I miss the AD&D fun that I had while growing up. Back when we didn't have awesome graphics to tell us how things looked or multiple choice options on what to do next in the adventure. We had to use this crazy thing called imagination (hard core stuff) :grin: .
Most of the players that I played with have moved around the world over the years. We have tried many different long distance campaigns, but its not the same. DDO was fun for a littel bit, but again not quite the same as those all night D&D nights with people huddled over a table trying to figure out a crazy contraption/mystery that the GM had thought up for us that week.
I still have a large box full of all the AD&D 2e books and most of the 3e. I did have a full set of the 1e, but they have been lost in time and were quite well used.
I think that some of the greatest adventure maps that will/have come out in Minecraft will/have been made by the PnP gamer types. I haven't heard much of xcomp outside of the mystcraft stuff, but listening to him talk about ideas for it, I can see him coming up with some crazy lore/adventures for an adventure map. Would be lots of fun.
Your post made me smile-- it mirrors so much of my many decades in pnp gaming (and other forms of gaming as well). I moved from the US to Australia many years ago and had to search out a whole new gaming group. It was rough-- I don't like to play with powergamers or those who abuse min-maxing, and with some of the younger folks, imagination seemed to be scarce as the bulk of thier gaming experience was with video games and thus they sometimes couldn't get out of a linear thought mode. But those were only a couple of people, and they fell by the wayside (or learned to use the great gift of imagination).
Now I have a good core group here and it is growing as we teach new people in "old school" style. I too have boxes of old D&D books, from boxed sets in the "chit" days (pre-polyhedreal dice) to 4th edition. *Thinks back for a moment* Yeah, I began playing before polyhedral dice. Wow, I am old. And when (shortly after I began playing) the polyhedral dice were introduced, I got really hooked--loved the dice, still do. And the 4-sided baddies make great impromptu caltrops! Lulz!
But imagination-- that is key. I've found that as amazing as games & movies can be nowadays, there is often nothing so impacting on me as what my bizarre mind can conjure up. Here's a silly example-- the movie "The Blair Witch Project". Nothing was shown of the thing that was stalking those dopes in the woods, but my imagination filled in and made it really personally horrifying. I could see in my mind's eye what freaks me out most, and it probably differs from what freaks others out. That's another beauty of imagination-- done right, veiled ideas in pnp games can make a general image (for example) like an Umber Hulk much more visceral for a player with a good imagination.
I'll stop rambling. TL;DR: imagination good! ;-)
