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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ulrick" data-source="post: 6058078" data-attributes="member: 775">The grognards have had their say, the Golden Age of D&D is long gone.And i agree. But I'm not part of the old school crowd. I started playing D&D in 1989, when AD&D Second Edition was published. AD&D 2e was great, the rules were organized, easier to use. Yet somehow, the aura of mystery and fantasy that the older material invoked was gone (along with demons, devils, and assassins). So I was torn between the old and the new. Others seemed to have thought the same way. Somebody on the boards mentioned that AD&D 2e experienced a "diaspora" of gamers. Rarely anybody champions AD&D 2e in the Edition Wars (as ugly as the Edition Wars are). But somebody must have played AD&D 2e, because WotC feels its worthwhile to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Premium-Advanced-Dungeons-Handbook-Rulebook/dp/0786964456/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354918079&sr=1-1&keywords=Premium+2nd+Edition+Advanced+Dungeons" target="_blank">reprint the core books</a>. I view the publishing of 2e like the splitting of the Roman Empire around the 3rd Century AD. Those who went to 2e were like the Western Empire, soon to be overrun. Meanwhile, other D&D players, stuck with 1e or even basic, carrying on the old traditions like the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantines. 3e/3.5e was like Charlemagne uniting Western Europe for a brief period before things fell apart again. With the OGL, nearly anybody could claim "lordship" over the rules. 4e brought all kinds of problems. The Edition Wars were like the new concern over and the persecution of heresy in the 11th and 12th centuries. Many through they had the one true way. Like with any analogy, you can poke gaping holes through it. Yet I think something last been lost from the Golden Age, namely the grand narrative that bound most D&D players together: being introduced to D&D after already being exposed to literature and history that inspired, the shared experience of playing through the same modules, and playing the game before computer games and CCGs really took off. D&D players, and the tabletop RPG hobby as whole, are more fragmented than ever. There's so much stuff out there you can never play it all. After reading the <a href="http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=123&t=54656" target="_blank">State of Mongoose 2012</a>, I believe the d20 Dark Ages are still with us. Maybe 5e will bring everybody back together again, who knows. I've been exploring these ideas on my blog <a href="http://www.d20darkages.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">d20 Dark Ages</a>.* I don't consider myself part of D&D's "Lost Generation" but I think D&D lost "something" in 1989, and since then, after TSR tanked, WotC has been trying to get it back.You're more than welcome to visit there, or discuss things here. If you grew up playing 2e in the 1990s, I definitely want to hear your experiences.*As a medievalist, I understand that the proper term for the "Dark Ages" is the Early Medieval Period. But "d20 Early Medieval Period" just doesn't have nice ring to it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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