On Change, Old School, New School, Same School, and High School.

[joethelawyer]

I saw a guy I went to high school with today. We were in line at the supermarket, and I recognized him. Though it’s been 20 years, it wasn’t too hard. He looked and dressed the same as back then. Sweatpants, unlaced construction boots, long hair to his shoulders, and a black leather vest over a concert t-shirt. He even wore his hair the same, though it was more gray than black now.

It made me think of my Al Bundy theory. Al Bundy, from Married with Children, never did anything greater in life than play high school football. He sat on his couch, hand down his pants, and reminisced about the good old days. Life after that was all downhill to him.

I think that’s the case to one degree or another with everyone. I can always tell the age of most women in the town I now live in by looking at their hairstyle. Whatever age they thought they were the hottest-looking, determines their hairstyle for the rest of their lives. They keep it the same. Likewise for the guys, which is why we have a bunch of late-30’s early-40’s aged guys with mullets walking around town. There are a lot of women the same age with the over-hairsprayed feathered-back big hair, which, as Andrew Dice Clay described, from behind looks like a peacock’s ass.

People try to keep up with the fashions and trends to some degree or another, but after a while they just give up. I think it usually occurs at the point where they think their best years are behind them, and they just don’t want to try anymore. The joy and thrill of living life, to some extent, is gone or going away. Like that John Cougar (pre-Mellencamp) song Jack and Diane. From what I’ve seen, it usually happens when someone gets married and has kids, and settles into a regular job which he hopes gives him a steady dependable income. Fashion, hairstyles, tastes in music, hobbies and interests generally stay the same after that. Different things give them a joy or a thrill, like watching their baby’s first steps, or seeing their kid hit a home run in little league. Most people are too busy dealing with work, family, kids, dance recitals, soccer games and little league to give a damn about the latest in fashionable footwear. Besides, with their ever-expanding waistlines, it’s kinda hard to see the shoes anyhow.

Being a single guy with no kids, who had sort of a nomadic lifestyle, and now finding myself back in the town I lived in longest as a kid, I especially see it. Having worked a corporate gig in Manhattan, lived all over the tri-state metro area, and having lived Colorado for a while to “find myself,” I have a different perspective than most people I grew up with. Most of them never left the town they were born in.

My town is an old factory town, but the good factory jobs have gone. What was once a blue collar working class town, is now a place where people get by with a few crappy jobs to make ends meet. The foreclosure rate is very high out here. Most everyone I went to high school with never went to college, got married in their early 20’s at the very latest, had a few kids and at least one divorce.

I remember asking a co-worker in Manhattan, who lived in the city, why it was that everyone our age, about 32 at the time, who lived and/or worked in NYC seemed to be single, while everyone I went to high school with seemed to be on their second marriage and fourth dead end job? She thought it was because there was way too much to do, see, and experience in NY to settle down and start having kids. People were still too busy living and enjoying all that life had to offer to want to slow down and settle down with someone in the suburbs. And they had the money to afford either option.

Last year, to help a guy out, I had a roommate who was 21 years old. It was quite the experience, walking into the house at age 38 to a party like from my college years, seeing my kitchen table turned into beer pong central, and the living room turned into a Guitar Hero tournament center. While it was nice to revisit the college years for a while, it’s not exactly where I want to spend all my time. (I admit to missing the 21 yr. old girls in bikini’s in the pool though.)

Likewise for the freespending NYC years. Long past are the days of figuring “Hey, I missed the last train out of Grand Central, so I may as well hit an all night bar, then grab breakfast before catching the 6 am train back home to shower and change, then head back to work.” Truthfully, my body can’t take that anymore.

I even find that my iPod is filled with songs from various periods of my life---the Goth resurgence days of the mid-late-90’s, the New Wave of the grade school years, the Heavy Metal from high school, the Grunge from the college years, but not “Poker Face” by Lady GaGa. Not to sound too much like my father here, but I just cant see what kids today see in the crap they call music. I can’t seem to identify with it.

It seems I’ve hit that age where I’m settling in, in some aspects of my life. Call it getting old or giving up, but whatever it is, I don’t get the same thrill or joy out of the things I used to. That settling down is coming maybe 15-20 years after most people I went to school with, but it’s finally hitting. Along with gray hair.

