The other day I was looking at the print-out of my 4e Warlord, in particular the "power cards", and I thought to myself that back in the day, these powers would be pretty awesome.  They'd excite me.  I'd be eager to get in there and put them to use.  I'd sit in the floor of my friend's (large) bedroom with the windows open on a balmy summer day, with a bag of Doritos and a can of Mountain Dew, and we'd laugh and joke and have crazy fantasy adventures.  AD&D2 and Rifts mostly, but we also tried whatever game-of-the-month I'd gotten my hands on.  It was fun.

Now, I'm sure that nostalgia clouds my memory somewhat, and it's not like I don't have a good time with my current friends in our current games, but I find myself less excited by the prospect of the game as represented by the character sheet.  Comparing DEX scores, poring over equipment lists, fantasizing about the cool uses for special abilities and the like just don't seem inspiring anymore.  Of course, this phenomenon isn't confined to 4e characters.  Generally, the stuff on the character sheet of any game just sits there like a lump.  Now, I do find that the drama-centric elements of the character sheet, if it has them, do get a bit of a flutter.  They might spark a bit of a "what if" in my head, and perhaps have me imagining a dramatic moment in the story, the kind that you talk about at the water-cooler the next day with you co-workers.  "Can you believe what he did!?"  "I knew that would happen.  It was just a matter of time."  "What do you suppose [insert character] will do when she finds out?"

But even that seems weaker than it could be.  Things are just different now, I guess, and I'm trying to understand how as I expolore my attitudes and preferences and habits.

Has gaming changed for you?  Is it better or worse than before?  How is it different?  Has gaming changed, or have you?  Or is it both?  ...Or is it just me?

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

Hey, just dropping in :)

I've noticed something similar. I've had little excitement of character abilities lately, until I decided to play an enchanter/mindbender (3,5 with the Pathfinder alternate base rules), and started thinking of the billions of abusive actions I could use Suggestion and Dominate for.
Anyway, despite my giddy feeling about that character, I now find pleasure in creating unique characters with the simplest tools (my group still remembers a human sorcerer who used his cat familiar for first aid and then cleaned it with his tongue afterwards).

Anyway, I don't think gaming has changed that much. Characters just get stronger and more diverse, and so do monsters, but the gamers change most. You're getting old buddy ;)

I've not lost any of the enjoyment of playing the games, but I find that sometimes my group makes the games drag a bit. I'm so used to the types of character they play now that whenever we play a game I get a sense of "here we go again..."
Getting into new systems is the biggest source of entertainment now, but with my boys refusing to play a lot of them (including 4e) I don't get to branch out much.
I'd like to join another group somewhere, but I've known these guys for years, it would feel like a bit of a betrayal.