If you've never read the West Marches series of blog posts do yourself a favor and give them a read through: http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/705/west-marches-secrets-answers-part-1/

Basically a DM decided that instead of dealing with the frustrations of getting busy adults to show up for a weekly campaign he'd have no set schedule, roster of players or plot line but rather schedule sessions with whoever wanted to show up on an ad hoc basis and have everything be a complete sandbox. Although he wasn't setting out to do so, this is pretty much how very early D&D games were run and he ended up discovering why that style of play works so well.

Although the West Marches was run with 3.0ed it did a lot to spark the OSR back when those blog posts were written back in 2007 by explaining really clearly why that style of play is fun.

Earliest this year the author posted an update about the West Marches: http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/705/west-marches-secrets-answers-part-1/ that didn't seem to attract much attention, probably because the author's blog is pretty much all storygames all the time so isn't on a lot of OSR people's radar. It's well worth a read nonetheless. What interested me is that is description of what made the West Marches tick differs from conventional OSR wisdom of how to run that sort of game in a number of ways.

What do you think?

Quote from: Daztur;910145If you've never read the West Marches series of blog posts do yourself a favor and give them a read through: http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/705/west-marches-secrets-answers-part-1/

Basically a DM decided that instead of dealing with the frustrations of getting busy adults to show up for a weekly campaign he'd have no set schedule, roster of players or plot line but rather schedule sessions with whoever wanted to show up on an ad hoc basis and have everything be a complete sandbox. Although he wasn't setting out to do so, this is pretty much how very early D&D games were run and he ended up discovering why that style of play works so well.

Although the West Marches was run with 3.0ed it did a lot to spark the OSR back when those blog posts were written back in 2007 by explaining really clearly why that style of play is fun.

Earliest this year the author posted an update about the West Marches: http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/705/west-marches-secrets-answers-part-1/ that didn't seem to attract much attention, probably because the author's blog is pretty much all storygames all the time so isn't on a lot of OSR people's radar. It's well worth a read nonetheless. What interested me is that is description of what madoe the West Marches tick differs from conventional OSR wisdom of how to run that sort of game in a number of ways.

What do you think?

Actually, that's an interesting article because it perfectly describes using a roleplaying game system as a tactical tabletop game with zero roleplaying required (not that the Westmarch players didn't roleplay).  It shows why 3e was and continues to be such a dominant, popular system. Designers design tactically or design narratively these days because they can't design for roleplay.  The assumption that you design to simulate physics action and the players and GM bring the roleplaying and setting has fallen out of favor, any game really using that model is based on a game from the last millenium.

As far as his approach, rolling in the open, being a neutral arbitrator who roots for the players, all of that is pretty hallmark Old School.  The big difference is, instead of roleplaying a character exploring a setting, where the characters inquire from the GM the elements of the setting, the battlemat is laid out, the characters all know the rules of this boardgame, so, they start moving square by square and tactically solve this problem.

The irony of course is, that once you abdicate all elements of being a referee to the rulebook, then the GM is really just a player once the combat starts, which means he becomes more adversarial, a hallmark of the new school in general.

But...reading the original Westmarch articles, it sounds like the author simply put together a top-notch old school D&D sandbox.  His prep, his attention to details, his ability to hook players into their characters via the social element and the "carved inn-table map" I think were probably more key to his success than his choice of system.  If he did everything setting and campaign-wise the same, but used 1e instead of 3e, pretty sure, he would have been successful as well.