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This is a post aimed at the older gamers like me (i know.. at 40 some of the folks here might be old enough to be my dads! but still).
I would like to know how getting older as changed your gaming experience with the years passing.
Do you still enjoy the same things?
Did you experienced some more dramatic changes?
Do you yearn for the good old days?
What still get you in role playing game?
anything goes.
I for my part play since the last moments of basic (yes when races where actualy classes) and the very first few years of 1st. advanced.
We use to play Temple of elemental evil and cave of chaos EVERY summer and the simple fact of goin to town to "train" a level or getting some supply at the general store was fun in itself!
My first real love was the release of Ravenloft campaing setting for 2nd edition and from that day on i'm a dedicated DM.
Almost 20 years or so later i have the precious chance to have 2 of the original players still gaming at my table to this day! But due to family, jobe and distance we are only playing 1 saturday per month on a 10-12 hours average opposed to 2-3 nights a week like in the old days!
Long story short i'm a nostalgic gamer as well as in my "view" of the game as in my likings. I miss the old random encounters, i miss the "kid point of view", i miss not having Gary walking in the convention anymore....
I still enjoy the game to this day but it's not as bright as it use to be.
I'm wondering how the other "old timers" are living their games and now it's YOUR time to open up!
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Funonions and Mountain dew have been replaced with sandwiches and espresso.
We drink a lot more beer and wine when we play now than we did as kids.
One notable change, I think, is our willingness to think immersively. We do more things in character, not necessarily in all the dialogue, but we're much more cognizant of playing the character rather than a playing piece that kicks in doors, kicks ass, and chews bubblegum (bubblegum optional). This is generally true whether we're playing a role-play heavy game or a beer-n-pretzels hack fest.
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As for older I guess it depends on your point of view. But I will take a stab at it anyways.
Do you still enjoy the same things?
More or less, I was always more interested in RP, character development, problem solving than killing stuff. I get bored faster with lots of random killing than i use to, but otherwise things are the same.
Did you experienced some more dramatic changes?
Not sure what you mean with this question.
Do you yearn for the good old days?
Not in the least, since my teens where hack and slash was more common. I know find it easier to find people of like mind to game with.
What still get you in role playing game?
Same as always, creating indepth characters that I can imagine are real people living where they live and exploring worlds not of my own and living a life not of my own. If that makes sense.
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Funonions and Mountain dew have been replaced with sandwiches and espresso.You made my day right there!
LOL
Not in our game
So I'm an ancient gamer by most standards. I played the original, original Blue box basic. 1st ed HB books where still brand new. in fact they had just released one of them about a month before I started to play in Sept 79.
In some respects I am nostalgic. I liked it when a new book did not get released every month or even every 6 months. it was more like 3 years. You had to write most of your own adventures as there where not a lot of modules out. There was the G1 - G3 Giant, D1-D3 Decent series. B1 (not even B2 was out yet) T1 and a few others I cannot remember.
We played every Sunday from 2 - 6 usually and some of us played more, but the core group played these days. Now I and everyone else is busy we play every other Saturday from 2 - 10ish.
We'd on occasion order pizza but now days we have better food, like BBQ chicken, or taco's or BBQ burgers we all share and chip in for the stuff to make them.
I miss the fact of not so many classes or even races (well Paizo kept to the core races for now)
Every month I looked forward to a new Dragon Magazine. I had from issue 35 and finally stopped in the 270 range. I handed these over to one of my boys who promptly sold them off for nothing. Dungeon Magazine was a thrill and I still have the 1st 3 years and then I started missing them. But I still have many.
We played with mini's LONG before anyone thought using mini's was cool or even needed. Trust me when a DM kills your character when your not in the room and you tell them your not in the room, using mini's prevented that as if your mini was in the room... then you where in the room.
