Roleplaying since the 80s and I'm really tired!

[Nellisir]

Admittedly I am not fond of running stock dungeon crawls using core races.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

This is probably the understatement of the year. I love it.

 

[knottyprof]

I understand some of the frustrations of the multiple editions of the games and (as someone that started in the mid-80's as well) the ruleset hasn't necessarily grown in a direction that makes the game any more fun than the original white box. The bottom line is whatever game you play, you play for fun and when it no longer becomes fun then there really isn't a reason to play.
I started out with 1st edition AD&D in the 80's and ran a campaign several years using the Rules Cyclopedia and my own material gleaned from 2nd edition materials (I liked the simplified rules in the basic set) then took a hiatus for about 10 years. I came back to 4th edition and honestly could not make heads or tails of it from my earlier experience and ended up with a group playing 3.5. I loved 3.5 and honestly loved all the options available to characters (compared to earlier editions). Since then I have moved on to Pathfinder more or less though I run a 3.5 game with some pathfinder benefits. However, the plethora of character options for a d20 version is a double edged sword. Sure it allows you to make a very unique character (not to mention the ability to design super characters) but it was obvious towards the end that WotC was just throwing stuff out there with little regard to actual game balance or playability. As a reult when playing a 3.5 game (and to an extent the same seems to be true with Pathfinder) there are times where play comes to a virtual stop while obscure rules or powers have to be looked up and verified. Combat should be fast (relatively speaking) and fluid and with all the options available in 3.5 it rarely works out that way (at least in the games I am in).
I just recently purchased the hero lab program because at my age (43) I don't have time to store all the possible options and various classes available, but at the same time I like the fact they are there. I think we are just at the point in time with this particular game that effectively playing the game without electronic assistance is difficult if not impossible unless you limit resources to a core set. Personally, when I DM I use a laptop to track initiative (thanks MS for Excel) and actually prefer to use PDFs to paper copies for quickly accessing book and rules questions. Whether this is a good thing or not is a question of personal preference I think, but I remember hauling a gymbag full of books back in the nineties and a laptop case is a lot lighter.
So has the game changed over the years and will it continue to change to match the times? I am sure it will and in a world where most of our 'friends' are connected through social media I hope there is always room for table top games even if we need electonic assistance to speed things along.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Everyone needs to listen to this guy!

(my wife & I are going out to dinner tonight. I wanted an Irish restaurant & some decent lamb; she wanted Thai/Asian; or in other words, we both wanted what we grew up with. Obviously, we're getting Asian food. )

Smartest. Man. Ever!

 

[Aeolius]

Everyone needs to listen to this guy!
Smartest. Man. Ever!

As 3 of my kids were born in China and another in Taiwan, we eat Asian food with regularity. However, I remember when she was pregnant with our second child she craved Chinese/Japanese food daily. Finally, one day, I snapped.

"Can you stop by Mr. Wonton?"
"Wonton... spelled backwards... is NOT NOW!!"

 

[Elf Witch]

Just curious. How long do you play the same character?

It depends on the game most campaigns last at least 2 years. Our Shadowrun game has been going on for years but we often play for awhile then switch to something else. And for the most part we have been playing the same characters. Since Shadowrun is not a level based game it very possible to play the same characters without running into the epic level issues that DnD runs into. Our characters are not demi gods though are no longer street level runners either they now run with the big boys and have their own security company trying to stop street level runners from stealing from our clients.

Also we sometimes play in the same world or years bringing into new characters sometimes the children of former PCs. Which is why major rule changes can mess up the world.

 

[Elf Witch]

Since the role playing aspects were the only ones that really mattered, to us, they were the only ones that were relevant.

As an example, we are currently playing through the slavers modules (A1-A4) and the conversion has been extremely simple. At times I'm doing the conversion on the fly for some things without issue. Compared to the amount of "work" it took to convert and run Ravenloft (I6) to 3.0, and later 3.5, the conversion to 4e was delightful. In running these is where you see the difference. 3.0 and 3.5 required constant lookup in other books while running the monsters. In 4e there was very little, or no lookup at all. That let us concentrate on the game and situation at the table instead of having to go back and forth looking up rules. For the role playing aspect that was much better for us.

We have players who demand rules that are not all made on the fly they don't have an issue with home rules the usually don't have an issue if the DM changes monster stats to make the monsters different but just making it up as you go rule wise would not fly. Doing it once and while is also okay like the DM saying this time we will do this and after the game we will decide how it will be done in the future.

While role playing is very important knowing how the rules are going to work is also important to us.

And there is a huge difference of how the rules work in 4E with all the encounter powers and actions and the way magic is different to just wing it for our group. When we played 4E we found combat dragging al the time because people were constantly having to go look up how an encounter power worked. I am sure in time if we had liked the system we would not have needed to do this. We have been playing 3E since it came out and we rarely need to look things up any more.

 

[Elf Witch]

And more importantly, how much Karma did this guy have?

She is a mage and so she rarely has enough Karma to what she truly wants mages being karma black holes. Our GM is really good at not giving out to much karma or to little.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Back in the early 80s, a friend of the family introduced me to fantasy roleplaying games when I was about 12 years old. It was the Dungeons & Dragons Basic game in a red box, and I was hooked! Being in the military, my family moved around a lot so it wasn't always easy to find the right group to play with. Sometimes, there was no one around to share my hobby that had become my passion. As I grew into adulthood, changed jobs and locations (and even relationships), my love for the game stayed with me. Yet, I still kept up with the books, the supplements, and almost every product even remotely associated with the game. Every edition. Admittedly, fourth was the hardest for me to accept, but like with every edition before it, I found enough strengths and considerations to keep me vested in the game. I hung out for as long as I could, but the moment the Next edition was announced, I decided that I was done because, frankly, I'm just really tired of buying into new games I already play.

I'm in the same boat, though I'm not really stepping off of the edition merry-go-round because of money. (Although I am a broke college student, so I really don't need the constant temptation to drop cash on a game.) I mostly just want to step off the ride on a high note.

 

[D'karr]

We have players who demand rules that are not all made on the fly they don't have an issue with home rules the usually don't have an issue if the DM changes monster stats to make the monsters different but just making it up as you go rule wise would not fly. Doing it once and while is also okay like the DM saying this time we will do this and after the game we will decide how it will be done in the future.

While role playing is very important knowing how the rules are going to work is also important to us.

And there is a huge difference of how the rules work in 4E with all the encounter powers and actions and the way magic is different to just wing it for our group. When we played 4E we found combat dragging al the time because people were constantly having to go look up how an encounter power worked. I am sure in time if we had liked the system we would not have needed to do this. We have been playing 3E since it came out and we rarely need to look things up any more.

Never had any of those problems so I can't comment.

 

[adamc]

(And in case you might ask, the true "feel" of any DnD game (to me) has very little to do with mechanics. It is a group of people, sitting around a table with make-believe characters and stories, collaborating to tell stories of adventure, action, suspense, and glory! It is about people having fun, not digging in rulebooks to find some obscure detail, or arguing about how all characters can be no better or worse than anyone else's, or whining about when/how their character is going to stand out in a table full of like-minded people wondering the same exact thing, etc.)

I'm at the other end of the spectrum (only played a few years, all 4e), but that quote rings very true to me.