I used to get most of my gaming supplies from the Mail Order Hobby Shop. Anybody remember that one?
If that was:
Lou Zocchi
7640R Newton Drive
Biloxi, MS 39532
Than that’s the one I remember. Got lucky enough to be in his area many a moon ago, and actually got to sit in on a game he was running. Didn’t get to play, his regulars had all the seats filled, but I got to watch and “Peanut Gallery” for a day. That was very “kewl” for its time.
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Yes, I managed to score Great Wyrm (Chainmail!) on that one scale! Doug, does that beat you? AM I THE PATRIARCH?
*gums his “food” noisily*
Now, I seem to have two people who publicly admit they don’t even know what the d4 trick is and at least one other who’s gone senile enough that, though he remembers one existed when prodded heard enough, can’t remember how it works. It's actually a bit "visual" or "physical" but I'll do my best.
So:
1) Get a new gamer at the table and tell them to roll a d4.
2) Tell them to “read the number on the bottom”
3) Watch them pick the die up and look at the entire flat side that was face down on the table.
4) Watch their faces take on a painful, but pricelessly confused look as they see three numbers staring at them.
5) Laugh yourself sick at their expense before explaining.At one time this was almost considered an initiation ritual. You just weren’t a real gamer until you had been laughed at in that way. You were part of the elite “In crowd” if you were the one the others at the table allowed to pull the trick on the next newbie.
Priceless...
Ahh yes, we used to love doing that to new gamers and your post has retrieved the memory of when it happened to me waaaaaaay back in 6th grade. I can now picture that d4 in my hands and feel my furrowed brow while my "friends" laughed at me.
Thanks for the memory, Lawgiver!
*returns to shouting at the kids to stay out of his yard*
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Yes, I managed to score Great Wyrm (Chainmail!) on that one scale! Doug, does that beat you? AM I THE PATRIARCH?
Maybe. I've played Chainmail, but I can't say it's better than, well, anything really. Swords & Spells, though, wasn't too bad a system -- other than the infinite goblins for negative cost problem, that is.
Now, if you had a subscription to Strategic Review, you've got me beat. I had to buy them as back issues.
(By the way, anyone who thinks that Dwarf and Elf started as classes is just a whippersnapper.)
Thanks for the memory…
No problem, glad I could help. Us old codgers gotta stick together.
I've played Chainmail, but I can't say it's better
I agree, though there were some fun times with it.
if you had a subscription to Strategic Review, you've got me beat..
Then I guess it’s official, *sigh*, I’m the uber-fogey… I even still have the first 6 Strategic Reviews in my library.
Vol. 1, #1 – Creature Feature: Mind Flayer, plus the original solo dungeon adventure tables.
Vol. 1, #2 – Creature Feature: The Roper, plus the original Ranger class and an exposition on medieval pole arms.
Vol. 1, #3 – Creature Feature: The Yeti, Shambling Mound, Leprechaun, Shrieker, Ghost, Naga, Wind walker, Piercer, and Lurker Above, plus “Gallery of Gunfighters – Part 1” for Boot Hill.
Vol. 1, #4 – Creature Feature: Clay Golem, Gallery, Part 2, ‘Panzer Warfare: Additoinal Unit Organizations, the original Illusionist rules, an entire article about how to do Tsolyani names for E.P.T. along with the Tsolyani alphabet.
Vol. 1, #5 – The original Law/Chaos vs. Good/Evil alignment chart with an explanation of how it works, the original Bard write-up along with “Mighty Magic Miscellany – Barding Harps” about magic harps for Bards, and “Dwarves and Clerics in Dungeon!”
Vol. 2, #1 – Creature Feature: Denebian Slime Devil and Catoblepas, plus an explanation of the D&D magic system, “The Fastest Guns that Never Lived” for Boot Hill, more E.P.T. stuff.
These are all that have survived the years. In addition I have Dragon Magzines Vol. 1, #2-5 and Vol 2, #1-4. Again, all that survived the privations of time. Thirty years from now, I wonder how much stuff the “Young Gamers” or “New Gamers” here will have held on to. Does their generation even have the sense of history (or whatever) to try to keep anything like this? Well, I probably won’t be around that long (that would put me into my 80’s, if I make it) but I sometimes believe they will actually do as we have done and carry the lore on to the next generation.
