Quote from: SunBoy;306930Dude... that IS something. What, 20+ years and still at the same gaming table? Holy crap...

It's probably closer to 30 years, Sunboy.
When we were younger and gamed, it was all about the game.  The longer you go, the more the social end of it catches up.  i'm aware now that no matter how important the gaming is, this is also the glue that keeps many of us together.
One of my 2 groups I run is some of my earlist players.  The particular campaign we are playing is 26 years old.  we were playing together before that.

it's a fun game.  but as you get older, it becomes a fun game, great memories, and a social bonding agent.

It was The Jr High Library in 1976.  It was five weeks to end of school.  I saw some people I kind of knew playing or working on playing.  I wanted to join. The owner of the books said "No. My books, My Game".  "Fine, I will make my own."  Thus starting me down a long and tortured road of game design.

Eventually I did play some over the summer and next year. We played everything but D&D (EPT, RQ, Traveller, John Carter, and a version of Star Trek if memory serves).  I was always game to play and willing to be a test rabbit for any game.   Eventually I got into a D&D game and discovered "gah, these other ones are better".  

Eventually, it was freshman year in HS, I got to run.  I was running The Fantasy Trip (because it was so much cheaper than those expensive AD&D books).   That spawned a campaign that lasted 8 years or so, and ran anywhere from 8-20 players.    Cidri was great. Arth was better.

I was "that other GM".  I thought games should match their source material - novels.  So we had characters with written histories, personalities, and goals.  I forced everyone to come up with something.  Games had plots (though most people didn't seem to care...).  People gained experience points for roleplaying and solving problems, killing optional.  (Love the Fantasy Trip EP chart).  If you found The Dungeon in my world, you discovered two things. One, it had already been sacked by other people and Two, you were in the wrong place.  (Eventually the Ochre Door came to Arth and more dungeoning ensued  http://strolen.com/viewing/Ochre_Door ) .  

So my memories of early gaming were being "the guy everyone wanted to play with", guiding people into trying to have a novel experience, and trying to push my craft of RPGing and story telling (while pushing others to do the same).   I also remember resistance from people who just wanting to kill things, those who could not handle the non tolkien elves I was using (Moorcok's Corum of the Silver Hand), and those who thought all gaming was Tolkien Fantasy or not gaming at all.

The games ran across the gamut.  Bushido, Champions (and other Hero Games), Any other supers game I could find, Top Secret (which was replaced by Stalking the Night Fantastic), and Fringeworthy. (My time with TriTac the company was durring this time. I wrote and playtested Tri-Tac supers).  Mine were the non-D&D players or the non fantasy players. I was running twice a week from Junior Year to my third year of Jr College. Things tapered off in college proper. I had a Stalking Campaign that Things that ran three weekends a year, for 2-8 games per session. That ran for 10 years or so.  It started as "select players" from my Stalking Demos playing in "my game", and moved on to a regular campaign from there.

(Worked for Tri-Tac and Hero (in the ICE era) to limited success. )

My Game Design took the fore for a while (with alternating Champions games).  Continuum (not the Time Travel C0ntinuum) was published on a small run. We found out our guy with the money really didn't have that much.  Flirted with a couple of companies and idiots with a dream and shallow pockets.  Griffon games was a great idea that my portion would not be realized for years.  One guy owns a set of my rules ; to this day, 15+ years later, swears he will publish it.  

My players love the playtests.  They loved Supers, Nippon (so much so that my 3 week playtest became a 2 year campaign), Pulp Heroes, Anime Mecha, Psionic Horror, a brief dip into Valdemar, and a couple of other things.

Gaming at the table disappeared when the kids were small. I stayed online and just played around.

So I have a new guy. He says he has money.  We will see. If not, this time it is POD and PDF for sure.

Get a contract.

Quote from: MoonHunter;307138-snip-

Wow. Sounds like loads of fun. Um... off topic, but is this anime mecha of which you speak for sale or download on PDF? If I were in your shoes, I'd put them up in PDF form and use the profits to save up for a print run of the best seller by way of lulu or something.

