I spent some time chatting with a friend recently. In the course of the conversation, I ended up describing to her how I got into gaming, and which games I've played, in rough order from earliest to most recent.
It occurs to me that this may be of interest to others, if only in part because my path into gaming was so very different from that of most other gamers. So I think I will describe it to you, my faithful readers.
It's all my father's fault, really. When I was a teenager (15 or 16, as I recall), my father brought home a number of Marvel comic books. He was an executive in the regional offices for Hardee's, the fast food restaurant, before it was purchased by Carl's Jr. At the time, Hardee's was considering doing a merchandising promo with some Marvel characters, and so he brought home a handful of issues of various titles for research. There was an Iron Man, a couple of different Spider-Man titles, an Incredible Hulk, and so forth. But the two that caught my attention were the Uncanny X-Men #258 and Wolverine #23.
Showing posts with label Whispering Vault. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Whispering Vault. Show all posts
21 February 2015
Tabletop Role Playing Games
In 1971, Gary Gygax's game Chainmail (which he adapted from a rules system created by his friend Jeff Perren) was first published. This was a miniatures wargame, along the same lines as Warhammer 40,000 and Bolt Action. It had rules for mass combat, jousting, and single combat, and also contained a supplement that allowed you to include fantasy elements (magic, wizards, etc) in your war game.
Dave Arneson later took those rules and merged them with his own ideas for controlling a single warrior instead of an entire platoon. He showed this adaptation to Gygax, and the two of them created Dungeons and Dragons from it. Thus, the first roleplaying game was born.
The idea took off, and Gygax released another RPG two years later, Boot Hill. Variations on the original D&D soon sprang up, such as The Complete Warlock, by Robert Cowan, Dave Clark, Kenneth M. Dahl, and Nick Smith, and Tunnels and Trolls by Ken St. Andre. Bunnies and Burrows was an early attempt to push the boundaries of what was possible in an RPG, and as early as 1977, gamers had already started to adapt existing franchises with the introduction of the game Flash Gordon and the Warriors of Mongo.
Dave Arneson later took those rules and merged them with his own ideas for controlling a single warrior instead of an entire platoon. He showed this adaptation to Gygax, and the two of them created Dungeons and Dragons from it. Thus, the first roleplaying game was born.
The idea took off, and Gygax released another RPG two years later, Boot Hill. Variations on the original D&D soon sprang up, such as The Complete Warlock, by Robert Cowan, Dave Clark, Kenneth M. Dahl, and Nick Smith, and Tunnels and Trolls by Ken St. Andre. Bunnies and Burrows was an early attempt to push the boundaries of what was possible in an RPG, and as early as 1977, gamers had already started to adapt existing franchises with the introduction of the game Flash Gordon and the Warriors of Mongo.
26 April 2009
PC Group
Hello, and welcome to another fun-filled week of the Game Dork's gaming corner! This week, I'm going to talk about the adventuring party.
You all know the scenario: "You're in a tavern. There's a mysterious stranger sitting alone in a corner." Or, perhaps, "Someone comes over to your table." And before long, this character is recruited to join a party of people he has never met before to go off on some whirlwind adventure of killing monsters and taking their treasure, with the added benefit of some extra prize at the end of the story.
I used to run stories like that. That was all my gaming group would ever do, when we started a game. We'd each write up our individual characters, and then the GM would have to scramble to find some way to get the characters together. Often, he'd fail, and the characters would realise they have no reason to work together, and the game would fall apart.
The first time we tried to do it differently was our failed experiment in actually using the pack rules from Werewolf. But later, I decided to try a more cohesive approach, and it worked very well, actually. Now I do it every time.
You all know the scenario: "You're in a tavern. There's a mysterious stranger sitting alone in a corner." Or, perhaps, "Someone comes over to your table." And before long, this character is recruited to join a party of people he has never met before to go off on some whirlwind adventure of killing monsters and taking their treasure, with the added benefit of some extra prize at the end of the story.
I used to run stories like that. That was all my gaming group would ever do, when we started a game. We'd each write up our individual characters, and then the GM would have to scramble to find some way to get the characters together. Often, he'd fail, and the characters would realise they have no reason to work together, and the game would fall apart.
The first time we tried to do it differently was our failed experiment in actually using the pack rules from Werewolf. But later, I decided to try a more cohesive approach, and it worked very well, actually. Now I do it every time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