*pops open a beer*
Viva la’ RPG!
The way this game is passed around, from one generation to the next I think the lore will pass on. My cousin let me sit in on my first game (I have fond memories of Traveller to this day). I got the red box for the holidays and the rest is history. Playing with my cousin I got to see the original AD&D books and art (stop laughing) and have them passed down to me.
I have the honor of helping that same cousin introduce his own son to the game now. Coolest part is he asked to play. To introduce him properly we decided to go an find some of those old classic modules too. Why mess with a classic right?
Gotta say, as an Old Gamer I love the changes in 3.5. I skipped 3.0. I had my Dragon Magazine collection and 4 binders or so of house rules needed to make 2nd playable. So who needed 3.0? But 3.5 is great as far as I'm concerned. And I'm glad I caught up.
According to Sebastian's list, I would be considered a "Just Right" gamer, I guess. (I'm 36 on the verge of 37, come July)
(This info is somewhere else on these boards, but I forgot where.)
I played w/the guys in the neighborhood for about a year, they were 13/14 & I was about 11. The DM has a red box and made all the rolls so we as players were into the ROLE-playing. The only thing I can remember about my character was they made me a fighter. I didn't pick up gaming again until I meet Lawgiver's wife (I was 23), they re-introduced me to RPG's with Vampire (2 games worth) and now we've been playing 2ed homebrews ever since.
A friend of LG's daughter tried running a d20 3.0 for us based on Diablo and I couldn't stand it. Haven't ever tried a d20 game since then.
I've been playing for going on 10 years or so now. I'll be 22 in May. I was introduced to the game by my sixth grade teacher, who let me borrow his copy of the original Tomb of Horrors. I started in 2nd Edition with one of the boxes that had little cards for character sheets, blue plastic miniatures, and 'Macho Man' Randy Savage voiceover cd for Bonecrusher the Ogre. Also, a very homoerotic image of an elf about to be tortured by a hobgoblin. Awkward (though, to be fair, it didn't occur to me how "Leather Bar" the picture was for a good couple of years).
I actually rather liked the art in 2nd Edition. It was definitely inconsistent, however. But it was nice to look at a predominence of artwork that was done in traditional oil painting/ink drawing/watercolor whatever. Most digital artwork makes everything look too slick and cartoony, at least in my opinion. And it was a bit more fantasy flavored; armor that was based on the stuff at the Met rather than avant garde costume armor from an anime, weapons that looked functional just as often as they were flashy, not everyone had a perfect waistline or a huge chest. Larry Elmore did regular gigs. Tony DiTerlizzi's amazing Monster Manual pieces still force me to drag out the old books just to look for technical pointers. I need to download Planescape for his illustrations alone. There were a lot of good 2E artists that haven't had as much of a presence in 3E and it's a bit disappointing to me.
According to Sebastian's list, I would be considered a "Just Right" gamer, I guess. (I'm 36 on the verge of 37, come July)
(This info is somewhere else on these boards, but I forgot where.)
I played w/the guys in the neighborhood for about a year, they were 13/14 & I was about 11. The DM has a red box and made all the rolls so we as players were into the ROLE-playing.
As you've been playing since 1982 I believe you qualify as an old gamer by the Sebastian Standard (it's that famous already).
As you've been playing since 1982 I believe you qualify as an old gamer by the Sebastian Standard (it's that famous already).According to Sebastian's list, I would be considered a "Just Right" gamer, I guess. (I'm 36 on the verge of 37, come July)
(This info is somewhere else on these boards, but I forgot where.)
I played w/the guys in the neighborhood for about a year, they were 13/14 & I was about 11. The DM has a red box and made all the rolls so we as players were into the ROLE-playing.
So the SS is calling me old huh? :o) I guess that could explain me being stubborn about the whole 2ed to 3.xed move too.
... a d20 3.0 for us based on Diablo and I couldn't stand it. Haven't ever tried a d20 game since then.
(added some emphasis)
That may have been the problem more than the d20 mechanics....
A friend of LG's daughter tried running a d20 3.0 for us based on Diablo and I couldn't stand it. Haven't ever tried a d20 game since then.
Yes, ma’am, you did. Remember that Wheel of Time module I ran? That was d20 based.
