What are the differences?
This article wants to provide you a point of view about about the differences between Old School and “New School” Dungeon & Dragons editions, and roleplaying games in general.
We all agree on a fact. There would not be Old School, if “New School” didn’t exist.
If I manage to explain as best as I can what the differences are, we will be able to understand the rising interest for OSR, because as the said states “The future has ancient roots”.
The concepts expressed in this article takes as examples D&D and Pathfinder to explain Old School and “New School”, but once the main concepts will be clear, you will see how they can adapt to the majority of roleplaying games.
Also, we must agree on a fact. Old School ends with AD&D 2nd edition, while New School starts with D&D 3.0 and Pathfinder 1st edition.
ILLUSTRATIONS
No one can deny that the quality of illustrations we find in New School are superior to those found in Old School.
I am not saying that every illustration from Old School is bad.
I am saying that most of the illustrations inside Old School books are clearly not of the same level of those coming from New School.
Just open the AD&D 2ed monstrous manual and compare it with any other New School manual, and you will understand what I mean.
Nevertheless, I still think that many of the black and white illustrations found in Old School books are excellent, have a great style and are still the one I prefer.
You have to keep in mind that Old School books were published during a period where the RPG industry was not flourishing as it is now. It was a niche market after all, and budget was lower.
Many times I can clearly spot illustration made by people coming from fashion design school, while now I see great works made by even greater professionals that have specialized in making illustrations just for the RPG industry…30 years ago this was not possible beacause the market has not reached the so called “critical mass”.
DESCRIPTIVE CONTENT vs TEMPLATE CONTENT
This was the big leap.
Not necessarily an improvement of course, but for sure the introduction of templates marked the difference between Old School and New School.
What is a template?
A template is a piece of rule that can be employed in any game instance, provided it meets specific condition and satisfies the given prerequisites.
When I first opened the D&D 3.0 player’s handbook I was quite “shocked”.
I admit it was not easy to understand the rules, because the basic concepts were completely different from D&D and AD&D.
An example of template is the Size of a creature.
In New School the size is a template.
Size applies to the game instance Creature with the condition that this game instance is a character or monster.
Size, in the form of a template, produces effects in term of bonus and penalties. Size influences attack roll and armor class for example.
Feat also works as a template. They are extra-abilities that can be employed by any class – provided the given prerequisites are met of course.
The main traits of a template is that it comes with its own description, and then you can implant its effects in any game instance.
Resistance, Weakness and Immunity are also templates. What each of these template does is described in advance, and then applied to the game instance called monster.
Damage Type is also a template. Damage type was introduced as the counterpart of resistance, weakness and immunity.
The keywords in New School was optimization and structure.
What is the descriptive content?
With the term Descriptive Content I mean that, in Old School, every game instance has its own description and effect.
While a template can implanted to most of the game instances, a descriptive content cannot, at least technically speaking.
Just have a look at the monsters in Old School.
When a monster has a special ability, it is described within the boundaries of the monster’s entry.
Just take the ability that allows a monster to swallow a target.
In New School the ability to swallow is described separately at the beginning of the monster manual, making this ability a template.
In Old School you found monsters that could swallow a target, but how that happened varied from monster to monster. You had to read the monster’s entry to know how the swallow ability worked; you didn’t find how the swallow ability worked at the beginning of the monster manual.
Another example of descriptive content is the ability to grab a target. In Old School, many monsters have the ability to grab/immobilize a target. However, how this occurs is described in the monster’s entry, and each monster has its own way to grab a target. Sometimes it is automatic, sometimes it is a strength check, sometimes it requires a saving throw.
It depended on how the author wanted the grab to occur.
The keyword in Old School was description.
Long Story Short
New School is structured and the content optimized to work in templates. This approach seems to be influenced by the many Online Roleplaying games that have been produced during the “Dark Age” or RPG.
Dark Age is that gap of time where the RPG industry shrank and many companies tried to intercept players with games and online platforms.
Until D&D 3.0 entered the scene.
