RPG Design: "Old School” RPGs?

I have thrown around the term "Old School" on this blog several times and thought it might be useful to explain how I personally define the term in reference to tabletop role-playing games.   

If you think about it, the term "Old School" is a reactionary one (git offa ma lawn, danggumit!) and, unsurprisingly, different people react to be different things and in different ways.  Moreover, in the role-playing game context, even things that were common "back in the day" weren't necessarily present at every gaming table.  So, if you ask a dozen people what "Old School tabletop role-playing games" means to them, you will likely get a dozen different answers.

That's all well and good.

For purposes of this blog, in the role-playing game context, "Old School" refers to a type of gameplay that was common in the 1970s and 1980s and which I still use today at my table.  Most notably:

• GM rulings are emphasized over the Rules As Written
• Player Skill is emphasized over Character Skill
• Combat as War is emphasized over Combat as Sport

Taking these one at a time:

• GM rulings are emphasized over the Rules As Written

When I write "GM rulings are emphasized over the Rules As Written," I don't necessarily mean a rules lite system or a game that allows the story to dominate play, rather than mechanics.  Rather, I mean that the GM serves as "referee" or "judge" (to resurrect a couple more traditional terms), to make fair and impartial decisions.

Sometimes the GM makes a judgment call when there is a gap or an ambiguity in the rules, as sometimes is the case with older editions of Dungeons & Dragons.  However, sometimes that also means he ignores or overrules the Rules As Written.

• Player Skill is emphasized over Character Skill

When I write "Player Skill," I mean a Player's outside the box thinking.  For example, in a recent session at my table, the party needed to identify a demon with powerful visual glamours that were undetectable.  However, they knew that demons are allergic to wrought iron, so they put on wrought iron rings and shook hands until they found someone who reacted abnormally and, thus, uncovered the demon.

However, in many newer games, I find that the emphasis is on what the character can do, particularly in systems with lengthy character generation.  For example, how I approach games like Pathfinder and Exalted is different (e.g., often my first instinct is to look at the character sheet to see what I have that might be applicable to a situation).

• Combat as War is emphasized over Combat as Sport

By "Combat as War" and "Combat as Sport," I am referring to terminology developed several years ago to refer to differing play styles.

In the former, there's an "anything goes" mentality and individual encounters are not necessarily balanced or "fair".  Rather, the GM presents a situation and the players decide what to do (combat is not a foregone conclusion).

In the latter, there are clear rules to encourage fair fights and an explicit goal for the GM is to present balanced encounters (combat is often a foregone conclusion).  Sometimes, this is expressly baked into the rules set (e.g., newer editions of D&Ds' Challenge Rating (CR) and Difficulty Class (DC)).

A (in)famous type of Combat as War scenario is Fantasy F*ckin' Vietnam:

[I]t was supposed to signify the dead-at-any-moment life of old school dungeoneering. The kind of play where you inched along the corridor, 10-foot pole in hand probing every foot of the floor, walls, and ceiling for traps. The kind of play where losing a limb prying open the lid of a chest was as quick as a death by an arrow from your flank. It was the gaming mirror of then still-fresh cultural memory of the stress, paranoia, and grittiness of the Vietnam War. 

Another notable difference between the play styles is Combat as Sport, with its emphasis on balance, reflects the tendency of newer games to shy away from character death.

The possibility of character death, however, is a necessary baked in assumption of Combat as War.  Indeed, this is an often overlooked an aspect of the play style (i.e., that war is dangerous, deadly and unpredictable).  Combat as War is not just about planning and developing asymmetric advantages to stack a fight in your favor.  Sometimes your best option is to run away or otherwise not fight at all (Of course, you have to have a GM that's not into railroading and willing to come up with new material on the fly).

Furthermore, there's an assumption in Old School play that bad things can and do happen to PCs.  By this, I mean that, while the GM shouldn't be out to get the PCs or otherwise antagonistic, the players aren't going to have their hands held and the dice will fall where they may.

