While I personally tend to cock a snook to a lot of trends in gaming, they nevertheless provide something interesting to analyse in any given timeframe. Over the decades, gaming tends to follow particular trends in a Hegelian fashion - with one being opposed by another, like a thesis and antithesis leading to new a hypothesis - and the gaming community follows on. In the previous decade, we saw an underlying (albeit unofficial and unstated) conflict between D20/OGL and "Indie/Narrative" trends in gaming. In this decade, while D20/OGL and Indie games haven't gone away, we have seen another trend take centre stage- the return to 'Old School' gaming.
Like many trends, you can't say that this drive originates in the current times, it's more a case of reaching a sort of ascendency which is reflected in many current games. So, for example, when WFRP 3rd edition was released, and 'Narrative' game design was all the rage, we saw all sorts of experimental bells and whistles added to a giant box set, with a theme of promoting story. With 4th Edition being released, it is most certainly is a throwback to the 1st edition, with some tweaks and adjustments in certain areas, admittedly, but the aesthetic towards the 'Old School' trend is clear. It's not just WFRP. The recent RuneQuest: Glorantha release was a definitive attempt to revert back to the 2nd edition of the game. Both D&D 5th and Mongoose Traveller presented rulesets that were aesthetically based on older, more simpler versions of rules. Champions Complete, was an attempt to recapture the purity of the specific superhero game, that had since evolved into a generic rules game. Indeed, Ron Edwards wanted to take it back to Champions 3rd edition with his own campaign. Vampire 5th edition, controversial as it seems to be for some, was an attempt to capture the spirit of the first edition and take it into the 21st century. The upcoming Cyberpunk has notably retconned the third edition and Cybergeneration developments to extend the world based on the 2020 edition. The Star Wars RPG celebrated it's 30th Anniversary by re-releasing it's 1987 WEG rules.
If there was another attempt to license the Marvel Universe for another, inevitably short lived but typically 'state of the art' RPG, I'd wager it would be most likely to revert back to a version of the old FACERIP rules, given the current trends. Ditto James Bond, with it's 1980s ruleset. It's just what fans seem to want, isn't it?
Even when new game systems are presented, there is an attempt to sell them on the basis of going 'back to basics' to the conceptual goals of the original games - a great example of an 'Old School' game is Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea, which presents a Conan-esque setting with AD&D-esque rules. And it's popular and very cool - but it isn't new in any progressive sense. I could say the same for dozens of new games that do the same thing. Stars Without Numbers is just a meeting of old-school D&D rules, for use with old-school Traveller settings.
All that said, 'Old School' is a fairly nebulous term. For some, it basically means converting all games and genres to a personalised, bespoke version of old D&D rules. For others, it is a reaction to the aforementioned indie/narrative and more complicated 'genericisation' of rulesets such as D20/OGL. For others, it's a conveniant brand to associate with, when 'indie/narrative' or D20/OGL has lost it's marketing appeal…. But mechanically, we can often see that long skill and trait lists are getting shortened, after they had previously been introduced as a progression, randomised character generation is preferred over controlled point spend and rules-sets themselves are more discrete and associated with particular settings or implied settings rather than being offered up as a generic ruleset as was often the case previously. There is also Kickstarter, which has tapped into a market of nostalgia for older games with established fanbases, who are older and have deeper pockets than they did.
Anyway, feel free to throw in some counterpoints.
Is this a real trend, and if we accept the Hegelian dialectic, what is the countertrend?
Like many trends, you can't say that this drive originates in the current times, it's more a case of reaching a sort of ascendency which is reflected in many current games. So, for example, when WFRP 3rd edition was released, and 'Narrative' game design was all the rage, we saw all sorts of experimental bells and whistles added to a giant box set, with a theme of promoting story. With 4th Edition being released, it is most certainly is a throwback to the 1st edition, with some tweaks and adjustments in certain areas, admittedly, but the aesthetic towards the 'Old School' trend is clear. It's not just WFRP. The recent RuneQuest: Glorantha release was a definitive attempt to revert back to the 2nd edition of the game. Both D&D 5th and Mongoose Traveller presented rulesets that were aesthetically based on older, more simpler versions of rules. Champions Complete, was an attempt to recapture the purity of the specific superhero game, that had since evolved into a generic rules game. Indeed, Ron Edwards wanted to take it back to Champions 3rd edition with his own campaign. Vampire 5th edition, controversial as it seems to be for some, was an attempt to capture the spirit of the first edition and take it into the 21st century. The upcoming Cyberpunk has notably retconned the third edition and Cybergeneration developments to extend the world based on the 2020 edition. The Star Wars RPG celebrated it's 30th Anniversary by re-releasing it's 1987 WEG rules.
If there was another attempt to license the Marvel Universe for another, inevitably short lived but typically 'state of the art' RPG, I'd wager it would be most likely to revert back to a version of the old FACERIP rules, given the current trends. Ditto James Bond, with it's 1980s ruleset. It's just what fans seem to want, isn't it?
Even when new game systems are presented, there is an attempt to sell them on the basis of going 'back to basics' to the conceptual goals of the original games - a great example of an 'Old School' game is Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea, which presents a Conan-esque setting with AD&D-esque rules. And it's popular and very cool - but it isn't new in any progressive sense. I could say the same for dozens of new games that do the same thing. Stars Without Numbers is just a meeting of old-school D&D rules, for use with old-school Traveller settings.
All that said, 'Old School' is a fairly nebulous term. For some, it basically means converting all games and genres to a personalised, bespoke version of old D&D rules. For others, it is a reaction to the aforementioned indie/narrative and more complicated 'genericisation' of rulesets such as D20/OGL. For others, it's a conveniant brand to associate with, when 'indie/narrative' or D20/OGL has lost it's marketing appeal…. But mechanically, we can often see that long skill and trait lists are getting shortened, after they had previously been introduced as a progression, randomised character generation is preferred over controlled point spend and rules-sets themselves are more discrete and associated with particular settings or implied settings rather than being offered up as a generic ruleset as was often the case previously. There is also Kickstarter, which has tapped into a market of nostalgia for older games with established fanbases, who are older and have deeper pockets than they did.
Anyway, feel free to throw in some counterpoints.
Is this a real trend, and if we accept the Hegelian dialectic, what is the countertrend?