Giving Old Skool one last shot before calling it quits.

[WayneLigon]

You might want to try a completely different game system? At least it would be much easier to find players.

 

[Treebore]

4E has been something of a rollercoaster for me. But now that its been out and I have played it a few times and read it thoroughly, I realize that it just isn't D&D to me (I really don't want to get into a fight about whether it is or isn't -- suffice it to say that it isn't IMO). While it might be a good game for it's intended use, it doesn't excite me.

But that's really not the point. The fact that it didn't ecite me got to thinking about D&D and all the good times I've had with it, and all the bad times, and in doing so I sort of saw what D&D is to me, or at least what good D&D is to me. I smashed my head against the 3.x wall for a good long time, trying to make it work. Sometimes it was me issues; sometimes it was group issues; sometimes it was game system issues. And while I had some fun times with 3.x, I think when it is all tallied there was more pain than pleasure, more effort than reward.

And this too brought me to a realization: I like old school gaming. I like subtly adversarial player/DM relationships. I like random monsters and random treasure and all that other randomness. I like esoteric subsystems. i like player balance over the long term. I like vancian magic. I like thieves that aren't front line combatants and druids that aren't combat machines and clerics that have to choose between being the medic or the utiliy caster. i like mages that go from zero to hero over the course of the campaign and fighters that have to rule lands and command armies to keep up. In short, i like old school D&D.

But i'm also getting on, with two young children and car/house payments and all that. I am damn near "retiring" entirely. I haven't been active here in some time and I barely engage in anything resembling "gaming" lately (aside from a few 4E 'playtest' sessions). It would be easy to just pack all my books (from all editions) into a box and put them in the crawl space with my star wars toys and old army stuff and let it be.

But I don't want to. I want to enjoy it again. I want to play D&D the way I want to play it; more importantly, run it the way I want to run it. i want to give it one more honest go before I "retire", before I give it up, putting it behind me as something I "used to do". i don't want to be done with it, even if I think I might be. I want just a little piece of that fun, that wonder, that awesome back that comes with my D&D.

And 4E ain't it. Neither is 3E. I think, in fact, it's 1E without all that ramp up to 2E junk (UA, the Survival Guides, ec..) It might actually be 2E pre-kits and player's option, though, as I played that longer. In any case, it's AD&D, probably some 1E/2E amalgam.

I am going to try and convince a few people I know to give it a go with me (and not ask a few other people -- a good part of my problem has also been player pool oriented). If it works, if it's fun and awesome and a worthwhileinvestment of the time and energy, Iwill be so happy. if it doesn't -- well, I just don't want to give it up without taking one last swing at it, I guess.

I know how you feel. Thats where I got to two years ago. C&C did the trick for me. Maybe it can do it for you, or maybe you just need to go back to 1E or OD&D. Definitely give it a try before you just retire.

I thought I was going to leave gaming forever, now its better then ever. Hopefully it will turn out that way for you too.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I was seriously considering running S1 Tomb of Horrors with the 1e rules recently.

 

[Falstaff]

4E has been something of a rollercoaster for me. But now that its been out and I have played it a few times and read it thoroughly, I realize that it just isn't D&D to me (I really don't want to get into a fight about whether it is or isn't -- suffice it to say that it isn't IMO). While it might be a good game for it's intended use, it doesn't excite me.

But that's really not the point. The fact that it didn't ecite me got to thinking about D&D and all the good times I've had with it, and all the bad times, and in doing so I sort of saw what D&D is to me, or at least what good D&D is to me. I smashed my head against the 3.x wall for a good long time, trying to make it work. Sometimes it was me issues; sometimes it was group issues; sometimes it was game system issues. And while I had some fun times with 3.x, I think when it is all tallied there was more pain than pleasure, more effort than reward.

And this too brought me to a realization: I like old school gaming. I like subtly adversarial player/DM relationships. I like random monsters and random treasure and all that other randomness. I like esoteric subsystems. i like player balance over the long term. I like vancian magic. I like thieves that aren't front line combatants and druids that aren't combat machines and clerics that have to choose between being the medic or the utiliy caster. i like mages that go from zero to hero over the course of the campaign and fighters that have to rule lands and command armies to keep up. In short, i like old school D&D.

But i'm also getting on, with two young children and car/house payments and all that. I am damn near "retiring" entirely. I haven't been active here in some time and I barely engage in anything resembling "gaming" lately (aside from a few 4E 'playtest' sessions). It would be easy to just pack all my books (from all editions) into a box and put them in the crawl space with my star wars toys and old army stuff and let it be.

But I don't want to. I want to enjoy it again. I want to play D&D the way I want to play it; more importantly, run it the way I want to run it. i want to give it one more honest go before I "retire", before I give it up, putting it behind me as something I "used to do". i don't want to be done with it, even if I think I might be. I want just a little piece of that fun, that wonder, that awesome back that comes with my D&D.