On the other hand, I’m starting a new adventure in the fall. I’m opening up my own law practice, which is pretty exciting. I’m still doing other new and interesting things in other ways, and getting a thrill out of life. Just not in the ways that I used to. There are some things I just refuse to change anymore. In some departments of life, the change to the newest thing doesn’t interest me. Like the changing music scene, I can’t identify with it.

I think that’s why I am sticking with a d20 based 3.x rpg. We use 3.0 now, and are using Pathfinder when it comes out. I just don’t see the need to change my rpg. I don’t want to take the time to learn a whole new system. The guys I play with feel the same way. The latest and greatest doesn't thrill me anymore just because it is the latest and the greatest. My enjoyment of the game these days come not from the best build, classes combos, weapons, magic and spells. It comes from just having a beer and hanging out and "Imagining Together." Plus, it seems to me from what I’ve seen of 4.0, it is based on certain elements I don’t identify with, both game-wise and culture-wise.

My books growing up were Feist, Eddings, and Dragonlance. Not Manga. The computer games were Pac-Man and Asteroids, and later Doom 2, not World of Warcraft. The cartoons were the Superfriends and Scooby-Doo, not Bleach. After school we went out and played in the yard, or with kids from around the neighborhood in their yards, or in the street. We made up our own games with what we had at hand. We had to come inside when the streetlights turned on. There wasn’t a structured after school organized activity every night, requiring us to be shuttled all over the place by our parents. We didn’t sit in front of the TV or play video games all day and veg-out as like I see kids do today. If we did, our parents would yell at us and kick us out of the house, where we’d find other kicked-out kids, and start playing a game---made up purely from our own imaginations and what we found in the shed. Which I think is the reason I get a thrill out of playing WAR in the back yard with my 4 and 5 yr. old nephews, as we plan and carry out a water pistol assault on their parents and grandparents at the picnic table.

Sometimes nostalgia is a good thing. Sometimes, revisiting what used to give us joy and thrills, can still recreate those great feelings from childhood. The carefree years, where we weren’t limited by anything, bound by no rules other than bedtime, dinnertime, and “Don’t hit your brother!”, and still got a thrill out of the purely imaginative unknown.

I can’t tell you why 4e doesn’t grab me any better than I have in this rambling post. If you understand what I just said, then you know why I’m sticking with 3.x. You might even understand why I get a thrill when I make up a campaign with an old school AD&D/swords-and-sorcery feel to it. If you can’t figure out what I’m talking about, then just chalk it up to an old guy who’s losing it, and joining the ranks of the Grognards.

[Hereticus]

Fully understood...

[rounser]

(ack, wrong thread)

[Tequila Sunrise]

I'm only 25, but I can dig it Joe. My graduating class wasn't more than 100 teens, and at least half of them are married and living in the same town. I'm single and living in Korea, but part of me is looking forward to the day when I settle down and say "screw those new-fangled rules, I'm sticking with 7.5 edition!"

[Sepulchrave II]

Most eloquent.

[darjr]

Dude. I'm all that, cept I had the kids. And tried the dot bomb, kinda got kinda rich to.

I love D&D. I love 3.5. I think Pathfinder will be great.

I'm loving 4e. I see my past in it. I really do.

After we eat, tonight, my kid is going to continue running us through his 4e campaign. Then tomorrow we'll go play in a game of an old dear friend I ran into at D&D Game Day for 4th. She's running 4th as well.

Her husband runs 4th, and OD&D, and trav, and hero.

I also love your post.

[Mircoles]

Well...I'm 41 and played BD&D, 1e and 2e. I gave 3.x a good try, but except for the classes, monsters and vancian magic, 3.x never felt right.

I tried 4e as soon as I could find a game and I found it more like the older editions than 3.x ever was.

The problems that have cropped up have been relatively minor and easy to fix.
Unlike 3.x, where half the rules needed to be ignored or houseruled in order to have a fun game and it was still a pain to Dm even after that.

I don't want a game that has to practically be redesigned to be playable.

I want a game that a worse needs a few tweaks and then it's ready to go and I have that with 4e.

[Mephistopheles]

Nice post. I look at life through a similar lens.

[FireLance]

For a somewhat similar perspective, consider the following:

YOUTH

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigour of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

Samuel Ullman

On a more personal note, growing up in Singapore probably meant that I was exposed to a wider variety of cultures and influences as a child. I read Eddings, Dragonlance AND manga. I watched the Superfriends, Scooby Doo AND wuxia and anime. I played Pac-Man, Asteroids AND Ultima, Wizardry, World of Warcraft (the PC version), Civilization and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. So, it doesn't matter to me that 4e is drawing on a variety of influences. I'm already used to them.

