What is "Old School" anyway?

The Old School or OSR movement started around the time when 3rd Edition arrived and has continued strongly since. This has led to a lot of discussions and articles bout exactly what "old school" flavor is, and what (aside from the nostalgia factor and it being unique at the time) made 1st Edition so appealing. Whatever edition or offshoot you prefer to play, the fact that 1st Edition took root so strongly helped make it possible.

So what exactly is "Old School" tone? What makes a newer game "Old School"? I often see posters or companies barking up what I consider the wrong tree and calling it Old School, but the subject is very subjective to be sure.

I've opined at length over the differences between 1st and later editions, and what I like and dislike about the various editions. At times this discussion threatens to veer into some similar territory—so in those instances I'll try to keep to the point and not repeat myself.

In my opinion, "old school" is defined by a few principles:

1. DM caveat
The DM is boss. That doesn't mean unfair or boss-y, but the DM does call the shots. If a rule needs to be made, the DM lays it down with a minimum of page flipping. Player info is kept to a reasonable minimum. For example: players don't have magic item wish lists, instead they find unusual items, determine if they are magical, and figure out their properties.

Likewise, DMs are expected to carry their weight. Modules provide an adventure framework or skeleton and some details, but the DM must fill in the rest. The DM expects that the DMG will have a lot of good suggestions and examples, but that they will have to make up a lot of house rules to fill in the blanks.

2. Encounters need not be balanced.
Some encounters are easy. Some are not. Some require running. Players should have no expectation that all encounters are CR-approved. This doesn't mean the DM has license to kill off players willy-nilly—I've had passionate arguments with fellow DMs because of my dislike of that DM-vs-Player mentality that some DMs wear like a badge of honor (although I acknowledge that Gygax himself advocated that attitude at times). Playing "Old School" means is there is no safety net, and the players know this. If their DM is fair, they trust her not to drop them into no-win situations, but they also understand that dumb decisions—like not turning tail when faced with overwhelming odds—could mean destruction.

A good example of this came up in my 4e campaign, which I try to run with a more Old School feel. The PCs—3rd level at the time—were visited by a beholder. (Well, two actually.) Clearly presented with a much stronger enemy, the PCs stood down, except for a strong-willing minotaur that, well played, refused to lower his weapon. This meant consequences, yet it was not right for me as DM to punish the player for playing his PC true to form. And he didn't attack or do anything that stupidly put the party in peril. The player took just the right approach. So the beholder fired a warning shot, knocking the minotaur to the ground essentially unharmed except for his pride. (The minotaur then left his weapon on the ground, which was wise, as the next "disarming" would have probably taken the his arm off at the shoulder...)

3. Rules-light play
There isn't a rule for everything. As mentioned previously, the DM often must "wing it" and the players trust their DM to treat similar new situations in a consistent manner.

4. PCs can die. PCs can also be replaced.
Old School play can be far more dangerous (see #2 above). Save or die situations are expected. Living to reach 10th level isn't a given, but instead celebrated when it occurs. But if a should PC die, a new one can be created quickly. Which leads us to...

5. Fast character creation
PC options are limited and the character creation process for a 1st-level character should take less than 30 minutes and not require any specialized programs or spreadsheets. In fact, a calculator shouldn't be needed.


6. Hybrid characters and critters are rare
Multiclassing is a rarity and often not advantageous. Most PCs are single-classed. Likewise, there aren't many "leveled-up" or "classed" monsters, though they may have raised stats or use special items. Thinking on it, the Drow were one of the only races that seemed to display a lot of multi-classing in the old days. Pre-made multi-classed PCs did appear in many venerable modules, including the Tomb of Horrors, but they never came to the forefront (in 1e a 5th/5th magic-user/fighter facing off against either a 10th-level fighter or 10th-level mage could expect to be pulverized in a fair fight).

Likewise, players should embrace the personality of their character. In the old days, a player would hand a new character sheet to the Dm and say, "Here my new PC, Durlo" or perhaps "my new dwarf warrior Durlo" but now I often hear "I'm making a firedancer/ranger combo!" In latter editions, many players have come to think of their characters are bundles of skills & powers with a personality sheen, rather like bundles of cordwood tied with twine.

7. Randomness can be good.
Random tables for players and DMs ruled. Wandering monsters, baby! Everybody likes to roll dice and see the result on a chart, and the rules encouraged it. Having to create a high-level encounter on the fly because of a WM roll kept DMs sharp.

8. Narrative over checks
Want to search a room? Tell me exactly where you are looking, what you are touching (pin trap!), etc. None of this "take 10" or passive Perception check stuff. Old School is about a reliance on player description of actions and player-to-DM interaction, not skill checks.

