This post is the story of one gamer’s return to the roleplaying game that started it all. Although it may seem like reminiscing it is actually about how our own assumptions can lock us out of the treasure room.
After a few years’ break I’m resuming my RPG hobby. I’ve been an avid gamer since I was eight but raising some children and moving to Texas kept me busy. I started where most people my age did, with Dungeons & Dragons (also Gamma World but more on that later). Dungeons & Dragons is the first roleplaying game and still the most popular. It appears to be the only RPG with name recognition among non-gamers. In any discussion of roleplaying games D&D is the elephant in the room – you can’t talk long without touching on it. In the category of fantasy RPGs it dominates to such an extant that you have to spend some time looking if you want to find gamers playing something that isn’t D&D or a modification of its rules.
Despite all this I spent the majority of my gaming hours avoiding D&D. I didn’t know any other fantasy RPGs so I moved to R Talsorian’s Mekton, Palladium’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (long before the cartoon appeared) and Heroes Unlimited. From there it was Rifts and White Wolf’s World of Darkness games. I played other games with my friends but those were the ones I really sank time into. Other gamers I knew stuck with D&D but I just couldn’t.
Dungeons & Dragons had several aspects that bothered me which the new generation of games avoided. Point buy systems in newer games let every beginning character at the table start from the same point. “Save or die” in older editions of D&D was a big problem for me. Even if I was playing smart, reducing risk and doing everything right my character could die suddenly making me start from square one with a different character. The high chance of dying even without making saving throws and monsters with level drain attacks that forced you back to lower levels of experience made D&D look more like a deranged variant of Chutes and Ladders than an adventure game. I wanted to break through to level 10 so I could establish a stronghold.
TSR’s game designers tried to alleviate these problems by allowing dead characters to be resurrected. A world where the dead came back to life frequently enough for people to take little notice was too bizarre for me. I couldn’t understand why no one had superstitious fear of a walking dead man. Why was no mention made of how very different a world would be where every man with money who was assassinated would come back a few days later to exact his own revenge?
The final straw for me was D&D’s obsession with treasure. The motivation of every module published and every adventuring band was raiding some monster’s hoard. After looking at the fascinating illustrations in the 1st edition’s pages of grand palaces and magical worlds I wanted epic adventures. I did not want to stuff my sack with loot and run home. Science-fiction games and ones set in the modern day were free from this hangup.
A good friend of mine never lost his interest in D&D and I made a point to check in with him every so often to see how it was shaping up. He told me about 3rd edition and 4th. We discussed changes between editions and how his campaigns were going. When D&D’s 5th edition (5e) came out he was excited. He gave a good pitch and I decided to put my hangups aside. I bought the books and read them.
I felt I was missing something so I went to YouTube and online blogs to complete my knowledge of the premiere RPG. I discovered the brilliance of the OSR. The Old School Renaissance was made up of people who not only never left older editions of the game but understood them far better than I ever did. Reading the genre fiction that was popular in the early 70’s and reading posts on underlying assumptions made the intentions of D&D’s designers clear. Discussions on play styles put the rules I disliked in context and showed me that I was fumbling with on/off switches when there was a panel of dials and indicator lights waiting for me. Modifying rules isn’t hard and now I know which changes will bring the results I’m after.
After years of avoiding the most popular roleplaying game I’m coming back. I can mix and match any parts I want and I don’t have to hope Wizards of the Coast will cater to my needs. I’m looking forward to going on the adventures that eight year old imagined years ago when he saw the city in the clouds on the back cover of the Dungeon Masters Guide.
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