You are the reason
I've been waiting so long
Somebody holds the
key
Well, I'm near the
end and I just ain't got the time
And I'm wasted and
I can't find my way home
Steve Winwood
Back in the late 90’s I heard that my favorite game was
going to change, really change. Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) bought TSR and
began a process to change Dungeons and Dragons in a radical way. They promised
the change would be monumental and would make the game that I’d been playing
virtually obsolete.
Now I had just moved to Hawaii, working a new job and
seeing a beautiful girl who is now my beautiful wife. So, though I had other things going on in my
life, I still kept an occasional eye on my hobby and I watched the coming of the
3rd edition of Dungeons and Dragons.
The players handbook gave me a disc to help me create my characters,
but it didn’t work quite right (I was used to the Core Rules disc and
expansion, so I had high hopes, but the 3rd edition software turned
out to be garbage). I bought a few 3rd
edition splat books and even helped out with Living Greyhawk for a bit, but I
just wasn’t feeling this game anymore.
A couple of years later I come to find out I’ve been
trying to play the wrong game. I should be playing the 3.5 edition of Dungeons
and Dragons. That 3rd edition crap was, for lack of a better word,
crap. So now according to WoTC, in order
to play 3rd edition the way it was meant to be played I needed to
buy all new 3.5 edition books and my 3.0 books could be used for kindling or to
level out the work bench in the garage.
That was when I said goodbye to Dungeons and Dragons.
I looked at my three bookcases full of 1st and
2nd edition AD&D materials and resigned myself to make do with
what I have. I never looked back…
One of my secret reasons for having kids is to have my
own ready-made D&D group, as my boys came of age I began ushering them into
the mysteries. However, my 2nd
Edition AD&D campaign held little interest for them, we also tried Castles
and Crusades but they didn't care much for that either, and I have to admit I was
just going through the motions as well. In
2012 I heard from friends about a game called Pathfinder- so we played
Pathfinder. We played in a Pathfinder Society Campaign all through the summer
of 2013 and while it was a little too much bookkeeping for me, my boys loved
it. I’ve heard people refer to
Pathfinder as D&D 3.75 which I suppose makes sense. And while it was rather
heavy at times, there were things that I admired about the system. But it wasn’t
my D&D.
This summer I heard the rumblings of the next great
edition of D&D. Holding fast to my AD&D Core Rules Expansion discs I flatly
stated that I had no intention of spending another penny on a WoTC product. I
had weathered the storm that was 4th edition quite well thank you
and I figured this too shall pass. And I’d
still be out there today if it wasn’t for the fact that WoTC did something inconceivable
– they gave a free PDF of the core rules to everyone who wanted one. I can say no to many temptations but “free”
is a tough one to turn down.
So I downloaded the free PDF, then I read the PDF, then I
printed up the PDF. I was gobsmacked. This new 5th Edition was
wonderful. There’s just enough “old” for my Grognard sensibilities to be
satisfied, and plenty of “New” for the Geek in me to revel in. Of course its not perfect, but neither was my D&D. I never needed it to be perfect. I just wanted it to be fun.
I’ve heard folks say that there is quite a
bit from 3rd and 4th edition in it, I have to take their
word for that, I wouldn’t know. What I do know is that it’s been close to 12
years for me wandering around looking for some “Old School re-hash” or “Indy
darling” to give me the feeling of being on the cutting edge of a game that I
loved so much. I can finally stop
looking and come home to D&D.