9. Turn on the charm (and toss in some illusion too)
Charmed servitors and PCs enthralled by monsters was key. Charm spells could play a big role in encounters, as could illusion. An elf being charm-resistant actually meant something in the old days.

10. Off the grid
Forget that map of 5-foot squares. No sliding or pushing. Instead of moving with the precision of chess pieces, things are more loose and often subject to the DM's judgement. Scale is probably 10 feet to the square. A rough graph paper map (often wildly inaccurate) might serve for the session, and the minis may not be used every fight. On the good side, you'll be on the receiving end of far less of those pesky attacks of opportunity.

Of course, in the end, Old School is what you make of it. It's a style of play or adventure writing that brings to mind the elements that you wax nostalgic about and make you feel less jaded. And we could all use that from time to time.

Conquest in a Box 2

Okay, I can now give a play report of Conquest of Nerath, having tried it firsthand.

Play was much as I expected, with a few surprises.
–Dungeons are hard to take. Venturing into one with a single hero is a risky proposition; I found it much safer to cross the threshold with two, preferably wizards because of their first strike capability. (As in MAGIC, First Strike is pretty powerful in this game.)
–Dragons, as expected, are fierce opponents, but (unless I'm missing something) using a dragon to attack an area with a single enemy counter is an instant win because of the dragon's toughness.

So how did the actual game go, you ask? Pretty good. I got the Iron Circle (goblins), in random draw, which are very balanced and would have been my first choice. Play was very even until a mistake by the Elf player opened up his flank to his nearest neighbor ... then it was quickly over.

I only have two criticisms:

1) Play seems a bit simple.
Somehow RISK 2210 seems to have more varied ways to win, Despite the racial differences and card differences, our gameplay was very similar. There were also many repeat cards. Larger card decks with more variety would have been welcome.

2) What I affectionately call Four Corner Syndrome.
Certain games, such as Nerath or Age of Mythology, make it easier to attack those players sitting on either side of you. In our game the Elf player made an all-out attack early on that failed badly, and he lost many troops. The result was a wide open field for the Karkoth player. because the medium-length game rewards taking undefended spaces the same as defended spaces, the Karkoth player just plowed through miles of near-empty territory and won the game. I was doing fine on the other side of the board, and army for army I'm confident I could have beaten the Dark Empire in a head-on conflict, but because I was all the way across the board I didn't have time to prevent his victory. This left a our taste in my mouth, which had nothing to do with sour grapes. I played well, and I'd play that way largely again, yet I lost.
There are probably similar situations in RISK 2210, yet that game only rewards taking opposed countries, and I think that's the important difference. If Nerath only rewarded taking occupied enemy areas, it would make for a fairer (albeit longer) game.

I also found myself wishing that heroes could "level up" in some fashion, like the leaders in Shogun/Samurai Swords. Winning a certain number of battles and/or surviving a dungeon should count toward a slow leader progression of some sort.

Overall, Conquest of Nerath is a solid game and I'd recommend it, giving it a B+ score. If you like RISK and similar "men on the board games" you will like Nerath,

Conquest in a Box

Wizards of the Coast has really been churning out the board games recently, and most of them have been pretty good. The Castle Ravenloft series does a good job of bridging the boardgame-to-RPG gap (something that's in Wizards' interest from a marketing perspective, to be sure) but Conquest of Nerath is a different animal entirely.

I love "men on the board" games. Love 'em. Although I write RPG supplements and such, my primary love has always been board games. I was raised on all the classics, and later in the 1990s I discovered Eurogames and things wweren't really the same after that. Setters of Catan, Carcassonne, and Puerto Rico—I think of them as the big trio—taught me to view board games in a whole new way.

But even so, I delight in board games of conquest (no pun intended) and Milton Bradley's Gamemaster series was great. I was raised on RISK after all, and enjoyed it for all its faults. I found an unopened Samurai Swords (a Shogun reprint) on ebay for about $30 about 10 years ago and nearly thought I'd gone to heaven. Although much of my time is spent punching cardboard after opening the latest Fantasy Flight release (do they own a cardboard factory?) I still long for new "men-on-the-board" games. My holy grail is to find something to replace some of my "flawed" favorites:

Axis & Allies - too bloody complicated

Godstorm RISK - nice but too luck and card driven

RISK 2210 - a modern classic, but strategies become repetitive

These games are about enjoying some controlled aggression with friends. No cooperative stuff here! Players will win and other players will lose. Alliances are fickle and fleeting. And the game will take most of your evening. But strategically and emotionally, they ask the most from me and deliver the best pay-off.

Conquest of Nerath looks to be a good, middle-weight fantasy "men-on-the-board" affair. I say looks to be, because I haven't played it yet, but I've got enough board game experience under my belt that I feel I can give a decent preview.

