Old School RPG — what is it?

[Stormcrow]

Old school means simply this: the game exists to challenge the abilities of the PLAYER, not the character. The character is simply an avatar to put the player into the game. This avatar has a general description and perhaps a few special powers, but his chances to do various things are undefined.

In an old-school game, if you want to find a trap in a room, you tell the referee where and how you look for it. If you want to make friends with someone, you converse with the referee. There's no rolling to do these things, unless the referee doesn't want to decide for himself and leaves the outcome to a chance he decides on.

In a "new-school" game, you check against your CHARACTER'S ability to find a trap. If you want to make friends with someone, you make some kind of influence roll based on your character's abilities. If the referee demands you to "role-play it," this only supplements the roll, or vice-versa.

[robertsconley]

Originally Posted by Anders

Are Old School RPGs more lethal? Certainly D&D 4th edition seemed to go out of its way to ensure no PCs ever kicked the bucket. Compare that to the mentality of Tomb of Horrors, where life as a PC was nasty, brutish and short.

For OD&D, the original 1974 rules plus supplements, it largely depends on how much gear and magic items you hand out. If you don't hand out a lot then high level characters are vulnerable to attrition. If you do then their ability to adapt and recover increases enormously.

The way to think of it in OD&D is that by 9th level the character can function effectively as a standalone unit of one figure in a miniature wargame. But it still just one unit, so a organized attack by units comprised of many figures can take out the character about as easily as it could take out any other unit on the playing field.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Old school means simply this: the game exists to challenge the abilities of the PLAYER, not the character. The character is simply an avatar to put the player into the game. This avatar has a general description and perhaps a few special powers, but his chances to do various things are undefined.

In an old-school game, if you want to find a trap in a room, you tell the referee where and how you look for it. If you want to make friends with someone, you converse with the referee. There's no rolling to do these things, unless the referee doesn't want to decide for himself and leaves the outcome to a chance he decides on.

In a "new-school" game, you check against your CHARACTER'S ability to find a trap. If you want to make friends with someone, you make some kind of influence roll based on your character's abilities. If the referee demands you to "role-play it," this only supplements the roll, or vice-versa.

I wouldn't say that this is wrong, but I think it's a bit too simple and too dualistic. In GURPS Social Engineering, for example, the goal is to enable players to play "face" characters, as the goal of GURPS Martial Arts is to enable players to play combat monsters. But the final page of main text is titled "Throw Away This Book" and is about the "just roleplay" approach. It does not say by any means that you have to roll dice, or that the acting is there only to supplement the dice roll.

On the other hand, there is a difference akin to what you're describing: old school games are action/adventure; new school games commonly try to enable drama as well as action.

Bill Stoddard

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by robkelk

Would GURPS Dungeon Fantasy qualify?

DF has some aspects of it, but it has other inspirations too, notably some of the dungeon-like computer games. DF characters also start off pretty powerful in terms of the setting, whereas real old-school games made you start as someone who could be killed by a small pack of ordinary wolves, if they took against you.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by whswhs

In GURPS Social Engineering, for example, the goal is to enable players to play "face" characters, as the goal of GURPS Martial Arts is to enable players to play combat monsters. But the final page of main text is titled "Throw Away This Book" and is about the "just roleplay" approach.

"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.

On the other hand, there is a difference akin to what you're describing: old school games are action/adventure; new school games commonly try to enable drama as well as action.

Playing GURPS plus Martial Arts is just as "newer school" as GURPS plus Social Engineering. Both provide a great deal of detailed rules to "compute" what a character can do. The difference is not in what genres the rules work with, it's how much freedom the GM has to just make stuff up and still be working within the framework of those rules. (If you ignore rules to make stuff up, you're not working under those rules.)

As has been pointed out much recently, GURPS is a game-making toolkit more than it is a game. The game you create with GURPS make have more or less old-school elements than another's game.

I don't completely approve of the term old school in this context, but it's what the old-schoolers believe. I, for one, enjoy a wide spectrum of styles, from the almost complete reliance on the referee of early D&D to the strong reliance on detailed rules of a complex GURPS game.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Old school means simply this: the game exists to challenge the abilities of the PLAYER, not the character. The character is simply an avatar to put the player into the game. This avatar has a general description and perhaps a few special powers, but his chances to do various things are undefined.

In an old-school game, if you want to find a trap in a room, you tell the referee where and how you look for it. If you want to make friends with someone, you converse with the referee. There's no rolling to do these things, unless the referee doesn't want to decide for himself and leaves the outcome to a chance he decides on..

Well, that's wrong. D&D thieves were constantly rolling to detect traps.

[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

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Well, that's wrong. D&D thieves were constantly rolling to detect traps.

Nope. First off, thieves weren't in the original set; they're part of the "let's add more rules" movement that I said started right away. Second, in Greyhawk, thieves are given an ability to remove traps, not to find them. Thieves couldn't officially "find traps" until the Players Handbook was published in 1978. (Basic D&D didn't get Find Traps until the Moldvay rules in 1981.)

Now, some people may have been rolling detection rolls before the rules officially supported it, but we're talking about what games qualify as old school, not what house rules do.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by whswhs

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

Which simply means that GURPS isn't a game you can easily peg as old or new school, which is what I've been getting at. Old or new is a continuum, affected by how you play. Some games specify how something is done. GURPS specifies how something is done, but intentionally sets itself up to be modular so you can ignore whatever bits you want and not break anything. Some games, like early D&D, specify very little about how to do anything, and don't present options because it didn't present a rule in the first place.

And this is also why I wouldn't ever try to list how old or new school a bunch of games are, because EVERY game has the assumption that you can ignore or change anything you want. Stating it explicitly in the rules doesn't change anything. This isn't evidence of being old-school; it's evidence that there are no Game Police.

I remember once someone complaining to the author of Continuum: Roleplaying in the Yet that he didn't include a statement in the rules saying that we are allowed to change the rules. The author's response was, to paraphrase, "I didn't think you needed my permission, so I didn't write it."

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Nope. First off, thieves weren't in the original set; they're part of the "let's add more rules" movement that I said started right away. Second, in Greyhawk, thieves are given an ability to remove traps, not to find them. Thieves couldn't officially "find traps" until the Players Handbook was published in 1978. (Basic D&D didn't get Find Traps until the Moldvay rules in 1981.)
.

I'm pretty sure first edition AD&D still counts as "old school".