Some answers - part one - Where my love of games comes from.

[andrewducker]

My love of games started with my parents, who introduced me to board games (Snakes & Ladders, Draughts, Reversi, Chess, Monopoly and Risk spring immediately to mind), which I played fairly frequently as a child.  We also played card games a lot - Whist and Rummy being the most common ones - with excursions into Bridge when I got a little older (I'm far too excitable a Bridge player, with a tendency to overbid).

Somewhere around the age of 9  I saw an advert on the back of a comic for The Awful Green Things From Outer Space which, although I never managed to actually track down and play a copy, led me to my local games shop, where I bought a copy of Dungeons and Dragons (from the look of the pictures on this page the 8th-11th printing).  I had _no_ idea what was going on, having never even heard of roleplaying games before, but I knew that whatever it was was extremely exciting.  Luckily about a year later I encountered someone else who _had_ played before and could tell me how you actually _played_ this marvel I'd discovered (Roman Serafinowski was his name - I'm astounded I can still remember it).  I distinctly remember the thrill of visiting him - travelling by train by myself for the first time ever - and gaming in his room halfway up a block of flats (the first time I'd ever been in a flat too).

Anyway, I progressed from there, still sticking with D&D, but picking up more bits and pieces until I had a fair stack of rules-books and modules for it, running games for the next 7-odd years until I left for university - always for my two brothers and a few friends of theirs (not having any gaming friends of my own at that point).  At which point I went to university, wheremy world exploded.  Suddenly I had quite a few friends who gamed (in fact, damn near all of them, as I'd colonised the gaming group).  My second year was when Vampire was first released, and there was a game running on a constant basis, _at least_ 8 hours a day for the next 9 months.  People dropped out of it to go to lectures or (occasionally) work on essays, but it was always there, with a rotating group of players.

That group also introduced me to Cthulhu, Mage, Kult, Ars Magica, Warhammer and a host of other RPGs, as well as a variety of boardgames.  And it's still the bits and pieces of that gaming group I play with (as well as my brother Hugh, thus taking me back to my near-original gaming group), as I'm now based a mere 30 miles away from there.

Wow.  You have _no_ idea how wierd it was remembering the feeling when I first read a D&D manual.

Comments

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Which RPs do you find yourself playing at the moment and why those ones in particular?

[andrewducker]

I'm only playing board games at the moment. I _will_ be playing Marvel - Nightmare of Future's Past - as soon as we can get it together.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Did 5 Rings fall through?

[andrewducker]

I dropped out of it, then it fell through about 6 months later.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Splitter! :P

[trav28.livejournal.com]

Interesting! It seems like you saw games as a social activity - did this change as you discovered computer based games?

[andrewducker]

Eek - computer games. Forgot about them.

Started with pong, believe it or not. As in a console that _just_ played Pong. Then Battle Chess, which would allow you to play Chess, or Chess with Lasers. Then I played with a friends Atari (as in the original console - which my mum onced clocked Space Invaders on). Then my parents bought a BBC B - which meant we got to play the very original Elite! From there we moved to an Atari ST - Populous was the most amazing thing ever. Then onto PCs. My machine was too slow for Doom, I used to try playing it in a postage-stamp sized window and it was _still_ too slow. But then I moved up to a 486 abd that kicked ass.

FPS games are my favourites, but I've played RTS and a wide variety of other games, from text adventure to platform games and everything in between.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

How did you get on with Doom III? ;)

[kelly-lesbo.livejournal.com]

Half Life 2 is the tour de force of computer gaming - its got deep socio-political messages too.

So there.

[andrewducker]

It was nice and scary for a bit. Then I got bored.

[josephgrossberg.livejournal.com]

There's something surreal about its very existence: Dungeons & Dragons for Dummies. It's hard to put my finger on what, exactly, I find so bizarre about it.

[andrewducker]

Because it's something you should learn through playing with cool people.

[josephgrossberg.livejournal.com]

Or by reading the books.

I mean, it's a guidebook/handbook about ... guidebooks and handbooks!

It was weird, like "these are the best spells to memorize if you're a cleric" and "if you're a DM, here are good low-level monsters".

