Search This Blog

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The games I started with

I started playing rpg's back in 1983. The very first games I played were Marvel Superheroes, Star Frontiers,  and Moldvay's Basic/Expert games. I mainly played D&D, but the other two games definitely saw time at the table. I kind of miss those days. I had lots of free time, and basically memorized the books, I read them so many times.

I remember using The Isle of Dread and the Known World a lot, based purely upon what was in that module. I look at the giant hardcovers for gaming worlds that I read now, and it's kind of funny how much I just made up based upon a map and a couple pages of descriptions.

I also did a lot of stuff with Star Frontiers, especially making up stuff like bug aliens and playing a military game fighting them. It was a heck of a lot of fun.

I kind of moved on from Marvel Superheroes pretty quickly, as I found that at the time, I didn't really like playing superheroes.

The next big game I got was Middle Earth Roleplaying, from ICE. Gods, I had a lot of fun with that game. I only had a few of the adventures (Tharbad sticks out in my mind), but I loved that game. My friends and I played several awesome campaigns using that book.

I guess it's part of getting older, but I don't get that thrill from modern games any more. Maybe I've just seen too many variants of rpg's, but while I find them interesting, I don't find new stuff exciting. More of a "That's kind of neat." reaction than a "Wow! This is so cool!" reaction.

2 comments:

David said...

I know what you mean. I started in '76 with OD&D. I played a bit of Star Frontiers and Gangbusters when they came out. I loved both and would still play Star Frontiers if I had the chance.

Sometimes I think all the different designs I've read/played/GMed over the years have "diluted" my love and appreciation for D&D. I had a buddy who was a first edition guy through-and-through. He incorporated some things from 2nd, but no matter what new game I tried to get him into, he never strayed. I'm kind of envious of his dedication. Any ideas he did like from some other system I brought up, he just morphed them into D&D terms.

These days I've really re-embraced the LBBs and rediscovered my initial love affair with D&D. All my experience with other editions and designs really helps me appreciate the simplicity, consistency, and delicate balance of the original rules.

Dan said...

I know what you mean, though for me, BFRPG has filled the gap, since it combines the best of B/X and 3e.