And 4E ain't it. Neither is 3E. I think, in fact, it's 1E without all that ramp up to 2E junk (UA, the Survival Guides, ec..) It might actually be 2E pre-kits and player's option, though, as I played that longer. In any case, it's AD&D, probably some 1E/2E amalgam.

I am going to try and convince a few people I know to give it a go with me (and not ask a few other people -- a good part of my problem has also been player pool oriented). If it works, if it's fun and awesome and a worthwhileinvestment of the time and energy, Iwill be so happy. if it doesn't -- well, I just don't want to give it up without taking one last swing at it, I guess.

Man, if only I could find gamers with your philosophy of what D&D should be where I live.

Good luck!

 

[Orryn Emrys]

Every once in a great while, we'll pull out our old First Edition or OD&D materials for a little nostalgia... and it's fun! But to me, it invariably serves as a reminder that old school gaming is not what I'm looking for. Don't get me wrong... I enjoyed those years a great deal. I'm 32, and I've been playing since I was 8. I've spent years with each edition. But I've also grown up with the game, each edition easily representing a different era of my life... and I just can't find the same satisfaction in the games I played when I was young.

I'm not playing 4E. I've run one entire adventure over six sessions in my current campaign converted to 4E, and it has a lot of great material. It's easy to run, has a fantastic toolset for DMing, and the combats can be fun... but it isn't D&D to me, either. It's a gameset that seems to undermine a lot of the versatility that's come to define my game, after all these years of evolution. I didn't have any serious problems with 3.x; it seemed to address a lot of the issues I had with 2E... so I'm staying with 3.5, and doing my own revisions to the system to address many of the issues that 4E's high points have done a good job of addressing.

Ultimately, I may not be "old school" anymore... but I understand where you're coming from. I hope you find what you're looking for. For me, nostalgia is a powerful thing... and I've learned that trying to rediscover the things that made D&D fun for me back in the day would invariably require me to be the person I was... back in the day.

*raises a glass for Old School D&D*

 

[Grimstaff]

What's the big issue here?

If you truly want "old-school", then play it! Dig out your 1E books (or hop on ebay) and go to town, have fun! Why all the soul-searching?

If you live in area where you can't find any old-school gamers, then learn to shape and mold the most current edition of the game into something that suits your taste. Lack of old-school feel isn't 4E's faul, its yours . Put a little effort into it to get what you want, and you may be surprised at how rewarding it is.

With all due respect, no edition is going to "hold your hand" to recreate the glory days of our youth. Do it yourself!

 

[Mercule]

I can really appreciate where you're coming from. Part of what finally got to me about 3e was the way the rules pretty well forced a certain style of adventure building.

I'm kinda hopeful about 4e, but I'm also a bit nervous about the "equal in combat" mentality you speak of. One thing I'm pretty sure I can live without, though, is Vancian magic. I've hated D&D magic since I started playing. At least in 1e, you could ignore the wizard or cleric role without being screwed.

In short, I've also been thinking that, if 4e doesn't work for me or my group, I may pick up 1e again. I may even look for BECMI rules, since I almost bypassed those the first time through.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I was seriously considering running S1 Tomb of Horrors with the 1e rules recently.

:thumbs-up: Using 1e rules with the Tomb is the way to go. Using a PC-skill-oriented system with the Tomb (be it 3.X, Rolemaster, GURPS, BRP, or whatever) misses the point (which is to challenge the player), and sucks the soul from that particular adventure.

 

[Reynard]

Lack of old-school feel isn't 4E's faul, its yours .

I disagree wholeheartedly. The 4E design philosophy, which seems to be a marriage of mathematical balance and the purging of non-action elements (skill challenges notwithstanding), is directly opposed to the things I illuminated above that define "old school" for me. Whether or not "balance" was a major issue in 1E or not is open to debate (GG always made a point to talk about balance, but much of what came into the game was clearly not balanced), there's no doubting that old school D&D did not feel that momoent to moment balance was necessary, and nor do I. The idea that everyone should be awesome in combat or that those parts of the game that were less than edge of your seat exciting should be ignored or at least understated wasn't an issue either. Among the biggest problems with 4E as it relates to "old school" gaming, though, is the intentional design decision to remove randomosity from the game -- crits were too swingy, random treasure caused issues, etc... 1E trusts the DM to adjudicate the dice to deal with that randomness while 4E tries to expunge it from play.

 

[Mark]

Old school had no need of the silly map telling you where you were and where all enemies were.

It might not have needed one but that's the way it was originally played by those of us who started in the early to mid seventies, fresh from our wargaming and miniatures wargaming experiences. The toys and the props and whatnot were a huge part of what made early (O)D&D a lot of fun.