CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing (He/They)
It's all good, really...but since you asked, I'll tell you my gaming history.
I started playing with the red box Basic Rules set (long live Bargle!) back in 1986; it was a birthday present from my mom. "I know how you like dragons," she said, pointing to the prominent red dragon on the front. It was the most awesome birthday present ever.
I got the Expert rules set from a friend at school, who was moving on to the new "advanced" rules. He was quite a bit older than me, and had a pretty strong reputation for being one of the more eccentric losers of our campus. Which was a shame, because he was a really nice guy. Anyway, I didn't know there was more than one flavor of D&D, and when I asked him about it he invited me to join him for a game.
It wasn't good. The rules were waaaay too complicated...the red box rules were simple and straightforward enough that anyone could pick them up in an hour or two, but these seemed to require a lot of studying and practice. The adventure could have been awesome (we were starting the now-classic "Desert of Desolation" series) but I just couldn't get the hang of it. What is a THAC-zero? Why do I have two numbers for my strength, but only one for my Intelligence? How come the other fighter in the group can do something that I can't? Whadda ya mean, "kit?"
I was just a 7th grader, after all.
AD&D scared me away from the more complicated stuff for a good long while. In fact, B/X rules were all I played. By the time our characters had leveled up enough to need the Companion Rules set, it was out of print.
I looked high and low, but none of the used bookstores had a copy. Plus, the satanic scare of the late 80's had set in, especially in the hyper-conservative heartland where I grew up...a lot of stores just flat refused to carry roleplaying books of any kind.
In desperation, I called TSR's customer service department. They told me that, sorry, the Companion and Masters rule sets that I needed were indeed out of print, but no worries: they had all been compiled into a single book called the Rules Cyclopedia. I bought it right away.
I played RC games for the remainder of my high school and all through college. It was hard to find players, because everyone was playing AD&D and something called Spelljammer. I sat in on a couple of games with a handful of classmates, but I really didn't care for it. Giant space hamsters? Gnome flying machines? Mind flayers and psionics? No thank you...this was not the kind of fantasy I enjoyed.
I graduated, got a job, and moved out of state. Towards the mid-to-late 90's, I heard something about TSR going bankrupt or being bought out or something. I didn't really care; all of the books that I wanted were out of print anyway (I was/am collecting all of the BECM modules and splats.)
Then, in the summer of 2000, I saw the "third edition" of the D&D book sitting on the shelf. I picked it up, and browsed it for a couple of hours while my girlfriend was waiting in line at a book signing. By the time I had read the Druid character class, I had decided to buy it.
I played 3rd Edition for almost a decade. It was decidedly more complicated than the BECM/RC rules that I was familiar with, but they were intuitive enough to figure out. I had never tried to write "house rules" before, and once I started, I was addicted...I loved tinkering with the rules, tweaking the classes, dreaming up all sorts of new stuff...our game was truly one-of-a-kind. We started a campaign that would end up lasting for almost 5 years.
When the 3.5 Edition was announced, our gaming group decided to upgrade almost without hesitation. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it was going to be; most of the changes were to behind-the-scenes stuff like the math and mechanics. The flavor, the feel, and the story were relatively untouced by the revision.
Not like 4E. For better or for worse, the authors completely restructured the game. It had a new feel, a new style, a new way of doing things...some of it made sense, some of it didn't. I pitched the idea of a 4E game to my gaming group, and it got lukewarm responses at best. Our barbarian and our druid were, obviously, least impressed...and my girlfriend-turned-wife was one of them.
I tried to run a 4E game, but nobody wanted to focus on it. After a very frustrating skeleton battle and trying to explain the difference between moving and shifting, and after an unnecessary fight over a secret door and the skill challenge rules, everyone abandoned my game in favor of a LAN game of Diablo II. Over the next couple of months, I just couldn't get excited about it enough to want to try again...so I ended up giving my books away to a friend for his birthday.
So that's it, pretty much. Some of the best gaming I've ever had in my life were with the BECM/RC rules, and with the 3.x rules. Everything else has brought only pain.
