Holmes Basic D&D.  I was either 1978 or '79.  I still like Holmes D&D, especially if you add the Holmes Companion.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;248692Holmes Basic D&D.  I was either 1978 or '79.  I still like Holmes D&D, especially if you add the Holmes Companion.

Thank you for that link .

Quote from: Drohem;248713Thank you for that link .

Ditto. Very interesting stuff. The Holmes edition seems to get very little love, and seems overshadowed by the Moldvay version (which I still think of as new).

Quote from: Drew;248624Funnily enough I've been browsing the Moldvay B/X rules again recently. It's still a superb, atmospheric game...

When I visited home recently I grabbed the B/X books, Keep and Isle of Dread and stated reading them again. You're right: the atmosphere! I always thought that the "magic feeling" of D&D was gone simply because I was older now. But reading those books the magic was back and it wasn't nostalgia. I immediately started working on a world/campaign. The same shit happened to me when I reaquired all of the AD&D 1e books. Weird. I wonder what it is that the newer games just don't do for me?

-=Grim=-

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;248850Ditto. Very interesting stuff. The Holmes edition seems to get very little love, and seems overshadowed by the Moldvay version (which I still think of as new).

Glad you guys liked it.

Also, there is some Holmes-specific discussion at the following locations:
Holmes at the OD&D Board
Holmes at KnK Alehouse

I started into RPGs with the red and blue D&D boxed sets (not sure which versions) before quickly moving into AD&D (1981).  The Keep on the Borderlands was the first adventure that I ever ran, followed by The Isle of Dread.  Everything is muddled after that, since I have now played or ran more game systems than I can count.

The very first game I ever played was Marvel Super Heroes Basic set, the original yellow box.  WE played the Dr Octopus scenario that came with it and ran a few more things.  In junior high, I got the Advanced Set, and that was it for me, I was off and running.

I do look back on the game with a sense of nostalgia, but attempts to run it as an adult have not been fruitful or enjoyable.  I think my gaming has moved on past the FASERIP system, and while it has a simple elegance, I just don't enjoy playing it as much as I used.

Hrm, now that I think about it my friend Jason and I, who was the one who introduced me to Marvel, first role played by our selves, with heroes we made up, with no actual role play system.

All through early elementary, we'd play "Silver Hawks", "Thunder Cats", "Transformers", etc.  Reinacting tv shows we enjoyed.  Eventually, we started making up our own super heroes - Super-Bri and Super-Jay.  Then, we made up completely original characters - he made up Drawmaster, a Green Lantern ripoff who could create images with one hand and erase things with the other, and I made up Video Changeling - a guy who could shapeshift into any video game character, and had Cartridge, and Atari 2600 cartridge that was intelligent and could grow into a flying platform, and only VC could understand him.  Cartridge would plug into video game machines and computers and download information, and then transfer it to VC via a special belt buckle he had.  These four heroes formed The Challengers, and had a whole host of villains.  

We created bookl after book detailing their powers and abilities like DC Who's Who and their super vehicles, the different rooms in their C-Tower, the three groups of evil villains who were after them.  The children of Drawmaster and Video Changeling became mutants and joined the team as they grew up, and then became the focal point of our adventures more than the adults.  We had drawings, lists of stuff, there must have been hundreds of pages of material we drew and wrote down for these guys.

Later, we created a pair of interstellar giant "Voltron" Robot Police - they didn't have seperate parts that formed into a big robot, they were just massive "Go Nagai/Great Mazinger" style robots (I had a Great Mazinger robot at that age).  They too had books, pictures, and details about them.

It wasn't proper "mechanics" or anything - just play make believe.  But we detailed it like an RPG with supplements and setting fluff.

Set the stage for later when we started playing Marvel Super Heroes.  I always had more fun making characters in MSH than playing them.

Quote from: GrimJesta;248920When I visited home recently I grabbed the B/X books, Keep and Isle of Dread and stated reading them again. You're right: the atmosphere! I always thought that the "magic feeling" of D&D was gone simply because I was older now. But reading those books the magic was back and it wasn't nostalgia. I immediately started working on a world/campaign. The same shit happened to me when I reaquired all of the AD&D 1e books. Weird. I wonder what it is that the newer games just don't do for me?

I think the real charm was in the presentation, from the Otus artwork to the (even then) outdated fonts. There was a feeling of age and depth about those books, that, if anything, was enhanced by the sometimes arcane and nonsensical rules. It was the perfect marriage of style and substance, and can still get me in the mood for play quicker than anything I've owned since.

1st edition AD&D.  My mother was deeply dismayed that I'd paid the exorbitant price of US$16.95 for the Player's Manual. I'd become very unhappy with it within six to nine months and was already moving on to other games that fellow players introduced me to (like Traveller at the very affordable price of US$12.00 for the boxed Books 1-3).

I look back on 1st ed. AD&D with a certain fondness now, but with little or no desire to ever play it again.

!i!

Quote from: S'mon;248444Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, 1983 I think (I was 10), followed by the Fighting Fantasy RPG, homebrew free kriegspiel (we made stuff up), homebrew simple system that it turned out closely resembled Warhammer Battle 2e, and 1e AD&D.  From Fighting Fantasy to running AD&D took about 18 months I think.

I keep forgetting FF gamebooks.  I LOVED the shit out of those as a kid!  Those and Interplanetary Spy and there were a few other ones - one about a ninja that was really hard to play.

Yeah, I did those LONG before I ever got into Marvel...

I actually saw the Otis box basic set in 1979 I think (when I was 7) but the neighbors playing it could not explain it well enough for me to understand the concept.  I think my first was actually the Palladium Fantasy and then Palladium Robotech.  Early on it was AD&D and Cyberpunk.
Good times... Good times...

1990 with TMNT. Didn't really get anything going until a buddy of mine bought the RC in 1992 and we started playing very freeform games more inspired by than using the rules contained within. We used chits and "cootie catchers" until 1993-4 when I got my first set of dice at a garage sale for two dollars.

Play-by-post, freeform "roleplays" (we didn't even have a "G" in there) heavily influenced by CRPGs and a few half-remembered bits of D&D I'd heard about ("so PCs fight monsters and there's this GM who basically handles non-PC decisions like the computer does"). When I ran I like to throw in some ad-hoc spells and to-hit and HP/MP/XP references; however, actual consequences affecting and resulting from these apparent mechanics were decided by nothing more systematized than the GM's discretion.

oWoD was the first recognizably "real RPG" I got into. From there our group moved onto Exalted,  then D&D 3.5.

Multiple attempts to stir up interest in Sorcerer and a few complaints about having to learn complex systems (we had a couple total newbies start as level four gestalts) later, we're back to systemless - except for things I'm slowly starting to weave in for those "say yes or roll the dice" moments.