The “Sebastian Standard” is good, as far as it goes, but it tends to be a bit cut and dried, with little room for wiggle. Personally, I prefer Taliesin Hoyle’s “Ages of the Worms” (AoW) gradients (page 2 of this thread). It’s much more telling. But then we would have gone from Fatespinner’s initial either/or question, to Sebastian’s 4-point “Standard”, to Taliesin’s 11-point measure. Not really thread-jacking, I guess, since we’re still on the basic subject; just expanding the definitions required to answer the question.
My add-on question is, “Did anyone end up landing in an “age” bracket they didn’t expect?” When you read the opening post, did you knee-jerk a response and then, later as answers began flooding in, find that other people’s perspectives actually put you in a different slot (younger or older)? Personally I was very sure I would be solidly into the “Old Gamer” category, but what about the rest?
To me you are a young gamer. The young gamer in my view has nothing to do with what modules you have played in and not a whole lot about how long you have been playing; though, I will admit there is some bit of been there, done that; have the T shirt in old gamers. To me it is more about play style and how the game runs and what kind of gaming your do and what of the "ideas that matter" you have explored and how much of our own world you have experienced. I had a sixteen year old in my game about two years ago for example who had been playing since he was nine; and he too and done many dungeons and stuff and after three sessions in my game he was like " dude, I had no idea that the game could be like this." Most of my players are old gamers; hehe maybe we are just old; who knows as we are all middle aged; my youngest gamer i think is 33 and the oldest is 49 and we expect a certain level of intensity in our games beyond what any module could offer on the surface. I would say that you are just starting to develop your old gamer bones. To me this means you have minimally played seven or eight game systems; played with maybe seven or eight groups and are more interested in the story than making a munchkin. You have seen enough to know what you like and what you dont like and why; you have seen what kills a game and what enhances a game. Many of the statements between your peers of old gamers start with "wouldn't it be cool if and the next part of the statement is a character personality type in a particular situation rather than the young gamers part of the statement of insert cool magic item, feat, power; etc.
Sure bit nebulous,
am I an old gamer or young gamer,
Started playing when I was in high school in the late 1970's bout 79 I think, I would have to count it out.
I have played this game around the world, am thinking I have played in about 20 or so consistant groups and several pick up games that only went a few months.
I have played more game systems than I can count and have gm'd most of them; if it came out in the 80's I probably own it and played it and pretty much the 90's also
I can tell you from memory where to find most anything in the first hardback edition of D&D meaning the first DMG, Players Handbook, and Monster Manual; and can tell you what page to look at for charts, facts, figures, etc; hehe i colored the pictures in my monster manual with colored pencils to match the color descriptions given in the written passages so I could more easily describe them.
I remember when you couldnt get gaming dice.
I played when elf was a race and a class.
I have a character from just about every country or region in Greyhawk
hehe I remember when Forgotten Realms was the new stuff and we all sat around arguing about which game had a better map for cripes sake; lol that that was the end of everything.
Back in the day, only two guys in our group of 8 had the Greyhawk maps so the rest of us used homedrawn homebrews and most peoples stuff were very heavy Tolkien or Brooks oriented (I was more Donaldson).
Ravenloft to me means Stahd's castle where you are gonna die
I remember when the toughest module ever discussion was "is it he Isle of the Ape or Blackmoor or Mordekainens Fantastic Adventure. All double tuff, but I think the Ape has the edge.
I see a lot of discussion about how things "used to be" and how "old gamers" do things differently than "young gamers" so I thought "Gee... what is the defining characteristic that separates old gamers from young gamers?"
So let's hear it then. What makes an old gamer an old gamer? Is it actual chronological age? Does it have to do with what editions/modules/etc. you started out with? I suppose it is implied that anyone who is NOT an "old gamer" is therefore a "young gamer" (since we are assuming that they are SOME kind of gamer in our narrow scope of reference here).
I can tell you the following statistics:
- I am 24 years old.
- I have been playing D&D since I was 9.
- My very first character was made with 2nd Edition rules. He was a dual-classed human Fighter/Mage.
- I remember a time when character classes were restricted by race and had minimum stat requisites.
- I understand THAC0.
- I began DMing when 3.0 first came out (I think 1995ish?).
- I have been playing regularly ever since, though the vast majority (read: 95%) of my gaming experience has been with 3.0 or 3.5 rules.
