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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Piscivorous" data-source="post: 6710883" data-attributes="member: 96197">My D&D experience....My friend and I walked into a Macy's [where you used to be able to find almost all of the Avalon Hill wargame line] and ran across a 3-volume set white box with the three rule books and the accompanying Reference sheets. Still have it. I added Eldritch Wizardy, Blackmoor and Swords and Spells as well as a 3rd-party book entitled "Magic and Monster from the Land of Volkorr". Was set to buy the last supplement, Gods, Demi-gods and Heroes, when I ran across the Holmes Blue book. This is when D&D for me and my friends really took off.We graduated to AD&D through the core books and into many of the supplements, modules and Dragon magazine.I kept playing while in the Army in the 1980s, with many diverse DMs and players. One DM, my platoon sergeant, designed one of the three Bounty Hunters in Dragon #52. When I left the Army, I picked up with my old gaming group which added a spouse-player.We never really played 2E, although I bought a collection of the books. I drifted away from D&D through the 1990s and found myself working at Barnes and Noble when the 3.5 core rulebooks came out. I bought all three, looked through them and they sat for about 10 years on my shelf. I had become part of a wargaming [chits, dice and mapboard style] and played every Friday night. One of the players was remonstrating about how he had lost two D&D players recently and couldn't find anyone to bring his party back up to 4. I volunteeered.Have been playing 3.5E since 2010 and running since 2011.I picked up the core books for 4E, but didn't like the flavor. Coming from the Vancian system of magic, 4E played like a computer game, so we stayed with 3.5. I did, however, briefly play a 4E ranger in a local campaign, but that only lasted about 6 or 7 sessions.We are currently playing 5E and I am a player. We'll mark our 3rd session shortly.I play a character in 5E, but continue to run 3.5 in my own campaign.The biggest hurdle in D&D, as a DM, is that the players I have been playing with either started at the tail end of 2E or in 3.5. Coming from the old-school waaaay back in the 70s, I have had many TPKs at my table. It has taken my current players a couple of years to realize that my campaign and my DMing style is not built entirely around running encounters that are trivial, easy, challenging, hard and difficult. They have grown to realize that they need to assess each encounter and make a decision on whether it is one they can win or one they need to avoid before committing themselves to it. They know now, that they cannot rely on the idea that if they are facing one of my encounters that I haven't specifically tailored it to be unbeatable....at this level. It's old school 1E in that sense. Any encounter in 1E is potentially deadly. I once wiped out a party of six 7th-level heroes with 12 average kobolds. Hey. They wanted critical hit tables...That said, we have had the same core group for five years now. One moved to Dallas-Fort Worth and we haven't missed a session due to the wonders of the Internet Age.Why do I play D&D? Love the competition, camaraderie and theme of the game. I read a lot of fantasy novels, so being able to be a part of it in a living, breathing sense appeals to me.Why do I DM D&D? I like creating things. I like players to uncover, explore and find out things about my world, including things that they have no notion that they designed because I picked up on an idea of theirs and fleshed it out.Coming from a wargamer's perspective, D&D [and a lot of RPGs] have an added dimension that wargames lack: The common possibility that everyone wins. The players triumphantly return to the big city with more notches on their belts, bristling with more magic and gold and the DM knowing that three sessions down the road when they're still talking about that trap room that they almost lost Delimoor in. Win-win. In wargames the closest you come to both sides winning is a stalemate. Hardly a good result, believe me.</blockquote>

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