Jump to content

What year did you start playing roleplaying games?


Trifletraxor

What year did you start playing roleplaying games?  

97 members have voted

  1. 1. What year did you start playing roleplaying games?

    • 1974-1980
      41
    • 1981-1985
      37
    • 1986-1990
      7
    • 1991-1995
      8
    • 1996-2000
      3
    • 2001-2005
      1
    • 2006-2009
      0


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 85
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Started with D&D in 1981 but moved very quickly on to AD&D. Then CoC and T&T in the mid 80s. Then Star Wars D6 and RQ2 (end 80s/beginning 90s), then AD&D again, then BaSIC (French BRP game), then RQ2 again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1981. A friend of a friend introduced us to AD&D. After a couple of sessions I went down to the game store to get my own books, and found that I had not the money for PHB + DMG + MM, so I picked up another book. It promised to be a complete game in one volume, and reasonably priced too.

It was RuneQuest 2nd ed. I never looked back.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1976. (Or was it '77? I can't remember now!) You're as old as you feel...!

Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1979 for me. Started with the Melee and Wizard Micro-games by Steve Jackson/Metagaming.

Ditto, here, although I think I started in '78. First full-fledged RPG I played regularly was Traveller, although my friends dabbled with Top Secret and Monsters! Monsters!

I was interested in a superheroes game after college (circa '83) and actually wrote HERO Games (Champions), Chaosium (Superworld), and Fantasy Games Unlimited (Villains & Vigilantes) asking them to sell me on their product (this was waaaaay before the web or e-mail). I don't recall FGU's response but Chaosium sent me a Superworld flier with a terse note telling me to play whatever my friends played (at the time, that was nothing). HERO Games, on the other hand, sent me a personal letter and a thick sheaf of product information. I bought the Champions 3rd edition boxed set, ran it for my friends, and the rest is history.

Didn't play RuneQuest (for you youngin's, fantasy was evil in the '80s), and Call of Cthulhu looked ten times more evil than people said D&D was (although my curiosity about it later led me to hunt down and read Lovecraft's stories). Read Elfquest, Mort d'Arthur and Ringworld but never played the D100 games based upon them. Heard friends talk about Elric but never read or played him.

So I never played their games but I owe my pulp fiction literary awakening to Chaosium. See, RPGs can accomplish some good in the world! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, so far the poll seems to be illustrating what is probably the main reason why BRP isn't very popular. Over 75% of the people who've voted so far, have been playing it for over 25 years!

Edited by Atgxtg

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Technically I've only been playing Roleplaying games since the early 90's. Starting with the D&D red box and later in HS AD&D second edition. However... in the late 70's when I was still in the crib, my folks would play a recording of J.R.R. Tolkien's the Hobbit to lull me to sleep. So while I didn't play a tabletop rpg untill the 4th grade, the Tolkein inspired fantasy rpgs have been in my blood since birth. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1987.

WFRP was my first gaming experience but I popped my GM cherry with Stormbringer 3ed.

Hawkmoon followed. I bought and sold the GW edition of RQ3 as it was overly complicated for me at the time. I later bought the Deluxe box and two of the softbacks before tracking the GW RQ on ebay.

Without Chaosium my life would have been very different.

Likes to sneak around

115/420

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, so far the poll seems to be illustrating what is probably the main reason why is isn't very popular. Over 75% of the people who've voted so far, have been playing it for over 25 years!
The poll illustrates that BRP is played by people who started a long time ago (and probably have been playing RQ/BRP for a long time).

I don't think you can make the logical conclusion that it's unpopular because people have been playing it a long time.

To me, it illustrates that BRP hasn't attracted more recent generations...who want to vote....on this discussion board

The data are far from showing us causation.

Bathalians, the newest UberVillians!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1978 with Traveller's little black books. Then in 1979-1980 moved on to Gamma World. Also did a little AD&D at the same time. Converted my Gamma World campaign to RuneQuest in (I think) 1981. Played and purchased just about every RPG throughout the 80s - 90s. Ran the gaming department at a hobby store for a few years in the late 90s into early 2000s, where I ran nightly demos every week for just about everything that came out. That's right, I got paid to run games. :thumb:

Join my Mythras/RuneQuest 6: Classic Fantasy Yahoo Group at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RQCF/info

"D100 - Exactly 5 times better than D20"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not exactly a big sample either....

True. But the sampling size had doubled since I posted, and the percentages haven't changed much. I expect that we'll see a sort of sideways pyramid, with fewer and fewer people as time goes by.

Not surprising. For most of the last 30+ years the system has been represented only by CoC, and, occasionally Stormbringer/Elric!.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To me, it illustrates that BRP hasn't attracted more recent generations...who want to vote....on this discussion board

Not surprising. For most of the last 30+ years the system has been represented only by CoC, and, occasionally Stormbringer/Elric!.

Yes, I interpret it more hopefully: we who have met BRP-systems have stuck with them, even for up to thirty years!

A similar age-survey of players of other games, those more prevalent these days like D&D and Warhammer, might be interesting. I suspect the age-range would be the opposite of ours - vastly more short-term (predominantly younger) players.

I bet it's due to the dominance of other shallower games. People play them for a short time, get bored, grow out of it, and quit - thinking they've "done roleplaying - that's for kids...". (This is particularly evident with WH/40K). A great shame. We're back to exposure. Show 'em there's something better than bashing stuff: plots, personality, moral dilemmas, character development - real roleplaying.

Our survey says... experiencing a more satisfying system gives people a hobby for life.

Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...