- I am familiar with Spelljammer only because one of my friends in high school was obsessed with it.
- I played in a 2nd Edition Ravenloft module (Ship of Horrors) in 1999.
Am I an "old gamer" or a "young gamer"? You decide!
hehe maybe the dividing line between old gamer and young gamer is sarcasm; though I really like a few of the other posts; like grimcleavers.
I guess I am and old gamer; some young whippersnapper asked me for my touch armor class and I said not without dinner and a movie :)
wow list of blasts from the past; i still have my painted d20 and some dice so old, rolled so much the corners have worn off as well as the edges; dice have come a long way.
Wow reading Horseflesh's post made me feel like a vet; got multiple flashback memories of games for most on his list...
heh I know a turn is 10 minutes and segments were used for psionic combat where your character could be R or S or D or W before the first physical swing took place; heeh I know what a thought sheild is and what the best defense is against Pychic Crush :)
Lol Sebastion; we had one core book darnit and we passed it around, in the cold; uphill, both ways; and we liked it that way as it built character. hehe.
hehe if your an old gamer; the named level means something special to you---still.
wow, I just saw my chainmail book/pamphlet/binding on the shelf the other day.
I have yet to meet an old gamer who doesnt think that one of the most terrible monsters created is the Beholder.
hehe anyone else remember when weapons had ego? last thing you wanted was a weapon with a high ego; anyone else remember how to calculate ego hehe sure you character in 1ed only had 6 stats but your really had 8 stats with Com and Ego.
lol young gamers take miniatures for granted; hehe you guys want to find minis that look just like your character and expect to; in my day; hehe its still my day; we were like; dude; you mean they make little lead figures for this; how cool is that then find out they dont sell them in your town so you get together with a bunch of guys you know and send off a big mail order from a company in some other state and that is a big deal.
pretty sure i am an old gamer; but I know older so is all just perspective.
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I've been playing for going on 10 years or so now. I'll be 22 in May. I was introduced to the game by my sixth grade teacher, who let me borrow his copy of the original Tomb of Horrors. I started in 2nd Edition with one of the boxes that had little cards for character sheets, blue plastic miniatures, and 'Macho Man' Randy Savage voiceover cd for Bonecrusher the Ogre. Also, a very homoerotic image of an elf about to be tortured by a hobgoblin. Awkward (though, to be fair, it didn't occur to me how "Leather Bar" the picture was for a good couple of years).
I actually rather liked the art in 2nd Edition. It was definitely inconsistent, however. But it was nice to look at a predominence of artwork that was done in traditional oil painting/ink drawing/watercolor whatever. Most digital artwork makes everything look too slick and cartoony, at least in my opinion. And it was a bit more fantasy flavored; armor that was based on the stuff at the Met rather than avant garde costume armor from an anime, weapons that looked functional just as often as they were flashy, not everyone had a perfect waistline or a huge chest. Larry Elmore did regular gigs. Tony DiTerlizzi's amazing Monster Manual pieces still force me to drag out the old books just to look for technical pointers. I need to download Planescape for his illustrations alone. There were a lot of good 2E artists that haven't had as much of a presence in 3E and it's a bit disappointing to me.
I do prefer most second edition art to that of third edition. In fact, I have been scrounging around picking up old Dark Sun and Planescape books merely for the art.
However, I must say that the art for the FR supplements, and for that matter, ALL OF FIRST EDITION, was HORRIBLE. I could do better than that. C'MON YOU GUYS!
yeah, Dark Sun was fun; kinda miss that game.
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I just read through chunks of this thread and realized I fall into the "old" gamer category (38 is NOT old, dagnabit you young whippersnappers!).
- My first D&D set was the original boxed set (three small booklets: Monsters and Treasure, Men and Magic and I Can't Remember The Last One - must be old age ;p) which my dad bought for my brother and I in 1974/75 because it was an "imagination game" (Thanks Dad!).
- I still have my copy of the Blackmoor "module" (small booklet, not one o' them new fangled original Basic / 1st edition magazine sized thingies).
- Still have the original 1st edition modules (G series, tomb of Horros, White Plume, etc.) in all their three color glory (black, which and one other color: ToH-Red, G1-Brown, G2-Blue, etc.).
