Is D&D 3E/3.5 considered old school yet?
Reminder that people considered AD&D 2E old-school by the time 4E came out.
>>43937727
I'd say 3e is, but 3.5e is not.
You guys remember Zarus, the Lawful Evil Greater Deity of Humans?
A half-elf Warlock that wants to wipe out a particular sect of elven kind and prove that half-elves are the superior race in my game made a Pact with what he thinks is a Devil, but is, in fact, Zarus.
Thinking of having him be this Greater God's bitch and wipe out lairs upon lairs of lesser humanoids, all somehow weakening the elves, only to have him finally get his revenge - then be stripped of all he holds dear, turned into a mere human, left to wander the realm trying to undo the evil he has done.
Or, hell, join Zarus and this becomes an Evil campaign
>>43937727
If we're going by that then 3e will be oldschool about 2019 or 2020.
>>43937875
And 3.5 about 2024.
Depends on what you mean by old school. In the case of the OSR movement, for example, the term "old school" refers to a specific play style and mechanics that support it, and one that is largely anathema to 3E (the OSR movement itself is largely a reactionary response to 3E), so it's unlikely that 3E will ever be considered old school in that sense.
>>43937727
The thing is that all pre-3e D&D is essentially compatible, so it's pretty easy to draw the dividing line there. 2nd edition AD&D is basically just 1st edition tweaked and tidied up. 1st edition, in turn, is a continuation of original D&D with all the supplements. Meanwhile, Basic is a refinement of base-level OD&D. So it's all one big family. It's only when you get to 3e that there's a real break.
Also, D&D's history is longer now than it was 10 years ago, so you have to go more years back to reach the same percentage of its existence. So within the context of D&D, no, I don't think D&D should be considered old school, especially since Pathfinder continues to carry its torch. And since old school D&D has been used as a convenient way to refer to pre-3e D&D for a while now (think of the OSR movement), its definition has been fixed in a way that's not merely a calculation of time passed. Think of modern art... and postmodern art. We didn't just start calling the newest thing modern art and demoting modern art to not-quite-modern art, because modern art already had an association.
>>43937727
Anything post-TSR will never be old-school.
It's not about how many different editions pass in between.
It's more about general objective age, but the number is impossible to pin down.
MOST importantly is the philosophy or mentality of the game in question, coupled with the era it was produced in.
So an old school STYLE game is NOT oldschool
3.5 is not oldschool as it still resembles the contemporary gaming mindset, and it was very recent either way
>>43939567
Sort of like how Modern art isn't made in modern times?
>>43937727
>Is D&D 3E/3.5 considered old school yet?
Yes. Pathfinder is a retroclone.