Old School described what a game instance did. Classes, spells and every element of the game answered to the basic question
What this game instance does.
Balance was not an issue at all, homebrew was a must, and uncountable homerules flourished for the simple fact that the majority of players were small isolated group of people who played their games on a regular basis and with the same group of friends.
Internet was not a thing, online gaming was not a thing.
CLASS CENTERED vs PARTY BALANCE
One more trait that distinguish Old School from New School.
In New School
Party balance and the role of character (and its class) within the party is not just a thing, it is an object of conversation even before starting a campaign, and the mechanics of new school takes seriously this fact.
Indeed, each class is built to provide an answer to a simple question: What the class does compared to other classes?
You have the tank, typically the fighter, who has to withstand a lot of damage and needs a high armor class in order to attract damage and opponents. His duty is to last as much as possible and deal damage in melee.
The healer, who must be able to prolong the life of the tank and eventually aid other classes during a fight.
The spellcaster, who provided ranged support in the form of offensive (and to a certain degree defensive) spells and spell effects. Then, among the spellcaster you have the wizard – who favors offensive spells that focus on area; and the sorcerer – who favors offensive spells that focus on targets.
Each character class has a role, and since the first level it plays an important part of the game.
In Old School
Classes in old school are not built with the goal of producing a good party balance.
Well, of course when we rolled characters we tried to build a sort of balance of classes, but the classes itself was not meant for that.
The truth is that if you had a cleric in your party it was good, if you had not one, you were in trouble.
Also, the role and the weight of each class changed with the level.
The cleric (or priest) had a constant importance from level 1 to level 20 (or 36 if we want to refer to D&D 1ed).
The wizard (or mage) was a long term investment for the party. At first level the wizard was not very useful. Its spells were limited in number, it had not any sort of cantrip/0 level spells that could be used at will, and it had few hit points. However, as soon as the wizard obtained access to level 3 spells, things started to change, and once the wizardhad obtained access to spells like Stoneskin or Power Words, the story changed completely.
The rogue (or thief) required time in order to see its special abilities, hit points and thaco reach a decent level of efficiency.
The fighter was the class that shined at lower levels, made a big leap at 7th level due to an increase in the number of attacks per round, and then its importance declined as soon as the party went beyond level 10.
So, this explain – in some way at least – the main difference between the concepts Class Centered and Party Balance.
Just to have a better idea to explain the lack of balance between classes in Old School, you should investigate the Psionic class and the a warrior kit dedicated to the Gnome Svirfnebli.
PHBR5 The Complete Psionics Handbook (2e)
PHBR9 The Complete Book of Gnomes & Halflings (2e)
Those who have read these handbooks, know what I am talking about.
NON-LINEAR ADVENTURES vs STORYLINE
Finally we talk about adventures and modules in general.
Now, this has nothing to do with rules, it is more about defining the trend of how an adventure is made.
In Old School
Old School adventures and Old School players favored non-linear adventures.
First, because the concept of adventure path or published campaign is quite new.
Just have a look at the adventure modules from old school, and you will find very few products that can be considered a long term campaign.
I am not saying that they did not exist, I am saying that they were the minority.
Most of the Old School adventure modules were designed as a single episode. Of course some modules were long, other were short, and what they had in common is the non-linearity of the adventure structure.
That is why the adventure module was organized into sections in place of chapter.
That is why the terms Dungeon Crawling and Hex Crawling come from and belong to the Old School vocabulary.
In New School
On the other side we have the New School storyline structure, which is a linear adventure that is organized into chapters more than sections.
Keep in mind that we are always talking about roleplaying games, so both Old and New School are made of flexible storylines.
The difference is how flexible a non-linear adventure is versus a storyline (or linear) adventure.
Most of the independent publishers I have seen, who come from the Old School, are getting stick to the non-linear structure, and indeed their products obey to that structure.
CONCLUSION
I hope this article has provided a good point of view for those of you who wanted to understand a bit more the difference between Old School and New School.
See you soon.