What Does Old School Gaming Mean To You?

[BeZurKur]

Some people use the term with a positive spin and others give it a negative connotation. I don't think we really have come to know what it is, or at least have agreed to what it is. I thought maybe we could kick this around and come to some kind of consensus of what old school gaming is -- at least at this forum. Is it:

rules-lite

class-based

dungeon crawls

line art

cool dice

... or what?

To me, it's a rules-lite simplicity that doesn't interfere with the narrative. The best games I recall from my youth were not the dungeons we carefully crafted or purchased. It was the games we improvised. Everybody was vested in that story because we were truly making it up as we went. The die rolls seemed to matter more because of it. I didn't recognize it then, but now that I'm playing C&C, it's what I welcome most of this old-school feel.

[Combat_Kyle]

Old school gaming is simple fun and does not have scimitar wielding drow rangers.

Seriously though I think of "old school" of the pure fun I had when I first gamed with my firends at the age of 12. We never worried about rules, we only worried about having fun and telling a good story. Thats old school to me.
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[mordrene]

I agree, old school was 1) remembering how much fun we had when we discovered dnd.( I discovered in 83 when i was in seventh grade) and 2) telling good stories. I dont want to bash 3.0 or 3.5, because it is a good system. However, I feel as 3rd edition has grown, the rules are more focused on the tabletop. How fun is it as a dm to track attacks of opportunities without miniatures. I remember epic battles using only our imagination, no board, no minis and tracking everything. And, with the focus to the board, i feel there is a loss in the most important arena, the imagination. I think thats what old school is, rediscovering our imagination.

[Tadhg]

To me:

Blue boxed set

weird dice

dungeons

basic monsters - orcs, goblins etc.

players drawing the map

ignoring rules/houseruling from the start

tremendous black & white drawings (not necessarily good but evocative and inspiring)

monochrome modules

blue/white dungeon map

wizards/spells

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[gideon_thorne]

*chuckles* It's a highly subjective term that means different things to different people as evidenced by how many pages threads like these tend to grow, with no two answers the same.
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[angelius]

Old skool:

Dragon Mag

Larry Elmore

Red Box with super hot cleric chick

No character sheets (hand written)

DM rules all

Story > Rules
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[BeZurKur]

gideon_thorne wrote:
*chuckles* It's a highly subjective term that means different things to different people as evidenced by how many pages threads like these tend to grow, with no two answers the same.

Yeah, I can see how it might, but I'm not trolling here. What surprises me about this is how some see "old school" in a negative light while others view it as a positive. Judging by the responses so far, old-school is a sense of nostalgia along with rules that don't interfere with the story. I don't see how that can be viewed as bad. I must be missing something.

[Tadhg]

Rhuvein wrote:
tremendous black & white drawings (not necessarily good but evocative and inspiring)

Like this:
[/img]
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Count Rhuveinus - Lejendary Keeper of Castle Franqueforte

"Enjoy a 'world' where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" ~ Gary Gygax

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:" - Macbeth

[gideon_thorne]

BeZurKur wrote:
Yeah, I can see how it might, but I'm not trolling here. What surprises me about this is how some see "old school" in a negative light while others view it as a positive. Judging by the responses so far, old-school is a sense of nostalgia along with rules that don't interfere with the story. I don't see how that can be viewed as bad. I must be missing something.

Ya, I know mate. I was just being funny. One might get the idea that I've seen the topic a lot.
I, unfortunately, have seen various 'schools' used as something of a bludgeon to make whatever point one wishes to make. The whole thing has made me rather whymsical.

But at the heart of my post was a semi serious point that everyone has their own unique experiences in memory.
I just have a warped sense of humor. 8)
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[moriarty777]

Crazy random encounter tables where the results just make no sense no matter how many times you re-roll.

'... you face death itself in the form of... [roll] ... a stampede of wild buffalo?!'

Seriously though...

Just the look I think is more evocative of the notalgia and 'old school feel' more than anything else!

To this day... I still love looking at the older D&D box sets and 1st edition AD&D books.

2nd ed never held the same fascination for me... and 3rd ed just looks like someone who's had too much cosmetic surgery done on them.

Moriarty the Red

[EDIT]

Also the face that it was so easy to die in some of the earlier adventures... NO MERCY !!

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[Treebore]

Its always easy to die. Just as DM/CK I've gotten better at keeping the PC's alive despite the players actions!

