Quote from: Roger;232714Getting killed from your own bad decisions isn't old school.

Getting TPK'd because the wizard rolled a 99 when he cast the Teleport spell and you all appeared inside a solid mountain -- now that's old school.

It's all about risk management.  Would you cast Teleport if you had those odds?

I think there are a lot of "not old school" games that seek to remove as much risk as possible.  That doesn't mean they're not fun games, but it changes the focus of the game considerably.

All games have some element of challenge / risk -- if it's not in the strategic choices, it might be in the combat tactics, or maybe just in how well your storytell and perform the part of your character.

Quote from: Engine;232695It seems to me that the term is being defined in such a way that no-one would reasonably say they're anything but. Is there anyone here who thinks what's being described is bad, or are we all somehow old school?

Let's try an experiment. Post an AP report on RPGnet (or better yet ENWorld) of a session of 3.5 D&D where the PCs find a dwarven map of a mountain pass, they do not use Comprehend Languages to read the warnings on the map, and then they press on into the pass over piles of boulders, and an avalanche falls on them and they die. No dice - they just die (okay, maybe a very high saving throw or something). See how many people regard this as fair play. See how many of the folks who do consider it fair play were playing D&D back in the 70s-80s.

Or even look at a recent thread on (and I'm NOT posting this for cross-board antics; it's just appropriate for this thread) RPG.net asking how to handle a chase scene in Basic D&D.  The original poster mentioned that the game had no "Riding" skill, nor were there rules in the game for handling action movie-like chase scenes...he wanted to know how the game could accomodate them.  He eventually settled on winging it based on suggestions there, but that's something any "old school" DM would have done without a second thought way back when.

I think the framing of the referenced thread's first question speaks volumes about the differences in mindset between "old school" and "new[er] school" players and DMs.

I was playing back then, and I was never happy about the no saving throw situations, and neither were most of the guys I played with. However if that's what you're into, cool.

Check out this map showing the choices you can make in Choose Your Own Adventure #7: The Third Planet from Altair

http://www.ethblue.com/cyoa/  (spoilers if you haven't read it )

Consider all the choices that could lead to a "bad" ending.

You find a blue dome structure.
Will you:
1) Cut into the dome with your laser
2) Report back to the ship
One choice leads to a happy ending.  One choice leads to death.

That's how I see "olde school" games... or at least some of them. Marvel Superheroes is also "olde school" to me, but the focus wasn't the same. It didn't have all the problem solving and "bad" endings.

Quote from: Aos;232741I was playing back then, and I was never happy about the no saving throw situations, and neither were most of the guys I played with. However if that's what you're into, cool.

I don't think player challenges necessarily have to come down to save or die consequences. To build on a D&D example from earlier in this thread: your party is battered, low on HP, out of heals, and out of offensive spells. You're headed towards your cave hideout when you spot a band of trolls loping along the ridge. What do you do? Flee in the open, and hope you don't get caught? Hide (keeping in mind that saying 'I hide' isn't necessarily a concrete action in a game without skills)? Have the quickest PC parlay with the trolls while the rest of the party creeps away? Lure a weaker animal/monster into the path of the trolls? Did you prepare the cave with defensive measures in anticipation of this sort of encounter?

Again, the answer isn't an ability on your character sheet. You have to think of some action not explicitly covered in the rules in order to avert a bad outcome. If it's a good plan - as judged by the DM arbiter - then you will succeed.

Which takes us to the other key element in old-school play - trust in the GM. If you don't trust your GM to make judgement calls of these sorts fairly, and in an entertaining way, then you're better off in a game with explictly defined options and resolution mechanics.

I'm actually pretty cool with all of that 'rung. It actually sounds like a lot of fun. sadly, we were in our early teens and cursed with not so great GMs back in those days- and I was always one of those troublesome kids who WANTED skills. By the time things started to improve, we weren't playing D&D of any flavor anymore. I'm still angry that my cleric wasn't allowed a sword, but I think I'd like to run something like that sometime, though.

Quote from: Roger;232714Getting killed from your own bad decisions isn't old school.

Getting TPK'd because the wizard rolled a 99 when he cast the Teleport spell and you all appeared inside a solid mountain -- now that's old school.

Stupid oldschool, sure. Don't you know the tower trick? Build a tall tower, with only one floor, at the top. Teleport to that top floor. Oh, came in low? Gosh. I note the amount you came in low is always at least 10', so unless you're unusually tall, you won't get bisected by the floor. And since you're high up in a tower with no intervening floors between you and the ground... you can't get intersected by anything else, either. Ring of Feather Fall is essential, of course...