[joethelawyer]

Originally Posted by Mephistopheles

Nice post. I look at life through a similar lens.

Nice to know I look at life the same way as (cue Dana Carvey's "Church Lady" voice) SATAN!

[Fallen Seraph]

I think with the internet and the amount of information/resources we have now this is going to become less and less of a common thing. With the internet kids, teenagers and adults can discover much more then what is abundant around them. The recent rise in Steampunk-subculture in the last couple years has been attested to the spread it has had over the internet, to give one example.

Now while people will still find a comfort area/place they know best, there won't be a common thread, ie; hair-styles of a certain era. You won't be able to tell since there will be much more abundance of different things around that people draw from.

[Aberzanzorax]

I get it, too.

The world changes, but there's a part of life that involves finding one's place in it, and setting down "roots".

These roots don't have to be a physical place, and in fact, the physical place, if any, is more of a symptoms of the "mental" or "metaphysical" roots.


Sometimes it is good to be "left behind" with the times of yesteryear. I think it is natural.


Interestingly, (this may seem tangetial, but I don't think it is) intelligence works in much this way.

In one theory (if memory serves, it is Raymond and Cattell's theory.) intelligence is divided into two types: fluid and crystaline. Fluid intelligence is about learning, adapting and discovering. Crystalline intelligence is wrote knowledge (including facts but also schemas on how to do things, like interact at a party or in the officeplace or ride a bicycle)

My three year old son has likely 90% fluid intelligence (soaks up new words like a sponge, learns dozens of new things every day) and 10% Crystalline intelligence: he is primed to learn, but doesn't know much.

As we age, the ratio shifts more and more, eventually we have far, far more crystalline intelligence (think the elderly here). This group is less adaptable, in part because of biological factors but also because these people have ways of doing things. They've learned how, and it is more work to learn a new way when the other way works just fine.

So, what I'm saying is that, not only is this a natural thing, it is likely a destined biological/psychological thing.

Embrace it and enjoy it, and fight it when it suits you. That's my advice.

[Doug McCrae]

I think Lady Gaga is great. I'm 38 years old.

[Mercurius]

Nice post, Joe. I really enjoy biographical sketches as pertain to RPGs and you wrote yours with eloquence and a kind of contagious nostalgia. I too just recently moved back to the town of my high school at the age of 35, and after having lived in numerous places across the country (and world); yet I did it to become a teacher at my old high school!

My personal view on 3/4 ed is closer to Mircoles in that I feel that 4ed better evokes the "old school vibe" because of its relative simplicity and its emphasis on a kind of cinematic play. When 3ed came out I remember thinking, "Finally, D&D has caught up with the rest of the RPG world and has a core mechanic." But then I realized that this simple core mechanic was overburdened with endless modifiers and an enormous amount of seemingly unnecessary rules.

It is also interesting to note that you are relating a game that came out only nine years ago with your youth. In other words, why do you relate 3.x -- which came out when you were about 30 -- with a kind of imaginative play that you feel characteristic of your youth? Perhaps you crystallized roleplaying-wise 9-10 years ago and thus attached yourself to 3.x as your "RPG Mullet"? Given the overall content of your post I would have thought you would be playing 1e or even OD&D, because many of the aspects you seem to dislike in 4ed are actually quite prevalent--even more so--in 3ed ("builds", class combos, reliance on magic items, etc).

I tend to think that the edition or game itself is far secondary to how you play it, so that what you are looking for in a game can be there if you want it to be there. I suppose it depends upon how much you want to customize the "crunch" for your "fluff." In that sense there are really two factors: the rule system itself and the tone or "vibe" of a game, especially as evoked through its art, but also its "fluff." Correct me if I'm wrong, but my sense is that what you are turned off with about 4ed has less to do with the game mechanics and more to do with the fluff that "coats" it. I personally don't like most of the 4ed art (some of it is quite frankly embarassing); I don't like dragonborn or tieflings, and I wish 4ed better accomodated "traditional" fantasy in which characters didn't start as heroes but became them. But I feel that the game mechanics themselves are an evolution from 3ed, but that the "fluff" is more a reflection of current cultural elements which I resonate less with than previous editions.

