The Gaming Den

simple question, lots of discussion options. holding my answer for later o it doesnt chance to influence others, and i am still writing it up...so others can answer and discuss without having to wait for my answer.

I was first introduced to TTRPGs with the (non-revised) d20 Star Wars Roleplaying Game module... "Escape From Theed," I think it was.

I moved to the revised version because that was what I found in the bookstore, and then moved on to D&D3e because it was pretty similar.

I discovered the Tomes because I kept following links here, and eventually it stuck.

The adventures. The only thing that's even remotely tempting about Pathfinder to me is the adventures. All rulesets are quirky and require effort to make work dependent upon the players involved, having adventures for the ruleset gives me one less thing to worry about.

Familiarity, nostalgia, and general silliness. Most of the people I game with would prefer a fantasy game to any other type, so that's also a point in its favor.

There's also the large swaths of material available for it, both professional and home-brew.

There's also the lack of wangst.

I started playing AD&D because it was the first RPG I was introduced to--started playing a game of 2e run by a friend's dad when I was 8, gave 1e a try after a year or so, then 3e came out and we added that to our rotation, then around when 3.5 came out my group switched to 3e exclusively.

I've stuck with D&D because of its quirkiness and relative uniqueness. Sure, lots of people don't like Vancian casting or alignments or the Great Wheel or high powered magic or whatever...but if I want a grim-n-gritty fantasy game without black-and-white alignment, or a low-magic medieval European setting, or a magic system involving magic channeling, I can pick up one of the bunch of more generic/realistic/whatever fantasy games out there.

My exposure to D&D, started with 3rd edition boxed set, the one with: Regdar pointing his sword through a broken down door, with Jozan, Liliana? Halfling rogue and like. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=pr ... /863490000

Then after going to about 3rd level in those dungeons, yearned for a more fuller D&D experience, so friend of mine got the Core books, and played for some months. Somewhere down the road stopped playing, I ran Munchkin tabletop RPG (which was basically 3rd edition in Munchkin theme, and yes that card game had an RPG). Eventually I wanted something more "serious" so I started running 3rd edition, and later when 4th edition came out, I started playing that.

Part of why I play it, is the RPG I've just been exposed to the most in my history of RPG playing. I dig the D20 system, and Fantasy is a good way to go, and the game has cool themes to it, important NPC's/Monsters to go buttstab, and interesting items like the Rod of Lordly Might, or helm of Brilliance. Course, barring the rules problems it has, the whole "Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards" issue, where non-casters are forced to be strictly inferior that we all know so well.

Unless, there's some other super awesome High level Fantasy game out there, where its rules are better at buttstabbing D&D iconic monsters, dragons, and giant monsters in general...

I started with AD&D 2E because that was the current edition when I started playing. I started with AD&D specifically because both of the two people who got me into gaming played that.

I started with the original Red Box Basic Set. The Expert Set. Then went to ADnD. Those were the only RPGs that I knew existed. Then my group wanted more realistic combat so we switched to Runequest.

Then I took about a 2 decade break, then started back in on 3.5 Ed. 3.4 was the first time I ever used miniatures.

Aryxbez wrote:buttstab,~~~Rod of Lordly Might

ok, dont use those two in the same sentence again, please.

but with all the d20 systems you prefer the D&D iconics or sacred cows is what you are saying?

I started with AD&D ... not much else at the time. Biggest other system was Role Master. The differences between the two systems was significant, it's hard to believe why people thought AD&D was "relatively simple" (if you ignore a few of the combat tables) but compared to the complex tables in Arms Law / Claw Law, where it was a pain in the ass to attack anything not clearly humanoid (two legs good, four legs tollerable, six legs are right out). The battle between the d20 and the d100 (or eventually the open ended d100) was a considerable debate and the never published Cold Iron Role PLaying System would have used the open ended d100 system. "Cold Iron" was the name for our home brew system some of the people at RPI were developing. I graduated around the time the idea started.

Since then I've played a plethora of game systems; traveller, DC Heroes, White Wolf World of Darkness, Paranoia, and a plethora of which I have completely forgotten.

Now my active playing times was interrupted after college (1984-1989) although I was a Lankhmar junkie at the time, and after I returned from Key West (1999-present) although I playede online at this point for a while and attended cons where I played at the cons.

I spent a lot of time playing each of the various systems - I dabbled a little in OD&D when I was very young, and then joined a few games just as 3E was coming out. I played in some very lengthy 3.0 and 3.5 games, as well as one or two 4E and 2E games, just to get a feel for the various systems. Ultimately, though, my desire to play tabletop games in general boils down to two things:

1. Open narratives. The ability of an MC to react unpredictably to a player's unpredictable inputs has nearly infinite potential for gameplay scenarios and outcomes, making every interaction a scintillating chiaroscuro of possibilities. I was always highly excited by the idea that, quite literally, anything could happen in the story instead of it being restricted by the technology or script that had been written by the writer or developer.

2. Persistence of effort. All the MCs I gamed with operated on the solid principle that whatever we did was permanent, and all consequences were final. This gave a tremendous amount of gravitas to our decisions and made all of our accomplishments enormously satisfying.

echo

RobbyPants wrote:I started with AD&D 2E because that was the current edition when I started playing. I started with AD&D specifically because both of the two people who got me into gaming played that.

This.

