Rel
Liquid Awesome
I have been asked many times lately, "So what do you think about 4e?" My typical answer is "I don't." To be less flippant about it, I am neither super excited nor outraged at any of the reports I've heard about it. But then I'm not going out of my way to get said reports. My attitude is principally that I'll check it out once it's realeased and decide then what I think about it. I think I'll only be able to truly offer an informed and valuable opinion when I've actually seen it in its totality.
I don't contend that my attitude should be adopted by all. I'm very happy for those who are super excited. I'm sorry for those who are outraged. And just because somebody is in the middle like me doesn't mean that we share the same tastes.
What I started wondering the other day was "Why do I feel this way? Shouldn't I have more of an opinion if D&D is one of my hobbies?" That's when I realized that D&D isn't my hobby. It never has been.
I mean sure, D&D was the first roleplaying game I ever played, over a quarter century ago (HOLY CRAP I'm getting old!). I was struck by how cool the whole concept was, of there being a GAME that let me play pretend! Like many others here I spent countless hours reading the uniquely Gygaxian text in the Basic and AD&D books. I made dozens if not hundreds of characters, many of which were never even played. D&D will always be special because of the carefree years in which I first played it. But I soon discovered that D&D wasn't my hobby.
Even by the time we were 14 years old or so, we were playing whatever the "game du jour" was. Star Frontiers, Gamma World, some Powers & Perils, whatever. We were gaming junkies that had JUST enough access to cash to satisfy our habit.
Sometime in high school, we started playing Rolemaster. I liked the more elaborate skill system and we dropped D&D in favor of RM. We stilled played an occasional game of D&D from time to time but each time reminded us a little of why we had left AD&D behind. Our promiscuity with game systems continued during this time. We played the Space Master derivative of RM and some White Wolf stuff in there too. But RM was our "main game", just like D&D had been a decade earlier.
I eventually even helped write some of the books for RM. But over time the system seemed to become rather bloated with too many spells, skills, professions, etc. And it was cumbersome. We were tired of it. And besides, Rolemaster was not my hobby. When I got my hands on 3e, we dropped RM like a bad habit and never looked back.
But if 3e thought it was getting a faithful customer out of Rel then that's about as safe a bet as Rel never talking about himself in the third person. Because D&D is NOT Rel's hobby. I played all manner of variant d20 systems. And by then we had the NC Game Days going so I was slutting around with the likes of Grimm, Grim Tales, and Risus. More recently Paranoia, Dread and Kobolds Ate My Baby have all been dalliances of mine. We played Warhammer FRP for the past year and a half straight. But Warhammer is not my hobby.
None of these individual games is my hobby. I'm a gamer. I love games. But I'm married to NONE of them. I am at BEST a serial monogamist.
So I think it is primarily for this reason that I really don't care all that much about what 4e is like. If it turns out to be extremely enjoyable to me then that is fantastic. But if not it's really not a big deal at all (in fact I'll probably save a bunch of money). Every month or so somebody probably puts out an RPG that I don't much care for. So what? I don't have to play any of them and I don't play most of them. And let's be honest, even the ones I like, it's not like I'm all that faithful to any one system.
It's because my hobby is gaming, not D&D.
What is your hobby?
I don't contend that my attitude should be adopted by all. I'm very happy for those who are super excited. I'm sorry for those who are outraged. And just because somebody is in the middle like me doesn't mean that we share the same tastes.
What I started wondering the other day was "Why do I feel this way? Shouldn't I have more of an opinion if D&D is one of my hobbies?" That's when I realized that D&D isn't my hobby. It never has been.
I mean sure, D&D was the first roleplaying game I ever played, over a quarter century ago (HOLY CRAP I'm getting old!). I was struck by how cool the whole concept was, of there being a GAME that let me play pretend! Like many others here I spent countless hours reading the uniquely Gygaxian text in the Basic and AD&D books. I made dozens if not hundreds of characters, many of which were never even played. D&D will always be special because of the carefree years in which I first played it. But I soon discovered that D&D wasn't my hobby.
Even by the time we were 14 years old or so, we were playing whatever the "game du jour" was. Star Frontiers, Gamma World, some Powers & Perils, whatever. We were gaming junkies that had JUST enough access to cash to satisfy our habit.
Sometime in high school, we started playing Rolemaster. I liked the more elaborate skill system and we dropped D&D in favor of RM. We stilled played an occasional game of D&D from time to time but each time reminded us a little of why we had left AD&D behind. Our promiscuity with game systems continued during this time. We played the Space Master derivative of RM and some White Wolf stuff in there too. But RM was our "main game", just like D&D had been a decade earlier.
I eventually even helped write some of the books for RM. But over time the system seemed to become rather bloated with too many spells, skills, professions, etc. And it was cumbersome. We were tired of it. And besides, Rolemaster was not my hobby. When I got my hands on 3e, we dropped RM like a bad habit and never looked back.
But if 3e thought it was getting a faithful customer out of Rel then that's about as safe a bet as Rel never talking about himself in the third person. Because D&D is NOT Rel's hobby. I played all manner of variant d20 systems. And by then we had the NC Game Days going so I was slutting around with the likes of Grimm, Grim Tales, and Risus. More recently Paranoia, Dread and Kobolds Ate My Baby have all been dalliances of mine. We played Warhammer FRP for the past year and a half straight. But Warhammer is not my hobby.
None of these individual games is my hobby. I'm a gamer. I love games. But I'm married to NONE of them. I am at BEST a serial monogamist.
So I think it is primarily for this reason that I really don't care all that much about what 4e is like. If it turns out to be extremely enjoyable to me then that is fantastic. But if not it's really not a big deal at all (in fact I'll probably save a bunch of money). Every month or so somebody probably puts out an RPG that I don't much care for. So what? I don't have to play any of them and I don't play most of them. And let's be honest, even the ones I like, it's not like I'm all that faithful to any one system.
It's because my hobby is gaming, not D&D.
What is your hobby?
