A return to the hobby after 20 years.

Well now that I think about it, 20 years is a bit of an exaggeration. Lets say it is more like 15 or so, but anyway. Gaming for me began with the D&D Red Box back in the late 80's and quickly moved to AD&D Second Edition. Being about 11 years old then, I was amazed at what I was playing. Every Friday night for my friends and I was game night until the wee hours of the morning and then after a few hours of sleep we played all day on Saturday too. Back then the gamers diet consisted of Pizza Rolls or the Little Caesars "Bigfoot" Pizza. We would wash that all down with endless glasses of Sprite and/or Kool-aid. Life was good... Nay... Perfect! If we only knew how great we had it.

Now here I am almost 20 years later. OMG. The days of gaming faded as I grew older. Now with a wife and 2 children of my own I have began reminiscing of the adventuring days gone by and yearning to pick up the sword and light my torch so to speak. It is not like I completely forgot the game. O no. In fact, there were thousands of times where I would be doing some unrelated activity (driving, working, etc...) and I would think of the good old days. I even made sure in the 20 years of my non-gaming life to stop in the Role Playing Game section of my local book store to see what was happening in the hobby while I was growing older. I remember looking at the 3rd Edition books with disgust. As it turns out, I was not angry with the idea of a 3rd edition. I was just angry that my gaming days had died years before.

Well last year in the summer of 2008 I was standing in a Barnes and Noble and decided to take my self-torturing walk through the Role Playing Game section. What I saw that night changed something in me for the better. There standing in front of the Dungeons & Dragons books were 3 teenagers. They were talking Dungeons & Dragons the way my friends and I used to. They were "True Nerds" of the hobby. I even heard them discuss how they were going to stop and get some food on the way home so that they could start their game that night and not need to stop to go back out for some grub. Immediately I wished I was about 12 years younger and going home with them for an endless night of rolling the dice. For me.... that was the turning point. pulling my cell phone from my pocket I dialed my good friend and began putting the heat on him to play D&D once again. Once he gave in the others were a lot easier to convince.

The 3.5 Core Rule books were purchased and a good thing too, because 4th Edition was released a few weeks later and the 3.5 core books seemed to disappear off of the bookstore shelves. After looking it over, I decided I was not interested in 4th Edition because things seemed new enough with 3.5. Our first game was 2 weeks later. We all had a blast. We made sure to play in the dark dampness of my basement, eat greasy and terrible food, and drink a beer or two to help break the stiffness of roleplaying after years of being old-non gamers. Things were looking up...

After a few more sessions however, something began to bother me. I could not put my finger on it. After lurking around a few of my favorite RPG Blogs, it began to fall into place for me... I think. Blogs like Grognardia, and Chgowiz's Old Guy RPG Blog ooze the magic of the old days. (links to both of these blogs are at the end of this post.) The common element is that James from Grognardia and Chgowiz play older systems. 0 edition and 1st Edition. These systems have a "old style" flexible rules system where the Dungeon Master decided the outcomes on the fly instead of having an expansive set of rules that could be used to determine just about any player idea that could ever be conceived... But I think I like that idea. It was comforting for me as a DM returning to the hobby after 20 years to know that my decisions are backed by a set of rules. 20 years away from the hobby has left me feeling insecure to say the least and with 3.5 edition, my thinking is that I won't have to worry about my players not liking my decisions because they will all can be blamed on the rules. Rules are rules and that will be that! Well I am starting to feel for me that type of thinking is wrong wrong wrong. I have downloaded OSRIC. I am going to start from scratch in my campaign, and this upcoming weekend, we are going to test out the 1st Edition rules and see if things are the way I suspect they will be.

This blog is going to be my journal of our game sessions. Two of my favorite bloggers are already doing this for their campaigns so be sure to jump over to...

Grognardia

and

Chgowiz's Old Guy RPG Blog