The thing I like today's gaming is I have older more mature players. 4 of the 8 are in their 40's, the others from the older 20's and 1 in her early 20's. I tend to have more or find more female gamer's. Trust me in 1979 I was an extreme rarity and a lot of guys either didn't want to play with a girl, or wanted to hit her up for a date and most gamers where not my type that I played with (i.e Heavy metal rockers with intelligence and long hair that liked to party and could play an instrument like me)
I enjoy gaming today for the same reasons I did back then and that is the Fantasy, the story telling the role playing being someone I wasn't. Today it is more of a social outlet for me than it was back in 1979 or 1982 or even 1990. By the early 90's I was deep into playing gigs with my band and then raising a family by the mid 90's and never got to game. When I did, it was a real treat. It wasn't until 2007 that I got to start playing again as a regular thing in my life during the non summer months. It is something I look forward to and at times wished I was playing every weekend. But glad I don't because it leaves me no time for my other fun stuff I like to do.
So part nostalgic, part not. I do miss the old days of adventuring, but I love the people I game with now more.
Been playing with the same group for 19 years, only thing really that has changed is my sleep requirements... pulling all-nighters then taking a break to write a final exam was great, but I'm a monster if I don't get 8 hours sleep these days
I've been playing with the same group for over 25 years. Some things have changed some have not.
- 4E was the first edition of D&D we looked at and quickly concluded we would not be playing. If not for PF we would have just stuck with 3.5 for the duration. A seminal moment for us as we always enthusiastically supported the most recent version of D&D.
- We no longer have interest in "sandbox" type free form campaigns. We only play campaigns that have a story with a beginning, middle, and end, then we restart a new campaign from level 1. We don't play characters past 15th level or so.
- As DM I don't make up adventures or worlds or even parts of worlds any more. As a group we only have interest in playing published stuff. After all these years we've been through all of our own ideas so now we only use what other people have thought up for us.
- We don't bother with things like evil campaigns, or in game romances, or detailing our characters family tree. The characters are tools for the game and story and we only flesh them out enough to enhance the current campaign. When they die or the campaign is over it's into the garbage and roll up the next one.
- We can still occasionally pull an all nighter (or a very late session) but for the most part we don't. We usually wrap up around 9:00 at the latest.
- We still make fun of Monks and Bards and almost never have them in the party. When we do we just assume they will be dead soon (and they usually are). We love this.
- We still start every campaign with a slight variation of "you all meet in a tavern". We would not have it any other way.
- Despite that fact that we have probably slayed hundreds of dragons in our history it is always exciting the "first time" this party faces one.
I See A Lot Of People Use +1 When They Like Something. This Deserves A +5 In My Books. Well Done
See back then everything the players did was new, and I don't mean to imply that that feeling cannot be had by people playing today, but then again I get a little tired of players who start the game at first level and play their characters as if they already know everthing there is to know about the underdark. You know what I mean? (Guess I am really turning into an old fart).
One of the reasons I like new campaign settings and worlds -- especially the really weird ones (Athas was awesome for that reason - there was a lot of new to get your bearings on) -- it lets you regain that sense of exploration and "newness" that nearly 30 years of gaming kind of erodes.
But yes -- changes are many -- we can all afford our own books now (yay), but have way less time to play (boo), and in some cases, spouses who don't get it (boo, again).
On the plus side, we don't have to put up with any little brothers or any such thing, so we can deal with complex and interesting issues rather than just killing everything that moves -- and it allows us to explore the characters in better depth than before.
We didn't used to have girls gaming with us way back in those past decades -- really didn't start with those until the 90s. I think it's helped the hobby in general, and increased the diversity of views at the table... it's not "new", but it wasn't something that happened back when we used to play those marathon sessions (although we had them when we were playing 3 or 4 nights a week, so there you go).
I remember having to defend the game from those convinced it was evil and that I was some sort of Satanist. I don't miss that. Not even a little... However, despite the decades that have passed, I loathe that for some, the stigma of gaming hasn't quite gone away (I'm an unapologetic and open gamer, but not everyone I know who plays is).
