Not back for a week, and the blogosphere has managed to already cough up the beginning of another one of Those Debates. Pfeh. Lovely. And with a side-order of one of my other annoyances, besides; but that seems confined to a small space, so what odds.
This is the sound of me knocking my head against my desk.
(tis rather a hollow sound ...)
New critter in the morning if work doesn't eat me alive.
Showing posts with label old-school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label old-school. Show all posts
Friday, March 5, 2010
Sunday, May 24, 2009
"Old School": Oh what a feeling
JoeTheLawyer made a lengthy -- and very pertinent -- post on his blog earlier today about the OSR, feelings, and why we're all playing the games we're playing.
Take a look; there's good stuff there.
Take a look; there's good stuff there.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
One Page Dungeon Contest --
As posted on Chgowiz's blog and elsewhere, there is a One Page Dungeon Contest afoot!
I have to say, I both like this idea muchly and am quite tempted to give it a shot. I wasn't certain I could create something suitable in scale, but the map field isn't too terribly "intimidating" *grins* The need to only name and describe critters also has great appeal, I must admit.
I find myself wondering, though, whether my dungeons would fall under the "old school" or "new edition" categories ~ ;3
I have to say, I both like this idea muchly and am quite tempted to give it a shot. I wasn't certain I could create something suitable in scale, but the map field isn't too terribly "intimidating" *grins* The need to only name and describe critters also has great appeal, I must admit.
I find myself wondering, though, whether my dungeons would fall under the "old school" or "new edition" categories ~ ;3
Friday, February 20, 2009
That old-fashioned antagonism; or, this is why we can't have nice things. Especially, it seems, if you're a lowly player.
Some nosing and poking about my blogroll (and my unwieldy pile of bookmarks) this morning reminded me to go check out a copy of Knockspell. After all, a zine that was going to support Labyrinth Lord sounded good now that I've finally acquired a hardcopy of the game ...
Despite the lack of much of anything explicitly for LL that I noticed in my first breezethrough, I liked a goodly amount of the content. Gabor Lux's adventure Isles on an Emerald Sea was quite nice, and Robert Lionheart's Random Hireling Generator is an absolute stitch. I won't be surprised if I find other favoured pieces when I go through it again.
Alas, the good parts are not what I am here for at the moment. I am here, instead, to air my part about the one thing that -- to be perfectly honest -- soured my temperament to the point that I'm surprised the nifty things seemed nifty at all.
That one thing is an editorial by Tim Kask, a gentleman who's been around since the wee early days of D&D. The editorial is titled "Who sucked the fun out of RPGing?" -- and that alone should have been a fair warning to me, as those sorts of editorials by anyone seldom appeal to me. But I read nonetheless.
I am not, in a word, impressed.
The editorial reads, to me, like a paen to everything that irritates me and makes me want to distance myself from the so-called "old school Renaissance" even more than I technically already am. It is fair that Mr. Kask prefers the original edition; it is fair that he dislikes later editions. I can be picky about my editions myself. But passages like 'How did [D&D] go so wrong? How did the game morph into today’s endless editions, each seemingly worse than the preceding, each more hidebound, restrictive and dogmatic?' -- that smacks of the kind of grognardism that I do not much like.
Fine. Fair enough; this is his opinion, and like all of us he is entitled to his opinion. But the remainder of the editorial is what really ground my gears, as Mr. Kask spends a goodly number of paragraphs detailing how any sort of rules debate or elaboration (or nitpicky things like the damage of fire vs. lightning, granted) never happened in the good ol' days; they were having too much fun. And what killed the fun?
I'll let the gentleman's closing paragraph speak for him:
'It all starting going bad with the publishing of AD&D, The Player’s Handbook. Here come the rules lawyers, the nitpickers and the homegrown experts. The fun started to leech away within months. Now there were dicta, dogma and regulations; gone were the days of guidelines. And who was to blame for this sorry, disreputable state of affairs. The players…'
The Player's Handbook ruined the fun of D&D?
Players having access to some of the Holy Writ ruined the fun of D&D?
The DM not having complete and utter control of said Holy Writ ruined the fun of D&D?
This explains so much of what bothers me about hardcore grognardism. Do please excuse me while I run in the other direction as far as my feet can carry me.
Despite the lack of much of anything explicitly for LL that I noticed in my first breezethrough, I liked a goodly amount of the content. Gabor Lux's adventure Isles on an Emerald Sea was quite nice, and Robert Lionheart's Random Hireling Generator is an absolute stitch. I won't be surprised if I find other favoured pieces when I go through it again.
