What Old School games do you like?

Akrasia · August 30, 2010, 11:59:47 PM

Quote from: StormBringer;402035And of course, the most pressing existential question that a philosophy degree holder must grapple with on a daily basis is "Would you like fries with that?"

Naw, the good ones tend to go to law school (philosophy majors score higher than any other on the LSAT). Not that I'm especially proud about that...

StormBringer · August 31, 2010, 12:12:23 AM

Quote from: Akrasia;402101Naw, the good ones tend to go to law school (philosophy majors score higher than any other on the LSAT). Not that I'm especially proud about that...

At least they already have the Ethics courses out of the way, that pre-law students are always trying to dodge.

ggroy · August 31, 2010, 06:56:42 AM

Quote from: StormBringer;402102At least they already have the Ethics courses out of the way, that pre-law students are always trying to dodge.

Same story with engineering majors, who are always trying to dodge the engineering practice courses. (Some ethics issues are addressed in such courses).

ggroy · August 31, 2010, 06:58:46 AM

Quote from: Akrasia;402101Naw, the good ones tend to go to law school (philosophy majors score higher than any other on the LSAT). Not that I'm especially proud about that...

Most of my friends who majored in philosophy, ended up going to graduate school to do a PhD in philosophy.

ggroy · August 31, 2010, 07:04:39 AM

Quote from: StormBringer;402095True story. Honestly, these days it seems like a degree of any stripe is worth less and less in the job market. What used to be something of a guaranteed interview has lately been barely able to get a foot in the door, let alone a call back from potential employers.

For a few guys I knew of who were in that sort of situation, their way around it was to start their own company and to bid for contracts. They essentially became marketing/sales people for their own company, than computer programmers.

Others I'm aware of who were not purged from a corporate environment, typically went into middle management.

Grymbok · August 31, 2010, 07:05:39 AM

Quote from: skofflox;402057As far as what is "old school" for this thread please refer to above before we start telling others what is "old school" for this thread.

It was more me trying to think through what I see as "old school" than attempting to dictate the terms, but I could have made that clearer.

Looking back at what I wrote the next morning, it seems that my personal dividing line for "old school" is "anything that came out before I started gaming". I'd probably actually push it back a few years on that even - games like Palladium RPG (1983) just don't feel "old school" to me.

ggroy · August 31, 2010, 07:25:09 AM

Quote from: Akrasia;402039However, if you want to gain a critical understanding of the assumptions underlying contemporary physics, a philosophy of physics course would be very helpful.

In practice, I've found that the harshest critics of the assumptions underlying contemporary physics are physicists themselves, and not philosophers.

Quote from: Akrasia;402039Now, if you mean simply to dismiss philosophy as a discipline tout court, then obviously I disagree completely with your sentiment. But I hardly have the time or desire to disabuse you of your mistaken view here.

A lot of the hard sciences in principle should follow what Popper discussed for most of his career (ie. falsification, etc ...). In practice, even the hard sciences do not exactly follow Popper's ideas.

Thomas Kuhn's ideas are closer to how things ended up being done in practice. It can be summed up as (paraphrased): "One's ideas are eventually accepted not because one is right, but it's because the old guys in the field die off." (Various converses of this may be applicable too).

Akrasia · August 31, 2010, 10:37:12 AM

@ ggroy: Regarding the Popper-Kuhn debate over about how science progresses, things have moved on in the philosophy of science over the past 30+ years.

Also, not sure why you feel the need to reply repeatedly to the same post. :confused:

Finally, regarding the topic of this thread: what old school games do you like?

ggroy · August 31, 2010, 12:17:24 PM

Quote from: Akrasia;402141@ ggroy: Regarding the Popper-Kuhn debate over about how science progresses, things have moved on in the philosophy of science over the past 30+ years.

That last time I read much about that stuff was around 20+ years ago. Haven't looked at it much since. Had other priorities since.

I thought the better stuff in that area was done by people who had a background in doing research in a hard science. The people who didn't have a background in hard science research, I wasn't as convinced. (EDIT: The latter case seemed analogous to the writer attempting to "teach birds how to fly" metaphorically).

ggroy · August 31, 2010, 03:12:37 PM

(Hopefully the previous post will be my final post discussing philosophy).

With that being said.

My go to old school game over the years was the Moldvay basic D&D box set. Typically this was used for evening one-shot pickup type games.

If I had to go to higher levels, the Cook expert D&D box set was used. For evening one-shot pickup type games, I rarely ever played higher than level 14 or 15.

Typically nobody leveled up in a five hour evening one-shot game.