"When does something become "Old School" ?" Topic

What counts as retro ? Any previous edition ? Is there a cutoff date ? And what about rules that haven't changed since they were released in times immemorial are they still current or do they also belong to the ages ?

If you have to ask, then you already are. :)

Dan

Whatever rules you played when you first started playing are "old school".
For me, that means WRG Ancients. 4th ed?

What I was playing, listening to, reading, or watching a generation ago, and also things that remind me of that previous time.

To me, 'Old School' is:
* Gloss finished figures
* Simple green tabletop
* Simple rules
* FUN, FUN, AND EVEN MORE FUN!

Old school – at least to me, means something you don't want to play anymore due to the mechanisms.

Anything that I enjoy

x42

Something that evokes the feeling of the past in a positive way. It can use items from the past or newly made items with a design similar to the old one. For me pre 1980s

Things seem to become Old School not too long after I adopt them.

I think Dan, Bob and Winston all have good points. You can almost "chip away the parts that don't look like an elephant." For instance, no one refers fondly to 5mm or early 15mm as "Old School" castings, and I've not heard Empire of Napoleon's Battles referred to as "Old School" rules even though they're older than some of the things that are so described. So perhaps visible castings--say 20/25mm minimum--and rules emphasizing tactics rather than command mechanisms, and usually using casting elimination rather than rosters. Note that this could make Dan Mersey an "Old School" rules writer, contemporary that he is.

And the word for something which outlasts generations of its kind is "classic." That would be M1911 automatics, DC-3 aircraft, VW Beetles--and TSATF.

About 20 years after its introduction.

According to my kids, anything I recognize is old school.

Whatever you're still playing that no one else is.

Things become "Old School" as soon as society produces a "New Fool."

something does not become old school. It is the first generation (or 2) of gaming that included,typically, individually based soldiers, casualty removals. It lasted from the beginnings up through the 80s. There are 2 branches. The full on not too serious toy soldier gaming that was fun and emphasized the game part of it and the other branch that is very self serious/complicated and thought they were really simulating warfare. I prefer and continue to game the first when I am not playing modern games that accept the need for a certain amount of abstraction.

Single ranks of infantry on strips are kind of old fashioned now aren't they?

I am sure I'm old school, Empire basing, plain stands

When it ceases being New School.

When this happens…

For me in terms of figures: 25mm pre-slotta

Rules: Lots of modifiers and CRTs. Hand drawn pictures.

Terrain: Subutteo felt mats and twigs stuck in plasticene. Wooden blocks for houses. Books under the mat for hills.

Paint: gloss enamel

Dress code: Smart jacket and tie. Only kidding there.

I puff my pipe, sitting in the Conservatory in my smoking jacket reading this and reflect that perhaps Old School, or more recently Skool if born after 1990, refers to anything people harken back to when gaming was fun FOR THEM – their best memories.
This may indeed be early GW, which for many of us is kind of an oxymoron as it was well after gaming's golden age of 19xx, but I think it could be anything produced by a typewriter and mimeograph to Warhammer Ancient Battles.
I remember someone had to borrow my Festiva for a week (a Professional racer- motorcycles) and had to admit how much fun it was to drive such a simple manual car and induce front wheel slides etc. It's the same with gaming. It's not necessarily the simplicity but the memory of what you felt was such a great experience at the time.

I can never understand the nostalgia and love for gloss paint.

When my son gives me "that look."

I think something becomes old school when you look back on nostalgically and remember the good stuff but not the bad stuff. In many cases I've rounded up games we loved 40 years ago and then been disappointed with them now.

""When does something become "Old School"?"

When your kids wear your clothes to school for that "special" day during homecoming week.