Old School Gaming Explained © 2012 J.D. Neal All Rights Reserved. Release 4
Thanks to the blathering that goes online and spills over into gaming tables, there was for a time a holy holy war between between "new "new school school gaming" gaming" and "old "old school gaming." It was ignited and flamed by zealots spewi spewing ng doctri doctrinal nal hate hate at each each other. other. For For some some people, it could be summed up, "I hate your game. I hate you." This is intended for anyone who doesn't like that line of thought, and who wants to learn more about old school school gaming gaming witho without ut the lies lies and animos animosity ity others spew. What is "old school gaming" versus "new school gaming"? Summed up: older versions of Dungeons & Dragons were aimed towards a more simplistic style of play. When Wizards of the Coast designed the new versions, some of the mechanics were altered and a layer of options added, like skills and feats. The changes and additions were not actually new, per se ; many were taken from or inspired by ideas in older games. Some Some fans fans loved loved the change changes; s; some some disli disliked ked them. And that sums it up. Some fans wanted a return to simpler D&D. Older versions of D&D are no longer supported by the current owner: WOTC does sell old materials, but not often. You can buy old materials as used merchandise (and sometimes quiet cheap). You cannot legally distribute your own materials for the official, older versions of D&D. Or, rather you can, but only as a generic item. There are various concerns about intellectual property rights involved. You cannot legally post a PDF file of a rule book and tell your players, "Download this and read it and let's play it." Some Some of the the fans fans of olde olderr vers versio ions ns star starte ted d creating clones and simulacrum games based on the Wizar Wizards ds of the the Coas Coastt SRD SRD (Sys (Syste tem m Reso Resour urce ce Document) and OGL (Open Game License). They used the legal ideas to create games that played much much like like older older versio versions ns of D&D. D&D. Most Most of these these clon clones es and and simu simula lacr crum ums s have have leni lenien entt lice licens nses es allowing users to distribute materials for them without nece necess ssar aril ily y aski asking ng perm permis issi sion on and and with withou outt any any limiting ties to a single overbearing entity. Old school gaming was no longer dead. And yes, that means old versions of D&D are no longer dead. To whit, the term OSR (Old School Revolution, Renaissance, or whatever) itself has been bandied about by many. It is a reference to TSR - once an
abbrev abbreviat iation ion for Tactic Tactical al Studi Studies es Rules Rules - and the versio versions ns of D&D D&D it once once publi publishe shed. d. Some Some people people have made OSR logos that are formatted much like certain TSR logos. Hence, Hence, in the contex contextt of this this discus discussio sion n "old "old school" does not refer to games that are old; many old games have many of the components seen in mode moderrn game games. s. And many many old old game games s are are stil stilll supported. Nor does it refer to to later versions of D&D such as 3.0 and 3.5, even though they are now "obsolete" and no longer supported by WOTC. Albeit people like Paizo still do. "Old school" is in fact a simple euphemism for TSR-era D&D.
The Appeal of the Old What is the interest in these sorts of games? Why do some fans not only want to play but also legally distribute material for them? They They were were simp simple le and easy easy to play play.. Up to a certain point in time, a person could take any module intended for any variant of older D&D games and play it with any other version with few if any changes. Minor statistical differences were easily changed and some could be ignored. Inde Indeed ed,, much much of game game play play was abou aboutt the the advent adventure ure - not the rules. rules. Some games were so simp simple le that that char charac acte terr reco record rd shee sheets ts coul could d be recorded on a single 3" x 5" notebook card, with the given that some elements had to be looked up during play. And that is the appeal of older variants of D&D: they are simple. You can make up a character rather quickly and hop into play. If character dies, you can roll up a replacement quickly and wait for the DM to bring it into play. Fans Fans of olde olderr game games s can can play play deat deathh-tr trap ap-dung dungeo eon n adven adventu ture res s choc chock k full full of haza hazard rds s and and monst monsters ers,, going going throug through h two two or three three charac character ters s each, enjoying seeing how they each get killed off. And they can do so in one or two nights, because nothing about the game is time consuming. After all, these games are games of the imagi imaginat nation ion.. In the long long run, run, many many people people simply simply want ant an easy easy game game to play play usin using g main mainly ly thei their r imagination. Rules and options and numbers only get in the way.
Some people who have played only newer games expect games to include die rolls and skills to help them handle many situations. They can be lost when they try an older version and do not find said die rolls. The credo of old school games was to keep it simple, not worry about so many fussy details, and make make many many things things up as needed needed (and if needed) needed) during play. After all, consider the DC (Difficulty Class) check system of newer games: in the end, a DC check can be summarized as "The player rolls a d20 and adds modifiers and compares the total to an arbitrary number the DM chooses based on their intent for the situat situation ion." ." Old school school games games simpli simplify fy this this into into one idea: since the DM knows what they intend, they can pick a number and let the die be rolled. Indeed, die rolls are not skill rolls, they are antiskill rolls. They rob players of a chance of success by forcing results to be determined by pieces of randomly rolled plastic. The reason newer games created so many skills and what not was simply to make ability scor scores es more more usef useful ul in play play.. As new new game games s were were made, made, this this trend trend contin continued ued to the point where where the
designers designers started started creating creating arbitrar arbitrary y uses for ability ability scores, using pixie dust and whimsy. Old Old scho school ol game games s real realiz ized ed that that the the only only way way players can actually exert skill in games is by making decisions. Thus, they de-emphasized the importance of ability scores and character skills and die rolls in favor of player skill - decision making. If the characters had nice scores, it helped now and then, but often they could ignore the character record sheet and play mainly with their wits. This let the gamers concentrate on game play. You can play the same way with any rule set. Many Many peop people le play play any any game game they they have have very very "old "old school." The appeal of older versions of D&D, though, is the ease of play: make up characters quickly and spend most of your time playing with your imagination, not playi playing ng with with number numbers s and charac character ter creati creation on options. Which is why so many people wanted and built systems for playing old school - so they could have simple games to play.
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