Can you go home again?

[Reynard]

I love 3rd Edition. it is fun, it has lots of options, it is modular and it allows me to create the things I want as a DM.

However...

I am suffering from a bit of nostalgia. I find myself wanting to run a 1E or RCD&D game. The one thing 3E doesn't provide is that sense of wnder and bemusement I remember from when I was a yung'un, fighting Bargle and the like. The question, then, is: can one recapture that joy of the "first time"? And: do we need the old games to do it?

It seems like every time I read one of the Gygax Q&A threads, or some other thread about the old skool -- a style I love and try to emulate with my 3E games -- I long for those days.

 

[Faraer]

Yes. No, but it helps. Try it and find out.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think rulesets absolutely modify play experience. I imagine that BD&D would give you a bit of that, but so might C&C or other derivatives from earlier vintages of D&D.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Well, you'll never be a kid, again, so it won't be exactly the same. Nevertheless, there's a great deal that's good and fun about the older systems (including, but not limited to nostalgic feelings). I know that when I started running C&C and using all my old B/X and 1E material, it really inspired and revitalized my gaming.

You might want to take a look at RFisher's site on Classic D&D. The parts about "I used to think" and "how to appreciate Classic D&D" are especially appropriate. You can also find lots of discussion and support for 1E, B/X, and BECMI/RC at Dragonsfoot.

 

[T. Foster]

You can't exactly "go home" -- it'll never be as fresh or exciting as it was when you were a kid, and could have a sleepover and play all night with your friends -- but it's still possible to have a lot of fun playing retro D&D (it's the only kind of D&D I play, FWIW). Some recommendations: 1) "Classic D&D" (one of the red-box Basic Sets: Moldvay or Mentzer (whichever you played as a kid)) is probably a better bet than 1E AD&D, which is more arcane and complex and in many ways just plain weird -- if you try to play 1E you're likely to find yourself getting distracted by all the rules you don't remember using as a kid and how complex the whole thing seems, whereas if you play Classic D&D you can just get right down to the nostalgic retro-action; 2) try to focus on appreciating the game for what it is, not drawing comparisons to what it isn't (Robert Fisher's excellent site, already linked to above, is very helpful in this regard); 3) if possible, try to play with at least one person who isn't previously familiar with D&D (a kid or non-gaming friend or family member) and try to avoid playing with people who have a lot of experience with the current game but none with the old version or especially people who played the old version and now claim to hate it; and 4) keep it light and casual, the way it was when you were young -- don't worry about complex plots or characterizations or creating a detailed and consistent world-setting, just bust out some graph-paper, map out a dungeon (and, if you're feeling ambitious, a town and a small wilderness) and set the players loose on it.

 

[Fifth Element]

I am suffering from a bit of nostalgia. I find myself wanting to run a 1E or RCD&D game. The one thing 3E doesn't provide is that sense of wnder and bemusement I remember from when I was a yung'un, fighting Bargle and the like. The question, then, is: can one recapture that joy of the "first time"? And: do we need the old games to do it?

Do you mean amusement rather than bemusement?

Nostalgia is not something you suffer from. Embrace it wholeheartedly.

But no, it will never be the same. Most of the sense of wonder has nothing to do with the game, but rather you. Anything from your younger days can have that sense of nostalgia, but doing the same things now will not be the same.

Which is not to say you shouldn't do them anyway. Classic D&D can be loads of fun. Just don't go in expecting it to feel like you're a kid again, because you'll be disappointed. With realistic expectations, you can have a ball.

 

[Thunderfoot]

As much as I hat her music, Madonna had the hit "Like A Virgin". Notice it didn't say I'm a virgin again. Can you capture lighting in a bottle twice, probably not, that feeling of wonder is probably gone for good. As far as the sense of nostalgia, you can absolutely go home, but it won't feel COMPLETELY like home, its nice to go back, kick around the old haunts and see the old faces, but eventually you look back over your shoulder and say, "I think its time to get back to my 'real' life". Why, I'm not sure. It parallels real life in that way, (coming from a small town I can totally relate to that feeling) but you also realize that in many ways you've outgrown the old stuff.