[andrewducker]

For those people who feel outclassed by the rules lawyers :->

[kelly-lesbo.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting thing the gaming bug. I'm trying to fight the urge to enter the US regionals for Magic The Gathering this year. But the more I resist the greater the urge to play.

I make games for a living, I play games in my spare time and I even invent my own games. What is it about games?

I love music, drugs, clubbing, stalking pretty girls around the office complex as much as gaming yet it's supposed to be something you leave behind upon entering the land of grown ups. Are we the first generation to be gaming into our mid lives?

[diotina.livejournal.com]

Hey - even though I'm the babiest of gamers (and honestly? I don't really think just playing one game for about a year qualifies me to be one), this was great to read - for the nostalgic value of it all. I *did* play some of the old computer games and I had friends (nasssty boys, I was 11, okay?!) who did the D&D thing and wouldn't let me in, so your entry brought a smile to my face. :)

And Roman Ser...etc is a name you *would* remember imho.

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

Heh, heh! I remember that Vampire game at S.U. We first met when I limped in wearing my black trenchcoat and Billy introduced my character. My hostess, Dr. Evil's girlfriend Susan "Sto Helit" read the character sheet for Dr. Nick Staberind, the Malkavian pathologist who took bits of bis clients home to play with she went nuts. "You always play yourself in these games!" she yelled. Pity he and Damage kind of started a war with each other. What a week of sleeping on floors that was!
On another note anybody sad enough to admit to playing the old Steve Jackson "Fighting Fantasy" books? I still have a few somewhere. Forest Of Doom, Creature Of Haoc, Warlock Of Firetop Mountain, Rebel Planet... Memories...

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

I was part of the very first Stirling Vampire game. Run by Dave Benson-Hill and with me, Neil, Yerman and...and... my mind says Chris Campbell, but I doubt myself somehow - I wonder why. I had been going to do Cthulhu but this was *new*!

wow, I feel very old....

[andrewducker]

Chris Campbell indeed.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

*laughs exasperatedly* Oh yes indeed.

[andrewducker]

Exasperatedly?

All I was doing was confirming your memory. I remember him telling me about his (gangrel?) character.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

The exasperation was at a) my poor memory b) he was a frequently exasperating man (at least to me).

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

The FF books are what got me started!

[andrewducker]

Me too. I remember buying Warlock of Firetop Mountain and being most confused.

Oh - except I'd played the Choose Your Own Adventures before that.

Steve Jackson

[kelly-lesbo.livejournal.com]

I read all those books when I was younger, I loved them. I'm glad I got to work with Steve when I was at Lionhead. He took an interest in a couple of card game ideas I was trying to develop and worked with me when I designed some T-shirts for the company.

I get to meet a lot of the guys whos stuff I read or played with when younger and they are always interesting people.

[azalemeth.livejournal.com]

I remember discovering pen and paper RPGs for the first time - it wasn't *that* long ago.


Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Second Edition: The Player's Handbook kept me up, in all honesty, until three in the morning. And it was well written too - not like the 3e tosh; by the time you read all of the 2e PhB you know (a) world; you knew of the other worlds, you know who would be you; how your character - you - would perform; mental images, and greatly orchestrated scenes far greater than any other media could convey. Before that, I'd grown up on computers, so good 'ol platformers and action games mainly, as well as poker, roulette, craps, and baccarat with my father (from a strangely early age...), and the odd game of monopoly with my mother.


Hotel. Mayfair. 'Go to mayfair' card. :D

Pen & Paper

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

So I used to run Call of Cthulhu (5th Edition) badly and, as

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<a [...] )dr.>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

So I used to run <i>Call of Cthulhu</i> (5th Edition) badly and, as <a href="http://www.Livejournal.com/users/a_pawson")DR. Evil</a> will attest I was the most killed player in <i>Paranoia</I> because I stupidly admitted to having a rough idea of what to do. Now those days are long gone. The dice gather dust in a drawer. The books moulder. I now play <a href=http://www.runesword.com/"><i>RuneswordII</i></a> on a computer while playing with the security settings while at my parents' place. Yes, it's a computer game but you do see (and hear!) old school dice rolling and have the game "GM" for you. "Lord Vactos, roll against your WILL"...

Re: Pen & Paper

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

Oops. Sorry for the bad coding, it's this bloody keyboard. Never try to type in bad lighting with a public PC!