Quote from: rgrove0172;920040Ive played in scores of games and run more than a few successful campaigns over the years but when looking back it seems to me that nothing was as fun as those first few tentative dungeon crawls in 1977 with the very beginnings of D&D or a bit later The Fantasy Trip.

In time and through a continued changing of groups the adventures have become more complex, the settings more detailed and the overall scale more epic but when I sit and daydream I cant recall ever having as much fun as in those early days, sometimes Descending into the Depths of the Earth or assaulting the Vault of the Drow, others just wandering around someone's graph paper dungeon. It seems the excitement and enthusiasm of those early days cant be duplicated no matter how good the material, the GM, the players or what have you.

Anyone else feel this way? Were those games that great or was it the newness of it all that made them so memorable?

Some games have stood the test of time (Classic Traveller, d6 Star Wars, B/X D&D, BECMI D&D) while some have not (Villains & Vigilantes, Star Frontiers, Battletech/MechWarrior, Robotech). I honestly miss the people more than the games themselves in a lot of cases.

Yes.

Fun is fun.

No. They were even better! :cool:

So glad I went back with fresh eyes to see the engines underneath the Dagwood sandwich of 'All Options On', slathered house rules, and pubescent GMing. They really are even better now from my adult perspective!

Depends on the game.

Many of the early games are still tremendous fun.

I suspect that this answer varies a lot, depending upon the group.

1. Games were simpler back then, with an emphasis on play over learning rules.
2. I had lots more time then, as a student, than I do as an adult professional. That time to play is important.
3. The newness and discovery of everything made things fresh. Once folks have "seen it all before" it's hard to wow them again.

So, in my book the "good old days" were better than today. Don't get me wrong, today is still fun. :-D

While it is definitely true that nostalgia for formative periods and experiences is a real thing (and I would say a good thing!), I believe there is also something objectively special about the games themselves. The core rules from this period varied greatly in overall size and complexity - Melee or Tunnels and Trolls can be learned in a few minutes; 1E Chivalry and Sorcery would take a lifetime to learn to play as written. But all of them shared some things that have nearly disappeared: the writing is simple and efficient; the rules are 'gamist'; and the overall structure of the rules are closer to 'teach a man to fish' than 'give a man a fish'. You get the sense that when the OD&D or Traveller boxed sets were being assembled, everyone involved assumed this was pretty much all anyone was going to need or want, in terms of commercial product, and the customer would take it from there. So, when your group sat down to play, they was always a lot of personal involvement, you were not going into A dungeon; you were going into Jim's dungeon. And god only knows what that bastard Jim has in store for you.

Many games written now contain tons of fictional interludes, elaborately explained settings, wandering, repetitive explanations of simple rules, gobs and gobs of artwork, they often expend a lot of effort and page count serving 'simulationist' and/or 'narrativist' ideas, and many of the commercial products are really thought of as on-ramps to even more verbosely written walk-them-through-it adventures. Also, there is surprisingly little quantitative data in new games. OD&D and 1E actually have a shit ton of information explaining how to run a campaign organized around founding and growing a feudal domain, building castles, levying taxes, etc. Maybe that isn't what you are into, but it is all there, and can be assimilated in a few pages. The ratio of data to words in modern treatments of these subjects (say, in 5E) is basically zero. It is like they are meant to be read more than played.

Not for me.  I know so much more now than I did back then.  And I've found it's not the games, it's the people you gamed with.

Quote from: rgrove0172;920040Ive played in scores of games and run more than a few successful campaigns over the years but when looking back it seems to me that nothing was as fun as those first few tentative dungeon crawls in 1977 with the very beginnings of D&D or a bit later The Fantasy Trip.

Anyone else feel this way? Were those games that great or was it the newness of it all that made them so memorable?

I think the reason everything seemed so exciting and new when I first played D&D in 1978 is that I was 12 years old at the time.

Some of the game systems were good, some less so. The sense of discovery and the "bubble" of having this arcane lore, shared amongst friends on countless weekends when media and life distractions were few, can't be replicated.

As other note, it's a mixed bag. Moldvay B/X D&D holds up really well (having recently put this to the test with a group of players new to it). Traveller as well.

Some of TSR's other games (Gangbusters, Marvel Super Heroes, et al), well, we had fun with them anyway. I've looked through them recently as well, however, and while there are the occasional good ideas, overall I don't think they are particularly good.

This thread makes me think of rpg.net, where any mention of OD&D, etc, tended to bring out the "well, you're just old and nostalgic. Those aren't actually fun games" crowd. That always cracked me up. Oh, yes, my players are just imagining having a good time, but we're all just miserable without knowing it!

The fun of pure discovery and unlocking the wonder of role playing games cannot be duplicated. Those early games will always be special because of that. 36 years later I am still having fun with these games playing old systems or new. I am running a bi-weekly AD&D campaign now and it is every bit as fun to play now as it was in the early days. It is the people that really make the game experience special.

Quote from: darthfozzywig;920315As other note, it's a mixed bag. Moldvay B/X D&D holds up really well (having recently put this to the test with a group of players new to it). Traveller as well.

Some of TSR's other games (Gangbusters, Marvel Super Heroes, et al), well, we had fun with them anyway. I've looked through them recently as well, however, and while there are the occasional good ideas, overall I don't think they are particularly good.

This thread makes me think of rpg.net, where any mention of OD&D, etc, tended to bring out the "well, you're just old and nostalgic. Those aren't actually fun games" crowd. That always cracked me up. Oh, yes, my players are just imagining having a good time, but we're all just miserable without knowing it!

Laugh, Ive read a few of those!

I react to RPGs from the 70's and early 80's much the same as anything else (music, tv shows, clothing, etc) from that time period. While a few may be considered "classics" most of them just make me wonder "WTF was I thinking!?"

Quote from: Larsdangly;920217So, when your group sat down to play, they was always a lot of personal involvement, you were not going into A dungeon; you were going into Jim's dungeon. And god only knows what that bastard Jim has in store for you.

But poor Jim totally lost it when THAT guy at his table kept saying "He's dead Jim!" every time they killed a goblin.

It was never about the game system. It was about the experience. My first gaming as a player (I'd been a GM for a year earlier) was in an Empire of the Petal Throne run, and the rush was so huge we gamed for ten straight hours on each of three consecutive nights.

Now the EPT system was decidedly mid-seventies, the DM was a pig who never failed to have his viewpoint NPC bed as many of the female players' PCs as possible, and one of the three original players was this side of certifiable. That doesn't matter. It was new, it was wild, we didn't know any better, and to paraphrase Hal Brown, we were gamers once, and young.

It's a universal theme. On my LARP's discussion board, a similar thread started recently from a few people wanting to return to the pre-1997 rules because it was so much more fun then. The thing is that the rules were scanty, filled with holes, limited, and provoked many a fight over what they really meant. What was REALLY fun then was that it was new for the players complaining.

I guarantee you, if you DO find an OD&D game around this town (good luck) it won't be nearly as magical as you remember, because it won't be 1979 again.  What's wrong with gathering magic from games people are actually likely to play?





(The punchline is that this a cut-and-paste of one of the very first posts I made to TBP, thirteen years ago.  The more things change ...)