QuoteWhy it took three days to find D&D at the World's Largest Gaming Convention

Okay, so, first things first, the geek nerd biography. I played D&D. Are you done rolling your eyes and laughing? Good. For the first time in about ten years - due to the economy – I had some free time in August. I saw an ad for GenCon, which billed itself as the World's Largest Gaming Convention. I thought, well, this will be great, get away, do something geeky and nerdy for a few days and get back to the hunt for gainful employment. I arrived at the convention Friday afternoon, checked into the hotel, and drove down to the convention center. Picked up some tickets for events and thought, hey, I'm home, among my geek nerd brothers and sisters.

The first thing that struck me was the bare flesh exposed by some folks of indeterminate age. I quickly learned this was called Cosplay, Costume play, which is a pastime indulged in by, uhm, young people into Anime such as Dragonball Z. Alright, so eye candy, harmless – except for the age factor. But I thought, okay, I can handle this, there are bars nearby where I can drown the creepy skin-crawly feeling that I've some how become a pedophile. Continue building your personality profile. Go on, its cool, join the mob, all the cool kids do it.
Onto the Games! Found the area of the convention where Wizards of the Coast, manufacturers of Dungeons and Dragons, had staked their claim, only to discover I arrived too late for an introduction to – cue theme music – D&D 4E. Come back tomorrow.

No problem, I checked out the dealer room, which in itself is an amazing place stacked almost ceiling to floor with useless stuff you don't need but absolutely have to have. I dare you, no, I double dog dare you to walk through this place during GenCon without seeing ten to fifteen things that need to come home with you. Sharper Image, Ikea and Bed, Bath and Beyond have nothing on the merchandise collected here.

So, on to the next day: I wander in, tickets in hand ready to get my geek on. You can geek and nerd here, man, its okay, socially acceptable and even encouraged. I waited in line, and waited, and finally got to the front. I was in the wrong line. This was for players with some experience. I was geek, but I was ten years out of practice geek. My geek and nerd were not strong enough. They were flabby, girly man geek and nerd.
So, new line, wait, get to front, I was there too early, come back at six. Gak, cough, okay, I get you, bar, cold beer, lunch, beer, successful afternoon. There was a Colts game that afternoon and the ancient geek and nerd high school tremors hit me. Geeks and Jocks do not mix. Geeks do not mix with Jocks in large numbers – at all. But the laughing and eye rolling was kept to an absolute minimum. I was shocked, aghast, this was not my beautiful memory - surprise, no pummelings, no beatings, no lynchings. Things were looking up.

Convention Hall, six o'clock: I've had my libations and the Minnesota Vikings were about to catch a beating. Nothing but great things can happen from this point. I finally got into a game - and I felt like a special needs monkey. This was not D&D, at least not D&D that I remembered. The rules have been stripped down, simplified, to the level of reading is fundamental. Everyone is equal, and everyone cooperates. Barney likes this game. Where was the random violence and smashing things to little bits and taking their loot? Not here. So, as I said, my geek and nerd are ten-years-out-of-practice, flabby, girly man geek and nerd. The question fell out of my mouth, "This is D&D, right?" And they looked at me like I grew a third eye.

This was a board game. There was a board. You heard me, a board, like a fold up paper board with little cardboard markers, sorta like if Parker Brothers put out a ghetto version of Monopoly. You kick open the door and begin the game. No literally, that's how it went. Move in, fight, move to next room, fight, move to final room, fight. Game over. Okay - and well - that's it.
To give this game its due, its easy to pick up, you can have it down in about five minutes and master it about fifteen. It's that easy. The math has been smashed down to one addition problem, with the answer provided, in bold letters with easy to understand words. It's a simple game. It works. All they need is a box and they'll a winner on their hands.

Okay, its seven o'clock, time to feed my ugly face. Food. Asked some folks, a nerd family no less, fellow geeks and nerds about grub, they pointed in the direction of the Noodle Company. We got to chatting, I asked if they played D&D 4E. The kid piped up and said it was a boring MMORG. Great - acronyms – love it.
An MMORG, is a massively multi-player online roleplaying game. In shorthand, it means World of Warcraft. I've played Warcraft, laughed at the commercials and thoroughly enjoyable game. The more I thought about this over my pesto noodles – which were excellent by the way - the more I thought, damn, the kid was right. It's an MMORG, without the online, the graphics, the social interaction or the - well, it ain't Warcraft.

To add insult to injury, the Vikings won. And this was one of those surreal moments that could only occur at a gaming convention. At nine o'clock, there was costume event - a zombie walk. The zombies gathered in the Indianapolis Union Station, and began their march just as the game was letting out. The sympathetic zombies tried to cheer up the disappointed Colts fans by limping about, in their Night of the Living Dead make-up, chanting, "Viking Brains."