Alas, the good parts are not what I am here for at the moment. I am here, instead, to air my part about the one thing that -- to be perfectly honest -- soured my temperament to the point that I'm surprised the nifty things seemed nifty at all.
That one thing is an editorial by Tim Kask, a gentleman who's been around since the wee early days of D&D. The editorial is titled "Who sucked the fun out of RPGing?" -- and that alone should have been a fair warning to me, as those sorts of editorials by anyone seldom appeal to me. But I read nonetheless.
I am not, in a word, impressed.
The editorial reads, to me, like a paen to everything that irritates me and makes me want to distance myself from the so-called "old school Renaissance" even more than I technically already am. It is fair that Mr. Kask prefers the original edition; it is fair that he dislikes later editions. I can be picky about my editions myself. But passages like 'How did [D&D] go so wrong? How did the game morph into today’s endless editions, each seemingly worse than the preceding, each more hidebound, restrictive and dogmatic?' -- that smacks of the kind of grognardism that I do not much like.
Fine. Fair enough; this is his opinion, and like all of us he is entitled to his opinion. But the remainder of the editorial is what really ground my gears, as Mr. Kask spends a goodly number of paragraphs detailing how any sort of rules debate or elaboration (or nitpicky things like the damage of fire vs. lightning, granted) never happened in the good ol' days; they were having too much fun. And what killed the fun?
I'll let the gentleman's closing paragraph speak for him:
'It all starting going bad with the publishing of AD&D, The Player’s Handbook. Here come the rules lawyers, the nitpickers and the homegrown experts. The fun started to leech away within months. Now there were dicta, dogma and regulations; gone were the days of guidelines. And who was to blame for this sorry, disreputable state of affairs. The players…'
The Player's Handbook ruined the fun of D&D?
Players having access to some of the Holy Writ ruined the fun of D&D?
The DM not having complete and utter control of said Holy Writ ruined the fun of D&D?
This explains so much of what bothers me about hardcore grognardism. Do please excuse me while I run in the other direction as far as my feet can carry me.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Out on a limb with a personal thought ...
Or, "How the old-school grognard thing really makes me uncomfortable sometimes".
Over on Grognardia, there's a new post about Traveller. Being recently drawn into the Traveller game phenomenon, I happily settled down to read it; I generally like reading the posts over there in any case. Except for little moments like what I'm writing about now.
Now, a little bit of babble first -- I grew up reading Asimov, Pohl, and the rest. I like me some classic science fiction, and I still often prefer it. This was something that drew me to Traveller (for my cyberpunk needs, I have Shadowrun. Yes, Shadowrun. Deal. ;3), and I'm making the statement because I feel the need to lay out my stance ahead of time. Many apologizes if it doesn't make a lot of sense ...
I disagree with the gist of James' post, essentially. Not what kind of setting Traveller is emulating -- on that we agree, pretty much -- but the drift he goes into about how the older-gents-with-mortgages is somehow more "legit" as a classic sci-fi rpg than more recent, "glamourous" iterations. Even though he does say outright that he knows it's just his own opinion, it still sat uneasily. Especially the "glamourous" part, though I can't really articulate why.
I blame that unease on my having followed an in-post link to an earlier Traveller post of his before I finished reading the new one. There's a statement in there that just set my teeth on edge:
"What [the quoted passage from Traveller] means is that characters don't improve in Traveller but players do. How old school is that?"
I'm not "old-school". Given I'm at my happiest playing 2e AD&D and BEMCI, I probably wouldn't be accepted into old-school grognard-dom if I tried. I ran 3e for a number of years, even; and it was the number-crunching that did me in, not play-style -- our play-style never changed from 2e, which was what I learned from my first DM who ran a 1e/2e hybrid.
But, you know? The offhanded implication in that quote above -- intentional or not! and I lean toward unintentional or at least not fully weighed -- that if "old-school" means improving as a player, maybe the "new-school" doesn't? Or doesn't know how?
Yeah. That makes me a little uncomfortable.
And it's that kind of thing that puts me off the real "old-school" ... even people like James, who otherwise try really hard to foster a positive outlook for inviting others into the old-school community. It's hard to feel comfortable or welcome with little throwaways like that; because if it's that easy to slip into, well --
Yeah.
Over on Grognardia, there's a new post about Traveller. Being recently drawn into the Traveller game phenomenon, I happily settled down to read it; I generally like reading the posts over there in any case. Except for little moments like what I'm writing about now.
