The primer is wrapped in nostalgic bias, it bashes other styles IMO, and that is what I am opposed to. I don’t endorse it, and if you do so be it. If it disgusts me then it disgusts me. YMMV.

The article may say “old-style” but it includes in that category recent games that are of the same style as OD&D – requiring more arbitration on the referee’s part.

I read it some months back and it has some great points. I took those away from it and forgave it any pro-rules-light bias it may have. After all I can play what I want and a PDF isn’t going to stop me.

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As for your argument about rule book size, it is true that older games had less-professional printing standards and less art. Honestly I’d rather have less art. I don’t need a half-page weredragon “swagger portrait” every three pages. I want narrower margins and efficient type. I want rules that I can easily learn so I don’t have to flip through the book all day. If I can find that with a complete rule-set of 210 pages (D&D rules cyclopedia), or 832 pages (4E) or 876 pages (pathfinder: 576 core, 320 bestiary), or 960 (3.5 D&D: 320 PHB, 320 DMG, 320 MM) … I can honestly say I like the idea of one-quarter the page count.

The RC is just as wasteful of space with art and typesetting as the later D&D games. So your argument that the above games are so bulky as a trade-off of looking better doesn’t really fly.

“Yet I look at modern games that don’t push edition after edition out the door, and some older games that do and the whole new vs. old argument crumbles for me. D&D pushes edition after edition out the door. So does GURPS. White Wolf with a far shorter history does the same. Are they old school, new school, or just businesses trying to sell you their latest products? My bet is on the businesses”

I agree, they are in business and are trying to make money doing something they love. But again, this makes my point. Gurps, Tunnels and Trolls, Traveller, and White Wolf’s new edition together did not create a Backlash effect, despite the fact that you and I both have mentioned their ‘pumping out’ new editions.
Because they are fundamentally games in the same spirit/mentality of their original versions, aimed at the same audience.

My assertation is that the evolution of the D&D rules, for better or for worse, have created a reaction that some people view as an Old-School movement. The reason for this reaction vs. other game system upgrades is simply that the newer versions have very different focus and are obviously aimed at a different audience and playstyle than the oldest variations. Not better or worse, no value judgement. I agree and stated that there have been rules-heavy and rules-light in all phases of RPGs. That is a smokescreen.

There are corrollary issues involved, but simply put, the old vs. new issue has a very simple litmus test. Most new generational systems cause some friction and adjustment, and people choose between them, but they don’t provoke whole supposed movements that fill up thread after thread on blog after blog, whether these new systems were put out to make money or not.

You don’t have a reaction without reactants. And there is a reaction in this particular pot.

a) The cost of publishing dropped, and keeps dropping. Before you didn’t release a new version of the rules as often because of the expense involved. Now you can do so when you believe the market wants a new edition.

b) There are more publishers, and you need to constantly reinvent yourself to compete.

Neither of these indicate a new/old school movement of any sort. They are business decisions. TSR made some bad ones, WotC has been making some good ones, and there is plethora of other examples between the first RPG publisher and the current reigning champ.

Yet I look at modern games that don’t push edition after edition out the door, and some older games that do and the whole new vs. old argument crumbles for me. D&D pushes edition after edition out the door. So does GURPS. White Wolf with a far shorter history does the same. Are they old school, new school, or just businesses trying to sell you their latest products? My bet is on the businesses.

They were complex supplement pushing games in the beginning years of RPGs, and there are rules light systems available today. Why? Because there have always been gamers into crunch, rules, and lots of materials, and there have always been gamers into streamlined play, subjective approaches, and a mere 32 page rulebook. Two breeds born of the same beginning. Nothing more.

“Its amazing how for the last 20 some years rules light systems that required heavy GM input have been avialble and now all of the sudden people wnat a return to that style. It never left. And rules heavy systems? They were there during the “old school” days too, and they also never left.”

And you have hit the crux of the “Old School Movement”.
It has as much to do with reaction as action. It is a response as much as it is a movement. There is no “Old School Movement”. There is a “New School Reaction”.

The other games you mention (all of which I played, including the Bunnies and Burrows) don’t have the desperately fanatical, serious following nor the continual editions pumped out to create ‘the reaction’.
I am of the contention that D&D got further away from one style of play and created rules that facilitated a different play style. No judgement needed.

There is no “Old School Movement”. There is a migratory reaction to a “New School” as it is very different from what some people have played ansd still want to play.

I’m not a huge fan of 4e. It is what it is. Yet there are two things about the “old school” movement that annoys me:

1) Seems to apply only to D&D. Forget Tunnels & Trolls (1 or 2 years after D&D’s release, and it had less rules), RuneQuest, Bunnies & Burrows, Top Secret, Villains & Vigilantes, etc. Those systems were released within five years or so of D&D. They all were “old school” and they all introduced improvements to RPGs. Yet the “old school” arguments seem to focus on 1e vs. 3.5/4e. Those of us who skipped 3-3.5e and played games outside the realm of D&D hear this “old school” movement hype and think “What? Plenty of games have been doing that since D&D was first released. Haven’t these people been playing anything besides D&D?”

2) 1st edition is like the Model A Ford. It changed everything. Ford still had to introduce the Model T to really see huge success, and no one that I know of would want a Model A today when you can buy the cheapest new car on the market and have a lifetime of technological improvements immediately available to you.

I’m not saying that people shouldn’t play 1e. If you liek 1e play it. I’m not saying that RPGs haven’t changed since the original D&D rules were released. Their have been improvements and mistakes.