Whats old school to me? Having fun DMing or playing. That quit happening for me with 3.5. Fortunately C&C came along and gave me a viable cure!

[DangerDwarf]

angelius wrote:
Red Box with super hot cleric chick

I would do her.

[angelius]

Finally! someone that remembers her. Of course I must have been 6 yrs old at the time. But it's funny how I still have a crush on her. hahaha....
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[DangerDwarf]

Yeah, I was only about 7 or 8 when I got the red box.

Funny thing is, I was thinking about the pic of that cleric just the other week when we were trying to find a picture to represent my wife's cleric. I've long since lost the books so alas I am pic'less.

[meepo]

Rhuvein wrote:
Like this:
[/img]

Couldn't have said it better myself!

[serleran]

Old school gaming means never having to say: roll up a new character, you failed your save, so you died. Sorry, Blackleaf, but you'll have to leave the game.

Everything else is just intrepretation.

[Breakdaddy]

To me, old school gaming is sitting on my grandfather's screened-in porch at 12 years old in the middle of the night with a single 60 watt bulb hanging over our gaming table and fireflies making little sparks in the night just a few feet away. It's thumbing through the basic D&D red box looking for the experience tables to see if my thief, "Strider", made level 3 yet after yet another 7 hour session with my cousins and their friends (and being excited that he was 12 xp over the level 3 threshold!). It's magical times in a mundane world, 8 hour sessions on summer break with no worries about work or school or why the dungeon has random creatures in random rooms with random treasure or how that black dragon got in a 50' x 80' room with a 20' ceiling or what he eats (besides adventurer). It's that first Elven Cloak when it still means something (besides a +10 circumstance bonus to hide, how mundane is that?!). Nowadays I know I can never have that again, but C&C is helping me get back some of the magical feeling that D&D 3.5 can never give me.

[DangerDwarf]

Breakdaddy wrote:
Nowadays I know I can never have that again, but C&C is helping me get back some of the magical feeling that D&D 3.5 can never give me.

That is EXACTLY how I feel about C&C. I has allowed me to capture some of the wonder the game held for me when I was young and new to it all.

When I crack open a new C&C module for the first time I'm actually reading through it with anticipation. Even the 3e modules I liked couldn't do that for me. I'd grown too jaded.

[miller6]

"Old school" is a term invented to separate the different editions and generations of gamers used by some to dismiss what came before in favor of what is now and by others to argue that the old ways were the best. Regardless, the term distinctly implies finality and an end to a gaming era. In that case, for better or worse, AD&D is in fact "old school" since it's no longer in publication, however I think the term "classic" suits it much better. Castles and Crusades has revitalized the classic gaming style with a touch of the new...so rather than being "old school" C&C is the future of RPGs as well as a return to the rennaissance of gaming.

Brian Miller
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[Jyrdan Fairblade]

Old-school gaming is sitting down with no idea what's going to happen, breaking open the random dungeon generator, and proceeding to have one of the most fun gaming sessions ever.

It's assassins, illusionists, cavaliers, and thief-acrobats. Or it's elves, dwarves, and halflings as classes.

It's the simple joy of your character's first +1 weapon.

It's dungeon-delving at low level, wilderness travel at mid, and kingdoms at high. There's plenty of extraplanar travel, too.

It's relying on role-playing to make your character different, not how many points you have in what skill.

It's many things, really.

[angelius]

Another pt about old school gaming...somehow slow leveling up comes to mind too...
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[BeZurKur]

serleran wrote:
Everything else is just intrepretation.

Seleran, I disagree. Whether it draws players to old-school style of play, or what is most important, is up to interpretation: yes. However, what it is, I believe we can list and identify. There are some good ideas here and it does a long way (at least for me) to identifying those qualities.

Nostalgia is big factor. In of itself, however, it doesnt make a game such as C&C better or worse. While it can make sales better, and I'm sure the kind Trolls are interested in their sales, I'm more interested in what makes the style that draws some people but keeps others away.

When Rhuvein first said evocative art, I lumped it into nostalgia. Until, however, he posted the art and I realized there was more. I think it has to do with Treebores observation that death always loomed. The DM was to a degree out to get the players. I think it is this part of versus play that makes it interesting for the CK (DM, GM, whatever) but also a turn-off to some gamers.

Consider the drawing Rhuvein posted. I can practically hear the players around the table trying to figure out what the pool is. The guy playing the fighter is thinking, Weve been here for a while, and then after hearing the DM make some rolls behind the screen says, I make sure no monsters are around. There was a constant threat around, and yes, it was the guy behind the screen.

