Quote Originally Posted by hamlet View Post
I'm not talking about age here. I'm talking about the expectations one has of the system. What you expect/want it to do. Yora, very plainly, expects from the system something that it just isn't designed and intended to do, most notably way upthread in, I think, the first reading section, when there's talk about stories. Stories in BECMI/AD&D/Old School aren't engineered ahead of time for the players to interact with, they're simply what happens to the players.

Not to mention a critical comprehension failure when it comes to the nature of a sandbox.

It's not a value judgement, it's something that I've known a long time ago. Old school games appeal to a different kind of gamer than later version of D&D do. They provide different paradigms of what the rules are intended to do, how the game is supposed to play out, and what it is the players are there for.
Ohhhhh. Yeah. The word "story." This is a weird doctrinal point of purity that a lot of the OSR gets really hung up on, like a purity test. Nobody worried about it at all back in the early 80's. It's a latter-day development, borne of internet slapfights.

And I think it's completely wrong that old games appeal to different kinds of gamers than newer games. Tons of folks - including myself - enjoy both. Different rules lead to different experiences - and that's great. You pick the right game for the experience you're looking to have. I happen to think BX/BECMI/RC D&D is a hell of a solid engine.