I started playing with the red box Basic Rules set (long live Bargle!) back in 1986; it was a birthday present from my mom. "I know how you like dragons," she said, pointing to the prominent red dragon on the front. It was the most awesome birthday present ever.
I got the Expert rules set from a friend at school, who was moving on to the new "advanced" rules. He was quite a bit older than me, and had a pretty strong reputation for being one of the more eccentric losers of our campus. Which was a shame, because he was a really nice guy. Anyway, I didn't know there was more than one flavor of D&D, and when I asked him about it he invited me to join him for a game.
It wasn't good. The rules were waaaay too complicated...the red box rules were simple and straightforward enough that anyone could pick them up in an hour or two, but these seemed to require a lot of studying and practice. The adventure could have been awesome (we were starting the now-classic "Desert of Desolation" series) but I just couldn't get the hang of it. What is a THAC-zero? Why do I have two numbers for my strength, but only one for my Intelligence? How come the other fighter in the group can do something that I can't? Whadda ya mean, "kit?"
I was just a 7th grader, after all.
AD&D scared me away from the more complicated stuff for a good long while. In fact, B/X rules were all I played. By the time our characters had leveled up enough to need the Companion Rules set, it was out of print.
I looked high and low, but none of the used bookstores had a copy. Plus, the satanic scare of the late 80's had set in, especially in the hyper-conservative heartland where I grew up...a lot of stores just flat refused to carry roleplaying books of any kind.In desperation, I called TSR's customer service department. They told me that, sorry, the Companion and Masters rule sets that I needed were indeed out of print, but no worries: they had all been compiled into a single book called the Rules Cyclopedia. I bought it right away.
I played RC games for the remainder of my high school and all through college. It was hard to find players, because everyone was playing AD&D and something called Spelljammer. I sat in on a couple of games with a handful of classmates, but I really didn't care for it. Giant space hamsters? Gnome flying machines? Mind flayers and psionics? No thank you...this was not the kind of fantasy I enjoyed.
I graduated, got a job, and moved out of state. Towards the mid-to-late 90's, I heard something about TSR going bankrupt or being bought out or something. I didn't really care; all of the books that I wanted were out of print anyway (I was/am collecting all of the BECM modules and splats.)
Then, in the summer of 2000, I saw the "third edition" of the D&D book sitting on the shelf. I picked it up, and browsed it for a couple of hours while my girlfriend was waiting in line at a book signing. By the time I had read the Druid character class, I had decided to buy it.
I played 3rd Edition for almost a decade. It was decidedly more complicated than the BECM/RC rules that I was familiar with, but they were intuitive enough to figure out. I had never tried to write "house rules" before, and once I started, I was addicted...I loved tinkering with the rules, tweaking the classes, dreaming up all sorts of new stuff...our game was truly one-of-a-kind. We started a campaign that would end up lasting for almost 5 years.
When the 3.5 Edition was announced, our gaming group decided to upgrade almost without hesitation. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it was going to be; most of the changes were to behind-the-scenes stuff like the math and mechanics. The flavor, the feel, and the story were relatively untouced by the revision.
Not like 4E. For better or for worse, the authors completely restructured the game. It had a new feel, a new style, a new way of doing things...some of it made sense, some of it didn't. I pitched the idea of a 4E game to my gaming group, and it got lukewarm responses at best. Our barbarian and our druid were, obviously, least impressed...and my girlfriend-turned-wife was one of them.
I tried to run a 4E game, but nobody wanted to focus on it. After a very frustrating skeleton battle and trying to explain the difference between moving and shifting, and after an unnecessary fight over a secret door and the skill challenge rules, everyone abandoned my game in favor of a LAN game of Diablo II. Over the next couple of months, I just couldn't get excited about it enough to want to try again...so I ended up giving my books away to a friend for his birthday.
So that's it, pretty much. Some of the best gaming I've ever had in my life were with the BECM/RC rules, and with the 3.x rules. Everything else has brought only pain.