Back on topic.. I started reading the books and wanting to play around when 3.5 was about to come out. My friend Drew let me read through the 3.0 MMII and I just loved the illustrations. I was a sucker for good drawings/paintings of freaky monsters even before being introduced to D&D... I've been drawing stuff like that since I was like 6. By the time I started playing, 3.5 was out and everybody had switched. I played now and again with folks at the math/science charter school we shared a building with (I was in the arts magnet school), but I didn't get to participate in most games because I lived way out in the suburbs and couldn't drive.

When I moved here to Atlanta for my senior year in highschool I got two games together, both of which fizzled after maybe a month or two. First I was elected DM without my knowledge and improvised an insane dungeon that the PCs woke up at the bottom of. They fought their way up to the top before that went poof... maybe they weren't interested in leaving yet? I'm still not sure. The second game had a bunch of my stupid houserules, a bunch of custom NPCs, and a bit of a railroad plot that rarely lasted as long as it should have (as in I ran out of "what comes next" and just had the characters fight each other to pass the time). Fizzled. And there was one other campaign I played in (DMed by one of maybe three who could or would DM) that was unfortunately boring. Patrick ran a few decent one-shots in D20 Modern and D20 Star Wars.

After high school there was a dead year or two or three (wasn't counting) punctuated by Gen Con Indianapolis in... what, 2007? The one where they made the 4e announcement. In that time I came here. Later, an ex girlfriend convinced me to get a game going. I invited everybody I knew that gamed, a few that I didn't know were gamers until they caught wind of it and asked to join, and a few newbs. I posted most of it and brainstormed for future sessions here on the AP forum, and it helped alot. That was last summer.

Since then there've only been a few one shots, plus some on and off forum gaming. I'm trying to muster the energy for a new game, but I'm feeling a bit dry. For the time being I'm thinking of running a one on one with my girlfriend using Star Wars Saga just to get going again, but I'm always intimidated by star wars 'cause I don't know shit about the setting really.

Quote from: LordVreeg;306933It's probably closer to 30 years, Sunboy.
When we were younger and gamed, it was all about the game.  The longer you go, the more the social end of it catches up.  i'm aware now that no matter how important the gaming is, this is also the glue that keeps many of us together.
One of my 2 groups I run is some of my earlist players.  The particular campaign we are playing is 26 years old.  we were playing together before that.

it's a fun game.  but as you get older, it becomes a fun game, great memories, and a social bonding agent.

Too true, LV! While my original group is no longer gaming together, three of the kids (high school & college age) in my group are the children of people in that group. We are all still friends and get together at least 3 times a year.

-clash

Quote from: Old Geezer;306788Raise yer WHUT?

Oh, WALKER.  Whew.

* cleans out ear trumpet *

But I know what you mean about thinking of RP as an adult pastime.  Gary was my first GM; Rob Kuntz, Tim Wilson, and I were in high school (over 16, though, so we could drive) and Ernie Gygax was 13.  But EVERYBODY else was an adult, and Gary treated us just the same.  Gary was, in fact, the first "grownup" ever to treat me like an adult.

My second gaming group was all college buddies... and last Saturday we gamed together...

You rock, Geezer! If we ever bump into each other at GenCon or someplace, we'll have to compare war stories!

-clash

Quote from: Sigmund;306276My first "tournament" DnD game was at the Boys Club of Norfolk VA.

Dude, we probably crossed paths at one time or another!  Lived in Norfolk from like 77 to 85, went to Crossroads Elementary, Arrowwood Academy, Norview Junior, and then Granby High before I moved.  Spent a lot of time at the Boys Club on Sewell's Point Rd, but never saw any gamers there!  

Anyway, I was introduced to D&D at age 11 in the summer of 1982 through a friend as we were walking home.  He started narrating a scenario where I was a warrior with armor and a sword and I ran into a goblin.  I remember trying to talk to the goblin (not really knowing what a goblin was) and it attacked me.  After I killed it, I was encouraged to loot its body.  I was pretty much hooked after that.  

