D&D General Defining "New School" Play (+)

[EzekielRaiden]

Let me double check ... nope ... I did not say that every representation of vampires were all the same. Just one popular representation that is an example of evil creatures being transformed into something desirable.

Vampires have been desirable since Bram Stoker's Dracula and John Polidori's The Vampyre. Both Dracula and Ruthven are sexual predators in both the literal and figurative meanings of that phrase. And before that, you have things that almost certainly inspired Dracula, like Elizabeth Bathory. The allure of the forbidden, of sexualized violence, of a creature that feeds on blood (heat/passion/sex/etc.), has been part of vampire lore for centuries.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Your experience may vary, but if a character sheet might say that some characters have the ability to do a thing, and DM might decide that characters who don't have that on their can not.

Sure. They might also decide that Acrobatics is the skill for jumping, or an OSR dm might decide that all pcs are illiterate because barbarians are noted as such but no other class says either way.

But I don't think it's fair to say any style of play is more or less prone to dms mis/interpreting the rules.

 

[Scribe]

It seems at a high level.

Old School - Game driven, what is External to the PCs is more important. "The main character of the World of Warcraft, is Azeroth."

New School - Story driven, what is Internal to the PCs is more important. "The story is about me, and how the adventure relates to my character."

Everything else seems to fall into either camp to me.

 

[Iosue]

A little late to the party, but in my experience, this is the most salient difference:

My original group started with B/X in the 80s. After 5e came out, we came back together to play again. To this day, the players do not ask me if they can do something they want to try. They tell me what they are doing, and then it's on me to adjudicate it.

When I've played with players who started since 2000, they will generally a) ask me if they can do something, or b) decide on some skill and roll unilaterally.

In other words, the "old school" players are comfortable with what I call "DM-based resolution." The "new school" players are more comfortable with "rulebook-based resolution." They prefer hard, mechanical points-of-contact with the game. If the situation does not lend itself to a specific rule or mechanic, they want to confirm how the DM will adjudicate it before they commit to the action.

While no doubt both styles have existed throughout the game's history, I believe the rules (specifically 3.x and 4e) were explicitly designed with rulebook-based resolution in mind, while the pre-2000 rules were explicitly designed with DM-based resolution in mind, and so this is a valid distinction.

FWIW, I do not feel that either paradigm is better than the other, though I have a preference (both as DM and player) for DM-based resolution. 5e seems to me to be an effective hybrid (New Old School?) in that although the essential flow of play as described in the PHB follows DM-based resolution, between the skill system and class abilities there are enough hard points-of-contact that both "schools" are served.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It seems at a high level.

Old School - Game driven, what is External to the PCs is more important. "The main character of the World of Warcraft, is Azeroth."

New School - Story driven, what is Internal to the PCs is more important. "The story is about me, and how the adventure relates to my character."

Everything else seems to fall into either camp to me.

My main problem with the latter analysis is that an emphasis on teamwork and mutual understanding is pretty much essential in every "new school" group I've ever participated in. That's why we have things like Session Zero, the X and O cards, lines and veils, Dungeon World's bonds, etc.

You need only look at the big-name (and, heck, even small-name) 5e D&D game podcasts like Critical Role and The Adventure Zone to see this stuff. It's absolutely NOT about five (or whatever) individual, deeply selfish people who exclusively care about their own story and NOTHING else. It's about five teammates who are working together on both their communal goals, and on their personal stories, both in how those stories work individually and how they braid together, how the characters change one another.

Part of why, when I was asked earlier (I presume incredulously) whether it was like being a method actor, I answered simply, "Yes." Because that is what it's like. The character is a role I'm stepping into, immersing myself in, wearing almost like a second skin. I need to have the what-it's-like to be that person. Jumping to an entirely different character, I lose that, and have to rebuild it--which takes a long time. Weeks, perhaps months.

So I guess I'd phrase it as, "The story is about us, and how the adventure relates to our characters." Old school in-character play is like a genealogical or anthology story, where we follow the torch as it passes from bearer to bearer; the individual bearers are far less relevant than the torch itself. New school in-character play is like a TV show with a core cast, where we get deeply invested in these characters and what they're doing.

It's the difference between Foundation (or at least the first book, with its many shorter stories) and Babylon 5.

 

[Scribe]

My main problem with the latter analysis is that an emphasis on teamwork and mutual understanding is pretty much essential in every "new school" group I've ever participated in. That's why we have things like Session Zero, the X and O cards, lines and veils, Dungeon World's bonds, etc.

I dont see how the group is any less important in either style.

I can see it being more 'This story is about us and our characters' in a group sense in NS, vs "this game is about the dungeon and our party beating it." in a group sense in OS.

I just personally see the real difference being in a game/crunch vs story/narrative breakdown, and an external vs internal focus.

 

[Remathilis]

Old School Party
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New School Party
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[emoji6]

It's this exact style post that made me put the (+) on this thread. Take your disdain to Dragonsfoot

 

[DarkCrisis]

It's this exact style post that made me put the (+) on this thread. Take your disdain to Dragonsfoot

I think you missed my winky face at the bottom. This typically denotes a jest or joke.

 

[mamba]

Do they? Are they the same class? With the exact same choices as they advance? With the same gear? If not, they're using a different subset of the rules than the prior character, even if some overlap (and how many can vary considerably).

it might be a somewhat different subset, but much of the rules stays the same regardless.

In any case, the question was already answered by the person I asked, and I have my answer (which has very little to do with the rules, as I assumed)

 

[mamba]

The problem I have is just painting anything newer than 1981 "new school".

I guess you will need more than one term besides OS then, and NS has already been taken, no matter how much you want to attach it to something that is even newer…