Going back in time to play your novice days again

[El Mahdi]

Man, I would seriously miss playing with my wife.

Must...Resist...

 

[Barastrondo]

Must...Resist...

Well, that too, obviously.

Magical do-overs are a tricky question because gaming is just this alchemical thing. Back in those halcyon red-box days it was all fresh and new, but nobody played the way I like to play now. It would be neat to try gaming with my friends at the time with my present set of skills, but the rest of my group these days is hard to fault. It'd kind of be a long wait until I got back "home" again.

 

[Doug McCrae]

When I started playing, there was a three month period when another player (playing an anti-paladin from Dragon Magazine) killed my character every. single. game. And took his stuff, making it easier for him to kill my next character as well.

Talk about a death spiral! When roleplaying games are bad, they are really, really bad.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I wouldn't want to go back in time to recapture the newb feeling or experience everything for the first time.

The reason I would want to go back would be to once again have no responsibilities other than to make a round of phone calls to find out who's house we are going to gather at to game for 12 hours in a row...for the sixth day in a row.

20 years of marriages, kids, house payments, job overtime, and general weardown of life has made the moments and opportunities too few to consider this my golden age of gaming.

Sure, I have an entire room in my basement with shelves and shelves full of boardgames, RPG supplements, miniatures, and Magic cards...but when I can't use them what good are they really doing me?

DS

 

[Jacob Marley]

If you could go back in time to your first days, weeks, months, years of your gaming career, and replay the game, knowing what you know now, with the experience in the game you have now, would those early games be as fun, more fun, or less fun?

Both more and less fun. Knowing what I know today about what elements make for an enjoyable campaign, I think, would have added to my ability to DM a game that was both fun for me and my players. On the other hand, knowing what I know today about monsters, etc., I think, would have lessened the fun that I had playing my PCs.

Would you replay the game like you did then, or would you change things based on what you know now?

I don't think I can really unlearn what I have learned. Certain changes would be inevitable.

Has experience jaded you to what/how you used to enjoy the game, or has long experience confirmed your enjoyment of what/how you used to play the game?

I would say that experience has refined what I enjoyed about the game.

 

[Kaodi]

I reject one of the premises of the question; I would not go back in time.

However, if I could be transferred into an alternate reality that was currently at the same timeframe as when I first played D&D... I still probably would not, but for entirely different reasons. I just do not think it would have been very fun playing with a couple of thirteen year olds. That, and the time between when I first tried D&D, and when I first played it, in real life, was like twelve years, so there would not even be that much to enjoy.

 

[joela]

If you have been playing D&D for more than 10 years:

If you could go back in time to your first days, weeks, months, years of your gaming career, and replay the game, knowing what you know now, with the experience in the game you have now, would those early games be as fun, more fun, or less fun?

Less fun.

Would you replay the game like you did then, or would you change things based on what you know now?

Change things. Drastically.

Has experience jaded you to what/how you used to enjoy the game, or has long experience confirmed your enjoyment of what/how you used to play the game?

Not made me more jaded, but changed my tastes.

 

[Raven Crowking]

May I also say that, once I was back in time, I would dance upon the butterflies, just to see what would happen?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

May I also say that, once I was back in time, I would dance upon the butterflies, just to see what would happen?

There's a song lyric somewhere in there...