Does nostalgia affect your thoughts about gaming?

[Whimsy Chris]

Lately, I've been looking at some of the old school adventures of 1st and 2nd edition. Adventures like Temple of Elemental Evil, Tomb of Horrors, Undermountain, even Dragons of Despair. By modern day standards, these adventures have several flaws, but I remember them fondly. This got me thinking of more modern games I've played and if any of them have captured that feeling of fondness. For me, only Shacked City has recaptured that nostalgic feel, but that could be because I haven't played it in a few years.

I haven't had that fond feeling in a while. It's something I'd like to recapture. However, I have to admit to myself that I'm remembering the good stuff a lot more than the bad stuff: the epic moments, the times we laughed at something silly, and so on, rather than the rules arguments or really boring gaming sessions that went nowhere.

This got me thinking...how much of my gaming tastes are tainted by my one-sided memory of old school D&D? What exactly is that old school appeal and why is it appealing? Were the "good ol' days" as good as I remember them? Do some of us slightly older players play to recapture our youth?

I guess these questions are another way of asking: what makes gaming fun and why do we continue to do it? I would argue that it has little to do with slick game systems or even logical story lines or plausible encounters. It has to do with the social aspect of pretending to be in unlikely situations. Sometimes those situations are absurd, and therefore fun and memorable. Sometimes those situations only happen because of their rarity - like an epic moment that just happened to come together perfectly. In other words, sometimes we have to trudge through those boring sessions and silly encounters and game mechanics to get to those gem moments that become lasting memories.

Your thoughts?

[Bill Dunn]

Nostalgia has some influence, sure. But the term also gets tossed around a lot to disparage people when they say they actually prefer some of the old school materials to the products of newer editions. And, frankly, that's not kosher. It's entirely possible for people prefer older adventures, older styles of play, and older games without them simply being nostalgic.

[Whimsy Chris]

True enough. Let's agree to make this a disparage-free thread.

I think what I'm basically saying in my post is that part of gaming's job is to create those nostalgic moments. In other words, I value that nostalgia.

[Bruunwald]

I'm lucky in that I compartmentalize very well. So I long ago zeroed in on my own feelings of nostalgia and recognized that some of why I was continuing to play was in attempt to get that feeling back.

I have, over the years, touched on the feeling again, here and there, but only in brief glimpses. That's simply because we can't ever go back and do a thing for the first time again. Well, most of us can't.

A dedicated player's first days in an RPG are visceral and engrossing and very immersive; in many ways comparable to your first real love affair. You can remember the power and greatness of it, but can't always fully recall all of the feelings and sensations in detail, and can't revisit the same exact newness of it, ever again.

What you can hope for, is that you will experience other great things going forward. Though they may be different, and though you may be wiser, you can still hope for the extraordinary.

Nowadays, I live for unleashing my creativity on my players. I get my high and fun from their reactions and experiences. And, maybe as a credit to my maturity, I like to game because I like to share things with other people.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Dragons of Despair was such an excellent module. I actually converted it to 3.5 to play it (that's be roughly 5 years ago know - man does time fly). Anyway you might consider converting some of these old school adventures into your favorite system. That is one of the ways to get a bit of that nostalgia.

I also think your right about the rose coloured glasses. We remember the good parts but not the bad.

Another way to pull this off is if you can find some newbs and teach them to game - this allows you to relive your first time vicariously through them. Not quite the same thing but its about as good as its going to get.

Otherwise I like the advice of going for new moments worth remembering fondly. You might also want to shake things up a little if your finding things have somehow become stale. It sounds like your usually the DM but you might find just being a player for a while is a great way to take the stress off and learn to just love the game again.

[John Kretzer]

I remember the old days fondly because well to paraphase 'We were gamers....and young.' I love gaming...and really it has not change why...my taste might have changed as I got older....but the basic reason why is still there....it is the only thing that I do that to use so many thing...my imagination...criticle thinking...social skills...with actualy other people there. I think I'll be playing RPGs till I die...there is nothing that even comes close for me.

[cibet44]

Nostalgia definitely affects my current gaming. Especially since my group has been gaming together since the 80s. For us our 1E days are not something we fondly remember doing years ago with other people, it is something we did together. This gives our nostalgia a particularly strong influence.

We see clear differences in our games based on what we did when younger. In our 1E and 2E days we spent large parts of our D&D sessions arguing over rule interpretations. I mean hours of game time, arguing. When 3.0 came out our rule arguments dropped significantly. When 3.5 came out they dropped again. Today, almost 8 years into 3.5, I'm glad to say we never argue about the rules we only occasionally hash out something we haven't used before. I think this is 90% due to the rule set and 10% due to our maturity. So, for us at least, the gaming system itself has had a large impact.

There are also things that over all this time we have naturally just phased out of our games in a kind of reverse nostalgia. We don't play evil characters, we tried it as every group does at one point, always ends badly and gets boring quick. We don't do in game romance, it's just creepy. We don't play monks, except for comedic value, as they die horribly by 3rd level. We don't use guns, they eventually end up overpowered and take over the whole game, plus Conan and Fafhrd never had guns! When (not if) you play the cleric your job is to keep everyone else fighting, you know this and do it willingly. When you see a hole in the ground big enough to fit a human you light a torch and go in it...grinning. When you see a sandbox ahead you carve a path that stays on the playing field. When you see a railroad track ahead you get on the train and hold on!

There is no way to explain all this except for nostalgia (minus the in game romance stuff -that is just creepy). So yes nostalgia not only impacts our game but it is probably the main reason why we play it. It's worked out pretty well for us so far. Now that we are closer to sixty years old than twenty maybe it will take us right into the old folks home, torch and longsword in hand...grinning. We should be so lucky.