04 February 2010 - Punctuated Equilibrium (original) (raw)

So, I quit playing Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies a while back, but I'm missing the adventuring fix. I started thinking about how long I'd been playing something like D&D and remembered way, way back to my first experience with the RPG universe: the board game Dungeon! (Yes, I have to use the exclamation point.)

After playing that game as a kid, I didn't play anything similar until college when I started playing AD&D (I guess this is 2e?) with friends. Mostly we played Forgotten Realms, with occasional forays into Ravenloft. There was a short stint with Magic back then, but I never really got the appeal of the game at that age.

Skip ahead several years and I picked up Everquest in grad school. It never lived up to the fun I remembered from AD&D. Putting up with trains, annoying strangers coming up and begging for gold or items, and randomly being hit on added up to a drag on the immersive experience. Star Wars Galaxies was only better by virtue of having less populated servers and therefore fewer annoying people to share space with. Neither game really had the campaign feel I missed from AD&D.

I got back into Magic and played somewhat regularly for about a year with Kay. Constantly buying new cards and building new decks was too pricey, though. Yes, we probably could play with the same cards and not worry about it, but the crack aspect was a little too strong for people with dominant "collector" genes.

I've been tempted to try and find a tabletop gaming group a few times since, but so far haven't given in. I missed 3e and 3.5e entirely. I only just heard of 4e on a boardgame forum. Anyone have a recommendation one way or another? I have some coworkers who are WoW players...

(Kay and I have been playing Dominion instead of Magic and enjoying the slightly less complicated game play. I doubt he would ever try D&D, though I could be wrong.)