What I hate even more is that that there are still a subgroup of gamers with no social skills, poor hygiene and full of nerd-rage that perpetuate the stereotypes... and since most of them are men, also make female players feel unwelcome or uncomfortable because they're *too* welcome.
Gaming used to be all about pizza, chips and what not. Now, we tend to get sandwiches and veggie/fruit trays. :)
Thinking back, I sure miss having multiple nights a week of gaming, and/or Saturday marathons -- or, for that matter, overnight marathons -- we used to do Endurance Gaming -- play until 50% of the party (players) caved and had to sleep] -- 6pm to 3 or 4am Fridays....
But then again, I sure wouldn't trade my wife to get that back. ;)
I would like to know how getting older as changed your gaming experience with the years passing.
Quite a bit. When I started playing in the 80's (1980 to be specific) my older brother would DM and I played all the PC's.
D&D was a turning point for my brother and I who never really got along up to that point.
In the 90's, I roleplayed with some of my fellow nerd buddies. We would play sometimes 16-20 hour marathons. I remember one session of MERP where we started playing at noon, got kicked out of the university club room around 3am, then played in the DM's van until mid morning. We always had Pizza when we roleplayed.
In the 2000's, I played with a group my brother introduced me to (and I started roleplaying with him again). We played pretty much every RP under the sun, but we played a lot of Vampire the Masquerade. Played enough of it that I got sick of it. In those days it was all about chips and pop. We started at 7pm and usually wrapped up by 3 or 4 am. Sometimes we played late enough to go for breakfast Saturday morning before going to sleep.
Now I play with a group that is a mix of my last group and a few friends of friends. We play almost exclusively Pathfinder. I sometimes bring snacks, but mainly just a thermos of coffee. We usually start at 7pm on Friday and wrap up around midnight.
I love one of the things one of the guys in the group I play with now said (he's in his mid 40's). He was talking to his mom, who, when he said he was going roleplaying, she asked him, "when are you going to grow out of that?", he replied, "Mom, I'm in my 40's, and I'm married with 2 kids. Don't you think if I was going to grow out of it I would have already done so?"
That's how I see it. I'll be the guy DMing in the retirement home gumming arrowroot cookies until the nurse sends us all to bed.
I would like to know how getting older as changed your gaming experience with the years passing.Quite a bit. When I started playing in the 80's (1980 to be specific) my older brother would DM and I played all the PC's.
D&D was a turning point for my brother and I who never really got along up to that point.
In the 90's, I roleplayed with some of my fellow nerd buddies. We would play sometimes 16-20 hour marathons. I remember one session of MERP where we started playing at noon, got kicked out of the university club room around 3am, then played in the DM's van until mid morning. We always had Pizza when we roleplayed.
In the 2000's, I played with a group my brother introduced me to (and I started roleplaying with him again). We played pretty much every RP under the sun, but we played a lot of Vampire the Masquerade. Played enough of it that I got sick of it. In those days it was all about chips and pop. We started at 7pm and usually wrapped up by 3 or 4 am. Sometimes we played late enough to go for breakfast Saturday morning before going to sleep.
Now I play with a group that is a mix of my last group and a few friends of friends. We play almost exclusively Pathfinder. I sometimes bring snacks, but mainly just a thermos of coffee. We usually start at 7pm on Friday and wrap up around midnight.
I love one of the things one of the guys in the group I play with now said (he's in his mid 40's). He was talking to his mom, who, when he said he was going roleplaying, she asked him, "when are you going to grow out of that?", he replied, "Mom, I'm in my 40's, and I'm married with 2 kids. Don't you think if I was going to grow out of it I would have already done so?"
That's how I see it. I'll be the guy DMing in the retirement home gumming arrowroot cookies until the nurse sends us all to bed.
I had an idea of starting a grognard retirment home and thought it was awesome.
