A thread on Reddit sparked a bit of thought. One of the folks offered up three things they thought underpinned the OSR. Now, I’m not exactly an OSR gamer. I hang out in the OSR because that’s the closest organized (!?) community to my preference for old school, classic style play. My thoughts, then, wandered off in the direction of what the fundamentals of old school play are that I observe.
The first point offered up was about the rules. I agree that the rules for a system are important in providing an old school feel. One distinction I recall discussing decades ago was the difference between task resolution and conflict resolution in mechanics, for example. These days, it would also be fair to say that genre-emulation isn’t built into resolution systems, nor are narrative concerns built in.
The OG approach is to focus on resolving tasks without regard to any narrative concerns about conflict or storyline. One example of the difference involved the PCs cracking open a safe or treasure chest in one location, looking for a unique item. An old school approach would have the presence or absence of the item completely divorced from the task of opening the cache. That was contrasted to the conflict- or narrative-resolution system where the success of the PCs in opening the cache meant that the item was there, because the nature of the check was about that specific item instead of just opening a complex lock.
Old school rules present a fundamental simulation of a world/setting. At their core, the rules all work to provide a sense of a consistent setting, with changes in expectations — magic, anyone? — made explicit and players assumed to be using their understanding of real world cause & effect for anything not explicitly laid out as violating those expectations. In a real world scenario, players could only expect the McGuffin to be in the cache if they knew for certain it was there; if they only suspected it could be there, they understand it might not be if they succeed in opening it.
The rules work to ground the characters and everything they do in a consistent world, with boundaries around capabilities. The system explains what PCs can do with relative certainty so the players can understand what their PCs can reasonably do and what they reasonably can’t. Descriptions of skills and abilities are thus as important for settings limits as for describing abilities. Rules that offer no such structure to abilities offer no reliable simulation of any game reality for the players to rely on, as one can never understand what a PC can reasonably do while using an ability.
Old school rules also work to ground PCs in specific roles in the setting. Fighters in D&D, while able to present in many different fashions, all share a world-based role as soldiers, guards, and warriors who serve nobles or civic authorities or wealthy employers. The further rules systems get away from reasonable roles for characters, the less of the old school flavor those rules have. The more specialized a fighting character gets and the more non-fighting ability gets added, the less credibility it has as part of a reasonable world. As classes of character are reflective of archetypes, the further from the archetype one wanders, the less compelling the character.
An old school approach also works to keep the types of characters involved in play credible. I’ve seen several products for sale online recently that offer up new PC classes for games that just don’t reflect old school sensibilities for supposed old school-styled systems. Classes that certainly aren’t of archetypes one would associate with fantasy settings and classes that, even if they would fit into expectations for fantasy settings, aren’t of a sort to adventure, diagetically.
Now, old school systems have added gonzo elements in many ways over the years. I’ll offer that the inclusion of such doesn’t make those elements automatically old school in approach, simply because they don’t reflect the fundamental approach to such things. A class of demon barbers in a fantasy system wanders far afield from fantasy genre elements and tropes and afield from old school expectations (so all Sweeney Todd wannabes can take a seat).
In that regard, I reckon old school is somewhat conservative in added elements. Even mixing sub-genres within a system works well as old school if the fundamentals for each of the sub-genres are upheld. Fantasy and horror, for example, can work together as shown by several systems available. It’s difficult for Cthulhu mythos and fantasy to mix, though, as the fantasy part of the equation doesn’t support the protagonists all going insane in relatively short order. So a system can draw on Lovecraftian horror, in part, yet can’t fully engage with it and still work as an old school system.
Moving on, the discussion on Reddit then included that the playstyle assumed by the system is part of it being old school or not. I fully understand that there are multiple playstyles that can appear at tables using old school systems. I also understand that some of those aren’t supported by the systems being used.
To wit, in the Long Ago, there were tables where expansive PC backstories were a normal part of their play. At no point, however, were such backstories mentioned in the rulebooks. Character sheets had no space dedicated to long backstories. The stories were wholly unsupported by the rules. So, those tables that used them weren’t doing so by the rules in any fashion, so it’s safe to say that such were not typical of expected play of the system.
With that in mind, the rules do support some basic expectations of play. Exploration was an expectation, with exploration procedures, mechanics, and rule discussions surrounding supplies and resource management, navigation, and so on. While the early rulesets didn’t necessarily explain all of that well, the materials provided were in support of it.
Characters weren’t described in terms of personality or story arc or any sort of narrative storytelling terms. They were described in terms of mechanical resolution of abilities and sets of abilities that determined how the character interacted with the game setting in game terms. They weren’t offered up as protagonists in specific stories, they were imaginary people in imaginary worlds and whether there was any cohesive story of any length wasn’t mentioned; if one arose, cool, if not, also cool, as specific stories weren’t the intent of play.
And that further separates the truly old school from traditional playstyles. The appearance of specific storylines intended for play — popularized by the Dragonlance series — is a watershed moment in dividing streams of play into classical and traditional. The ironic part, I think, is that it involved shoehorning AD&D into specific stories for campaigns, something which AD&D was never designed to do. It also means that some approaches to playing AD&D (1e or 2e) are old school, in classic styles, and others aren’t, with play in traditional styles.
[Note: Yes, I fully aware that many TSR adventures were very much railroads with specific storylines expected. I also am aware that those were designed with tournament play in mind and the railroads served the end of figuring out which groups outperformed other groups to advance to the next round. Many of the non-tournament modules used the same approach because they were designed to the same standard, not because the rules demanded it or even offered support for it.]
The third underpinning offered is that of DIY sensibilities. I can see this to an extent, though only because of practical concerns. Most GMs had to DIY materials simply because there weren’t many published materials widely available to provide for everything needed. TSR and Judges Guild and other publishers could only publish so much. The demand was far greater than what those companies could reasonably produce. Any campaign of any substantive length required more adventure material than could be readily acquired from publishers, so GMs had to provide for themselves.
This also extends to the notion of “rulings over rules.” This OSR maxim is properly commentary on the necessity of having to fill in rules sets because the systems lacked rules on so many subjects that would arise play. We grognards made rulings — house rules — in large part to fill in holes in the system and not because we just didn’t want any rules to restrain us; we were wargamers, many of us, and we followed rules as a habit.
I can fully endorse the notion of DIY being old school in that regard and in the context of GMs tweaking system rules to bring a personalized game to the table. That, I think, is the bedrock of DIY in old school games — the understanding that a system is simply the foundation a GM builds a personal game on that they bring to the table to share with players. What tools from the system they use, how they use them, how much they emphasize or de-emphasize any procedural area, and so forth are personal to each GM. GMs use systems to build games to bring to the table.
I think there’s definitely something of substance to the notion that old school systems share hallmarks. I’ll offer up what I think are those hallmarks in posts here. I’m happy to hear from others what they think some hallmarks are. I’m also happy to hear constructive disagreement with my assessments, too.