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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mlund" data-source="post: 4774053" data-attributes="member: 50304">Yeah, I'd have to say that I had a very different journey as well. I grew up in a former factory town about 20 miles out of Boston. I received fantasy books and RPG material from family members early on, but really lacked the social skills necessary to participate in a group until I was in high school. I got to go to a variety of schools, public, private, and parochial before I graduated. I also got to play RPGs as well as CCGs, chess, video, and computer games. Once I got into college I really started to appreciate the appeal of face-to-face or at least avatar-to-avatar social gaming experience with RL friends.Learning to think about life in terms of people and relationships rather than objects really curbed a lot of my impulses to constantly move from place to place and thing to thing. Now that I'm getting on towards 30 it really bothers me that I don't know most of my neighbor's names. I neither pity nor envy people who have never moved away from their home town, but I do appreciate the huge benefits you can get from keeping your friends and family close and really bonding with a particular place or community. I also reflect back on what my parents did and taught me and realize that I was being foolish and mindlessly reactionary in those times where I tried to throw off whatever they'd given me out of hand.Frankly, I think my experiences gaming really helped give me that appreciation. Growing up I had a very adversarial outlook on life. I had a lot of immature childhood tormentors and while I appreciated adult company I wasn't a peer and I didn't have a lot in common with the adults in my family in terms of interests. Consequently getting to know people was really difficult and my relationships with most folks were shallow. Games helped me open up dialogue over a common interest. The shared experiences helped me deepen relationships with other people. Accordingly, my solo gaming declined and my social gaming increased a lot.Now I'm proud to be a husband, a home owner, a community volunteer, and hope to become father. I don't think the pre-social-gaming Marty (the kid stuck on 1 player Nintendo and competitive Chess) would've ever been able to grok just what that all really means.When it comes to games, I have my preferences, but the biggest concern is always going to be, "What can we all enjoy and share?" Right now that means 4th Edition D&D, because a lot of my friends are all sharing the experience of exploring a new edition and a new realms. It gives us a lot to talk about. I've still got a semi-regular 3.5 game too because a good friend enjoys running it. The best game system in the world is no good to me without decent friends and associated to play it with.- Marty Lund</blockquote>

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