Over ten years ago (I'd rather not say how many more than ten) a group of college friends started playing 2nd Edition D&D in the basement of the house they shared. A stack of pizza boxes would accumulate over time, becoming the table I used as the DM. Cigarette butts piled up on the floor, only to finally be retrieved when we moved out after that fateful year. We played huge sessions, including a 24 hour long session to end the campaign that ended with all of us in tears.

In short, we made stories together. That was, after all, the point.

All that time later, the core of the group still games together. Some have moved away and come back, some drop out for periods of time - but for over a decade, we've tried to recapture that feeling. It is difficult with jobs, commitments, some with kids, some of us with much earlier bedtimes. Nobody smoked anymore. But every week for many years we've gathered and tried to get some gaming in.

We went through multiple editions of D&D, Burning Wheel, Burning Empires, Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, Aces & Eights... just piles and piles of games. All fun in their own way. All with their own strengths and weaknesses.

But I'd be lying if I didn't say we were losing it a little bit. A lot of the magic was gone. After a failed Burning Empires campaign (a game I really enjoy and played successfully for a year with 2 of the other people in the group... but we struggled when expanding it to 6 people) and two 4th edition campaigns that sort of sputtered, the love was starting to fade a bit. We resorted to Risk Legacy, a board game, for a few weeks to take a step back and evaluate what we wanted to play next. It was suggested we try a bunch of one shots of new systems and see what clicked with the group.

I picked up a copy of Dungeon World on advice from a friend who does not play with our group, read through the rules, and perhaps most importantly read through the excellent Beginner's Guide here in the forums. And went ahead and ran a game of it last Wednesday night.

First of all, it is my opinion that the Beginner's Guide should, in some way, be added to the core book. Maybe as an appendix. This was absolutely invaluable to me running the game. It made clear some things that weren't 100% clear to me in the rules itself.

Second - for three and a half hours, everybody in that game could have believed they were back in that damp, smokey basement, playing with a stack of pizza boxes for a table. Nobody could believe the time had gone that quickly.

We'll be starting a campaign next week.

So, in short, thank you so much.