Story (http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/10/16/dungeons.dragons.ap/index.html)

Anyone feeling old?

ah, the 5th grade and beyond!!!

ahem, 1985 for me.

1977, 9th grade for me. TSR was just working on AD&D at that time, and we had to reconcile the Monster Manual, which used a new base (naked) AC of 10 (the AD&D DM's guide wouldn't come out for another three years) and later Players Handbook for it with the base 9 AC system from the little brown books... :). This was also well before TSR had a strangle/bloathold on products released for the game, and in the early 'rules vacuum', all sorts of interesting products came out of Judges Guild and some other companies, some good, some terrible. Who else would put 30 orcs in a 10' x 10' room, 'stacked like cordwood' as we used to say, besides Judges Guild? Ah, memories...

I also miss some of the other RPG games that came out around that time (~1978 - 1982), notably Traveller and the original Chaosium Runequest, each of which had its own very rich milieu, as well as being decent systems... (and when an old briefcase of mine got stolen out of my car when I was in a bad part of Fort Worth around 1988, my one real regret was that my Runequest books were in it. My then-boyfriend and I got a giggle thinking about what happened when the thief opened that case, and the minute possibility that the person was a gamer: "Hey, Cults of Power!") Avalon Hill, alas, made a mess out of that game...

Regards,
Nydia

1981 for me. A friend introduced me to the basic version of the game (though I did end up with the Chainmail books some time down the line). The anti-gaming religious fervor gained momentum, and a couple years later he dropped out of gaming, but I kept the gaming and dropped out of religion instead. Gamma World came next, then Star Frontiers, Traveller, Villains & Vigilantes, etc ad nauseum, down through the present and White Wolf's games.

Good times, but yeah, I feel old.

Better news coverage.

http://www.somethingawful.com/

Oh my gosh, Gamma World! Do you remember the D & D/Gamma World crossover rules? I even had a map of my crossover world drawn on the hex map on the back cover of that game, the D & D half (southern hemisphere) being the 'less irradiated' portion of the world...

Radiated animals run amok, my Gamma World was, and I took great sadistic pleasure in forcing my players to deal with a very obtuse radiated squirrel :)

Regards,
Nydia

P.S. That Something Awful page is fabulous, and now I know why Second Edition (although I had moved on to Rolemaster by then) blew chunks ;).

man i hated D&D but i have to give it respect when i think about where RPG games would be today...


I would like to devote today to great moments in "Dungeons & Dragons" history. You may scoff, but without the kobolds and magic missiles of D&D where would computer RPGs be today? Here's a hint: GAY ANIME ROBOT STORIES. If you prefer Nordic barbarians over huge-eyed elves with romantic problems then you should view D&D with just a modicum of respect. Just a modicum.

That Something Awful page is fabulous, and now I know why Second Edition (although I had moved on to Rolemaster by then) blew chunks.

SA will lead our society into the utopia!

"Your roommate's a nerd. On the moon, nerds get their pants pulled down and they get spanked with moon rocks."

Rolemaster is BY FAR the best pen and paper RPG i ever played. The customization and character development were superior to anything i've played, even online games. I'd love to see a Rolemaster online rpg if done correctly.

/agree Talaren :)

Rolemaster had a great character generation system and a great combat system - and I loved the way the realms of magic worked so much that I did a mod of them some years ago for the unplayable Empire of the Petal Throne (M.A.R. Barker's world of Tekumel). The only down side that combat in that game tended to be... maiming and deadly (the critical/fumble tables were awesome though :) ), with the result that sometimes characters were killed/made unplayable in less time than it took to roll them up... ;)

Eventually, I think they came out with too many expansions/added character classes, but Character/Campaign/Spell/Claw Law + expansions 1 and 2 suited us about right, and we did play some MERP for Rolemaster as well. Now if only I could find someone to play with down in Laredo... :/

Warm regards,
Nydia

yep i played gamma world, boothill, D&D, recon, blue max, mech warriors,star fleet battles,gangbusters,travller, warhammer role play, middle earth rolemaster, dc heroes, greyhawk wars.shadowrun, call cuthula


Castle de Amberville ahh good times !


and still found the time to hit the clubs every week from 83 to 2000 hehe

i`d take a good pen and paper game session over eq any day .

Haha, I ran "Chartmaster" a few times years ago. It strangled itself with its own ruleset, but yeah, the crit/fumble charts were fantastic. I used them in other games.

Gamma World was always the genre that I liked the most.

Boot hill always ended up being, "Create chararter, describe setting, begin play, get shot, die."