It was about a year after my first time playing when I was reintroduced to the game. A friend of mine, Nick, was very familiar with the books (he owned a large collection of 3.5 books), but his interest was somewhat in power-gaming as a player. Nick's DMing was pretty freeform, but one of our players was rather frustrated by the fact that there wasn't enough action, and he made it very clear that was bored through the sessions.
Then I met Carl. Carl was a long time DM and was comfortable enough with the rules and his abilities to let his players explore the world as they pleased. We didn't get very far in that campaign because he switched to the Traveller system shortly after I started playing, but I got a taste.
The rules for creating a character seemed rather involved, but I managed to get through them. I made the mistake of choosing a psionic character, when I was not very familiar with the rules. The psionic system has always felt like it was just tacked on to D&D at the last moment, even though it's been carried through all of the editions.
I remember being a little distressed when I realized that I made my character a pacifist in a game system rather focused towards combat. I was used to role playing that was very much seen only through the eyes of the player character. I didn't get a grasp of the "meta gaming" experience until I began to grasp the rules in D&D.
Carl was pretty good at DMing the game. Because he played an open "sandbox" style, he was able to come up with a lot of the stuff we'd come across on the fly (by rolling on random tables.) We didn't have to fight everything. We managed to avoid fighting with ogres for instance by using diplomacy.
Again, these sessions ended all too quickly. I didn't get a real taste for an evolving plot. I did, however, get to see how quickly the game devolved into table talk when there was a group of seven or more players.
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