Quote from: ICFTI;399451A large part of why I play vintage games is because I'm chasing that elusive sense of wonder that I had back in the day, kind of like a junkie chases a good heroin fix.

And do you get it?

Surely the difference between the older games and the newer games generally is hte move toward a core mechanic.
In OD&D and indeed AD&D there are separate subgames for different actions. Saving throwes are d20 vs a DR that you must look up on a table as there is little logic to it. The effect of each spell is unique (no standard way of working out the number of HD of creatures affected by a 4th level spell for instance). Now that is good and bad. Its good because it is kind of fun to use those different dice and to have some funky little games, but its bad becuase you need rules for everything.

So its my supposition that old games were in many ways more complex than modern games. Its like the difference between a system for doing stunts and a list of specific stunts that you call feats. One requires good DMing and a page of rules the other doesn't need any DMing but needs books and books of rules (feats). I much prefer option 1 but then staying n business as a games designer is not my job so ....


Once you have a core mechanic, d20 target, d10 dice pool, d6 dice pool, single target number with varying dice size, etc etc then you can apply it to any circumstance with very little conflict.

So if the ability to climb in your d20 world is 1 check per 50 feet DR 10 roll Climbin + dex / str modifier . You can easily tweak this for different surfaces or whatever and the whole process is the same as gambling, fighting etc etc ... If your game is a d20 target but your climb check work on a 3d6 under climb skill.... or a % roll then you will find that you have to look up those rules all the time and the game slows. When I GM I don't want to open a rule book at all.

I use to game because of nostalgia but I think I hit a major crisis point 5 years ago. Basically the industry wasn't offering anything in the vein of my favorite games of old. Worse yet, my player base shifted from college and I was forced to make a choice. Either stop playing from lack of players or start fresh. What I discovered was the reasons why I use to game made less and less sense. I stopped worrying about my old game, and my war stories stopped featuring  so much in my games. It's a weird experience.

Quote from: Mostlyjoe;399575I use to game because of nostalgia but I think I hit a major crisis point 5 years ago. Basically the industry wasn't offering anything in the vein of my favorite games of old. Worse yet, my player base shifted from college and I was forced to make a choice. Either stop playing from lack of players or start fresh. What I discovered was the reasons why I use to game made less and less sense. I stopped worrying about my old game, and my war stories stopped featuring  so much in my games. It's a weird experience.

When I first got back into rpg gaming (shortly after 3.5E was released) after a 15+ year hiatus, I found I still had the same gaming mentality from 15-20 years prior to that time.  It took me awhile to figure out that most of my "brain damage" was largely arbitrary and made less and less sense.

My moment of realization came when I finally got around to playing a game of D&D/AD&D a number of years ago, when I visited some old gaming friends from 20+ years ago, and we decided to play an marathon long weekend pickup game over two days.   It turned out the game didn't feel the same as I remembered it from my youth.  I was looking for nostalgia and the feeling of reliving the old days, but it wasn't there anymore.

I suppose it's one of those things, where "you can never go back home again".

Quote from: Hairfoot;399556And do you get it?

Excellent question. I'd like to know the answer from ICFTI's POV as well.

Quote from: ggroy;399576...
I suppose it's one of those things, where "you can never go back home again".

I can, and do.  Quite regularly.  

Quote from: ggroy;399576I suppose it's one of those things, where "you can never go back home again".

What if you've never left "home" to begin with?

I like AD&D.  Why does that have to have an agenda or be psychoanalyzed by people who prefer other games?

and we can't make a new thread to ask these questions?  
Who DOES this??

/pissed

Quote from: mostlyjoeI use to game because of nostalgia but I think I hit a major crisis point 5 years ago. Basically the industry wasn't offering anything in the vein of my favorite games of old. Worse yet, my player base shifted from college and I was forced to make a choice. Either stop playing from lack of players or start fresh. What I discovered was the reasons why I use to game made less and less sense. I stopped worrying about my old game, and my war stories stopped featuring so much in my games. It's a weird experience.

I liked this post.  what games systems/types of systems did you find that enabled this?  What are the reasons you game now?


and to Akrasia's point, in my particular case, since I homebrewed everything decades ago...I never left.

Quote from: LordVreeg;399627I liked this post.  what games systems/types of systems did you find that enabled this?  What are the reasons you game now?

A little bit of old a little bit of new. GURPS & HERO & Pathfinder, ICONS, Wild Talents, M&M3E. I found when I wan't running fantasy games...I was running 2 primary style games:

Action Movies & Supers.