Now, a little bit of babble first -- I grew up reading Asimov, Pohl, and the rest. I like me some classic science fiction, and I still often prefer it. This was something that drew me to Traveller (for my cyberpunk needs, I have Shadowrun. Yes, Shadowrun. Deal. ;3), and I'm making the statement because I feel the need to lay out my stance ahead of time. Many apologizes if it doesn't make a lot of sense ...
I disagree with the gist of James' post, essentially. Not what kind of setting Traveller is emulating -- on that we agree, pretty much -- but the drift he goes into about how the older-gents-with-mortgages is somehow more "legit" as a classic sci-fi rpg than more recent, "glamourous" iterations. Even though he does say outright that he knows it's just his own opinion, it still sat uneasily. Especially the "glamourous" part, though I can't really articulate why.
I blame that unease on my having followed an in-post link to an earlier Traveller post of his before I finished reading the new one. There's a statement in there that just set my teeth on edge:
"What [the quoted passage from Traveller] means is that characters don't improve in Traveller but players do. How old school is that?"
I'm not "old-school". Given I'm at my happiest playing 2e AD&D and BEMCI, I probably wouldn't be accepted into old-school grognard-dom if I tried. I ran 3e for a number of years, even; and it was the number-crunching that did me in, not play-style -- our play-style never changed from 2e, which was what I learned from my first DM who ran a 1e/2e hybrid.
But, you know? The offhanded implication in that quote above -- intentional or not! and I lean toward unintentional or at least not fully weighed -- that if "old-school" means improving as a player, maybe the "new-school" doesn't? Or doesn't know how?
Yeah. That makes me a little uncomfortable.
And it's that kind of thing that puts me off the real "old-school" ... even people like James, who otherwise try really hard to foster a positive outlook for inviting others into the old-school community. It's hard to feel comfortable or welcome with little throwaways like that; because if it's that easy to slip into, well --
Yeah.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
More mental meanderings: oldschool, editions, and the hamster
As the "retro" phenomenon picks up speed at the same time that 4e is launched and appealing to many, I'm finding myself caught in the middle. With my preferences falling in 2e AD&D and BEMCI D&D, I don't really speak the language of the "old-schoolers" enough to fit in well and I'm not that fussy about the newer editions -- even if I did give 3e a try.
Luckily for me I suppose, I really don't mind most editions of (A)D&D. I'm loving the retro phenomenon, and happily snap up servings of 0e, 1e, 2e, Basic, BEMCI ... I've been spending time reading old-school blogs here and there, and picking things up at Dragonsfoot by reading the forums. My 2e books see plenty of love, and I've kept a good pile of 3e because I like to borrow ideas from them. I've happily chewed over Labyrinth Lord, Swords and Wizardry, OSRIC ... and on and on. I like it all.
I don't want to say this is an old-school blog, because it really isn't by the definitions currently being used by the retro, old-school movement. I came late to D&D, and late-ish to 2e (in the early-to-mid ninties) at that. I like the pulpish swords-and-sorcery feel of the movement, but my posts here probably aren't really going to reflect that feel in their "fluff" all that much. My game style is more old-school than new-school, but it's not truely old-school because I'm a 2e player and DM at heart. (Please don't shoot me!)
Still, I hope that my bits and snips appeal to someone out there -- and hey, fluff can be changed. Rules can be tweaked. That's the whole point, isn't it? ;3
Luckily for me I suppose, I really don't mind most editions of (A)D&D. I'm loving the retro phenomenon, and happily snap up servings of 0e, 1e, 2e, Basic, BEMCI ... I've been spending time reading old-school blogs here and there, and picking things up at Dragonsfoot by reading the forums. My 2e books see plenty of love, and I've kept a good pile of 3e because I like to borrow ideas from them. I've happily chewed over Labyrinth Lord, Swords and Wizardry, OSRIC ... and on and on. I like it all.
I don't want to say this is an old-school blog, because it really isn't by the definitions currently being used by the retro, old-school movement. I came late to D&D, and late-ish to 2e (in the early-to-mid ninties) at that. I like the pulpish swords-and-sorcery feel of the movement, but my posts here probably aren't really going to reflect that feel in their "fluff" all that much. My game style is more old-school than new-school, but it's not truely old-school because I'm a 2e player and DM at heart. (Please don't shoot me!)
Still, I hope that my bits and snips appeal to someone out there -- and hey, fluff can be changed. Rules can be tweaked. That's the whole point, isn't it? ;3
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