Goodman Games

Well…once upon a time I went to a game convention in the UK at Reading University. I was only fourteen and somehow managed to convince my parents that I could be trusted to go with a few adults from the local gaming club. I had a blast and loved it. Stayed up all weekend rolling dice and eating too many pizzas and drinking my king sized Cokes (remember those?). I have been wondering for years what convention it was I went to and which year it was that I went. Well…I found a pdf of White Dwarf Issue 72 and low and behold…it was GamesFair ’86!
I can rest easy now lol. It was the only big convention I have ever been to. I was chaperoned by two blokes called Peter and Steve and a lady called Barbara (if you read this please say hi) I remember playing all sorts of things…Spanish Maine board game, Railroad Tycoon, Mega RPG (rare one that), Call of Cthulhu plus many many more which become a blur…

I entered the Ad&d competition and got booted out in the first round (so did my friend Steve)…I was robbed, they didn’t award points for doing interesting things and trying to role-play only for solving stupid puzzles and boffing monsters on the ‘ed

Anyway, it was great. Maybe I will get to another convention one day, it’s only been over a couple of decades since my last!

(this is a copy of a post on Triple Ace Game's forum I did earlier but hey what the heck it may interest somebody on this forum too...)

That is so freaking bizarre you mentioned the Mega RPG, as I was just about to post something about it elsewhere. Over the past months, as I've gradually unboxed all my game stuff after our move, I take pics of interesting things to share with my gaming buds on g+...

The thrust of the post was originally going to be about what an impossibly dense, awkwardly translated beast it was... but of late, especially since I started publishing my own stuff, my desire to snark about someone else's honest efforts has pretty much vanished. I even tracked down the web presence of one of the designers, and he seems a nice enough bloke, even commenting how he has streamlined things over the years.

Regardless, fun post!

Wow! Not seen that book in a long time!

I remember it had an interesting magic system and something about descriptive character generation but that could have been the DM's work? Despite the translation...is it any good? I had a great time playing it when I was a wee boy. Some friends bought the book but never did anything with it as we were pretty much entrenched in AD&D at the time. I had a scout around for it a couple of years back but it was very hard to get and when a copy did show up I didn't fancy the price, not knowing if nostalgia was getting the better of me

EDIT: hold the phone! Is that an Acetronic console? Cool, used to be able to half switch the game select and get some freakish games out of that thing!
EDIT EDIT: I think it's something else isn't it lol

Sadly, I never actually played the system. A friend gave me the book because he though it was dismal and couldn't make heads or tails of it. I'm not sure how he even got the copy, since it seems to have primarily been a U.K. thing.

And it goes to show you, you can have fun playing a game with a mechanic based on the shape of your next potato chip if your attitude is in the right place. There are many, many things I loved as a kid that would scoff at now because I'm so much more exclusive, and that's not necessarily a good thing.

Yes, the hardware is not nearly so interesting. Just a TC Electronic firewire sound unit.

And I remember thinking at the time it was way too 'charty', which must be considered in the light that I was an avid Rolemaster player at the time, so that's saying something!

Yes funny how we all get caught up in mechanics sometimes, looking forward to Advanced Chips & Dips 5th Edition next year

TC Electronics eh? Very similar font, I never noticed before. Get rid and get an Acetronic! I have an Avid Eleven Rack which is good, never had any TC gear.

As to Rolemaster...I have played more of that game than any other system ever. They have a playtest going on for a new unified edition apparently. We used to love that game. Played a Middle Earth based campaign that lasted about 10 years at least. I couldn't handle running it with all the tables and keeping track of everything in combat but I totally loved playing it. Character generation was like an artform...although stacking that DB did always get abused.

How spendy is your nostalgia...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mega-Games-Fant ... 232b0d4f51

$30 to UK Postage....my nostalgia isn't that spendy lol!

In truth I have been on a nostalgic rollercoaster the past few years which I think has come to a close (I hope so...buy sell buy sell buy sell...keeping ebay going!) Good find though

Yeah I thought the UK shipping would be the killer -- the basic price doesn't seem too bad...