Dungeons & Dragons: 4th Edition

I am not quite a decade older, but I started playing back in the early days when the Monster Manual was the sole list of beasts (I still have a worn 1st ed Fiend Folio), and even have some of the paperback books that preceded the hardbounds (Dieties and Demig-ds, Greyhawk, one other, I think...) I played AD&D, Traveller, Gamma World, Boot Hill, a few others. I was an ubergeek back then.

I didn't keep up on RPGs for a long time. I played off and on, but games seemed to become ever more dumbed down as time went on. Shadowrun, for example, was somewhat interesting, but the rules were simply absurd in many places. (I did like the game "Cyberpunk", which dealt with somewhat similar topics, but never caught on. Mainly, I think because your best character could still be killed by a punk with a cheap pistol. Realism doesn't sell well in the RPG world...)

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Oh, before you think I am one of those AD&D purists who insists on the 1st Ed, I do think many changes were good, and I have no problem with many changes up to and including 3d ed. I even like SOME of the 4th ed. But I have to agree with you, the anime-style changes, and the general dumbing down and powering up of characters is very annoying.

Then again, I loved Boot Hill, where even the best gunslinger could die in a single shot, the aforementioned Cyberpunk, Gamma World, where nothing protected you very well against a black ray gun, and I play "Stalker" on my computer, where even the best armor turns to dust in a few seconds of sustained fire. So maybe I am too much of a fan of realism (and realistic threats, along with the quick deaths they bring) to be a fair representative of RPG players.

(One thing I did like about Shadowrun was that you could tune the lethality of the game. It had problems, but I liked the way you could keep gunfights deadly. Made every encounter count, unlike even 1st Ed AD&D where a 20th fighter would just ignore kobolds, even if there were thousands, as he kenw they could not touch him, which is simply unrealistic.)

That was a long rambling reply. Sorry if I didn't make sense. It is late, and I was recalling things from a decade or two ago while writing.

Still, kind of fun to find a conservative gamer site. I know many conservatives who are or were gamers (as I said, I haven't played in ages myself), but for some reason most gaming sites seem to slant left, or to the strange libertarian, but with very liberal views attitude that seems to dominate Slashdot and other tech/geek sites. (They distrust gov't, but want it to fix their own pet problems.. then stop. Yeah, that's likely to work.)

Anyway, amusing site. keep it up.

And, for once, I am not going to shamelessly plug my own blog. Wow, it must be late.

Realism is nice, but customization and flexibility is what keeps me coming back for more. Cyberpunk had an amazing depth to the character options that made me want to play the heck out of it, but I never really had the opportunity.

Verdel Klapotnik, the four armed man capable of seeing through his guns, killed many a Nomad before my GM went back to New Mexico.

You probably would also have enjoyed Twilight 2000, which used the same combat system as Cyberpunk, but without the futuristic elements.

Glad to finally find someone else who remembered it. Cyberpunk was one of those great games you could never find anyone to play. The rules were full of great ideas, but minimal enough you had a lot of room to create your own world.

One of my complaints with AD&D, especially the 1st hardbound books, the rules were SO comprehensive there was not a lot of flexibility. Probably a backlash against the minimalist paperbound books that preceded it. Still, it did seem a bit much. (Though, not as bad as Bushido, which actually had tables for what type of wife you would marry, as well as conception percentages... A rule I also recall existing in Dragonquest, though necessary there as so many schools of the College of Witchcraft related to fertility. )

Ah, I am rambling again, so I will stop. I have enjoyed your site so far. Please keep posting. I am quite interested to see what comes next.