Old school is a play style.  Rules can certainly aid it or make that style nearly impossible under them.

It's also called wargaming mentality.  It started in 1974, or maybe before, if you count prepublished games, and lasted until about 1985; that's when D&D jumped the shark.  It didn't take long for the community to follow.

There were plenty of groups who went on playing the "traditional" style, but they were almost all gone in 2000 when 3E came out.  There has been a resurgence in the last few years, though.

Quote from: howandwhy99.... 1985; that's when D&D jumped the shark.

But, dude!  You could play Barbarians and Thief-Acrobats!

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!But, dude!  You could play Barbarians and Thief-Acrobats!

Thief-acrobats sucked, me and a friend measured out on the pavement their jumping distance and tested ourselves against it.  We beat it pretty much every time, which did not make it an impressive ability to gain.

We did have a lot of time on our hands actually, why do you ask?

As for Barbarians, whoever thought it a good idea to have a class that would attack members of other classes the party absolutely needed was a lackwit.

Unearthed Arcana, god that killed a lot of campaigns.

Quote from: BalbinusThief-acrobats sucked, me and a friend measured out on the pavement their jumping distance and tested ourselves against it.  We beat it pretty much every time, which did not make it an impressive ability to gain.

We did have a lot of time on our hands actually, why do you ask?

As for Barbarians, whoever thought it a good idea to have a class that would attack members of other classes the party absolutely needed was a lackwit.

Unearthed Arcana, god that killed a lot of campaigns.

To be fair to UA, the heaps of new spells were handy - giving magic-users 0-level cantrips allowed them to be vaguely useful at 1st level, and the "ceremony" spell for clerics actually allowed them to behave like priests and get nice game-mechanical bonuses for them.

The new classes were, as far as I'm aware, the big dealbreaker (although the "comeliness" attribute comes a close second). ISTR reading somewhere that the idea behind the barbarian was that it was meant for one-on-one player-vs-DM games, and as such party balance was less of an issue.

When UA came out, we decided to restart our campaign.

In our group, if a character was permitted by the rules you were permitted to play it.

UA introduced several new pc races, many of which were nocturnal.

The resulting party was 50% diurnal, 50% nocturnal, we could only agree to travel at dawn and dusk, when neither faction was unduly disadvantaged.  This meant our travel range each day was markedly reduced.

So, our group of mismatched humanoids travelling only at dawn and dusk muddled along, interrupted from time to time by attacks from the Barbarian on the magic using characters.

The game didn't last long.

Lotsa new polearms, though.  

Here's my old UA "Overly-Honest Book Cover" from Big Purple days:

Listen to the local "classics" station. If the game came out during the timeframe that the songs the station is playing were released, it is "old school".

Quote from: BalbinusYeah, on reflection Traveller may not have been my strongest example.

CoC though to me is old school, as is Gangbusters and as were many other games from that period.

For me old school includes the following (not exclusively and in no particular order):

1. Character power is earned in play.
2. Characters who are unlucky or who are played foolishly will likely die.
3. Characters are, unless the dice favour you, average members of their professions at the start.
4. The rules are a starting point, you are expected to add to them as needed.
5.  Settings are your business, the rules govern only that absolutely necessary for play (Gangbusters fails this one in a sense, but the genre there rather demands a setting).
6.  Gaming is about the possibilities, about the freedom to enjoy whatever kind of story takes your fancy.
7.  Characters are not guaranteed to be of equivalent power or to face equivalently powered threats, life is unfair and the game reflects that.

Did you realize that Exalted meets all your requirements to be Old School =)

Quote from: KrakaJakDid you realize that Exalted meets all your requirements to be Old School =)

Huh?  I about drowned trying to grok the setting infodump in the original corebook.

Oh yeah,

I define Old School as any previous edition of a current game, Old School Vampire, Old School D&D, Old School Star Wars, Old School Exalted. The trend is for games to get more streamlined as they put out new editions (not always true, but I did say trend) and "Old School" games tend to be less refined compared to new school games.

Yo momma's so old, they didn't even have school.

Quote from: jrientsHuh?  I about drowned trying to grok the setting infodump in the original corebook.

1. Characters all start at the same point, needing XP to earn the really bad assed Charms and Spells and make Combos, where an Exalts true unique strategy comes to play. Yeah, they all start as demigods, but when your enemies are other demigods and god's, you'll certainly need to "level up" before you can start taking them all on.
2. The same goes here, I had a game where a citadel was haunted by Blood Ape Demons, the players usually mopped the floor with them. However, they were re-summoned by ghost mage every other day. The Dawn Caste (the Combat Caste) who had previously killed them both in one round...twice, started playing lazy, got some bad dice rolls and ended up dead.
3. You are an Average Solar Exalt at the start, one of the most powerful beings in creation to be sure, you're however thrust into the big-boy games of Gods, Exalts and Primordials without a clue.
4. Has WW ever done a game with a complete ruleset? There's a lot of houseruling that needs to be done for things that are not covered by the ruleset, it suggests you houserule towards the epic feel and towards the players favor.
5. The entire setting of is expected to be completely changed. The setting in the books is just a starting point, as things should be completely changed by player actions. The existance of Sidereals gives you complete licensce to do whatever the hell you want to with the setting.
6. No explanation needed.
7. Your Essence Two Solar is either taking on Super Easy opponents (like Dragons) or Uber Hard Essence 10 Deathlords riding City Sized War-Machines (Essence is a basic rating of your power level)

Quote from: KrakaJakDid you realize that Exalted meets all your requirements to be Old School =)

It fails 1, as you start off powerful, and arguably it fails 4.

But it definitely fails 1, one of the core elements of the new school I think is that you can start off powerful, whereas in the old school you generally started off at the sucktastic end of the pool.

Quote from: BalbinusIt fails 1, as you start off powerful, and arguably it fails 4.

But it definitely fails 1, one of the core elements of the new school I think is that you can start off powerful, whereas in the old school you generally started off at the sucktastic end of the pool.

 In D&D your are supposedly consider "Adventurers of Extroadinary Talent with the potential for greatness". A regular person in D&D will never be able to cast Magic Missile in his entire life. You get Magic Missile (and another Spell!) at first Level

However, compared with what you can do at 20th level, you're a pathetic weakling.

Exalted follows the exact same mold.

It passes 4 in spades.

Quote from: KrakaJak5. The entire setting of is expected to be completely changed. The setting in the books is just a starting point, as things should be completely changed by player actions. The existance of Sidereals gives you complete licensce to do whatever the hell you want to with the setting.

That strikes me as a hell of a different prospect that the implied settings of most versions of D&D or original Traveller.  Hell, I'm pretty sure the setting info in the Exalted core book is longer than the whole of either the D&D Basic rules or Traveller books 1-3.