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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jacob Lewis" data-source="post: 9683575" data-attributes="member: 6667921">[USER=30518]@lewpuls[/USER]  I really appreciate this article. Very thought provoking. I especially like the analogy of collecting "favorite" songs on your music player to the point where the word favorites loses its meaning and becomes more akin to likes. It's not unlike accumulating an unreasonable number of "friends" on Facebook for the sheer volume that you never interact or engage with. It becomes less impersonal and doesn't mean much without substance. Likewise, buying games and books that sit on a shelf for appearance are rarely appreciated beyind their aesthetics as they contribute to the overall illusion of someone who has greater eclectic interests, obsessive tendencies, or finacial means to flaunt their frivolous spending habits.When I consider what my (true) favorite systems are/were, I think about the ones that I enjoyed most regardless of who I played with, and the ones I continually go back to and revisit. In the case of D&D, I've always moved forward with every edition until 5th. Not because 5e was bad or wrong; I wanted to like it, tried to embrace it. But it was 4th Edition that gave me exactly what I wanted from this kind game ever since I started playing in the early 80s with Basic and Advanced D&D. It is unfortunate that I cannot live in a world where I can still enjoy my favorite version of this game so freely and openly as others can with theirs because it was too different. But that had made me realized I never loved D&D for the system, but for the ideas it presented. It was never really the game I wanted to play, just the game I thought I was supposed to play.Of a handful of other systems I tried outside the D&D sphere, the Star Wars RPG from Fantasy Flight Games remains my absolute favorite. Not only did it remind me of my love for Star Wars, it introduced me to a lot of great stories, content, and details I had missed about the setting beyond the original films that had evolved and expanded over decades. More importantly, it finally took me outside the D&D sphere and showed me a different style of play that didn't require mastery of the rules to "win" the game. Instead, mastering the rules would only enhance your enjoyment of the game itself because you were no longer burdened by the endless chase for better numbers. The story became central to the experience, empowered through collaboration and exchange over rules debate and system mandate.And this is where my RPG journeys ended. There are no more systems or games out there offering me incentive to buy into another set of books and accessories I need to play a different game pretending to do something different or better than a hundred other systems already do. I prefer modern board games now that give me essentially the same experience with a single purchase, and the option to expand without needlessly complicating the game.</blockquote>

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