The poor man's solution was a high tree branch, painted blue (it has to be unique, after all) with all lower branches pruned. Don't forget to keep a rope ladder nearby. And don't forget to go there occasionally and re-prune. "Killed by oak tree" is a stupid epitaph.

Teleport was always a bad idea anyway. What are you playing, Star Trek? If you want to get somewhere, you can bloody well ride like everyone else....

Hear! Hear! old new or middle school, at will, or even once a day or so teleport sucks (I do like the eladrin short range thingy in 4e though, heritic that i am).

Quote from: Haffrung;232744Which takes us to the other key element in old-school play - trust in the GM. If you don't trust your GM to make judgement calls of these sorts fairly, and in an entertaining way, then you're better off in a game with explictly defined options and resolution mechanics.

Amen. I honestly think AD&D 4e, with monsters that scale to your level, is designed so that you don't need a skilled DM to get a game going. Me, I have been doing this for a while and I don't want my hand held (or put in some kind of handcuff.)

Quote from: Ikrast;232753Amen. I honestly think AD&D 4e, with monsters that scale to your level, is designed so that you don't need a skilled DM to get a game going. Me, I have been doing this for a while and I don't want my hand held (or put in some kind of handcuff.)

I don't want to start any kind of edition war, really, I'm not down with any of that. But you don't have to use any of the scaling stuff; I might use it to get an estimation from time to time, but by and large I ignore it. The book even gives you pointers on how to ignore it, really. You are right, it does have stuff for the less skilled DM, but if you've been at it for a whie you can easily ignore all of it. I do.

Quote from: Stuart;232743That's how I see "olde school" games... or at least some of them. Marvel Superheroes is also "olde school" to me, but the focus wasn't the same. It didn't have all the problem solving and "bad" endings.

I noticed that the item in the Nodes: line says 'Reader Death'.

Those are some hard core books.  

I dig Marvel, but I agree that there was a good deal of buffer even for starting characters.  Of course, losing all your karma for letting someone die or killing them was a bitch, but that probably didn't happen that often unless you were gaming with a Wolverine fan.  

Quote from: KenHR;232740Or even look at a The original poster mentioned that the game had no "Riding" skill, nor were there rules in the game for handling action movie-like chase scenes...he wanted to know how the game could accomodate them.  He eventually settled on winging it based on suggestions there, but that's something any "old school" DM would have done without a second thought way back when.

The AD&D 1e books were clear: these rules are suggestions and are by necessity incomplete. Wing it. (Gygax was famously quoted as saying it was a game that didn't need books.)

Systems that try to define a rule for everything are by definition flawed. You either end up with a set of encyclopedias for rules, or a brilliant system that just happens to have a rule that disallows the cool thing I want to do in my game (either as player or DM).

If the DM isn't forced with wing things occasionally, the players just aren't pushing on the world enough.

Quote from: Aos;232756I don't want to start any kind of edition war, really, I'm not down with any of that. But you don't have to use any of the scaling stuff; I might use it to get an estimation from time to time, but by and large I ignore it. The book even gives you pointers on how to ignore it, really. You are right, it does have stuff for the less skilled DM, but if you've been at it for a whie you can easily ignore all of it. I do.

I believe you. I also hear the echoes on another website where players now talk as if they EXPECT to get item type X at level Y, because the game "requires" it. I predict floods and earthquakes, as players and DM grapple with whether it's the DM's game (and you get what you find, which is going to be unrelated to what's stated in some book you bought) or Hasbro's game.

In the end, though, you're right: any good DM will change stuff as needed to suit. Folk who try to do it "by the book" will eventually come around to the same conclusion you get in virtually every game system anywhere: common sense has a trump card, and it gets played when needed. Gaming books are suggestions; some just have the sense to admit it.

Quote from: StormBringer;232767I dig Marvel, but I agree that there was a good deal of buffer even for starting characters.  Of course, losing all your karma for letting someone die or killing them was a bitch, but that probably didn't happen that often unless you were gaming with a Wolverine fan.  

We were used to characters dying in D&D.  But when we had one of the West Coast Avengers get disintegrated it was a bit jarring.  I think it was so out of genre that it didn't work for the game.  If they were ever to re-make MSH I'd suggest taking character death off the table -- except for special / unusual circumstances required for the adventure setup.