So now it was Sunday, last day, and still had nothing I could recognize as D&D. My ten-years-out-of-practice, flabby, girly man Geek and Nerd would go back into the box, and I would return home with the memory of zombies trying to cheer up disappointed Colts fans. I found a final event – Introduction to Pathfinder.
Holy Geekdom, Fatman, this is where they were hiding it! There were dice! Dice bags! Miniatures! Rules written for people with a comprehension level above the eighth grade! Okay, I know, that might not be a selling point, but you get the idea. And that's why I couldn't find it – D&D wasn't called D&D anymore, it was called Pathfinder. Okay, now you have my permission to laugh at me. Go ahead, get it off your chest. Done? Feel better now? Good.

This was the D&D I remembered - thinking was involved, planning, resource management, followed by bone crushing violence and looting your reward. D&D, I found you. Paizo, the publishers of Pathfinder, have done a good job of streamlining the game, not to the level of D&D 4E, but it has been trimmed, put on a diet and forced to get some exercise. It makes logical sense now. The complex calculus of previous D&D editions have been reduced to some high school math problems – which means both addition and subtraction are required. Okay, maybe that's not a selling point either, but you get the idea. The game is playable with a minimum of page flipping and rules knowledge. My ten-years-out-of-practice, flabby, girly man geek and nerd were satisfied. I played D&D, which wasn't called D&D anymore, but Pathfinder.

From Ain't It Cool News.

Lame.

 - and I don't even like 4e.

... yeah, sure. He'd been gone from gaming for a decade and just happened to decide to go to Gencon and just happened to run into Pathfinder just in time to save his Gencon experience? Bonus points for the wide-eyed revelation that 4e is a MMORPG.

4e has a board, which sucks, but Pathfinder has /miniatures/, which are awesome?

Man.

Defenders Of 4E, unite!

How Old School could he be if he thinks 4e is "stripped down" to the point of "reading is fundamental"? When I think Old School, I think Holmes edition and earlier, not the 2e (or even late 1e) game he remembers.

Looks like Massawyrm caught a whiff of the same things I did; look at the linked page and read what he writes after all of the above; the relevant portion:

"More importantly, as a D&D player 10 years out, it sounds like he was a 2nd Edition player."

Is 2e considered Old School now? Not arguing or being sarcastic, just asking. Up until right now, I'd never have considered it "Old School."

I think it's an interesting point of view.

QuoteIs 2e considered Old School now? Not arguing or being sarcastic, just asking. Up until right now, I'd never have considered it "Old School."

I used "Old School" in its usual, loose sense, rather than meaning a specific edition of D&D. For the record, I wouldn't consider 2e to be "Old School" in the sense that people give to the term on Dragonsfoot, myself.

Quote from: Benoist;326159I think it's an interesting point of view.


I used "Old School" in its usual, loose sense, rather than meaning a specific edition of D&D. For the record, I wouldn't consider 2e to be "Old School" in the sense that people give to the term on Dragonsfoot, myself.

I think we're on the same page. It just seems odd for someone to at once claim to be "Old School" and then complain an edition was not complex enough. Usually Old Schoolers praise to high heaven how rules-light OD&D is.

This is getting to be standard boilerplate stuff.

Quote from: ticopelp;326170This is getting to be standard boilerplate stuff.

In what way? I'm just going from what I've seen on places like Dragonsfoot.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;326163I think we're on the same page. It just seems odd for someone to at once claim to be "Old School" and then complain an edition was not complex enough. Usually Old Schoolers praise to high heaven how rules-light OD&D is.

Some Old Schoolers I'm sure (I'd be one of them, after all), others, not so much, particularly among Gygaxian AD&Ders, if I had to pick. Thing is, "Old School" still is a term that really doesn't have any clear definition as applied to tabletop role-playing games. "Old School Renaissance", even less.

What's interesting is that we've seen, in part on this site, during the past few weeks, some successive threads of discussion which, bit by bit, attempted to define these terms by drawing lines in the sand as to what "OSR" is and isn't. That's fascinating in many respects, because it's all in the eye of the beholder, in the end. It's still an ongoing process, in any case. I'm curious to see where it's all going to end up, personally.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;326172In what way? I'm just going from what I've seen on places like Dragonsfoot.

It just seems like it's a really recurring theme over at the d20 forums on The Other Place.

1) I am an old-school gamer who (list lengthy gamer geek credentials, making sure to mention Tomb of Horrors)

2) OMG 4E is an MMORPG! Warcraft! Heresy!

3) Pathfinder is the future and once again I found love

4)

5) Take that, 4E!

Not that I have any use for 4E, but this kind of smells like astroturfing horseshit.

Quote from: ticopelp;326182this kind of smells like astroturfing horseshit.

HA! "Astroturfing horseshit". Nice shot. I laughed!

Quote from: ticopelp;3261823) Pathfinder is the future and once again I found love.

Interesting (and telling) question: Where are all the Pathfinder threads?

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;326209Interesting (and telling) question: Where are all the Pathfinder threads?

Paizo and ENWorld?

Lamezorz.

I don't want some perfect definition of "old school", because the Quick Primer already did it well enough. And that has nothing to do with dungeons in particular, or miniatures, or whatever.

This is the sort of discussion gamers have when they're trying to avoid making decisions in the game session that might get their characters killed.

Shut the fuck up and roll the dice.

Now that's old school.