Ranting against “A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming”

    I do not like this PDF (I’m not going to link it because you require an account or some junk to download it, and I don’t recommend it anyway). It intends to show the difference in gameplay styles between old D&D and modern, but it does so terribly, by creating a straw man DM as an example of modern gaming versus an example of a “true” old school DM. And in the end, the old school DM and the modern DM end up doing the exact same thing.

    In one of his examples, the PCs come to a room trap. The modern DM has them roll an ability skill check, while the old school DM has them talk out the solution (“roleplaying”). This is the crux of the difference, according to the Primer - player skill over character skill, rulings over rules. But nothing, literally nothing is stopping the modern example PCs from just talking out the solution, and their DM going with it. This is a bad example, and unfortunately every example is like this.

    And in the end, the result is the same, a minor trap, which players overcome with some natural ability.  The modern DM actually has more options in that example than the old school DM, as he could encourage role play and sprinkle in some skill checks as desired.

    Full disclosure, I do not use skill checks in my games, but I’m consciously reacting away from modern D&D design which is heavily reliant on them.

    While I like the sound of “Player skill over character skill”, I think that example misses the point. Instead, what I would highlight is that players cannot use die rolls and skill checks circumvent or get out of difficult situations in the game! A natural 20 means nothing in old school D&D and that’s something I generally have to train modern players out of expecting. Old school D&D is meant to be a simulation of a living world, not a balanced set of mechanics. When players encounter a hazard, or trap, or unknowable situation, they must engage with the simulation and attempt to deconstruct it and overcome it. That’s what the Primer narrowly defines as “player skill”.  Instead of “Player skill over character skill”, I would substitute “Simulation over mechanics”.

    The second issue I have with this PDF is the notion of “Rulings over rules”. Because the original D&D rules were very sparse, and more like a collection of Dave Arneson’s and Gary Gygax’s notes, all other groups had to invent circumstantial rules in actual play. The PDF codifies this style of off-the-cuff rulings as a hallmark of old school gaming. I disagree. One only has to look to AD&D to see that codifying the rules of the game was a very early impulse, once the folks at TSR saw how the game began to be played “out in the wild”.

    In fact, I believe that in either OD&D or AD&D, it is specifically mentioned that the referee should keep a notebook of all such off the cuff rulings made during the game session, and refer back to them for consistency. In effect, every GM would be codifying his or her own rules. Players like consistency, and a GM who makes two different rulings on similar situations would quickly be called out on it.  Instead of “Rulings over rules”, I would once again substitute “Simulation over rules”.

    And that’s actually what I like about old school D&D, in that it is about crafting a consistent, logical, and believable world that the players have to engage with directly and use their imagination to navigate, rather than with their character sheet and using dice to “win”.

    And the real difference I believe between old school and modern D&D is this: In early D&D, the DM was the driving force behind the game, who set up the verisimilitude of the world and arbitrated the player’s actions within it. In modern D&D, the players are the drivers of the game, using their ability scores and dice rolls to overcome numerical challenges that the DM can only set the difficulty threshold to.  From 3e onward, limiting the DM’s influence over the players was a stated design goal. And that, more than anything, changed the nature of the game.