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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dungeonosophy" data-source="post: 8899488" data-attributes="member: 6688049">Hey JGSugden, I feel you. You said it really well, and with heart.I started playing D&D when two older cousins (girls) visited and tried to teach me Moldvay BASIC, when I was like 8 years old. Then I got Mentzer Red Box for Christmas 1983, and I never looked back. Despite hiatuses, I've always been a D&D aficionado. And have served as the primary DM of our D&D Club for years. Furthermore, I do love the D&D Multiverse and its specific characters and history. Bargle and Aleena. Yeah, even Drizzt Do'urden. Tasslehof and all the Companions of the Lance.I've personally interviewed many of the early D&D designers (you can see my collected interviews <a href="http://pandius.com/q_and_a.html" target="_blank">here</a>). I'm the one who, a couple years ago, went out to Akron Ohio in a snowstorm and met with Bill Wilkerson, one of the players in Tom Moldvay's home campaign, and secured photocopies of the Original Known World campaign notes, which then made ENWorld news.And yet...I'm walking away. Walking away from purchasing new WOTC products. Do I mourn and grieve? Yeah.I like where previous posters shared how they just call "D&D" whatever fantasy RPG they happen to be playing. Same with us. We did play 5E for a couple years, but then we got tired of the minutiae and wonky bits, and, after trying out various OSR rulesets, settled on our own homebrew nearly mechanicless system. It's totally freeform, except that I occasionally call for a symbolic d20 check, sometimes with Advantage or Disadvantage. And the DC is always 10! We don't keep track of hitpoints or anything.But it's the same characters and parties and world which began back in 5E. Just expressed through different rules.And the super simplified character sheets I make, I cut and paste a 1980's D&D logo on it. And newcomers literally take it as D&D.Because, it is!In various official D&D publications, it says each DM and group is free to modify the rules. And we have!Even when the rulebooks we're using have a different brand printed on them: The Black Hack, or White Box, or Heroes & Monsters, or Pathfinder, we consider ourselves to just actually be playing our own selection of D&D rules.As for mourning for the D&D novels, my vow still allows for me to purchase used copies. So I'll still get old Dragonlance novels I'm sure. Just not new copies. Bummer for online audiobooks though. But I realize as I type this, that I'd like to try a Pathfinder novel, or something like that, and branch into other (non-D&D branded but actually 'spiritually' D&D) worlds of characters.We all love the game, no matter what label is printed on it. It can all be "D&D" at our tables.Buddy, keep your chin up. Let's encourage each other and take care of the party, no matter how this big adventure of Hasbro vs. the World turns out.</blockquote>

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