I had an idea of starting a grognard retirment home and thought it was awesome.
I'll die with a 20 in my hand,
Lord, Lord,I'll die with a 20 in my hand...
I started playing in 1982 and DM-ing in 1988. I am still the DM of my currently 3 groups.
Do you still enjoy the same things?
Mostly, yes. I am still excited when I buy a new book, though not as excited as when my husband and I bought the first edition Monster Manual. We had to go all the way to Utrecht by train, since it had the only gaming shop nearby (it was actually a book store with a small gaming section). I remember how we were leafing through the book together on the way home, and oo-ed and aah-ed almost every monster.
Did you experienced some more dramatic changes?
We started out with a sandbox game, and slowly roleplaying began to creep in. This went very slowly. Our first DM had a sandbox campaign, but all the players began to long more and more for roleplaying as well, and began to roleplay more and more. When my husband started as DM in 1985, this became more important, but the adventures he made were still classic dungeon crawls, usually with a small plot in the final rooms of the dungeon. When I started DM-ing in 1988, I began with adventures which had solid stories. I still have 4 players from those days (now playing in different groups).
Do you yearn for the good old days?
Sometimes. I miss the feeling I had during my first playing sessions. I am now DM-ing a group with three kids, and I see the same enthousiasm. They want to play all the time. It reminds me of those days.
I try to let them make their own blunders and not interfere and suggest builds, special weapons, etc. They have to learn the game their way, as I did when I was young. It is part of this first D&D experience fun feeling.
What still get you in role playing game?
I like DM-ing a lot. I have my own campaign world since 1988 and it has really come alive now. I have 3 groups playing in different time periods in the same world, which is great fun: the PCs and NPCs of one period are the legendary heroes of another, etc.
I have noticed that my focus has shifted in the course of those years. When I started as a DM, it was all about involving the PCs in the story I wanted to tell, and to see where it went. Now part of my focus is not only inside the story, but also out of it. Now I am more concerned with whether the pace is right, whether all the players get enough screen time, whether all the players have a good time, etc. etc.
It is also great there is so much material now, and lots of it is of high quality as well. I hardly write my own adventures anymore (also for lack of time of course), though I do some heavy adaptation to make adventures and campaigns fit into my own campaign world.
I guess I will keep DM-ing as long as it's fun and as long as my players have fun and keep coming. Yes, even in a retirement home if at all possible.
Almost 20 years or so later i have the precious chance to have 2 of the original players still gaming at my table to this day! But due to family, jobe and distance we are only playing 1 saturday per month on a 10-12 hours average opposed to 2-3 nights a week like in the old days!
I started gaming in the late 1970's and we used chips and not dice? That changed quick and I was just a kid then. We looked forward toy going to ANY toy store as all them carried D&D products. What I miss about the game back then was the simplicity of it. No skills, feats, AOA, 300 different characters and 1,000's of spells to memorize. It was just a group of guys, about 4 books and we were on for the weekend. Now every game system has become book of the month club and I don't have the time or want to buy every book. The games now take a lot longer, but I still love gaming and the human interaction that video games don't provide. My group games on Friday nights and we always bring up THACO, bend bars/lift gates, and the Tomb of Horrors! Rock on!
Almost 20 years or so later i have the precious chance to have 2 of the original players still gaming at my table to this day! But due to family, jobe and distance we are only playing 1 saturday per month on a 10-12 hours average opposed to 2-3 nights a week like in the old days!
I started gaming in the late 1970's and we used chips and not dice? That changed quick and I was just a kid then. We looked forward toy going to ANY toy store as all them carried D&D products. What I miss about the game back then was the simplicity of it. No skills, feats, AOA, 300 different characters and 1,000's of spells to memorize. It was just a group of guys, about 4 books and we were on for the weekend. Now every game system has become book of the month club and I don't have the time or want to buy every book. The games now take a lot longer, but I still love gaming and the human interaction that video games don't provide. My group games on Friday nights and we always bring up THACO, bend bars/lift gates, and the Tomb of Horrors! Rock on!
