and is not vintage. If you dig it, great. I don't care for that unified task resolution stuff. Even on a basic, probability level, there is something that feels off about the using the same odds progression for everything, especially when it is so granular. It's like everything comes in 5% chunks of possible success.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chivalry_and_Sorcery
Chivalry and Sorcery.
1977. We were using it right after it came out. Much more in-depth and simulationsist...
Which my issue. Does Vintage refer to a rulestyle or not?
Quote from: LordVreeg;378290http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chivalry_and_Sorcery
Chivalry and Sorcery.
1977. We were using it right after it came out. Much more in-depth and simulationsist...
Which my issue. Does Vintage refer to a rulestyle or not?
No.
It just means older games.
There's none of the ideological purity demanded from the so called "old school" crowd.
Quote from: J Arcane;378292No.
It just means older games.
There's none of the ideological purity demanded from the so called "old school" crowd.
Stormy, I'm refering to your use of the term, in particular. You've used it in your sig and been the most vocal of it.
Quote from: J Arcane;378292No.
It just means older games.
There's none of the ideological purity demanded from the so called "old school" crowd.
I'm down with this. Ideological purity sucks.
Quote from: LordVreeg;378290http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chivalry_and_Sorcery
Chivalry and Sorcery.
1977. We were using it right after it came out. Much more in-depth and simulationsist...
Which my issue. Does Vintage refer to a rulestyle or not?
Oh, of course! Durr, my bad. :)
I don't think it particularly refers to a rule style, but more of a style of writing rules. There isn't this overwhelming drive to make sure everything fits into the unified task mechanic,
even when it clearly doesn't. More freedom to slap on a mechanic that may only be used in one or two fairly specific situations. It doesn't require anyone to memorize the particular rule, as it won't come up often enough to bother.
Whereas, with 'unified' mechanics, the designers are always looking for ways to shoehorn it into the same task resolution rules. I mean, does it really make sense that picking a lock and crafting a magical sword should use the same d20 roll with different modifiers? And further, that one should improve in those activities in exactly equal steps of 5%? I know you aren't proposing or supporting that argument necessarily, and certainly not in your above post. Just my thoughts on that particular topic.
But J Arcane interprets it correctly, for me is really is just the time period. I don't want to get caught up in the ideological purity that he mentions, and I try really hard not to. There were some winners and losers back then. If someone unearthed a dusty tome that described an entirely thespy diceless game from 1979, I would be thrilled to hear about it. I probably still wouldn't play it, and depending on how it was written, I might even decry it at every opportunity. But it is certainly a vintage game.
However, I do consider a lot of games that kept that feel (Mongoose Traveller, Rolemaster, Runequest) as part of the vintage rubric as well. I like to think it is pretty clear when I am talking about actual vintage games from the 70s and 80s and when I am talking about games that have a vintage sensibility from the 90s and later, but the lines may be blurred from time to time. I apologize for that in advance, and I can only offer my assurances that I will be glad to clarify if confusion ever arises.
Quote from: J Arcane;378292No.
It just means older games.
I agree.
"Vintage", it is.
Older games by date or derived games that maintain the spirit and style of the original.
So let it be written, so let it be done.
Quote from: Benoist;378314I agree.
Quote from: LordVreeg;378315"Vintage", it is.
Older games by date or derived games that maintain the spirit and style of the original.
So let it be written, so let it be done.
We have a consensus! Get the letterhead ordered! :)