I started playing D&D because I was about six, and it's what my older brother and his friends played. The selection wasn't that great at the time anyway -- this was second-edition Basic Set era (the one with with the Erol Otus cover painting). Even by the time I was old enough to shop for games on my own, the situation was pretty dire. This was years before bookstores or toy stores routinely carried significant quantities of RPG material.

Over the longer term, I've "started" playing again for various reasons, but the most common one is that it's a good common ground. People may or may not have ever heard of Maelstrom or The Riddle of Steel, but virtually everyone who plays RPGs at all at least knows what Dungeons & Dragons is.

Nostalgia is also an important factor, especially for people playing previous editions in the modern era.

talozin wrote:this was second-edition Basic Set era (the one with with the Erol Otus cover painting).

those dont really go by editions so much as versions....

holmes basic was blue and referred to as B/X

mentzer was red to start and called BECMI

which of these was it?

http://www.tsrinfo.net/archive/dd/dd-1box.htm
http://www.tsrinfo.net/archive/dd/dd-box.htm
http://www.tsrinfo.net/archive/dd/dd-bbox.htm
http://www.tsrinfo.net/archive/dd1/firstquest.htm

just to know which one you are meaning since i dont recall whose art is whose all the time, but you can probably tell the picture quicker by looking at it.

shadzar wrote: http://www.tsrinfo.net/archive/dd/dd-box.htm

This one.

If I remember right, the previous edition didn't have an accompanying Expert Set; this edition had Basic and Expert; and the next (Mentzer) edition had BECMI.

Originally, availability.
1st Ed and Basic were easily available compared to other systems at the time and people wanted to play them.

Now it's more nostalgia. I generally prefer other systems.

I started with Rules Cyclopedia D&D. I moved to 2ed about five years later. When 3E came out, it felt more like my personal fantasy exposure (Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, etc.), so I adopted that.

Tried 4ed, didn't feel right to me. So I stopped playing and went back to 3rd.

My husband wanted to play the new edition (3E) of D&D when it came out, since he'd been playing the game since he was 13. I didn't want to be a roleplaying widow, so I agreed to try playing.

Maj wrote:My husband wanted to play the new edition (3E) of D&D when it came out, since he'd been playing the game since he was 13. I didn't want to be a roleplaying widow, so I agreed to try playing.

Well done! I'll have you talk to my wife

Fuchs wrote:

RobbyPants wrote:I started with AD&D 2E because that was the current edition when I started playing. I started with AD&D specifically because both of the two people who got me into gaming played that.

This.

And this.

Game On,
fbmf

Blasted wrote:

Maj wrote:My husband wanted to play the new edition (3E) of D&D when it came out, since he'd been playing the game since he was 13. I didn't want to be a roleplaying widow, so I agreed to try playing.

Well done! I'll have you talk to my wife

Keep in mind that most of the time, it doesn't work. Maj is a rare case.

In my experience, Count, that's not true.

In a message to Aryxbez Jigoku Bosatsu wrote:I started roleplaying when I was 9, I think. I spent an afternoon being "babysat", which basically meant being left alone with a worn copy of the Holmes Blue Book... I took what I remembered from that afternoon, and a friend of mine and I started making our own D&D, which was incredibly weird and random. Even once we started getting some books we were still basing things on Alice In Wonderland and god knows what else. I recall there was a Kingdom of Hermits too, at one point...

So the short answer is, for people my age +/- a few years, we play D&D because it's what there was. Like most people commuted to work by their own car. Not because there weren't bicycles or giant shrimp to ride, but...

Based on my personal observations, I would say that if the person is a completely open gamer then more than likely the spouse will be accepting a part in the experience, especially if they she is not the first gaming wife in the collective group. I think I can pretty well sum up my old Key West gaming group (most of the people who moved from Poughkeepsie and a lot of them originally lived in Philly) this way.

Maj wrote:In my experience, Count, that's not true.

Experiences vary, and there are degrees of success.

My wife has played D&D, and had fun, but she tends to enjoy different aspects than me (and my usual gaming acquaintances), so making a campaign that appeals on all axes can be difficult. Also, her 'dedication to the sport', so to speak, is not as high...so when the question "hey, want to play some D&D?" comes up, the real question is "do you want to play more than you want to do XYZ other hobbies?".

That said, I'm glad my wife tried it, finds it interesting, supports my gaming hobby, and most of all, engages sufficiently that we can discuss it without her having a blank stare. I do the same with her hobbies (BJD's, knitting, etc)...so when I talk about saving throws and dice mechanics, she can follow along, and when she is discussing body sculpts and knit 1 purl 2 I can likewise see what she's getting at.

Oh, and as regards the OP question...I started playing with red/blue box Basic D&D (later got the Companion set). I picked up some 1E rulebooks somewhere, and later bought 2E when it came out, which is what me and my buddies mostly played (usually a houseruled amalgam of all 3). I was initially excited when 3E came out...but the playstyle and power level are sufficiently different that I never really got into playing it, and then I moved to Alaska and my gaming crew broke up. Since then, I've only gamed occasionally, and used a variety of systems...but when I introduced my wife to gaming, I used 1E, because:

1.) I was highly familiar with it, so I could recall all the rules and explain it easily and deal with things on the fly
2.) It required less player dedication than 3E (she didn't need to learn as much to have a good 'build').
3.) I had a huge stock of published modules and Dungeon magazine scenarios, so it required no real creativity or time investment for me to come up with new adventures.

#3 is probably key, for me. I have 4 kids now, I don't have time to come up with elaborate maps and scenarios. And my ability to ad-lib has sadly degraded over the years.