Nostalgia, Part 2

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

I like my nostalgic experiences but know how bad they are for me. I limit them like I limit my junk food intake. It pains me to see another version of "fantasy game" released.

Is D&D 5 a good game? Yes. Is it D&D? Not really; the current edition is more of a superhero game. The original is still better. Given that both editions are dead to me (corporate mismanagement and community behavior), I play Castles & Crusades for my faux-nostalgia hit. It is good enough, throws out a lot of rules, and frees me up for that original edition hit point and combat difficulty scale.

But I don't play too much of it.

I would prefer to invent new games with Cypher System and play things I have never done before.

Every time  I sit down to play something based on nostalgia, a classic module, or a familiar setting, it never lasts. The "want" to play it is always more potent than the desire to "keep" playing it. The nostalgia games and settings don't hold water for me. I may love them for the good times they represent, but my future games will come from my imagination.

And I need a system that isn't tied down to lists of junk I will never use and isn't a shelf full of books to reference.

In my entertainment, I don't watch nostalgia movies. If I like the original, I watch that. The word nostalgia has become "the remake" and not "the original." I don't like the remakes. They are empty calories, weak, and never live up to the originals.

What I do watch are the new things they make today. New ideas and stories.

I am done with the reinterpretation of the past.

It is empty at best and a constant argument at worst. And I am not tuning in for an argument anymore. That is a more enormous waste of time, worthless in every way.

The argument means nothing if you don't "buy into" the remake.

So, don't buy in.