tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post7442900624528309657..comments2024-03-28T13:22:07.685-04:00Comments on GROGNARDIA: Regrets of a TSR FanboyJames Maliszewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00341941102398271464noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-90260566838804349662021-12-10T21:40:47.911-05:002021-12-10T21:40:47.911-05:00@Frank: I'm in the right time zone (I'm ou...@Frank: I'm in the right time zone (I'm outside of Seattle), but unfortunately those are frequently working hours for me.<br /><br />@Dick McGee: My copy of Triplanetary is the GDW boxed set (in lousy shape; I'm one of those people who can't keep boxes from damage, with very rare exception). I keep meaning to get the SJG version, but other priorities keep coming up.faoladhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-39823122030299924032021-12-09T18:17:19.652-05:002021-12-09T18:17:19.652-05:00@faoladh Yep, I've picked up a few of SJG'...@faoladh Yep, I've picked up a few of SJG's microgame releases to replace the originals long lost to flood and fire, although not all of them. I'm nostalgic, but not quite enough so to want to own Raid on Iran or One Page Bulge again. :)<br /><br />Their versions of Awful Green Things and Triplanetary are the best those games will likely ever see, though. Really quite happy to own them again. Dick McGeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14521293874696659063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-63704938223887835342021-12-09T16:03:26.905-05:002021-12-09T16:03:26.905-05:00Oh, and another note - up until this summer I also...Oh, and another note - up until this summer I also hadn't used RQ proper much outside Glorantha. Like Dick I did explore Quest World a bit, but I'm not sure we even played. I also did one session of RQ in space before I switched the campaign over to Traveller (keeping my Starfire inspired ship building and Paul Gazis Eight Worlds inspired non-jump based FTL travel).<br /><br />But this summer I started a mashup between RuneQuest and Gamelords Thieves Guild set in Haven (NOT to be confused with Robert Lynn Asprin's Thieves World/Sanctuary...).<br /><br />Hmm, I did run something in Thieves World using the Chaosium boxed set once, but I don't recall what rules set I used, could have been RQ or could have been D&D.Frankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15855679156477779666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-80790862478296998552021-12-09T15:28:45.442-05:002021-12-09T15:28:45.442-05:00@faoladh Where are you located? What time zone? I ...@faoladh Where are you located? What time zone? I have room in my RQ1 Glorantha campaign... Wednesday evenings 8:00 PM Pacific Time on Roll20...Frankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15855679156477779666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-45448447042033847952021-12-09T14:46:05.097-05:002021-12-09T14:46:05.097-05:00@Frank: Yeah, and I have picked up the box of new ...@Frank: Yeah, and I have picked up the box of new RQ books, plus I still own some of my old RQ books (Cults of Prax, Cults of Terror, and Gateway Bestiary) and picked up the POD reprint of RQ2. But, as it happens, I don't have any gaming group at the moment, so Glorantha is probably not happening soon for me.<br /><br />@Dick McGee: Did you know that SJ Games has re-released a number of their old pocket box games? Not just Ogre, either, they've got Kung Fu 2100, Raid on Iran, One Page Bulge, the old Illuminati and supplements, Undead, Awful Green Things, and classic Car Wars.<br /><br />I did use RQ3 as the rules for the homebrew setting that most occupies my mind. That setting has undergone quite a lot of revision over the years, but that's easy to do since I have never really written a lot of it down in anything like a final form. But most of my RQ play has been in Glorantha, for sure. I think my favorite take on the setting is still Oliver Dickinson's body of Griselda stories, which has had a huge impact on how I present that world.faoladhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-84283843974155576352021-12-09T05:53:16.870-05:002021-12-09T05:53:16.870-05:00@faoladh I've come around on GURPS over the y...@faoladh I've come around on GURPS over the years and it's certainly produced some outstanding setting books, so I'll concede my initial reaction was flawed. I blame part of that on Man-to-Man, which I expected to be kind of GURPS' equivalent to TFT's Melee but never caught on as separate game the way Melee/Wizard did. That's my unfair expectations rather than Steve's fault. My nostalgia for Metagaming and the other "microgame companies" like Dwarfstar and Task Force Games and Mayfair is pretty blinding sometimes.<br /><br />FWIW I don't think I've ever played Runequest proper outside of Glorantha, barring a few sessions in the Chaosium Questworld setting. Lots of other games (Worlds of Wonder, Superworld, Stormbringer, Corum, CoC) using the BRP engine, but RQ itself always sat solidly in Glorantha for me.Dick McGeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14521293874696659063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-27468612909727969452021-12-08T19:44:50.382-05:002021-12-08T19:44:50.382-05:00RQ play in Glorantha is seeing some resurgence wit...RQ play in Glorantha is seeing some resurgence with the new RuneQuest Glorantha edition. I have been running an RQ1 Glorantha campaign for several years now and several of my players are in at least one other Glorantha campaign, or at least have played in such recently.Frankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15855679156477779666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-302224681572188072021-12-08T19:43:31.433-05:002021-12-08T19:43:31.433-05:00While early on I mostly played D&D, I did dabb...While early on I mostly played D&D, I did dabble in almost everything with Chivalry & Sorcery actually being the game of choice for my first campaign (I was using a borrowed copy, and photocopies, I didn't own D&D at that time). By sophomore year in college, I had abandoned D&D (to pick it up again late in grad school only to abandon it again, only to pick it back up again in 2003).Frankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15855679156477779666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-55546968777490675602021-12-08T18:35:38.507-05:002021-12-08T18:35:38.507-05:00@Dick McGee: Yeah, I get it. My first experiences ...