Jerald Schrimsher's page

I have had an experience that defied any logical explanation. I lived in a house where mine & my wife's bedroom was right next to the living room, we tend to sleep with the door open. One night I awoke to the sound of my recliner squeaking as if someone were sitting in it. We have two children and one often got up and slept in places other than his bed. I got up and went to tell him to go back to bed. As I entered the living room I saw a vaguely tear-drop shaped blob of...well I am not sure what. Not light, but it was a sort of flesh-tone rather than a white light or mist. It streaked out of the living room faster than my bleary eyes could track it, so I figured it was still the boy and I had simply mis-seen it. I checked and both boys were in bed asleep. To this day I cannot figure out exactly what I saw.

I'll turn 40 this year. Started with 1st edition D&D, I have played every edition, I think that evolution worked through 3.5, then D&D turned into a weird RPG/video game/MMO platypus. I have tried it, and the system is funtional and it seems easy to learn, but it is not my D&D, and I don't care what the books say in that regard. I have playtested Next, and I do not think it is moving in the correct direction. I have played a lot of other games as well, and some of them are great, some of them are barely playable, still-mobile trainwrecks that can be salvaged by good GMs or made worse by bad ones. I can go grimdark, but I don't like to stay there too long. I never really got into Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms. Really never played in published settings until PF, also never really ran published modules. I also never played most of the big ones. We had money problems. Mostly my friends and I made up our own adventures with a story, a monster manual, and some graph paper, usually at the table. I also didn't read a lot of the core sci-fi or fantasy stuff that most folks seem to think are required reading for a grognard. I still cling to the DM as god, inasmuch as I understand that the DM (or GM) controls everything BUT the players, including the actions of the gods. I still prefer playing on and making it up as I go to having to refer to the book for every detail, so I don't run a lot of published adventures, although I love to use the maps! I prefer to play with a group that has played for a while, but I can work new players in, as long as they mesh. I have tried to play with folks that wanted to argue the meaning of this sentence or that asterisk, but they didn't last long, for a variety of reasons. I don;t play a lot of video games, including some of the major rpgs that people like and some of the ones I have played I do not like. I don't like trying to play an entire adventuring party. I don't like MMOs, and I am not at all excited by the PFO game, although I did support it to get the Emerald Tower PDF. I like PDFs at the table, because I am pushing 40 and one laptop is a lot easier to carry that a ton of books. I still have the books at home and I use them a lot. I have GMd more games than I have played, but I really love to play. The last couple of game groups I have played with rotated games to allow everyone to play and GM, so that has been great. I do not get the My Little Pony thing, but whatever, at least it isn't Twilight. Vampires don't sparkle. I never read Harry Potter, nor have I intentionally watched the movies. What I have seen has not inspired me to read them, but my son loves them, and they get him to read books longer than a pamphlet, so it is all good to me. I dislike Magic:The Gathering intensely, as it drew a lot of tabletop gamers away from RPGs when I was trying to keep groups together when I was in college and the Navy. I have a long history with game and I do not appologize for it. I am a tabletop role-playing gamer. I like rules, but I understand the time to skip past them for the sake of the story. I like battlemaps because they help visualize movement and everyone can be on the same page as far as where they are and we don't have to have a long arguement about "my character wouldn't be standing there!" ever again. However, I draw the maps to help tell the story, I can add features and details as needed, even on the fly. DMs are gods, but gods without followers are forgotten, and no one hears their stories. Characters are not beautiful unique snowflakes that are worthy of plot devices to save them from logical consequences. Unique, non-opomized characters are fine, but characters without any usable skills should not be going out into the big scary world to go adventuring, and if they die as a result, well, that is verisimilitude in a game world (not realism, because they go eaten by a f*&^%$ng Dragon!)
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My wife build me an awesome game table, not traditional I suppose, but awesome. Plus, I don't feel like I tell people often enough that she is awesome.

I might work with one of your friends who is more familiar with the rules, and make sure you are on track there. Paizo is pretty focused on story, but if they have to redo all the mechanics, you may be passed over.

I think for some people at least, their edition of choice is a matter of "feel" an entirely subjective concept. I have friends that still refuse to move to 3rd edition or anything like it. To me, 4e didn't feel like D&D and I think many people share my opinion (it is not a statement of absolutes, just MY opinion.) It is my hope that 5e is a good game, there is something that feels wrong to me to not like the current version of D&D. I will probably stay with PF, unless 5e is an absolutely fantastic system, but it would be nice to like D&D again, there is something nostalgic about saying "are we playing D&D this weekend?" Right now I am forced to play 2e to get that. I say go team 5e or D&D Next (whatever they want to call it, as long as it is D&D and it feels like D&D).