Disclaimer Interlude: This is not an edition war!!!

That aside, it has also been my observation that the majority of folks become attached to a self-image of their late teens or early 20s and life thereafter is one of constant disappointment and diminishing returns; however, I don't think we are inherently programmed to follow that relatively tragic route (It is a bleak picture, no?). Most do, but that doesn't make it the healthy or even natural thing to do (Most people eat fast and processed foods, after all). It relates to Aberzanzorax's mention of fluid vs. crystalline intelligence: to some extent the degree to which we crystallize is the degree to which we die while living (become undead!). This is not to say that we shouldn't form a sense of self and knowledge about the world, but that, in my opinion, it should always remain fluid, as if we have Hamlet's famous line to Horatio tattooed in our consciousness: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. In other words, I am positing that there healthy and pathological forms of crystallization, and that the prevalent and even culturally accepted is the pathological, which is that of an inorganic solid; the healthy form is more of an organic membrane that is able to take on different forms, depending upon context, and continues to grow. Think static vs. dynamic.

To put it another way, when we "crystallize" we stop growing, we stop evolving as human beings. And, I would put forth, we stop feeling that spark of youth and discovery which is, in many ways, what RPG players seek after when they continue to play, or take up again, gaming into their 30s, 40s and beyond. The sense of wonder. Imaginative freedom. Awe. Ahhh...There is nothing quite like that feeling of cognitive opening, of not simply figuring something out but realizing that the world is much larger--and much more mysterious--than we previously "knew" (or thought we knew).

Many "career gamers" settle into a kind of workaday gaming aesthetic in which those sorts of peak experiences are relatively rare and the normal experience is far more mundane. But, like a musician who seeks to enter the flow of their instrument, my guess is that in the heart of every gamer is the yearning to not only recapture the wonderment of youth's fresh experience of the fantastical, but something even deeper and profound, something glimpsed ever-so briefly by the imagination...a depth of mystery and wonderment that the child's experience was merely just a precursor of. Most don't get there, though, but we all at least intuit it.

The aging former-high-school-football star sitting on his couch with a growing girth, an unhappy (2nd or 3rd) marriage, and a dead-end job is really a tragic figure. But it is not because he (or she) is no longer a high school football star, but because he (or she) crystallized at that age and did not continue to grow but instead atrophied, withered, became old when so young, and thus never really grew up in the fullest sense of human potential. It has to do with upbringing but also the inability of our educational system to teach a true love of learning and the skills to facillitate life-long exploration and consciousness evolution. I would also argue that it has to do with certain cultural factors that actually inhibit imaginative capacity, like video games, TV, and other forms of media. I am reminded of those "blob people" in the movie Wall-E who had lost their capacity to think for themselves, to generate anything from within; they were passive viewers.

So I personally don't see you as an "old guy who is losing it" because you become thrilled at designing a sword and sorcery world (if you are, then so am I...maybe we can start an Asylum together! ; I see you as a maturing man who wants to feel alive within, and who does so through exercising that most precious human capacity: imagination.

[joethelawyer]

Originally Posted by Mercurius

My personal view on 3/4 ed is closer to Mircoles in that I feel that 4ed better evokes the "old school vibe" because of its relative simplicity and its emphasis on a kind of cinematic play. When 3ed came out I remember thinking, "Finally, D&D has caught up with the rest of the RPG world and has a core mechanic." But then I realized that this simple core mechanic was overburdened with endless modifiers and an enormous amount of seemingly unnecessary rules.

It is also interesting to note that you are relating a game that came out only nine years ago with your youth. In other words, why do you relate 3.x -- which came out when you were about 30 -- with a kind of imaginative play that you feel characteristic of your youth? Perhaps you crystallized roleplaying-wise 9-10 years ago and thus attached yourself to 3.x as your "RPG Mullet"? Given the overall content of your post I would have thought you would be playing 1e or even OD&D, because many of the aspects you seem to dislike in 4ed are actually quite prevalent--even more so--in 3ed ("builds", class combos, reliance on magic items, etc).

Thanks for your thoughtful comments. You're close. We play 3.0 in name only. To tell the truth, we've houseruled it so heavily that it's more like AD&D. We took out special combat moves like grapple, trip, bull rush, etc. We make thieves not able to backstab in combat. We don't allow prestige classes. And we have eliminated buff spells that add to ability scores, and magic items which do the same. Makes for a more fun game, imho.