@Dick McGee: Yeah, I get it. My first experiences of GURPS were disappointing. It felt like it was trying too hard to be everything to everybody, and ending up like cold oatmeal as a result. Over time, I feel like that problem has been successfully resolved, and now (for me) it fights for position with AD&D1E, Basic Roleplaying, and Traveller/MegaTraveller for my top 4 games of all time. It's also a lot easier to set up some of the weirder game ideas I have than any other, especially when I need a specific way for magic to work, so that's always a plus.<br /><br />But also yeah, now that I have TFT (old copies of Advanced Melee, Advanced Wizard, and In The Labyrinth; I intend to get the new edition at some point, but it's a lot lower priority than some other things), I do know what all the fuss was about and wish things could have gone differently with Metagaming. I sometimes wonder if Thompson regrets his actions, but of course he might not even be alive at this point for all anyone knows.faoladhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-11795485195337230452021-12-08T15:58:46.734-05:002021-12-08T15:58:46.734-05:00I've often wondered what better distribution a...I've often wondered what better distribution and more extensive product support might have done for TFT back in the day. But that would have needed a longer-lived Metagaming, or Howard turning the rights to the game back to Steve earlier on, and neither happened. Always felt like one of those "could've been a contender" games, and I was honestly kind of disappointed with GURPS initially because it wasn't as sleek and streamlined as TFT had been.Dick McGeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14521293874696659063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-15272775778505720202021-12-07T08:57:47.550-05:002021-12-07T08:57:47.550-05:00My group had no fidelity towards TSR and played ev...My group had no fidelity towards TSR and played every game we could get our hands on. Learning new rules wasn't a barrier; we had all the time in the world.<br /><br />But I did experience the dynamic you're describing, with Marvel Comics. For years, I felt I owed it to Stan the Man to not buy anything from DC, until Frank Miller and Alan Moore made DC impossible to ignore.<br />Etrimynhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12412524174369676893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-17745574289770435822021-12-07T02:33:17.191-05:002021-12-07T02:33:17.191-05:00I played my first game of AD&D at the end of s...I played my first game of <i>AD&D</i> at the end of summer in 1979, but once I saw the Starships book in a box of <i>Traveller</i> around October of that year I could never give my sole allegiance to TSR. I still have my three original <i>AD&D</i> books (defaced by my younger brother's scribbling over some of the art; I use other copies I've since acquired at the table these days) and those original <i>Traveller</i> LBB77s (which I have written a lot of notes in over the years; I use my softcover <i>The Traveller Book</i> or <i>MegaTraveller</i> these days). I did discover <i>RuneQuest</i> early on, and still love it a great deal, but I can only occasionally find people who want to play in Glorantha anymore. The other two big ones from the early years, <i>The Fantasy Trip</i> and <i>Tunnels & Trolls</i>, are ones I never really got into. In the case of TFT, that's because it was difficult to get, since it was five different games of which you needed to get three and none were readily available even in places that carried Metagaming games. Kinda sad, too, since <i>GURPS</i> is one of the games I spend most of my effort on these days. T&T, though, just had a tone that annoyed me and I still can't bring myself to like it to this day. Yeah, there are ducks in RQ, but the adventures for T&T seemed lightweight to me and then there's the presentation and unfunny-to-me sense of humor.<br /><br />Hm, maybe I'll write a post about how I feel about various games in my blog.faoladhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-70744869817076914572021-12-06T22:58:05.784-05:002021-12-06T22:58:05.784-05:00I knew a guy in high School who mentioned Arduin a...I knew a guy in high School who mentioned Arduin a lot but I really had no idea what that was and my local game store didn't have it. Interesting to think how important magazines like Dragon were just to let you know what was out there before the internet.Ruprechthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00139664977453444000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-51679003516713808702021-12-06T22:39:11.608-05:002021-12-06T22:39:11.608-05:00Being Italian, my experience is obviously differen...Being Italian, my experience is obviously different. Not only RPGs were not common in stores, but there was the language barrier too. As a 12 years old boy, my languages was Italian and some little German I studied at school.<br />So we started with what was available in Italian, which was Uno Sguardo nel Buio (Das Schwarze Auge), I guess The Dark Eye in English.