- Have my first edition PH and DMG, both in better shpae than my 2nd edition versions (something about the bindings just dropped over the years) ... also the Dieties and Demigods with the Elric (don't ask me to spell Melnabol ... Melebo ... ah the heck with it) and Cthulhu mythos.
- I remember when Dragon, Dungeon and the shortlived Dragontales (fiction of the D&D vein) magazines first appeared.
- I have trouble doing the marathon gaming sessions anymore ... anything over 12 hours is just too long for me these days. :(
Ah well, guess I'll just have to go reminisce about the Good Ole Days. :)
A friend of LG's daughter tried running a d20 3.0 for us based on Diablo and I couldn't stand it. Haven't ever tried a d20 game since then.Yes, ma’am, you did. Remember that Wheel of Time module I ran? That was d20 based.
Oh yeah, the one where we skipped thru HALF the encounters because we actually had brains. Thanks for the reminder?
Oh yeah, the one where we skipped thru HALF the encounters because we actually had brains. Thanks for the reminder?A friend of LG's daughter tried running a d20 3.0 for us based on Diablo and I couldn't stand it. Haven't ever tried a d20 game since then.Yes, ma’am, you did. Remember that Wheel of Time module I ran? That was d20 based.
Oh the memories of the DM having to read and scramble ot come up with something to get us back on track because we did something "weird" for the contex of the game module.
Old gamers also own the DDG version that has Elric ... and no mine hasn't fallen apart and my original FF is pristine.Rez
Mine is pretty much garbage, heavily used - badly warped. Cola stains on a couple of pages. Your lucky - I wish my mom had taken it away from me and bought me the second printing. I was too young to really understand what I had.
I'll never play anything but 3.5 and whatever is yet to come; I've not interest.Lol... I remember saying that myself everytime a new version of the game came out.
Ultradan
This happened to me as well. I mean I have a thousand page home brew - convert it all into a new edition?!? Never! 'Course I eventually cave and do it and usually the rewrite does the homebrew some good but it hurts to have so much work rendered obsolete.
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Mine is pretty much garbage, heavily used - badly warped. Cola stains on a couple of pages. Your lucky - I wish my mom had taken it away from me and bought me the second printing. I was too young to really understand what I had.
Old gamers also own the DDG version that has Elric ... and no mine hasn't fallen apart and my original FF is pristine.Rez
Mine braced up pretty good, because I didn't take it to highschool every day like my other 1e. books. My PHB is toast.
The old Deities and Demigods that included the Melnibonean, Cthulu, and Newhon mythos was something I used to stare at in wonder. When they went up to $40 a book (rarity punishment fee) I already owned four but wouldn't sell. Now you can get decent used copies for $5 at the cons.
Absolutely my favorite D&D book.
"Can I be a paladin of Loviatar? Puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeze?"
The Maiden of Pain reponds, "Certainly, my b!tch."
Ahem. Just for the record, pointless as it may be, I never said I wouldn't play 4e or 5e or 27e or even 3.5456e. What I said was,
I'll never play anything but 3.5 and whatever is yet to come; I've not interest. But I loved reading what was inside that blue box.
Meaning, I'm never going to bother trying to play 1e or 2e for nostalgia or to "understand" what it was like or something.
You may now return to your regularly scheduled thread.... geezers. :P
The way this game is passed around, from one generation to the next I think the lore will pass on.We had a young guy who'd been playing for about a year join our group just as the party hit "Name Level". He didn't get the reference or understand why everyone else (mid-30s, mostly) was so proud.
We elucidated him, and hopefully he'll pass on the knowledge.
Rez
P.S. Shout out to those who played Morrow Project.
That's exactly what I mean.
And it's great to hear someone else played that game. It was such a blast!
I'm 29 and started playing with the basic and expert sets (red and blue boxes) with my dad when I was about 8. I started DMing for my friends at age 10. Through ages 12-14 we played 1E but only because we were kids who couldn't really afford the 2E books and my friend's older brother happened to have the 1E books. Turned out my dad also had the 1E PH photocopied and ringbound (piracy 80s style...)
Graduated to 2E in mid high school at about age 14. played 2E on and off, and then started 3E when I was maybe 23?
Been playing 3E on and off for the last 6 years, but started 3.5 last year.
I consider myself an old gamer mainly because I gamed pre-internet and I'm stuck in my ways.
