I believe there is one part of the retro feel we can't reproduce any
more: we did not care much for deep roleplaying back then, we were
young, we wanted conflict and the only way we got satisfied with
conflict was martial conflict.

The systems supported fast solution to that, we could do a great
number of combats in one session and move on to the area of the next
one, most of my oldest game memories are of timely cast spells,
evocative images of monsters and and their abilities and the end
result of these inumerous images.

As a rule we take a lot longer between combats now cause players
roleplay among themselves a lot, they want scenario descriptions at
all times and GMs tend to provide descriptions of everything, we
rarely ever like the approach of fast forwarding through an entire
zone or travel any more, it is not all about the end of the road, we
care a lot more about how we get there now.

I believe it is a change in the way we play the game and not the game
itself, the retro feel exists more when we use the rules then when we
play the way we did back then, specially because more often than not,
playing that way isn't satisfying enough now, we want more, we want to
court princesses as much as we want to hear the king bable on about
the menace of his kingdom.

There is no save the princess from the evil dragon adventures any
more, if you try to do one players insert intrigue and politics into
the mix by searching for collaborators of the dragon and the like.

The game isn't that simple any more, simply because our own ideas and
thoughts are not that simple any more.

Just how I see that.

--
Raoni Cananeia Monteiro
r.cananeia@...