Gone was just playing in any system. I found my themes and I found my comfort zones with system crunch. I borrow heavily from movies and comicbooks and I have a grand old time. I don't let drama hit the table and don't limit myself to 1 generation of players. Current group is Pathfinder running in a dark Action Movie format.

Why I do it still? It's my release. It's something to be obsessive over that isn't WoW (which I gave up for more time with the wife) or other crummy things that happen in the day to day. And most of all, I love watching people go gonzo in my worlds. I got away from trying to run a perfect game. I expect wackiness now and adapt faster. It's more fun.

I gave up and just ran a game for the hell of it and suddenly found gaming Zen. (Or the best I can claim. )

Quote from: thedungeondelver;399626I like AD&D.  Why does that have to have an agenda or be psychoanalyzed by people who prefer other games?

Speaking as someone who has admitted to liking 4E in public, I feel your pain.

Speaking as someone who has read your anti-recent-edition screeds, I feel the irony.

Quote from: Mostlyjoe;399682A little bit of old a little bit of new. GURPS & HERO & Pathfinder, ICONS, Wild Talents, M&M3E. I found when I wan't running fantasy games...I was running 2 primary style games:

Action Movies & Supers.

Gone was just playing in any system. I found my themes and I found my comfort zones with system crunch. I borrow heavily from movies and comicbooks and I have a grand old time. I don't let drama hit the table and don't limit myself to 1 generation of players. Current group is Pathfinder running in a dark Action Movie format.

Why I do it still? It's my release. It's something to be obsessive over that isn't WoW (which I gave up for more time with the wife) or other crummy things that happen in the day to day. And most of all, I love watching people go gonzo in my worlds. I got away from trying to run a perfect game. I expect wackiness now and adapt faster. It's more fun.

I gave up and just ran a game for the hell of it and suddenly found gaming Zen. (Or the best I can claim. )

Dark Action Movie.  Nice descriptive.
WoW is good to get away from.  Some would say it and gaming are the same addiction; I tend to look at the creative parts of gaming and it's pro-social nature as big plusses.  I'm sure your wife would agree.

You sem to do well with the mantra of not taking it too seriously.

Quote from: LordVreeg;399686You sem to do well with the mantra of not taking it too seriously.

That was the hardest part. I seriously had a gaming induce panic attack when I hit the wall. So much of my idenitiy (even now) was tied up into gaming. But there I was systematicly cutting ties with old groups and gamers I know. I isolated (RL reasons happened too) and eventually stopped worrying about why I game, just that I grew to like it. It's fun and I'm a decent enough GM to run just about ANYTHING on the fly. So I'm remastering my Systems of Choice and will offer games if you want, chatter if you don't.

I'm ending my podcast because RL demands more of my time. I've stopped worrying about writing a product. I'm more worried about where and what I'm going to run. What would be fun for everyone. I've actualy started questioning my assumptions about what is fun. What's funny? I found my Generic system love still there. But now it's more advanced. I see the guiderails in every game out there on the market now. Groking 4E from a fundimental standpoint reminded me of my GURPS days and suddenly all my other games opened up to me. A litteral Ah ha! moment. The byproduct? I no longer need to buy everything! For the first time I'm building toolkits instead of collections.

I wrote my own rules years ago, and as a result feel guilty for rarely buying anything gaming wise, especially now that I can afford it.

But a good ruleset is a lot like a toolkit, yes.  Good ones can be used to do a lot of things.

Quote from: Akrasia;399622I can, and do.  Quite regularly.  

Quote from: Benoist;399624What if you've never left "home" to begin with?

Quote from: LordVreeg;399627and to Akrasia's point, in my particular case, since I homebrewed everything decades ago...I never left.

This goes to show there's a lot of different experiences.  

I "left home" (ie. left rpg gaming altogether) sometime when I was a teenager, and didn't "come back" until I was well over age 30.  I suppose when I "came back", I was going through an early "mid life" crisis of some sort.  Instead of the stereotypical "mid-life crisis" stuff like buying an expensive sports car, divorcing the wife, etc ..., I suppose I picked up some WotC books and d20 glut crap from the bargain bins (mostly modules), and started playing D&D again.  If for no other reason at the time, it was an attempt to "recapture" the feeling from my youth over an "idealized" time period where I had no worries or troubles.  (Partially a form of escapism, to get away from various problems at the time of my early mid-life crisis).