The game cost me a hefty $80 (I frequent brick and mortar stores when possible), but production is nice. Lots of minis? Check. Gorgeous board? Check. The minis have the added benefit of being, in part, different for each player. Every player get a different dragon mold, etc., which is awesome. (The minis are closer to 15 mm scale, so they can't really serve double duty as D&D minis.) The rule book is also nicely laid out and furnished with illustrations. Rulebooks can look nice and still be confusing—the Fantasy Flight rule books fit squarely into this category I feel—but it's clear here that WotC put care into the instructions.

The game itself pits four fantasy races against each other: undead, elves, goblins, and humans. In a particularly nice touch, each race feels different. Some races start with better board positions and/or greater initial forces, whereas other forces, such as Nerath, start weak but can call in powerful reinforcements via card play. Playing this game will be different every time if you choose different races.

Gameplay looks to be right down the middle, complexity-wise. More complex than the original RISK but less than, say, Axis & Allies. Basic play involves expansion of armies into adjacent areas, but other factors come into play. Dungeons, spread across the board and lovingly named after classic D&D dungeons of legend, can be raided for magic items that grant the player benefits. A player can choose which troops to buy. Dragon or ship? Monster or heroes? Like the latter RISK variants, aggressive play is encouraged and rewarded here—no sitting back and reinforcing Australia for 5 turns in this game. Initial, non-random army placement also guarantees that you begin with at least one enemy right in your backyard, so battles will come sooner rather than later.

I'm looking forward to this one. Stay tuned for a post-play account soon!

Back From a Break

Sorry I was absent for a bit. Life's little responsibilities have a way of intruding, and between career and family duties, gaming (and game blogging) must sometimes unavoidably take a backseat.

I recall reading E. Gary Gygax's "excuse" for not finishing the Temple of Elemental Evil, something along the lines of "running the mundane matters of the company [TSR] doesn't always allow a lot of time for the fun chores of module [substitute adventure there, youngsters] writing," or some such. My reaction: "Bah! Get back into your office and finish that sucker!" And we all know how long we waited for T1-4 to arrive. (So I guess I'm gulty in similar fashion, though this is not to say this blog is something folks wait for with similarly baited breath!)

In 2012 I'll be restarting, or warming back to life, a 4e campaign I was running some months ago. Our group rotates DMs, so things run for a limited time to allow the next guy a chance. Now it been quite a few months, so I'm eager to light a fire under the players (and their characters, figuratively at least). I've taken the opportunity to allow them to make a few tweaks to their powers and such.

So how do you handle such campaign breaks? Do things (re)start exactly where you left off? You you provide an informational recap or leave your players to go it alone?

As time moves on, I've mellowed about these things. My goal is to have fun and for my players to have a great ride. If recapping things or reminding them of past clues helps keep the group on track, I personally see nothing wrong with that. I've also gone soft on new character introduction. If a PC dies, I try to allow the replacement character to appear fairly quickly—perhaps not mid-dungeon, but soon—none of that journey to the next city and meet them in a tavern business. I'm getting older, and my players are in their 30s and 40s and 50s, and most barely can fit in a monthly session. We really don't have the time to waste half a session on the obligatory and predictable introductions. I'd rather just say let them meet the new character on the road (perhaps during a battle, such as a classic goblins attack the caravan set piece) and let the players decide the connections. For me, it works better and saves precious play time, but I realize for many DMs this would be heresy. How do you treat such matters of new character introduction?

In any case, it's good to be back. I hope all are enjoying the holidays, and I'll try to post more often going into 2012! Thanks for sticking with me.

Seasonal Change

There's something about August ending that gets me thinking about Autumn. I guess that's normal. Perhaps it's the rain, or the cool wind I feel in the late afternoons, or the fact that it's getting darker earlier here in the U.S. I think it's also the knowledge that once October 1st arrives, the space between the beginning of my favorite month and December will fly by. Whatever the reason, with a mixture of expectation and melancholy I look to the coming seasonal change.

Do you "play" in the different seasons as GM? Do the seasons change in your campaign world?

I've rarely had a campaign run long enough to track the change of several seasons, and of course seasons might vary in a fantasy world (winter in Athas, anyone?). But I definitely find running temperate zone adventuring a bit boring, and I think it wrong that a party might have travel way up north just to see a little snow. (Perhaps that's my real-life location speaking to me—living in the northeast USA, I typically see temperatures ranging from 20 to 100 degrees F, and snow is hardly uncommon during the span from December through March.) I rather like the weather-related variety, myself.

About a year ago I began a new 4e campaign (you can read Ken's wonderful synopsis starting here) and I vowed to make it a little different. The initial session, I steered the party toward the beach and sand, and had them playing in the surf with huge crabs, all in an attempt to get away from the typical wooded hills. The attempt was semi-successful, but as the campaign continues (hopefully for a while) the group will voyage across the sea, visit the desert and a Cairo-style city, and explore southern jungles.

