Back to the basics of the game...

In three days, I will once again join my gaming group in the fantasy world of D&D. I have not played this game in quite a while and that is sad because I love the game. I played the snot out of this game while in grade school and high school and the memories of those gaming days will be with me forever. Now I am hopefully making some good memories for my son and some of his friends. But yet, I find I do not enjoy the game as much as I used to. I am not sure why, but I think it is because in this day and age of video games where saving character information is done at the push of a button, I have become the defacto record keeper of the charcter information. When the game is over, the characters go with me, I record the upgrades and advancements and then give them back when a new game starts. I don't really mind that because I know that my players, at least the younger ones, will never pick up the Core Rulebooks and read them. When I was their age, I had committed the rules to memory. Now, I find myself having to tell them what to look for, what to do and what to roll. I would love to have them be able to look through the books, find ideas, weapons, spells and tricks that would make the game more imaginative for them. They do well enough with the role playing but I think they really don't know the game deeply enough to make it more fun for me to be the Game Master... I think this time I am going to let some of that responsibility fall to them and see how it goes. We will see how it turns out and if it becomes more fun for me as the DM to test their ability to survive. If not, I guess I will just have to kill them.

Later...