The prototypical examples of "Old School" RPGs are, of course, older editions of Dungeons & Dragons:

In fact, for some people,  "Old School" = "older editions of Dungeons & Dragons" or "Old School" = "Old School Renaissance (OSR)".

However, personally, I take a more expansive view.  The reason that I lump games like Traveller and GURPS with older editions of D&D into "Old School" is that my play style basically the same between them.

YMMV, of course.

Literature Review: "The Doom that Came to Sarnath" (1920)

This week, in honor of H. P. Lovecraft's birthday on August 20th, I wanted to give a shout out to one of my favorite story stories by this preeminent practitioner of Weird Fiction, "The Doom that Came to Sarnath":

There is in the land of Mnar a vast still lake that is fed by no stream and out of which no stream flows. Ten thousand years ago there stood by its shore the mighty city of Sarnath, but Sarnath stands there no more.

With two sentences, Lovecraft quickly sets the mood for the piece: mythic, cryptic and bizarre.  A tale of murder, hubris and otherworldly vengeance follows.  Plus, it has space aliens, weird gods and dread prophecy.  What's not to like? 

An early work by Lovecraft, "The Doom that Came to Sarnath" is still a classic.  Influenced by one of Lovecraft's favorite authors, the great Lord Dunsany, this yarn is set in a fictional pre-historic Earth and is associated with Lovecraft's Dream Cycle stories. 

A wandering group of shepherds establish Sarnath "[n]ot far from the grey city of Ib" and take an immediate homicidal dislike to their neighbors, who "descended one night from the moon in a mist."  Some sacking and pillaging happens, combined with a big dose of ethnic cleaning, and the Sarnathites bring back the idol of the Bokrug, worshipped by the newly massacred beings of Ib, as a token of their conquest.

Ten centuries later, "[t]he wonder of the world and the pride of all mankind was Sarnath the magnificent."  The reigning superpower is at its height and about to celebrate "the feast of the thousandth year of the destroying of Ib. For a decade had it been talked of in the land of Mnar, and as it drew nigh there came to Sarnath on horses and camels and elephants men from Thraa, Ilarnek, and Kadatheron, and all the cities of Mnar and the lands beyond."

As for what happens next, let's just say payback's a bitch.

You can find the full text of the story here.  Alternately, here is a wonderful reading of the same by Nick Gisburne:

RPG Design: Player Narrative Fiat

In the 42 years since TSR published Original Dungeons & Dragons, tabletop role-playing games have seen a number of different design trends, as discussed here by John Kim.  A popular mechanic nowadays that my rules set, Sorcery & Steel, has decided not to adopt is Player Narrative Fiat.


By "Player Narrative Fiat", I mean that game resolution is not determined by one or more of the following:

• The rules,
• GM rulings,
• A randomizer (e.g., dice), and/or
• Character skills/abilities.

Positive examples of Player Narrative Fiat run the gamut from Fate Points (i.e., player narrative currency to alter the outcome of a randomizer) to full blown GM-less story games where a PC doesn't die unless the player chooses so, such as the well regarded Fiasco (2009):

So, am I saying that Player Narrative Fiat is bad?

Not at all!  However, personally, I think it flies in the face of the Old School "feel".

One might then ask, "What about close cousins, such as Force Points in d6 Star Wars?"

The distinction I draw between Force Points and Fate Points (which are mechanically identical), is that Force Points flow from the character (yes, that's a Star Wars joke) rather than the player, thus falling under the fourth bullet point above.  Similarly, I think that Willpower in the Storyteller System or a Wish spell in Old School D&D are fine.

Thus, as you might expect, my rules set, Sorcery & Steel, utilizes no Player Narrative Fiat.  In other words, while my rules set does contain some modern flourishes, the Dice Gods are still to be respected.

Board Game Review: "Dungeon!" (1975)

This week, I would like to take a look back at another well known "Old School" product, albeit not an RPG.  Sort of.