My first character was an elf (default fighter/MU in the Basic boxed set) named Hunter.  Really creative there.  

Same friend intro'd me to Boy Scouts (and weed) and we ended up playing with another group of kids at scout camp, having to sneak off into the woods to play because of the D&D devil worshipping panic that was starting to sweep America.  I remember that game we dug a pit to trap 20 gnomes (I thought gnomes were good guys, but was laughed down by the other kids who said only in Basic D&D, not AD&D).  Anyway, they fell in the trap, we doused them with oil, and burned them alive.  Yay, scout camp.  

Got hardcore into D&D and AD&D, found some other friends/gamers, and hung out mostly at a Ward's Corner game store called Campaign Headquarters.   It had RPG and wargame gamebooks up front and gaming tables in the back for use by customers, one of them a huge piece of plywood covered with foam hills and varied terrain.  

Still have to stop in there and buy something (usually dice) when I make it up that way every few years.  Lots of good memories.  

Pete

Quote from: pspahn;307313Dude, we probably crossed paths at one time or another!  Lived in Norfolk from like 77 to 85, went to Crossroads Elementary, Arrowwood Academy, Norview Junior, and then Granby High before I moved.  Spent a lot of time at the Boys Club on Sewell's Point Rd, but never saw any gamers there!  


Pete

Rockin, and you've written one of my fav games ever (Miami Nights). I went to Brandon Jr. and Green Run High in Va. Beach.

Quote from: SunBoy;306930Dude... that IS something. What, 20+ years and still at the same gaming table? Holy crap...

36 years.

I'm gaming with somebody I started playing D&D with in fall of 1973.

Yes, pre publication.  Christmas break I went home and bought the rules.

Do they go on the internet?

Quote from: pspahn;307313I remember that game we dug a pit to trap 20 gnomes (I thought gnomes were good guys, but was laughed down by the other kids who said only in Basic D&D, not AD&D).  Anyway, they fell in the trap, we doused them with oil, and burned them alive.  Yay, scout camp.  

You were both wrong. Gnomes are NEVER the good guys.
Trapping 20 gnomes in a pit and immolating them? You were wrong, but you did good. And you were lucky, very lucky...

RPGPundit

Quote from: Old Geezer, flyingmice, LordVreeg-on years of gaming with the same people-

...holy crap. I mean, wow. That's mind-boggling.

D&D wasn't actually my first game - I had bought some little chit tactical game called Star Force that had an ad in it for Star Frontiers.  Progressed from there eventually to Red Box D&D once I got sick of not understanding 90% of the Dragon magazines I'd buy for the one Star Frontiers article.  "What the hell are Hit Dice!?!"  Then settled into AD&D for the high school years, really just me DMing a couple friends.  We tried branching out into "finding other gamers" exactly once, and got invited over to this guy's house that was decorated with exercise equipment and Satanist videos.  After that our stance was clarified; gaming was something our existing circle of friends did for fun, we were not looking to hang out with people just because they gamed.

Although like the OP I also had a Boy Scouts first D&D experience...  Totally freeform, no dice or rules, just narrated by a DM in the back of the car as we drove.  "I'm an elf with a crossbow" was all the character concept *and* stats required.  Everyone had either Blackrazor or Wave and player-on-player violence was a constant threat.  It was before getting into Star Frontiers, but I don't count it because it didn't really lead to further gaming as it struck me as pretty spazulous at the time.

And then there's the "got back into gaming" story...  I didn't game in college between the demands of classwork and the needy college girlfriend.  Then after, moved off, wasn't motivated enough to look for a gaming group per se and people tend to avoid "I'm a gamer" in polite work conversation.  But the Magic craze was on, and a friend got into it and soon we had six or so people that would get together and play with our hundreds of dollars of cards each...  Finally one day I said, "You know, we have a group of people, and we're getting together for hours at a time to play this damn card game - I know I'd rather be roleplaying!"  Turns out everyone else had played D&D at some point back in the day too, so we boxed the cards and had a proper gaming group for about ten years!