Alex the Rouge you replied to a now closed discussion about wanting to sell me your DF. You can reach me ericKandkim AT cox DOT net.
Funonions and Mountain dew have been replaced with sandwiches and espresso.
My friends and I always preferred burritos and generic cola, but we could just be weird like that.
I too have started with the Red Box in the early 80's... Man what I would of gave to have access to a website like this for all my questions at the time!!
What I miss the most is being able to play three to four times a week. Now a days, we play only once a month due to family and work schedules.
Before we were really into building our own little worlds, making up neat places and inserting a module here and there (where they could fit). Now, with little time left to prepare this stuff, we're just happy to play (Thank God for adventure paths!!).
The fun part now is just being able to buy whatever accessory we need if we feel like it. I transformed my garage into a neat little D&D room. We sometimes buy gifts for everyone in the group (Cool, new Pathfinder Player's Guides for everyone! Woo-hoo!!).
Junk food abounds the area surrounding the table now. It's funny because we've turned it into a kind of running gag and see just how much junk we can bring to a single game. Some things brought in one game: 16 cheesburgers, two 24 packs of beer, chicken wings, fresh cold tomato pizza, chips galore, 5 two-liter bottles of pop, and three boxes of candy (you know those boxes around Halloween...). We don't eat/drink all of it, of course; But we try. lol
Now it's more of a fiends get-together than a serious game. Don't get me wrong though... We come to play. We just have a blast every time.
The wives still have no clue what we do in that garage... :D
Ultradan
What I liked most was working on characters... place of origin, coat of arms, apparel, family trees, and all that. There weren't enough rules options to fiddle with them in that respect, and as kids we thought anything done by house rule somehow "didn't count."
2e gave us infinitely fiddle-able "nonweapon proficiencies," and 3e added feats to the mix, and Amber Diceless even let you design your own artifacts & creatures. I loved these things -- more opportunities to work on your character during down time!
Now I have hundreds of pages of houserules, all providing zillions of options, so that sometimes I never even get to the character's last name, vs. his ancestry 3 generations back. Sometimes I'll rebuild a character just to see if the concept works better some other way. But it's still fiddling with the character, and I still get a kick out of it.
I would like to know how getting older as changed your gaming experience with the years passing.
Do you still enjoy the same things?
Did you experienced some more dramatic changes?
Do you yearn for the good old days?
What still get you in role playing game?
anything goes.
40? 40! I remember 40! Har, har!
Anyway ... I wrote a bit about Old School Gaming here:
http://zhalindor.com/oldschoolgaming.htm .
Gaming was different "back in the day." Some of it was more fun. Some of it was not so great.
Do I enjoy the same things. Hmmmm ... I usually GM/DM/Ref. I enjoy producing some nice quality props, sessions with good plots, engaging NPCs, and seeing my parties have fun around the gaming table.
So, yes, I really do enjoy the same things.
I'm not sure what the question about dramatic changes means. I think you are asking if we feel that there have been dramatic changes.
Mike Stackpole would say that there have been six generations of RPGs; each generation was significantly different from the previous. I cannot quote each of the generations off the top of my head, but I tend to agree with Mike.
Yes, systems are more polished now with much higher production values. Yes, systems tend to come packaged with settings. Yes, there are more tie-in products that can be used explicitly or implicitly in the gaming, e.g., combat tiles, novels set in the gaming world, etc.
Role-playing expectations have changed. (Please see the article about Old School gaming above.)
Do I yearn for the good old days? No, not really. There was much fun back then, and it was great when I had less responsibility and more time to prepare for sessions.
All that said, I would not trade life now for life then for any amount of money. I'll take the limited bad now for the much greater good.
:-D
What will still draw me to game? Really, it does not take much. A good group is the biggest draw.