[Orius]

I feel some of the same way myself, I've been having a hard time feeling interested in 4e partially because some of the flavor is unrecognizable. The D&D I'm familiar with is from about 10 years ago, late 2e and early 3e material and assumptions upon which I built an overarching cosmology for my campaigns. Some of 4e's background disrupts that cosmology, so I'm not interested. Some of it's more practical; I'm not currently involved in a group and I haven't been in several years, and I see little practical reason to spend money I really don't have to spare on a new set of books. There's some nostalgia involved as well, I feel that my best DMing occurred during the 3e campaigns I ran, so it makes me want to stay with those rules.

[joethelawyer]

Originally Posted by Mercurius

Nice post, Joe. I really enjoy biographical sketches as pertain to RPGs and you wrote yours with eloquence and a kind of contagious nostalgia. I too just recently moved back to the town of my high school at the age of 35, and after having lived in numerous places across the country (and world); yet I did it to become a teacher at my old high school!

.....

Disclaimer Interlude: This is not an edition war!!!

That aside, it has also been my observation that the majority of folks become attached to a self-image of their late teens or early 20s and life thereafter is one of constant disappointment and diminishing returns; however, I don't think we are inherently programmed to follow that relatively tragic route (It is a bleak picture, no?). Most do, but that doesn't make it the healthy or even natural thing to do (Most people eat fast and processed foods, after all). It relates to Aberzanzorax's mention of fluid vs. crystalline intelligence: to some extent the degree to which we crystallize is the degree to which we die while living (become undead!). This is not to say that we shouldn't form a sense of self and knowledge about the world, but that, in my opinion, it should always remain fluid, as if we have Hamlet's famous line to Horatio tattooed in our consciousness: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. In other words, I am positing that there healthy and pathological forms of crystallization, and that the prevalent and even culturally accepted is the pathological, which is that of an inorganic solid; the healthy form is more of an organic membrane that is able to take on different forms, depending upon context, and continues to grow. Think static vs. dynamic.

To put it another way, when we "crystallize" we stop growing, we stop evolving as human beings. And, I would put forth, we stop feeling that spark of youth and discovery which is, in many ways, what RPG players seek after when they continue to play, or take up again, gaming into their 30s, 40s and beyond. The sense of wonder. Imaginative freedom. Awe. Ahhh...There is nothing quite like that feeling of cognitive opening, of not simply figuring something out but realizing that the world is much larger--and much more mysterious--than we previously "knew" (or thought we knew).

Many "career gamers" settle into a kind of workaday gaming aesthetic in which those sorts of peak experiences are relatively rare and the normal experience is far more mundane. But, like a musician who seeks to enter the flow of their instrument, my guess is that in the heart of every gamer is the yearning to not only recapture the wonderment of youth's fresh experience of the fantastical, but something even deeper and profound, something glimpsed ever-so briefly by the imagination...a depth of mystery and wonderment that the child's experience was merely just a precursor of. Most don't get there, though, but we all at least intuit it.

The aging former-high-school-football star sitting on his couch with a growing girth, an unhappy (2nd or 3rd) marriage, and a dead-end job is really a tragic figure. But it is not because he (or she) is no longer a high school football star, but because he (or she) crystallized at that age and did not continue to grow but instead atrophied, withered, became old when so young, and thus never really grew up in the fullest sense of human potential. It has to do with upbringing but also the inability of our educational system to teach a true love of learning and the skills to facillitate life-long exploration and consciousness evolution. I would also argue that it has to do with certain cultural factors that actually inhibit imaginative capacity, like video games, TV, and other forms of media. I am reminded of those "blob people" in the movie Wall-E who had lost their capacity to think for themselves, to generate anything from within; they were passive viewers.

So I personally don't see you as an "old guy who is losing it" because you become thrilled at designing a sword and sorcery world (if you are, then so am I...maybe we can start an Asylum together! ; I see you as a maturing man who wants to feel alive within, and who does so through exercising that most precious human capacity: imagination.

I thought I'd respond to your other section in a separate post.

I agree completely. The only reason I think I didn't crystallize in the typical way was because I had a sort of early mid-life crisis at around age 32, and went out west to "find myself" for a few years. Being single with no kids allowed me to do that. The whole experience involved a lot of "unlearning". Unlearning what I was taught, how I was brought up, who I thought I was.