Also, looking to the picture, old-school gaming or like Miller suggests and I agree, classic gaming is very episodic in nature. What does that pool have to do with anything else in the dungeon? In classic gaming, there is a good likelihood it has nothing to with it. The same with random encounters, like Moriartys stampeding buffalo. This break in continuity might detract for some. However, for Jyrdan Fairblade, it made for the most memorable session.

I do have some specific questions:

Jyrdan Fairblade, why was the random generator the most memorable dungeon?

DangerDwarf, what made you so jaded since your days of classic gaming?

I have some material to mull over, but at least I can see some hints to why some might prefer classic play and not others. If anyone can think of something else that draws or repels to classic gaming, let me know.

[angelius]

One big difference I've experienced lately between classic and new gaming is the use of minis.

These days, we can all afford to use minis and what not for our games, combine that with battlemaps, pdfs, using laptops, scenary, dwarven forge, abundance of sourcebooks (some of which one wonders how they ever get published)...

"back in the day" in terms of my memory, my friends and I couldn't afford minis or cool tables and stuff to play on. We had to imagine where the monsters were, and how we were going to fight instead of having material things to touch.

I guess in a way everything was done in our imaginations. These days its almost unheard of to play without minis or some sort.

But again thats just from my personal experience. So when I CK, I try to minimalize the use of minis although I must have hundreds...

To conclude its almost like due to economies of scale in the early 2000's, even the poorest of gamers can afford some form of mini or what not...

It's weird, am I saying that old skool gaming is just using your imagination THAT much more than rules and tactical warfare?

Or maybe its just that sense of discovery that is now drowned out by rules upon rule and prestige classes and all kinds of twists and turns a player can use to make that ultimate character...yes maybe i'm a little bitter about d20.
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[Treebore]

The mini's thing wasn't the same for me.

I didn't start playing until I was in the Navy, so I've always had miniatures.

I was just never in a game that worried about the "precision" of their use.

It was always a "general abstract" of what was going on to help us visualize things with more accuracy.

So even though we had miniatures, it was still much more our imaginations than the accuracy of placement and movement.

[Omote]

Jyrdan Fairblade wrote:
It's the simple joy of your character's first +1 weapon.

Dear god, yes, YES!

I would also add that old-school gaming is sitting at the table with some dice, a pencil and a strained look of thought on your face coming up with a character's name.

...........................................Omote

FPQ
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[meepo]

How about your first +2? That's almost sweeter! You get a better weapon AND are now part of the big leagues!

[seskis281]

Actually for me I've never used minis other than once or twice just as sort of character markers set in front of the players... I use a dry-erase board for quick table-top diagraming of rooms or positions when necessary. Of course I also have a cat that likes to get in the middle of things and knock stuff around....

As to the OP question - I think maybe we should get away from trying to define "old" school and placing it into some sort of opposition to other "styles." It seems to me that even in the earliest of days (from what I've been given to understand) Gary, Rob, Dave Arneson, Frank, et all had their own disagreements on the direction of the game, the most important influences or emphases, and if the guys around the table at the creation of a game can't (and shouldn't - individual likes and tastes should never be squashed) uniformally 100% agree then it's pretty silly to expect the hordes of players who've followed to ever come to an absolute consensus.

I call myself "old school," but I tend to refer to the slower class progression, the basic archetypes and focus on WHO a character is rather than what they can do, very traditional medieval fantasy setting, lots of orcs and demihumans, etc.

I probably wouldn't be considered "old" school by many because (and this is a direct relation to my being a playwright and theatre guy) I usually do like plots and narrative adventures, I like lots of different art and can't see what the big argument about that area is, and I actually (ok you can gasp) like Greyhawk as it is now.

Again, I think Serl's comment on differing tastes and the subjective nature of all of this is important. It really only matters what we as individuals and our groups like.

John 8)
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[Breakdaddy]

meepo wrote:
How about your first +2? That's almost sweeter! You get a better weapon AND are now part of the big leagues!

I never got a +2 weapon back then.

[Treebore]

I think preferring archetypes to outright class builds is a starting point for defining "old school".

don't get me wrong, I have always done some kind of "class build/alteration", but I would much rather tweak a little here and there rather than coninue to "build" every level.

[angelius]

I'll support Tree on that whole archetypal thing.

Have you guys read the C&C review on RPG.net?

This sums it up for me:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11008.phtml
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