Before everyone had net access pretty much all you had to go on was your own playing style, and if you changed groups (as some of my mates did at university) the whole experience of D&D was usually very different. Nowadays I think it works like this: Old gamers are people or groups where they play how they always played, dagnabbit. One group might chuck out half the rules, drink beer and kill everything that moves, another might add more rules and play like a strategy game. Some roleplay and some don't really.
New gamers all tend to play in a similar way because they can communicate with gamers all over the world easily, and that's the environment they learnt the game in. Mass communication creates the idea that there is something of a right or proper or "best" way to play. Little self-contained cells of D&D players like in the old days breeds more of an attitude that you can do what you want and it's the right way because that's what the DM says. Old gamers tend to think their opinions are just as valid as the folks who wrote the game. Young gamers tend to use the RAW to back their opinions. Just my generalization.
Some years ago, I was at a gaming convention where people were looking over a list of a couple hundred "You know you're a Gamer Geek if..." Purity Test-type questions. One of them was, "You played T.S./SI". The next question was "You know what we meant when we said 'T.S./SI'." The guys with the list laughed.
I went over to them and asked "What does that make me, if I was one of the freelancers who wrote for 'T.S./SI'?"
I kinda won that purity test.
I loved T.S./SI, such an improvement over what Merle Rasmussen wrote. Still have ALL my T.S./SI stuff and I'll never sell it. Using the d10 to determine body part location hit and marking off boxes was just innovative as hell!
I'm herby calling myself middle aged. I'm 27 started gaming when I was 10. I started out with 2ed. Played in many of its expansions and modules. I've dabbled with older stuff. Understand many of the references that come from those, either by my own experience or having it explained by the elders. I've also played with 3.0 and 3.5. DM experience is limited to 2ed and 3.0. Have found that my normal comfort is with 2ed.
If you're eighty and you started playing yesterday you're not an old gamer.
There's also something about the term old gamer which seems to suggest not the amount of time one has played the game; rather, participation back when it was all new. I still have those old Armoury crayons I used to pen in my little dice with. I miss that ritual.
Perhaps age has less to do with a common definition and it really comes down to this. If you started playing D&D during the 1st edition up until the middle of 2nd edition, that constitutes you an old gamer. If you started playing during the middle of 2nd edition to the early middle of 3rd edition, that consitutes you as a middle-aged gamer. And if you started during the middle of 3rd edition to 3.5 edition, that constitutes you constituting a youngin' gamer.
No?
"Old Gamers" and "Young Gamers"
Age (especially in the world of RP) is a state of mind.
The Ever-Timeless,
Great Green God
yeah, but wisdom is a state of applied learning over time; i guess i like The Jade's definition ok as simplistic; but to me an old gamer has played a lot of games, venues, and tried most everything. Anyone have a concept of Ancient Gamer, hehe which I think is what several of us seem to be wanting to go for with our non acid free turned yellow first character sheets and our crayoned and painted dice; lol; several of my friends just got sick of the whole 3.5 thing as too wigged out and are still running first ed with second ed skills, which is still a fine game.
Wow, Tomb of Horrors series ,really stretched my imagination with the darn space ship; and the trident Whelm and the sword Blackrazor were cool. The cross genre thing really had us really back then till we came up with the solution answer of multiverse and infinite prime material plains so then everyone started putting portals in their worlds to worlds of six guns and sorcery, gamma world and whatnot and sometimes you can find super tech stuff that seems magical and is about as effective as some spell. Ah, the good old days when we lived on the edge and playing raw meant trying wigged out stuff.
I started when I was 12 with the red box D&D set. I'm now 36 and can nod yes to most of the things mentioned on this thread. This thread makes me think of what one of my players said a few weeks ago -
"Trust me...I know what I'm doing. I've being playing paladins for 25 years!"
I have no idea what an old gamer is but it must be great because people are clamoring to be allowed into the group.
I was thinking that what some are getting at is that old gamer doesn't mean a gamer that is old, or a gamer that is experienced. I think some feel the term applies to those who've been gaming since proto D&D, 1st and early 2nd edition, suggesting certain common experiences for all the people who started then.
It's a term with no weight and no clear definition. I was just trying to nail down a synthesis of what I'd read here.
I have no idea what an old gamer is but it must be great because people are clamoring to be allowed into the group.