Sometimes a little seasonal change can be enough to make that standard campaign just a bit different. So the next time your group sets out looking for that long-lost tomb or crumbling keep, have them encounter some fresh-fallen snow, some driving hail, or perhaps a thick morning fog (all preferably combined with a dangerous encounter)—both you and your group may find it a refreshing change of pace.

Free RPG Day - Did you go?

Ah yes, Free RPG Day. So ... did you go this year?

There were lots of good freebies to be had this year, including Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG Adventure Starter, Paizo's We Be Goblins module (curse ye Pett, you've done it again!), the usual nice offering from Wizards of the Coast, and much more.

I'm fully in support of Free RPG Day. So-called brick and mortar stores are disappearing at a frightening rate. Case in point, I headed over Cedar Grove, NJ the other day for a sit down lunch with frequent co-conspirator and kick-ass RPG author Mike Ferguson. The Cedar Grove area was home to two cool stores within arms throw of each other—Time Warp Comics & Games and New Moon Comics. Did the use of the word was there serve as a tip-off?

I've developed a comfortable rhythm on my infrequent visits: stop at Time Warp, grab some pizza next door and talk about upcoming RPG projects (many a published project has been thrashed out there over a slice), and then ride down Rt. 23 a mile or so to New Moon. Alas, no more. We pulled up the the former location of New Moon to find an empty storefront, blank sign, and vacant lot. Yikes, how I hate when that happens. A quick Web search revealed the unsurprising culprit—the dreaded down economy. Now I should note that New Moon continues on as an online entity (link above) and I heartily encourage you to shop there. The owner is a first-rate fellow and the staff was always very nice. I intend to give them my continued business. But I shall miss the storefront greatly.

Online shopping is great. I have a family now, and gamestore runs frankly are harder to plan than in the past. But there is something wonderful about picking up the latest boardgame, turning the box to read the back, and getting the heft of the game. Likewise, flipping through a new RPG book and seeing the art, glancing at the maps, and instantly understanding the length of the work tells me more and is more enjoyable than the best online preview. It's a part of my shopping experience, and an important ritual.

So resist the temptation (I'm guilty sometimes too) to shop online or via ebay, when possible visit your friendly local game store, and spend a few bucks. Not just on Free RPG Day (definitely go then!) but whenever you can. They'll thank you and you'll benefit the hobby as a whole.

Cthulhu Dreams

It's a wrap—Age of Cthulhu 5: The Long Reach of Evil is due in stores in about a month.

This book was a particularly enjoyable one to work on, in no small part because of my co-authors—my very skilled sometimes- co-conspirator Mike Ferguson and the fearsomely talented Richard Pett. The compilation offers a nice blend of pulpy Cthulhu adventures set in foreign locations: the Amazon (Ferguson), Sumatra (Pett), and Tibet (my bit).

Tibet was my first choice for location, and an interesting one it was. Even today, travelers to Tibet find a region steeped in unusual history, sometime-curious beliefs (at least to Westerners), and mystery. I suggest that anyone seeking inspiration for Tibetan adventure seek out the writings of Alexandra David-Peel in particular, as there's much to feed the imagination there.

My goal in this adventure was to cut the characters off from civilization, and to create a setting devoid of the usual comforts. In the middle of Tibet in the 1920s there were no phones, no modern transportation, no police, and no relatives or ready help of any kind (except that found in the location populace). I thought this fit both the investigative nature of the game (quiet investigation over seeking aid from the authorities) as well as the pulpy tone of this adventure line (when do Indiana Jones type adventurers going running to the cops?). And if some nameless horror slaughtered you in the wilds of Tibet, it might be a long time before anyone realized what happened to you...

The movie Hostel wasn't the greatest thing put on film by a long shot, but I do think the movie conveyed that fear of being in a foreign place away from the familiar. Touristas and a few other films that followed likewise tapped into this. When in other country you place by their rules, and sometimes that can be downright frightening.And we can of course find fear of unknown lands within in the bounds of our own country, as seen in Deliverance or The Blair Witch Project.

Lovecraft of course touched on this fear of unknown lands himself—unusual towns (Shadow over Innsmouth coming to mind first there), remote locations (Colour Out of Space or Whisperer in Darkness), foreign countries, Arctic desolation (At the Mountains of Madness), and even deep underwater environments (The Temple). Decades later, authors continue to combine unusual/remote locations with the supernatural/mysterious, such as Michael Crichton's Sphere or Preston & Child's Thunderhead. It's a most effective combination.

So if you run The Long Reach of Evil for your group, do treat them to a bit of sinister culture shock, Call of Cthulhu-style, before you allow the revolvers to be pulled from their holsters.