I play make believe.

It hasn't been forever. Not even very long. I started this pastime in 2021, looking for a game to engage my very tactical 9-year-old son, who was into chess and trading card games (TCG), and my 7-year-old daughter, who could entertain herself with a piece of string and a plastic spoon. 

D&D has become the latest in a series of obsession which have persisted through my continuing mid-life crisis (I am 44). First, it was lifting weights, then Pokemon TCG, the powerlifting, then chess, then Yugioh, then weightlifting, then chess, then Pokemon TCG, somewhere in there Lord of the Rings LCG, and finally for the last three years D&D. 

I started with 5th edition D&D because it was the latest version and the Basic Rules actually make a lot of sense. I thought of it as a tactical game that my son would like combined with more imaginative narrative  aspects that would engage my daughter. I really like TCGs, but to have really have fun with them, I feel you need to be invested in them. My son was invested in 5e. I could see enjoying the tactical skirmish game within it if everyone was, but they aren't and I have come to the conclusion that it isn't reasonable to  suppose everyone will be.

I play AD&D and Swords & Wizardry now, with a brief foray into Shadowdark. What these games have in common is they let people play without substantial investment in the game rules. They reward it to some extent, but the bigger payoff is investment in the game world and shared story we build at the table. This is difficult with a bunch of pre-teens. I struggle.

My biweekly Friday campaign with a group of 40 somethings just passed the two-year mark. We actually put the first campaign on pause with the characters on on the cusp of reaching 7th level. I was growing tired of it and needed a change. I didn't want to end it outright, so I engineered a scenario where the characters were gated to a land more than a thousand miles from the small island where they had tested their mettle. It's on the shelf and I anticipate that it will be resurrected at some point, but can't say when.  

I am constantly reading and hearing that the measure of the a good DM is the number of people who consistently made the time to sit at your table. I am constantly doubting this, as I believe that many of us reaching middle-age with young kids are just lonely and in need of company. Still I persist. We have 10 regulars with 3 to 8 players at each session. We are even starting to play more often within a record five Friday sessions this month!

I don't know what my goals are with this blog, other than self-expression. I am in the process of re-writing the AD&D rules, to consolidate and streamline them. I suspect that a number of my early post will be excerpts from those rules. 

More concretely, one of my goals is to foster a sense of community within the hobby of old-school D&D. I have learnt a tremendous amount and even gained something difficult to describe from those who take the time to post their thoughts and on blogs, in videos and on podcasts. I hope this blog can do something of that for some you readers out there. 

Fight on!  

- OwlbearHugger