I was thinking that what some are getting at is that old gamer doesn't mean a gamer that is old, or a gamer that is experienced. I think some feel the term applies to those who've been gaming since proto D&D, 1st and early 2nd edition, suggesting certain common experiences for all the people who started then.
It's a term with no weight and no clear definition. I was just trying to nail down a synthesis of what I'd read here.
Strangely enough one often follows the other. A gamer who has been playing D&D since it was a young game and who is still playing the latest incarnation is usually both a very experienced gamer and of middle-age (or older). This is a broad generalization, but usually not too far wrong.
I guess I'm older than the dinosaurs. I started playing the year before 1e was released.
I still remember when combat was a more-or-less optional element of roleplaying, since the idea back then was to vicariously participate in an alternate reality rather than to amass experience points or gain power. Back then we all wanted to pretend we were in books like John Carter: Warlord of Mars or the Conan saga. It was more important to us to explore the milieu (remember that term, old-timers) than it was to reach a particular level or achieve a particular "character build".
The real difference between old gamers and young gamers? Old gamers wanted to construct a personality we'd had in the backs of our minds for years, probably ever since we read ("read", not "watched") the Lord of the Rings. New gamers want to recreate a video game, but with more options and control. Neither old-school nor new-school is best. Both have their place.
Advice for new-schoolers: Don't get upset when we old-schoolers aren't impressed with your character build. We want to know how your character developed, not how your stats increased.
Advice for "middle"-schoolers: The game never was about gaining treasure or amassing magic items. I hope you know that by now, and teach it to the new-schoolers.
Advice for old-schoolers: Don't let 3.5e turn you off of roleplaying. The new rules work better than the old ones, and have more options. Use them to recreate all the good times you had decades ago.
I'm currently having a great time teaching my five-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter how to play D&D. We use a tremendously simplified version of the rules and have a wonderful time together. Rest assured, by the time they're old enough to get on these messageboards they'll be old-school gamers.
hehe your an Old Gamer when you have no idea what the Young Gamers are talking about; when the language impedes conversation; hehe; and your still talking about D&D
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... a d20 3.0 for us based on Diablo and I couldn't stand it. Haven't ever tried a d20 game since then.(added some emphasis)
That may have been the problem more than the d20 mechanics....
DM: You go into the crypt. There are a half dozen skeletons wandering around. What do you do?
Player 1: We kill them.(combat ensues)
DM: Okay, the skeletons are dead. There's various bits of gore and a few corpses lying around. You see some damaged weapons and a few pieces of low-quality armor lying around... and some coins.
Player 2: I grab the coins.
DM: Okay, you gather up 19 gold. You can go left or right here. To the left you see a room full of zombies. To the right is another room full of skeletons.
Player 1: ...we go... right.
DM: Okay, more skeletons.
(combat ensues)
DM: Okay, the skeletons are dead....... etc. etc. ad nauseum.
... a d20 3.0 for us based on Diablo and I couldn't stand it. Haven't ever tried a d20 game since then.(added some emphasis)
That may have been the problem more than the d20 mechanics....
DM: You go into the crypt. There are a half dozen skeletons wandering around. What do you do?
Player 1: We kill them.
(combat ensues)
DM: Okay, the skeletons are dead. There's various bits of gore and a few corpses lying around. You see some damaged weapons and a few pieces of low-quality armor lying around... and some coins.
Player 2: I grab the coins.
DM: Okay, you gather up 19 gold. You can go left or right here. To the left you see a room full of zombies. To the right is another room full of skeletons.
Player 1: ...we go... right.
DM: Okay, more skeletons.
(combat ensues)
DM: Okay, the skeletons are dead....... etc. etc. ad nauseum.
EXACTLY! Which is also part of the reason I like homebrews better than any pre-fabs.
The wikipedia article on D&D has a fairly comprehensive overview of the game. I wish I had seen it before my Age Category scale idea.
The wikipedia article on D&D has a fairly comprehensive overview of the game. I wish I had seen it before my Age Category scale idea.
Gamers should Age like DRAGONS !!! making me Ancient :)
I'm 38, my brother forced me to play when we were probably 11 or 12, I got hooked and we still play together. I still have my fighter...though for some reason back then I thought she could use the staff of the magi.
I still have my blue dice with the white numbers
I still have all our old books from 1st edition
I still do not understand Thaco