It's sort of like rewiring yourself, erasing the chalkboard in your head, and consciously making yourself somebody, rather than just ending up as somebody. Making yourself a creator of your own life, rather than having your life be a result.

There's a quote that I like which goes to this point:

"Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." George Bernard Shaw

Along with all of that comes an unlocking of the imagination. Letting go of rules which hold you back. I love the part of the quote from above where it says:

"Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living."

As far as we know, we're all here for a short time and then there's nothing. I spent the first half of my life as an end product, a result of education, culture, family, and my experiences. Then I had to unlearn all that. I want to spend the last half of my life as the creator of what comes next. Along with that, intimately tied into it, is imagination. I firmly believe you can't be something which you can't imagine. The greater your capacity to imagine, the less rules and restrictions you place on your creativity, the more potential your life has to be whatever you want it to be.

That's what attracts me to the whole sword and sorcery aspect of the game these days. Especially to characters like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser and Conan. They drank it all in and lived every second of life!

There was a part a Fafhrd and Grey Mouser story in Swords in the Mist, when girls who Fafhrd was intimate with turned into pigs. All of them. He couldn't get any action, and blamed it on the Mouser.

"It would not be the first time," observed the Mouser portentously, slipping his fingers inside his robe, "that I have had to fight you over a woman."
"But it would be the first time," asserted Fafhrd, with an even greater portentousness, "that you had to fight me over a pig!"
For a moment he maintained his belligerent posture, head lowered, jaw outthrust, eyes slitted. Then he began to laugh.
It was something, Fafhrd's laughter. It began with windy snickers through the nostrils, next spewed out between clenched teeth, then became a series of jolting chortles, swiftly grew into a roar against which the barbarian had to brace himself, legs spread wide, head thrown back, as if against a gale. It was a laughter of the storm-lashed forest or the sea, a laughter that conjured up wide visions, that seemed to blow from a more primeval, heartier, lusher time. It was the laugh of the Elder Gods observing their creature man and noting their omissions, miscalculations and mistakes.
The Mouser's lips began to twitch. He grimaced wryly, seeking to avoid the infection. Then he joined in.
Fafhrd paused, panted, snatched up the wine pitcher, drained it.
"Pig-trickery!" he bellowed, and began to laugh all over again.
The Tyrian riffraff gawked at them in wonder -- astounded, awestruck, their imaginations cloudily stirred.


I love that passage. It shows an appreciation of life and all of its absurdities.

Steve Jobs, in a speech to Stanford a few years ago, had this to say to the graduates:

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

What does all this have to do with D&D? Everything!

Imagination is everything. If we an imagine it, we can become it. Anything which helps us develop an unfettered imgination is a tool to a better life. D&D or any roleplaying game, or any exercise in creativity, is something to be sought after and treasured.

I had a teacher who used to say "Don't et school get in the way of your education."

I change it around somewhat and say "Don't let rules get in the way of your imagination."

[Jack99]

Originally Posted by joethelawyer

Thanks for your thoughtful comments. You're close. We play 3.0 in name only. To tell the truth, we've houseruled it so heavily that it's more like AD&D. We took out special combat moves like grapple, trip, bull rush, etc. We make thieves not able to backstab in combat. We don't allow prestige classes. And we have eliminated buff spells that add to ability scores, and magic items which do the same. Makes for a more fun game, imho.

You have said that a million times on these boards - and every time I read it, I silent nod my head over here, on my side of the pond (and the computer). This is pretty much what I wish I had done instead of playing 3.x by the book.

However, and I might just be missing a point here, if that is indeed how you want to play, why on earth are you switching to Pathfinder? Pathfinder seems to be even less oldschool than 3.0/3.5.

[Jack7]

Welcome aboard Joe.

Though I reckon I sorta have the opposite problem. The older I get the more people tell me I'm becoming a kid again. If only my body worked that way too.

Still, this all reminds me of something my great grandpappy told me one time. He said, "Boy, the more things change the more they stay the same, and the more they stay the same, the more they change into something you never expected."

[LostSoul]

Originally Posted by Doug McCrae

I think Lady Gaga is great. I'm 38 years old.

Me too. Well, I'm 32.

On topic: I've felt a sense of renewal with 4E.