<br />The game was perfect to introduce new players, much better than all new incarnations that followed and increased only the complexity of the rulesets. Italians then started producing their own role playings like Kata Kumbas, a masterpiece with a spaghetti fantasy setting. We tried basically everything until we discovered the BEC (Master and Immortal were never translated in Italian, maybe Master set was but very late). When I Started High School I finally got my first lessons of English language, and I cut my teeth on Advanced Dungeon and Dragons; 2nd edition was just out.<br />I remember my friends and I with the vocabulary in one hand and the PH in the other trying to understand, with the basics we already knew of the basic set, what was new in the Advanced. I guess we played for a couple of years a hybrid game, improving our understanding as our level of language permitted. Was a very good exercise however. By 18 years old we had played Merp, Star wars,Robotech, Vampire and Vampire Dark Ages,Call of Cthulhu, Street Fighter, Rolemaster, Stormbringer, Toon... I think we missed Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (despite we played W40K) and Gurps, I guess we played enough fantasy at the time and there was not much room for more games in that segment.<br />Part of this story is due to the fact my city has a great tradition in RPGs having the oldest game club in Italy, and nowadays it hosts the most important game fair in the country. There is a cultural thing also in games, just like in sports. If your neighborhood play, be sure at a certain point you will play too, or at least you will have a try!<br />Mattiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00656924041323209649noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-41822274036935390312021-12-06T20:25:41.449-05:002021-12-06T20:25:41.449-05:00I started with BECMI (well, just B, really) but I ...I started with BECMI (well, just B, really) but I was singularly unselective about buying RPGs back in the day. If I had the money almost anything new was getting added to the collection - and if it had been easier to find older games in the dark days before the internet I'm sure I'd have tried to backfill my library as well. Caught on very quickly that there was better entertainment value in RPGs than most books could offer, even if they only saw use a time or two.<br /><br />The local gaming community also had a strong Runequest cadre, which lead me to play more Chaosium stuff than most others, although Traveller and TSR also had their share of my time back then. Dick McGeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14521293874696659063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-40998096346370528242021-12-06T19:26:43.922-05:002021-12-06T19:26:43.922-05:00Interesting. I was never much of a fan of the mag...Interesting. I was never much of a fan of the magazines so I’d pick up whatever games looked cool in the store, TSR or not. Some I liked - Gamma World, Car Wars, Traveller, Top Secret, James Bond. Some I didn’t - Star Frontiers, RuneQuest. Seanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05092818475992478576noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-8674219412686745852021-12-06T18:27:22.847-05:002021-12-06T18:27:22.847-05:00I was first among my group to look at other games,...I was first among my group to look at other games, The Fantasy Trip, Bushido, Chivalry and Sorcery, Traveller, Runequest, they all beckoned and I answered but getting any of our group to try a different game was like pulling teeth, they had no interest in learning a new system. I didn't eventually find a group playing C&S, and when I joined the wargaming club I could finally play new games.This Olde Gnomehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10946011010448328410noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-83727207772554436552021-12-06T17:50:59.406-05:002021-12-06T17:50:59.406-05:00This is just the opposite of my early tendencies. ...This is just the opposite of my early tendencies. I was playing Wizard and Melee before Dungeons and Dragons, so I was naturally interested in TFT; between us, my best friend and I had a complete rules set (he had the Melee stuff and I had the Wizard stuff and ITL). That same friend and I both started exploring other FRPGs the same summer/fall we first played Holmes Basic: Tunnels and Trolls, Runequest, and (of all things) Warlock. So TSR never got a lock on my affections.John Brinegarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12123235797335728124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-7893414409759456812021-12-06T17:17:19.194-05:002021-12-06T17:17:19.194-05:00I branched out as soon as products became availabl...I branched out as soon as products became available to me. At first it was TSR, but as other products became available, I immediately jumped on them. I was always looking for a better experience than D&D, or at least a different experience. I hate the long term campaign playstyle. I like variety and to mix it up. I don't want to watch the same thing on TV every week for a year, nor did I want to play the same game every week for a year. Top Secret, and Gamma World, and others were gobbled up my group and the other guys would run those. Other TSR games came out, like Gangbusters and Star Frontiers and I bought them, but we had moved on by that time.JEFFBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08862106711059104379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-4485292228984233662021-12-06T16:35:38.672-05:002021-12-06T16:35:38.672-05:00I think this is an area where Imagine magazine sco...I think this is an area where Imagine magazine scored over Dragon - it was far more wide-ranging in its coverage, despite being a TSR publication.Erzighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14104446327478174293noreply@blogger.com