All I’m saying is that this supposed “old school” doesn’t exist. I will concede that it does exist only if you play D&D exclusively.

But someone who plays D&D exclusively preaching the merits of “old school” gaming to other gamers is like a person who has never been outside of their home nation telling international travelers about how the rest of the world works. Perhaps that person is correct, it is possible, but I doubt that person will actually have insight beyond that of the audience to which he speaks.

Its amazing how for the last 20 some years rules light systems that required heavy GM input have been avialble and now all of the sudden people wnat a return to that style. It never left. And rules heavy systems? They were there during the “od school” days too, and they also never left.

@Kurt “Telas” Schneider – Excellent real world example! Savage Worlds is a “modern old school” game I guess.

Expectations and culture in gaming are totally different now from what they were in the late 70’s. As are system design standards. The purpose of the ‘primer’ is to assert a positive identity for the style of gaming that existed before the fragmentation of AD&D 2e, and (not) incidentally Gygax’s departure from TSR. Hagiography and fetishism without question, polemical hyperbole yes, defensive kneejerk nostalgia of course. But even if Finch’s characterization of ‘you whippersnappers’ doesn’t cover EVERY ASPECT OF EVERY SINGLE PLAYER EVERYWHERE, EVER, that’s not the purpose. Reading it for academic completeness is poor practice.

Careful you don’t conflate the chronological category of ‘old-school’ gaming, i.e. what happened in 1974-198x, with the stylistic category/goal of ‘playing as they did back then.’ Yes, the term is overburdened with assumptions about the ‘true nature’ of D&D (I find wandering monster tables stupid and childish – a good DM can build an encounter that’s ‘random’ and interesting all at once, and fuck the ‘old-school’ mantra of ‘randomness breeds creativity’). But it’s clear that there’s a single model in mind among the crotchety old men:

* thin rules
* pulp aesthetics
* heavy randomness
* DIY culture – heavy system modding, not just world modding
* minimal written resources rather than big expensive core books – necessitating improvisation at every level of system design/modification
* rudimentary (combat) mechanics

These constraints suggest a play style that’s ruling-heavy and rules-lite, narrative-lite, and big on houserules and ad hoc subsystems. And, of course, relentlessly fucking juvenile in tone and preoccupation.

As for ‘old school is a moving target,’ unless you simultaneously live in the years 2029 and 2009, that’s meaningless – right now, among D&D players, the term refers to pretty much one cluster of things.

Look, I think 4e’s a great system and – crucially – I think you can play in an ‘old-school’ style with 4e rules. It’s well-designed and thin where it needs to be (not thin enough in some places, too much so in others). Best combat system in any D&D edition. But the gaming culture is totally different now, because of video games primarily. That seems obvious to me, and so the purpose of the term ‘old school’ in this particular topical domain seems equally obvious.

@waxbanks – Sorry, but I disagree. The term “old school” applied to anything is bullshit.

For one it is a moving target. 20 years form now what will be considered old school? No one can say, because the term relies so much on what is available in the present in order to make a comparison against what came before it.

Second I have played 1e with gamers who have started playing RPGs when 1e first came out. They are technically “old school” gamers. Members of the first generation to play RPGs ever. And they consider the term bullshit. They read the primer and told me “He’s wrong. Plenty of younger gamers run their games this way without ever having played 1e and with no coaching from older gamers.” I’m sure you are a smart and trustworthy person, but how can I deny these statements from people who I have met in the flesh?

I agree that the principles behind the GMing techniques that the primer endorse are good ones. I use them myself. Yet I am 34 years old, so even though I can’t be “old school” because I wasn’t even born when D&D first came out what does that say about this whole chronological argument? I run modern games using the style this primer describes without being “old school” due to age. How is that possible? Simple, there is no “old school”.

Next week I’ll attack the term “indie” gamer…

That’s about professionalization, disciplinary boundaries, and so forth. Ho hum.

I roll my eyes every time I read about “old school World of Darkness”, or how 4E isn’t worthy because it isn’t “old school” D&D. When did dis-ing things for being new and different become a favorite pasttime in a hobby that’s all about daydreaming? Just do your game your way, and let other groups enjoy their own styles.

Remember, the ‘old school’ guys are all about the implied gaming-group customizations attendant on half-written rules like OD&D. The idea was, you bought a toolkit for building a rules-based fantasy world unique to your group, and played in a style that wasn’t necessarily common to all such groups. AD&D was TSR/Gygax’s claim to ‘canonical’ rules status – its kitchen-sink approach reflects ongoing conversations about how exactly fantasy gaming should be done ‘right.’

Gaming cultures really were different back then – and nostalgia for that naive/innocent DIY hobbyist culture is a big part of the ‘old school movement.’ Hence the outpouring of love for the couple of 0e/1e/retro-clone ‘zines that have sprung up, Fight On! and Knockspell – which offer opportunities to connect idiosyncratic miniworlds consisting of a handful of gamers apiece.

3e/4e gamers, and even the 2e kids, wouldn’t understand what that’s like, as TSR/WotC’s corporate identities codified practices that were in flux between the mid-70’s and mid-80’s.

I’m also with you on FUDGE. I’ve used it more for inspiration than anything over the years, but my wife and I were there when the author debuted it at GenCon, and he loved the way we “got” what he was trying to do. We even went on to do a bit of writing for the publisher. )