I currently have an absolutely fantastic group that I DM for. They are not only super players, but they are great people.
What a blessing!
In service,
Rich
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I would like to know how getting older as changed your gaming experience with the years passing.
Do you still enjoy the same things?
Did you experienced some more dramatic changes?
Do you yearn for the good old days?
What still get you in role playing game?
anything goes.
Having jobs and (in some cases) families my friends and I no longer have the luxury of endless free time where we could, say, camp out over the summer and play for days. We can't even maintain a consistent weekly schedule. As a result, I think we're a lot less patient with inter-party conflict, rules arguments, or anything else that disrupts our precious "play time".
The large (15+) group we used to have in high school/early college has spread out across the country. So we make use of technology more (skype, webcams, various mapping programs, etc) than we did. We've also shuffled in new people, lost a few, and mostly broken into smaller groups that play on different days but still keep in touch.
We were slow to embrace 3rd edition when it first came out. We originally just took the skill system and added it to our existing 2nd edition campaign. Eventually we embraced it, the battle map, and the minis. When 4th edition and Pathfinder came out we flirted with both but went home with Pathfinder. We also abandoned the battle map and minis and went back to playing "old school style" where everything is described. It works pretty well.
I started in 1979 with basic, switched to AD&D and ignored 2nd Ed . 3rd Ed helped bring about a revival to some extent in my playing group. We have ignored 4th Ed and haven't embraced much of the pathfinder changes.
I miss the simpler rules, and the fact that more was in the hands of the DM. I miss that it used to be enough to explore the Caves of Chaos....just because they were there. As a DM I miss having a module where I don't need to read about the motivation and family history of the lead assassin - who is just going to attack the players to kill, in one scene.
I think the thing I miss most is the slow character progression. In the old days when you went up a level it was a big deal, a huge deal. Now I have had a 5th level wizard level up to 6th before he has even got to cast his first 3rd level spell. Blink and you miss it.
It feels to me like the character / campaign storyline is being rushed through.
The idea you can go into a dungeon at 6th level and be 8th when you come out is still wierd. Now when my players meet a big bad evil guy they have trouble with they say things like , " we will come back in a month when we are 6 levels higher and kick his butt"
... I miss the simpler rules, and the fact that more was in the hands of the DM. I miss that it used to be enough to explore the Caves of Chaos....just because they were there. As a DM I miss having a module where I don't need to read about the motivation and family history of the lead assassin - who is just going to attack the players to kill, in one scene.
This.
I too miss those old modules, where you'd find a neat placed just stacked with baddies. You could stick those ANYWHERE in your campaign. I still own every single module I ever bought (must have hundreds)... Which I still use on occasion, for one-shot adventures, or mini side-quests.
Like you said, the modules now days have WAY too much junk in them. Take tomb of Horrors; The intro to that module was one short paragraph on the second page, along with what you need to play and a word from the writer. Then 33 roms of meat-grinding bliss. lol (not to mention the picture booklet; which is what got me hooked on D&D in the first place).
Ultradan
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Anyway ... I wrote a bit about Old School Gaming here:http://zhalindor.com/oldschoolgaming.htm .
Gaming was different "back in the day." Some of it was more fun. Some of it was not so great.
Thank you. That was a way better read than the Old School Primer.
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the modules now days have WAY too much junk in them. Take tomb of Horrors; The intro to that module was one short paragraph on the second page, along with what you need to play and a word from the writer. Then 33 roms of meat-grinding bliss. lol
While I still have and still enjoy those old modules (I even dust them off once in a while for the occasional one-shot), I prefer the more story driven modules however...
Because for the most part, at least for me and my group, it isn't enough anymore to explore the Caves of Chaos just because they are there...
I'll die with a 20 in my hand,
Lord, Lord,
I'll die with a 20 in my hand...
May you game forever until the end of time within the halls of Nerd-Valhalla.