OK, it's final! "Schools" are more misleading than useful.

I was just wondering what games I like, whether I prefer old school or new school, or something in-between.
After some deliberation, I was surprised at the number of OSR and old school games that are among my favourites.
Scarlet Heroes and DCC take the lead. Then we follow, probably, with Spears of the Dawn, ACKS, Epées et Sorcellerie, Spellcraft and Swordplay, Backswords and Bucklers, Stars Without Numbers, and arguably even Crimson Blades and Lamentations of the Flame Princess should be there.
If we include old-school games in general, we add Grunts (Fantasy Fucking Vietnam minus the fantasy part) and 43 AD/Warband/Zenobia right next to Scarlet Heroes. And arguably any edition of Traveller, BRP, Flashing Blades and Dogtown should be right there as well. And Dragon Warriors, which I happen to like, even if the system could be improved.

And then we go forFates Worse Than Death and Hoodoo Blues, which are old-school in a good way. And my wife is younger than Pendragon, so the game definitely counts as old-school to me, as far as games go!

Okay, maybe I'm an old-school guy, reading the above...
Except I love WotG and LotW, Sorcerer, Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Gods of Gondwane, TBZ, Houses of the Blooded, Enemy Gods, Fate and Shahida just as much, all of them being New School par excellence!
But I also like GURPS, RQ6, Savage Worlds, Artesia, Volant, TRoS, Seeker and Blue Planet, which are some kind of a middle-school. And Celestial Warriors, which is new-school in a different way. And post-GMC nWoD, which is also "middle school" in its own way...

In theory, I'm either the happy guy that can play everything (hah! Good luck getting me to play PF, just to name the example I turn down most often)...
...or we can conclude the distinction between "schools" to be absolute BS. In theory, my tastes should clash with at least some of these games, just on virtue of liking their polar opposites!
In practice, I like each of them for what they do well.
So, this is my conclusion for today. Find a game that does well whatever it does. Play it in a way that would make it shine. Laugh heartily at the idea that games come in "generations". Seriously, there is no difference, except in what was modern at the time!

Surprising myself, or just buying what I haven't got yet?

Okay, I just made an unexpected observation about myself.
Most of my latest purchases have been either OSR games (DCC, Scarlet Heroes) or narrativist games (Fate-based, but also High Valour and Beast Hunter. And Circle of Hands, if that counts). And I'm considering more OSR games, mainly the Red Tide setting and ACKS (and if Kiero comes to develop his historical setting for ACKS, this one as well).
If it wasn't for Esteren's KS, Tékumel's KS and Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane, I wouldn't have purchased a proper* simulationist game for over a month!

*Proper here means "meant to be simulationist". I find many so-called story-games to have better simulation than some so-called sim games. But they're not meant as such, and that's another topic.

Seems like I'll be playing narrative games for a while...

I just realised that when reviewing the list of games our group is planning to run...
Nights of the Crusades is the closest we're planning to get to a simulationist game. Most of the others are explicitly story-games. FATE Core/Tianxia and Kausao, Cat, Blood&Honor (maybe, and re-skinned if we do), Sorcerer.
Nothing weird, it just struck me as something I didn't expect.


End of tonight's update.

Reading Sorcerer RPG: does it work as a manual for simulationist GMs?

I purchased recently Sorcerer RPG by +Ron Edwards from Adept press. It was in a Bundle of Holding, or I might not have bothered.
Then I started reading and went "wow" (not as in the notorious MMORPG - it was more of "wow, that's what I'm trying to tell my friends - the ones I'm teaching GMing"). Because, well, that's what I call Simulationist play. As in, "pretend to be the character to the point that you only bother with what the character is thinking - no story arcs, no pre-planned plots, no nothing".
And that's almost word-for-word what +Ron Edwards is advising you to do as part of his "Narrativist" game. Even more, that's THE game for narrativist players - AFAICT, storygames started with it!
Still, so far, I only disagree with one sentence in his advice. "Don't play the setting". Well, no, you can't do that if you need to play the NPCs...because the setting is an NPC, too (just like any other organisation)! But that's ONE sentence.
I usually disagree with half the GMing chapter in "traditional" games. Seriously, guys... ONE sentence? That might as well be written by me (no, I'm NOT claiming credit-I discovered my current GMing style long after Sorcerer has been written. I just haven't read it, for various reasons that are kinda besides the point).
And then I remembered that the OSR advice has similar points, where I'm nodding my head in agreement.
The only other games where I agree with the GMing chapter to such an extent? Atomic Highway, Fates Worse Than Death, Crimson Exodus/Fantasy Dice RPG, Legends of the Wulin, Apocalypse World/Monsterhearts. Runequest 6 also comes close. But that's not even 10% of the games I own...
Still, all of these games are from wildly differing "schools". Seems like good GMing is good GMing, no matter who's doing it. (Well, if it's "open-ended" GMing, at least. I've run games that were going against this, and the players were still happy. So it might be called "good" GMing - although I'd consider my current style to be far superior both in terms of simulation and in terms of story - but it would be wildly different).
Just food for thought.

And in the meantime, I purchased the Sorcerer supplements, and I'm looking into other games by the same author, too. He's got a KS campaign for his "S/Lay w/ Me" game (which I discovered the day after buying the PDF). Of course, I'm now a backer.
The only other KS I'm currently backing is the one by +Levi Kornelsen for his zombie apocalypse game. But that's another story and should be told in another blog post.

After the one-shots of the decades: Old-school or New School?

The new guy in the group is going to run a game today. It's the homebrew setting of one of his classmates (she's written a novel with a wizarding school). The game will be run via FU the RPG.
So, we're just taking a system that's light enough, beating it into shape to fit the setting, and using the setting that has inspired the GM. Which leaves me wondering: Is that the old-school or the new-school approach?
Yes, it doesn't matter, I'm just curious.


Oh, BTW, quick advice based on the events of the session:
If you're playing in a setting based on a book, before the events unfolded (it can apply to, say, Star Wars) - kill a main character as fast as you can. Fun is bound to follow!
When in a school for delinquent wizards, don't, and I repeat, DON'T play them against each other to make them feel jealous, unless you've checked their files FIRST. You could even get laid, but the risk someone might die as a result is unacceptable!