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enlightened wrote:

It doesn't need to be an opposed roll. In BD&D, Move Silently and Hide in Shadows weren't opposed rolls.

Then it would involve a complete rewrite of the Stealth rules. I guess it's doable, but since someone can undo your +18 stealth roll by saying "I look at the tree", it seems a little silly to train in it at all.

This is a part of the "player skill vs. character abilities" thing that the Old School Primer on Gaming was talking about. Whether it is good or bad is beside the point. Doing it this way would be more "old school" (i.e. that's the way it was done before).

These rolls also allow people whose abilities are not up to that of their character (you are not likely to be a charasmatic as a character with Cha 25) still play out their little roleplay session, and be rewarded for it.

Also, this makes scaling challenges a lot harder to do, and considering the Skill Challenge system in 4th edition. Well, let's just say it would need a rewrite. It needs a rewrite anyway...

In Old School style gaming, there is no such thing as "you should get".

Except with 4th edition, wealth is tied to how many magical items you can afford. Since a level 1 magic item costs 300 GP (I think) then giving level 1 characters 1000GP in that level gives them 1 more item than they should have.

I understand what you are saying, but these are all very "modern" ways of looking at it. The point of the thread is to create that old school feeling. What you're saying doesn't create it.

Balance is not a modern idea. In a system built around balance, one can not simply brush it aside, and expect it to not have effects later on. I guess if you let everyone do crazy stuff, including the monsters, balance could be maintained, but it would require everyone to be on board and everyone to attempt it.

If you're trying to do old-school you wouldn't go by rules like that.

4th edition is set up to deal with characters of a certain power level. If they don't have the proper stat sets, they're either too strong, or too weak, and will crush, or be crushed, by any encounters you throw at them of their level, or their level + 1. Obviouslty, the reaction here is simply to increase the level of the monsters they're fighting, but then they level quicker.

enlightened wrote:

What I was wondering about (and the point of the thread) was what would need to be changed to achieve tht feel of old school for better or for worse.

The dynamic. You would have to change the dynamic.

You're looking for a mechanical difference, which isn't going to get you far. All you would have to do is push all the power into the DM's hands and switch to reactive gaming. That means not letting your players choose their own destiny and have their characters evolve emotionally. It means throwing the players into a dungeon that doesn't need to make sense. It just has to inspire fear in your players as they will because weary and cautious of everything they see.

Attempt to kill them at every turn and make dying incredibly easy. That wouldn't require any mechanical changes because often times there wasn't even a roll to see if you lived. It was a, "Oh, you touched that? You just got sucked into a plane of pure feminism for all eternity. Roll a new character."

Lots of character rerolling. It doesn't need to have a terrible connotation because the game revolves less around characters and more about dungeons with blue doors and magical mounds of gold that eat you when you try to collect it. When that's the attitude, losing a character doesn't matter so much. You're just there to enjoy the game and defeat the dungeon.

Vaalingrade Ashland wrote:

Honestly, you're not going to get completely objective responses on this.

You either don't care, or you have a romanticized view where the game was all about danger and matching wits with the DM OR you have a cynical view where it was Nintendo Hard and depending on an arbitrary and obstinate DM.

Only the last two are going to participate in this thread and so you're going to get responses colored that way. And when people see other people's changes, they're going to respond. It's just how it goes.

I think you're exactly right on all these points.

For the record, the definition I, personally, was using for Old School is what is described in the Primer for Old School Gaming linked in the OP. And it doesn't mention anything about the DM killing the PCs frequently, so it wasn't part of my image of Old School.