Classic Adventure Gaming vs. Roleplaying Games

[Necron 99]

Ran across this a while ago, on EOTB's blog site, Steve posted about the difference in "classic adventure gaming" and "roleplaying games", at least his subjective take on the two and why old-school gaming is more of the former.

Link to the blog post: HERE
He also references The Classic Adventure Gaming podcast, found: HERE

It's an interesting post, the bullet points under the description of priorities for Classic Adventure Gaming both hit and miss as I read through them. I understand the ideas behind some of the points, but I don't know that I agree with them. Maybe it's not so much disagree with, but see some of them as shades of grey, as opposed to what is painted as black and white.

While I can understand the desire to separate what he refers to as "playacting" from, "adventure gaming", I think you could almost argue that this definition of classic adventure gaming is more akin to what is essentially known as miniature skirmish gaming. Looking at current table-top skirmish games these days, one could surmise that a game like Frostgrave is classic adventure gaming. Players are in control of a an adventuring band, delving into ancient ruins or dungeons, fighting monsters and claiming treasure.

He has another blog post that delves specifically into "role-playing" and it's definition, found HERE.

I've mentioned this before but the biggest difference, in my mind, between old-school and modern gaming, is the shift from war games to story telling. The former is focused on the game itself, playing "THE GAME", seeing how well players can meet and overcome the challenges to level their character up and earn rewards. The latter focuses on the players, how their characters interact and make a place for themselves inside of the GM's living-breathing story. The characters are not just pieces in "a game" but an extension of the player themselves into this imaginary world. The problem with story telling though is that it quickly loses, or even outright rejects, the gaming aspects, devolving into just sitting around a table making up what I consider to be bad, fan fiction. Without the gaming aspects, especially the negatives, without risks and real threats of losing the game characters, rewards become participation trophies, not something earned.

I think it's important for most groups to find the happy medium, where just the right of each aspect makes for enjoyable time at the table.

[Ancalagon]

<snip>
I've mentioned this before but the biggest difference, in my mind, between old-school and modern gaming, is the shift from war games to story telling. The former is focused on the game itself, playing "THE GAME", seeing how well players can meet and overcome the challenges to level their character up and earn rewards. The latter focuses on the players, how their characters interact and make a place for themselves inside of the GM's living-breathing story. The characters are not just pieces in "a game" but an extension of the player themselves into this imaginary world. The problem with story telling though is that it quickly loses, or even outright rejects, the gaming aspects, devolving into just sitting around a table making up what I consider to be bad, fan fiction. Without the gaming aspects, especially the negatives, without risks and real threats of losing the game characters, rewards become participation trophies, not something earned.

I think it's important for most groups to find the happy medium, where just the right of each aspect makes for enjoyable time at the table.

Emphasis mine.

I saw something similar on K&KA. The happy medium is the sweet spot for me. Simply going the war game style of moving pieces around a dungeon map and killing critters is pretty dry and serves as the beginning of the game, IMO. Being able to create personality for characters and interact with other personalities adds depth to the game. The trick is to not go overboard with it and transform the game into community theater.

[Necron 99]

The trick is to not go overboard with it and transform the game into community theater.

Nailed it, 100% agree.

[Necron 99]

Looks like some players brought up on newer editions, are starting to finally figure out just how good older editions are. The guy in the video looks as if he came into the hobby with a WotC version of D&D or maybe Pathfinder but in his video he is looking back at older editions as the way forward to better games and playing. One of the things he talks about, around the 4:00 minuted mark, is Player Skill vs Character Skill. He goes into the process of the DM asking the players what they want to do in a room and using the player's actions to determine outcome rather than dice rolls (i.e. Perception checks, etc.) but he has a phrase that pops up at one point that nails the premise, "Interacting with the World, not the Rules".

I think that sums it up quite well. I'm glad to see newer videos like this, delving back into the old-school style of play and what makes it so good.

[Ancalagon]

I think he "came of age" in gaming during the 5e era as he refers to the game as "telling stories" which is a giveaway term.

He discussed some good points.
1. Player Skill vs Character Skill = Role Play (more thinking) v Roll Play (more lazy, IMO, - let the dice do it for me!).
NOTE: I may have mention it, but at Mythic Con I had a player in one my sessions ask to make a roll against INT or WIS to try and figure out something. He rolled the die and said he made the check. I said, "OK. What do you think it is?" and just stared at him calmly like I do when behind the screen. He got the message.
2. Immersion into the game is a good thing!
3. Details like tracking rations, arrows, bolts, and... encumbrance.

I'm pretty consistent about reminding players to track supplies (arrows, bolts, rations, spell components). But I've never been a stickler for total encumbrance in (A)D&D, C&C, etc. I took a more common sense (and to be honest, easier) approach and hand waved it for sake of expediency. However, in my recent readings of HârnMaster, encumbrance is an essential component for a more realistic approach that contributes towards greater immersion.

Most DMs in D&Desque games, especially one-shot convention games, ignore the encumbrance and mobility issues so that a fully armored knight can run just as fast as an unarmored thief. Shenanigans! Armored bucketheads are realistically slower / less nimble and correspondingly easier to hit with attacks due to being encumbered but harder to injure. Unarmored / lightly armored combatants are faster and harder to hit due to greater mobility due to lighter encumbrance compared to the bucketheads but trade off the protective value of armor. A great example of this is The Viper v The Mountain from Game of Thrones season 4.

HârnMaster handles this very well by applying an encumbrance penalty (EP) to characters based on total weight of stuff carried. The penalty is expressed as a % subtracted from skill ratings. E.g. Sir Buckethead is armored up with 60 lbs of gear and has an Endurance of 12. The EP is 60 / 12 = 5. The skills ratings are reduced by 5 times the EP so 5 * 5 = 25%. If Sir Buckethead has Broadsword at 68%, his effective rating is 43% while so encumbered. This makes sense, IMO, as I've worn 30+ lb mail shirts and know what its like to not be as nimble on my feet thus helping with immersion. N.B. Injury and Fatigue penalties, as incurred, will stack with EP to wear down combatants just as they would in real life.