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The hostility many contemporary self-styled “old school” Dungeons & Dragons players have toward the idea of a game with clearly stated design goals is so weird to me because, like, D&D has historically been one of the most over-explained games on the planet.
Just from glancing over the books I happen to have within arm’s reach at the time of this posting, the equipment chapter in the 2nd Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide cold opens with an essay titled “A Short History of Commerce”, which at one point digresses into a discussion of international currency exchange in the Byzantine Empire. The Monstrous Manual defines the words “sporophyte” and “gametophyte”. The Player’s Handbook devotes two solid pages to teaching the reader how to visually distinguish among eighteen kinds of polearms. Do you wanna know what the difference between a guisarme and a guisarme-voulge is? Too bad – you’re gonna learn!
“Old school Dungeons & Dragons isn’t supposed to lecture you about its design goals” yeah, tell me you started with 3rd Edition without telling me you started with 3rd Edition.
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