08-04-2014, 05:27 PM | #1 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Old School RPG — what is it?
I'm doing the "#RPGaday" exercise (on my FaceBook page), which means that I am asked to write about "Most Old School game owned". The problem is that I don't know what Old School Gaming and the Old School Revival are.
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08-04-2014, 05:48 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Old School RPG — what is it?
My understanding is that there are people who are trying to run and play rpgs in the style of the first generation, roughly from Chainmail up to around when Basic Dungeons & Dragons came out. They aren't using the actual original rules, which are often incoherent or poorly thought out, but they are trying to achieve clearly stated rules that basically do the same things and enable the same type of play.
Bill Stoddard |
08-04-2014, 06:25 PM | #3 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Old School RPG — what is it?
That being the case, I don't own any Old School RPGs, and probably wouldn't recognise one as such when I played it.
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08-04-2014, 06:32 PM | #4 |
Stick in the Mud
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Rural Utah
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Re: Old School RPG — what is it?
The closest I have that would qualify would probably be Classic Traveller and Holmes/Moldvay/Mentzer D&D.
Somewhere, I've got the purpose built OSR game Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but I've barely looked at it.
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08-04-2014, 06:45 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Old School RPG — what is it?
Quote:
Bill Stoddard |
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08-04-2014, 07:20 PM | #6 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Old School RPG — what is it?
I swapped my Classic Traveller reprints for a mint 1st edition ForeSight. That leaves The Fantasy Trip (1980–81), Bushido (1981), DragonQuest (2nd ed., 1982), and James Bond 007 (1982) as the oldest RPGs I still own.
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
08-04-2014, 07:31 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Old School RPG — what is it?
Quote:
Bill Stoddard |
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08-06-2014, 10:16 AM | #8 | |
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Alsea, OR
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Re: Old School RPG — what is it?
Quote:
The key is "Rulings, not Rules" and, usually, Class & Level. Traveller gets a pass because of age, but often RuneQuest (same age as CT) does not. Starships and Spacemen is Old School, but newer than Traveller. |
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08-06-2014, 11:07 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Old School RPG — what is it?
I don't think class and level are essential. I've played with a re-creation of Superhero 2044; I think if I ran it it would be old school, even though S44 didn't have class and level and in fact was the first game ever to use character points.
I agree about excluding RuneQuest, though. RuneQuest strikes me as the first game to have what I think of as the full paradigm of "new school" games: sharp distinction between stats and skills, skill rolls being as important as stats and levels, a wide variety of skills, the attack/defend/damage sequence of combat rolls, advanced fighting ability being represented by a higher probability of parrying or dodging rather than by massively increased hit points. All that has become the default model of rpg rules construction now; those "old school" games are marked by that pattern not having been worked out fully. Bill Stoddard |
08-06-2014, 11:33 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Old School RPG — what is it?
Quote:
Of course, the key feature is "how I remember playing as a teenager" (or think an older generation played) so people can understand "old school" in different ways.
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