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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Volund" data-source="post: 7563854" data-attributes="member: 6872597">As a kid who was heavily immersed in sci-fi and fanstasy novels in the 70's, D&D was life-changing. Someone in the adult world had taken the things I loved seriously enough to create a game where you could play in those worlds with your friends. Seemingly overnight in the Chicago suburbs the hobby and book stores had lead figures and Judge's Guild mega-dungeons and small paperbacks with names like "Greyhawk" and "Eldritch Wizardry" with its risque cover. I was introduced to D&D in 1978 and bought the Holmes set with B1 In Search of the Unknown in 1979, playing regularly until I went off to college in 1984. I had a decent collection of core books, modules, and Grenadier figures (I had all twelve of the Dragon Lords figures although I only got around to painting the black and the brass dragons). Once I got to college the guy in the next dorm room invited me to his D&D game but when I saw the crew he was putting together I quickly realized that I would have to choose between D&D social stigma and ever having a chance to date women (sounds mean today but I'm sad to say I was a shallow and judgmental person then). I didn't play again for over 30 years, but never stopped carrying a torch for D&D. A few years after college I was aware that 2e had come out and I recall thumbing through the PHB in a bookstore. I remember thinking that the Barbarian class was stupid. Anyone could be a barbarian - that's just a background. Incidentally, one of my English professors was Dr. Roald Tweet, something of an icon on our small campus. Many years later I read that someone named Jonathan Tweet had written the 3e rules. That seemed like an unusual name so I checked and sure enough he is the son of my English professor, which if you had taken class from him, it would make sense that his son would write a D&D ruleset. For 25 years after my last D&D game I kept a box of my D&D stuff. Between the books and the lead it was heavy. With every move the corners would get a little bashed and the packing tape yellowed. Every so often I would read through one of the core rulebooks and reminisce about playing D&D as a teen. Finally in 2009 we were moving out of state and I thought, "This is stupid. You're never going to play D&D again. Just let that dream die." So I dropped the whole box in the trash on the day I packed up the last of my stuff and moved to Ohio.Late 2015, a couple of threads spun together to draw me back to D&D. I read an article on Slate about a new biography of Gary Gygax, Empire of the Imagination. The article mentioned that there was a new version of D&D that was gaining in popularity and that you could download the basic rules for free from the WotC website. A few weeks later, an old high school friend came to town to stay with me to see his team play in the MLS championship. He had played a paladin in my campaign, we used to paint minis together, and he still played D&D with his kids. He told me that they were excited when he told them he was going to stay with the person who had taught him how to play D&D. I downloaded the basic rules, started poring over online discussions and character guides, joined D&D FB groups, built characters even though I had no game to play in yet. I did that for about 10 months and finally bought dice and a PHB and in September 2016 went to a D&D meetup at a bar and launched my AL tempest cleric. It took a few sessions to break the habit of rolling a d20 for a random 1-10 result. When I started the dice sets didn't come with a d10. I've been playing an average of twice a week ever since.Not five, but two plus years in I have two regular gaming groups and I am currently the DM in one of them running the Goodman Games Into the Unknown. We are almost done with that and will move into Rappan Athuk next. I have met more people and made more friends in two years playing D&D than I had in the previous seven years in my current city. I love the 5e rules so much more than 1e. Overall it still feels like D&D and I never pine for the old rules. Well, I wish we still had a random harlot table in the DMG. Maybe it will show up in the upcoming seafaring release. I've built up a new collection of 5e materials and painted some minis. I worry that the 5e wave will crash in a few years and I'll have a shelf of D&D books and no group to play with again.One of the consequences of such a long lapse is that I don't share a lot of canon with those who have played in the intervening years. I never read a D&D novel, had never heard of Drizzt Durden, never read any Dragonlance, have no connection to Dark Sun, Eberron, Spelljammer. I stopped playing before Ravenloft and Strahd and had no knowledge of them until Curse of Strahd in 5e. I don't long for the return of the Warlord, Artificer, or Mystic classes. Heck, I still think of Illusionists, Assassins, Monks, Bards, Paladins, Rangers and Druids as the "new" classes. There never was a Spellplague. The history of the Forgotten Realms is lost on me. I'm still Greyhawk at heart, and it's the setting I'm using now in my campaign. Another consequence of my D&D lapse is that my mind is not cluttered with how things used to work in previous editions and I think it helps me take the rules at face value and not get too confused or upset about how the game plays in 5e.Before D&D I used to be a cyclist regularly riding 250 miles a week until a back injury shut me down for a year. Replacing that obsession with D&D has added about 20 pounds in 2 years.I also have played Hero Kids with my daughter with mixed results but she likes tabletop gaming in general and really gets into fair tales and magic and fighting monsters. I don't know if she will play D&D, but I have used my D&D adventures as bedtime stories and now she is asking to be one of the characters in the story. We used the PHB to pick out a class - Druid - and some spells, and now we're creating stories together. It's a promising start.Long post, maybe nobody cares. The OP sparked some memories...</blockquote>

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