Old School RPG — what is it?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

"The game" is what you make of it. If I use all of the rules from Social Engineering and you ignore them all and just make stuff up as you see fit, we're not playing the same game. Yours is "more old-school" than mine is because you use more old-school techniques than I do.

But we are both playing GURPS, and both approaches are part of the official rules of GURPS.

GURPS is a game that includes, as official rules, "reality testing" (the GM should set aside the published rules if they lead to results inconsistent with the facts) and "when in doubt, roll and shout" (make the dramatically satisfactory ruling rather than taking several minutes to work out the one that's exactly according to the rules). It's hard to justify the claim that this is in conflict with reliance on GM judgment calls or that such reliance is non-GURPS-ian.

The elaborate rules in GURPS are largely there as options for the GM who wants to use them, and especially for the GM who is prepared to spend the time to internalize them because of personal interest. Few of them are mandatory.

Bill Stoddard