For those that play C&C and HackMaster and the other 'clones' of OD&D, 1E & 2E, it less of a trip down memory lane and more of a settling down with a similar, yet different system. There is still the sense of new as well as the old, which is why D&D is so successful; in all its incarnations there are certain 'sacred cows' that cannot be killed, becuase its what makes it D&D, yes there might be better ways to handle things, but we aren't looking for better, we are looking familiar. Sorry this post isn't much help, but hopefully you can come to grips with what you are feeling.

 

[Droogie]

When I look back with fondness on my younger gaming days, it has more to do with the laughs we had at the table, not the rules set. Flipping through my Rules Cyclopedia recently, I realized I had no desire to play in a game with separate xp charts and "races as classes", just for the sake of nostalgia. We have lots of laughs at the table now, so there's no need. If anything, I miss lighter rules systems, and there are plently of games available for that.

 

[tx7321]

To get the AD&D or OD&D experiance, your going to have to play AD&D or OD&D. Those games have a feel to them created by the intersection of their rules (as they play out) and their text and artwork. Those 3 components define that experiance. I disagree a bit with Foster when he says you can't go back. Sure I can't go back to the first 50 games when I didn't know what was going on, but I can continue experiancing the game pretty much as I did back then. Sure the mystery of how it works is gone, but thats true with any game (and in 3Es case there never was a mystery, the rules aren't hidden from teh player as they were in 1E). Anyhow if things get predictable, rotate DMs It gives the game a fresh feel.

AD&D is no different then Monopoly or Risk, its a table top game with out a board and people using their imaginations pretending to be the pieces more or less. Its playing "make believe" but with rules. And just as my experiance with Risk is pretty much identical to when I was a kid, so is AD&D. Rules are rules, its as simple as that. If your players don't have the 1E books OSRIC is an excellent second source (a duplicate rules system to 1E). It has a companion book in the works as well as a Monster Manual and a bunch of support modules. C&C is pretty good as well, but IMO still has to much of the D20 element floating around.

TForsters idea of getting a newbie is good. Best of all are those who have never played any FRPG but are familiar with fantasy. Girlfriends and wives are usually a good source for this (but thats not always easy, to most chicks who don't already game, we are a bunch of super-geeks when we play. So go slowly with it). We have 2 girls (wives) who were converted over time in this way. They are the ones who remember to do the obvious things our jaded "robotic" players forget about, and its the little things that make the game fun. It helps to see the excitement in someone elses face to recapture it yourself (kinda like getting to experiance your childhood again when people have kids).

If you want to retro your 3E game, good luck. I tried and found it impossible (fighters without feats, aint gunna happen). Even if you got the rules to produce old school results, you don't have Gygax's spirited text nor the wonderful mysterious black and white artwork that covered the PH and DMG. You also don't have the tables, another MUST for the old school feel IMO.

I managed to get my group to start playing 1E after 3 years of 3E by getting them to agree to a 1x a month AD&D game. It took about 3 sessions before people "figured out" all the stuff they hated about 1E was what was so great about it all along. Now its all our group plays (we range from 2 to 6 players normally, sometimes going up to 10. An added bonus of AD&D over 3E is that you can run alot of players without slowing down the game much).

 

[EyeontheMountain]

I don't think I could get taht feeling by going back to any earlier version of D&D. The mystery ,and excitement can only be had from a new game system, I fear. Not knowing what you are doing, and trying stuff because it 'should' work, was the best fun of my early D&D games.

When i started to play Deadlands a few years back, it was really fun for that reason, but becasue i had to DM, I learned too quickly. But still, it was a blast, not really knowing what was going on. (And finding out how critical failures work.

I mean, I killled Wyatt Earp, I really did!! (by accident, when he was helping us with a bullet tothe back of the head.) Well, I would have if I had not spent chips liek amadman to save him.