Old School Principles

[DexterWard]

Old School Principles for Players

Learn When to Run

Old school adventures often present deadly encounters that, to the eye of a modern gamer, may seem like you’re expected to beat them. Learn to dig into the fiction to see the relative power of what you’re facing, and don’t be afraid to cut your loses. A party that drags away one dead body is a party on their way to a Cleric, instead of on their way through a monster’s digestive system. (L)

Combat as War, Not Sport

Don’t expect encounters to be “balanced.” Approach combat with as much trepidation as you would in real life. Nor are encounters self-contained. Think outside the box, outside the encounter area, outside the dungeon. Think like Sun Tzu. Think laterally or die. (P)

Don’t be Limited by Your Character Sheet

Rules and mechanics are only triggered by what happens as established in the conventional fiction of play. To do something, describe your character doing it; if you need to roll dice, the GM will let you know. (P)

When presented with a problem, don’t expect to “use” your character’s skills or abilities on it; investigate it by asking the GM questions and describing what your character tries. (P)

Don’t worry much about low stats, or roleplaying to match them. If they’re low, it just means you’ll have to be clever, gather information, and plan ahead to avoid dangerous rolls! Or forge ahead, foolhardy, and look forward to rolling up a new character. Just try not to drag the rest of your party down with you; it’s only polite. (P)

Live Your Backstory

Don’t put much work into a backstory for your characters. Their experiences in play will be more real to you and your friends than anything you write. An early death won’t sting quite as much, and a survivor will have real tales to tell, and experience to take pride in. (P)

Power Is Earned, Heroism Proven

Unlike many modern RPG’s, your character starts with little power. Your meager means and abilities at first level encourage lateral thinking to get you out of trouble. Rising to a challenge (or fleeing it) means more when their life is on the line. (P)

Likewise, if you wish to play a true hero, don’t expect anyone to salute you when you first ride into town. Prove your heroism through your character’s actions. (P)

Scrutinize the World, Interrogate the Fiction

Discard any assumptions about other fantasy worlds, and be curious about the one you’re playing in. Pay attention to details – about characters, the environment, social situations, and more. Take notes on them! Make maps of them! Information is leverage, my crafty friend. Those details can save your life. (L)

If you were in a room with a heavy vase in one corner, and you wanted to know what was behind it, what would you do? Probably drag it to the side, right? Looking for an air current? Lick a finger and hold it up. Judging the slope of a floor? Spill a little water on the ground. Engage the fiction of the game world as real. Describe the real actions you take to achieve the effect you’re looking for. Remember, other games may have dice rolls to do this for you – many old school games don’t, so engage. (L)

The Only Dead End Is Death

That dead-end hallway may hide a secret door, or maybe there’s another passage to investigate. The gargantuan monstrosity in the courtyard? Maybe you can get around it, or negotiate. A recalcitrant noble? Maybe someone knows how to get some leverage. Couldn’t pick that iron door? Maybe one of those unidentified potions will help. Old School games have lots of hard blockers. When your first attempt fails, change tactic – the dead end is just the beginning of your solution. Often, digging into the fiction and engaging the world as real will open up new and unexpected avenues. (L)

Play to Win, Savor Loss

Everyone wants to succeed, and certainly everyone wants to play with friends they feel are aiming to succeed – but that may not always happen. Your characters may get turned into frog-people, lose limbs, be stricken by leprosy, turned into stone, cursed to burp up slugs, entombed in the earth for 10,000 years, or just die from being stabbed in the gut by a farmer with a pitchfork. Learn to love the disgusting, horrifying, shocking, surprising, and even disappointing ways your characters are set back. (L)

And remember, through play, a story emerges larger that any one character. You will make your mark on the world, be it an unknowingly misleading arrow scratched into a dungeon wall, or a crater where a city once stood. (P)

(M) Ben Milton
(L) Steven Lumpkin
(P) David Perry

(Source)

[DexterWard]

Four Zen Moments (Matthew J. Finch – A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming)

1. Rulings, not Rules: You don’t use a rule, the GM makes a ruling. The player can describe any action, without looking at a character sheet to see if they “can.” The GM uses common sense to decide what happens or rolls a die if they think there’s some random element involved.
2. Player Skill, not Character Abilities: There is no Spot Check, Bluff Check, no Sense Motive Check. The Player tells the GM the What’s, Why’s, and How’s. They describe how they are doing these things. The Player decides if the NPC is lying or telling the truth, all things considered.
3. Heroic, not Superhero: Old-style games have a human-sized scale, not a super-powered scale. At first level adventurers are barely more capable than a regular person. They live by their wits. Characters don’t become Superman; they become Batman. They don’t start as Batman – Batman is the pinnacle.
4. Forget “Game Balance”: 0e is not a “game setting” which somehow always produces challenges of just the right difficulty for the party’s level of experience.

0e Considerations…

1. Creativity is more powerful.
2. You can "do more" with fewer rules/restirctions.
3. Character development is happening, rather than in your backstory.
4. The players should engage with the fantasy as much as possible, and have the referee arbitrate the outcomes of their specific actions in real time.
5. The idea of game balance is also de-emphasized in favor of a system which tests players skill and ingenuity in often strange or unfair situations.
6. The players should expect to lose if they merely pit their numbers against the monsters, and should instead attempt to outwit or outmaneuver challenges placed in their way.
7. Most of the time in old-style gaming, you don’t use a rule; you make a ruling.
8. Getting through obstacles is more “hands-on”
9. Players use observation and description as their tools and resources
10. Old-style play is about keeping your character alive and making him into a legend.
11. The player’s skill is the character’s guardian angel
12. Don’t hold back on your skill as a player just because the character has a low intelligence. Role-playing is part of the game, but it’s not a suicide pact with your character.
13. A player can describe and attempt virtually anything they can think of. They don’t need to have any sort of game-defined ability to do it. They can try to slide on the ground between opponents, swing from a chandelier and chop at a distant foe, taunt an opponent into running over a pit trap … whatever they want to try. That doesn’t of course mean that they’ll succeed.
14. Without spot checks and automatic information gathering rolls, players don’t have a way to generate solutions by rolling dice and checking their character sheets. They have to think. That’s how player skill comes into the game.
15. Don't think about Rules. There are no set skills. Character pathology dictates most things. Can your character's traits/pathology/actions meet or exceed a suspension of disbelief test within the confines of this campaign?

Tips for Players…

1. View the entire area you’ve mapped out as the battleground; don’t plan on taking on monsters in a single room. They may try to outflank you by running down corridors. Establish rendezvous points where the party can fall back to a secure defensive position.
2. Scout ahead, and try to avoid wandering monsters which don’t carry much treasure. You’re in the dungeon to find the treasure-rich lairs. Trying to kill every monster you meet will weaken the party before you find the rich monsters.
3. Don’t assume you can defeat any monster you encounter.
4. Keep some sort of map, even if it’s just a flow chart. If you get lost, you can end up in real trouble – especially in a dungeon where wandering monster rolls are made frequently.
5. Ask lots of questions about what you see. Look up. Ask about unusual stonework. Test floors before stepping.
6. Protect the magic-user. He’s your nuke.
7. Hire some cannon fodder. Don’t let the cannon fodder start to view you as a weak source of treasure.
8. Spears can usually reach past your first rank of fighters, so a phalanx of hirelings works well.
9. Check in with the grizzled one-armed guy in the tavern before each foray; he may have suddenly remembered more details about the area.