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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 9350749" data-attributes="member: 2205">Left in the mid to late 80s because 1) was busy with other things, like work and girls when I was in high school, and 2) never liked the disconnect between D&D and fantasy fiction as I knew it, i.e., I always expected D&D to more resemble fantasy fiction that seemed to me to be the obvious draw, but instead it was a weird dungeoncrawling pseudo-wargame/boardgame experience.There's an infamous (at least to me) quote from a column by Gary in Dragon that I searched up because I referred to it on my blog. Let me reproduce it: "Frankly, to attract those readers  and often at the urging of persons who were playing prototypical forms of D&D games  I used certain names and attributes in a superficial manner, merely to get their attention! I knew full well that the façade would be dispelled by the actualities of play. I relied on the power of the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game to overcome the objections which would naturally occur when diehard Tolkien enthusiasts discovered the dissimilarity. This proved to be the case far more often than not. Tolkien fans entered the D&D game fold, and became a part of its eager audience, despite the fact that only a minute trace of the Professor's work can be found in the games. As anyone familiar with both D&D games and Tolkien works can affirm, there is no resemblance between the two, and it is well nigh impossible to recreate any Tolkien-based fantasy while remaining within the boundaries of the game system."That's the main reason that I left. I didn't get over the bait and switch, even though he claims most people did. Not that I necessarily wanted to reproduce Tolkien specifically, but certainly I wanted D&D to resemble fantasy as I knew it, and it didn't. D&D really only ever resembled itself.I came back in 2000 when 3e launched and although I lingered in 3e for a little while after 4e launched, I was pretty much done with D&D then again. Would have been 2007-8 or so. Haven't really looked back since. And I didn't leave because of 4e. I was done with 3e by that point too. The D&Disms, the complexity, the difficulty in running the kind of game I wanted, the static, careful tactical approach; it just wasn't at all what I was looking for anymore.Although it's curious; as Professor DungeonMaster often says, if I'm playing a game that has the six attributes and the handful of normal dice, am I playing D&D regardless of the actual details of the system and game? Whether my game is "D&D or not" is subject to some interpretation. Most gamers who are serious about their systems would say no. My players, who are not, consider that it is.  <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🤷" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f937.png" title="Person shrugging    :person_shrugging:" data-shortname=":person_shrugging:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" /></blockquote>

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