Dungeon! is a competitive board game where players race through the eponymous dungeon, slaying monsters and taking their stuff.  The first to reach their particular adventurer's gold piece goal and race back to the starting point wins.  Since adventurers have different gold piece goals and the dungeon has different levels of difficulty and loot, the game remains roughly balanced even though adventurers have different abilities.

The mechanics are quite simple: upon entering a new room or area, the player draws a monster card appropriate for the dungeon level that lists the target numbers for each adventurer.  If successful, the player draws a treasure card appropriate for the dungeon level.  If not, something bad randomly happens to the adventurer (including death).  Old School!

If fact the mechanics are so simple that for many gamers from the early days of tabletop role-playing, Dungeon! was a gateway to RPGs: you can get your dungeon crawl on without worrying about story or campaign elements.  This simplicity is also a reason for Dungeon!'s recent renaissance, as the children of those same early gamers come of age, such as the daughter of my AD&D DM!

Dungeon! is also of historical interest since Dave Megarry, the primary designer, was a friend of Dave Arneson and a member of the Blackmoor campaign, from which grew the rule set that eventually became into Original Dungeons & Dragons.

So, gamers can see and experience a version of the earliest days of tabletop role-playing.  Thus, in a way, Dungeon! is the closest that many gamers will get to adventuring in Castle Blackmoor.

RPG Design: The Thief Class

Two weeks ago, I discussed the Core Four Classes of tabletop role-playing (i.e., Fighting-Man, Magic-User, Cleric and Thief), drawn from Original Dungeons & Dragons and Supplement I: Greyhawk.  Today, I wanted to look in more detail at the Thief Class:

New Schoolers might be more familiar with the term "Rogue," which was a 3e D&D change (although the move started with 2e) and fallout from the "Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons" (B.A.D.D.) hysteria.  I prefer not to lend any kind of credence to Ms. Pulling's baseless accusations so the Thief has kept his original moniker in my rules set, Sorcery & Steel.

There are some Old Schoolers who don't feel that the Thief belongs among the Core Four, since it is not present in Original Dungeons & Dragons and because ALL characters are thieves in the general sense.  While I understand this point of view, I do think that it is useful to have thieves in the professional sense.  In other words, it's hard to disbelieve that a barbarian from the wastes, a warrior priestess or a newly-minted apprentice would have dedicated the bandwidth to competently and consistently pick locks or other nefarious professional skills.

This is less of an issue with rules sets that have a strong skill system (e.g., BRP, Classic Traveller).

In any event, there is a long tradition of sneaky and lightly armored adventurers in tabletop role-playing and in the fantasy literature (e.g., the Grey Mouser) from whence it came.

A glaring problem for the Old School D&D-brand Thief is that his professional skills begin far too low!  For example, let's take a look at the AD&D variety:

Aside from Climbing Walls (why this shouldn't be included among the Thief's professional skills is a whole other topic), he begins with  an average 18.3% chance of success.  That's miserable!  And it's actually an improvement from B/X!

In my rules set, Sorcery & Steel, I've started the Thief's professional skills at a far more competent point and adapted the rule from 2e allowing the player to allocate professional skill points.


One thing that's changed for the worse IMHO over the years is massive hit point inflation for Thieves in Dungeons & Dragons: in OD&D and B/X, Thieves used a d4.  In AD&D, this was upgraded in a d6.  But now, in 5e, Thieves are rocking a d8!

This hit point inflation, combined with other things including without limitation generous healing and an increasing reluctance to allow PC death, has given newer editions of Dungeons & Dragons a video-gamey feel: rather than being terrified of the dark, typical PCs now often adapt a kick the doors down approach.

This, of course, dramatically changes the tone and feel of adventuring by altering the risk/reward ratio.  At my table, the role of Thief general goes to the most clever and daring player, as it is the Thief that most often is called upon to match wits by his lonesome with the GM.

This is in line with my own preference to emphasize and encourage player skill over character abilities.