Goodman Games

First played: '80 AD&D run by my cousin while babysitting me and my younger sister. I was seven.

Also Born in '66...of course...

IIRC, my older brother bought the Holmes Blue Box because he was into Tollkien as was I. He was a senior in HS and for some reason just kind of...well...didn't take to it. So he kind of left it to me. At which point neurons I not in use for anything in particular went nuts. Then, and I'm not clear about the exact nature of the incident, one of the kids in my homeroom and I discovered we were both under he spell...and he had friends with whom he was already playing..and I fell in with that group.

From then on, my grades were never the same...

Earlier DOB, but otherwise largely the same Holmes-->AD&D tale. I bought the AD&D books as they came out. MM, then PHB, then finally (after an agonizing wait) the DMG.

Before Holmes I'd seen the white box and its expansions in the stores where I bought wargames and always found D&D looked intriguing, but also a more than a bit hard to figure out--perhaps because my gaming background was entirely Avalon Hill/SPI at that time, so no knowledge of miniatures systems or terminology. To me white box looked like a bunch of notes rather than a finished game. I'd bought TSR's star empires already and been largely flummoxed by it, so I was a little gunshy when it came to their products. The Holmes set was exactly what the doctor ordered.

I seem to have become ancient without paying much attention to the passage of time. Such is life. I began playing D&D in 1977, not at Gary's house exactly but close enough for a 17 year old living in California. This is the same year I began fighting on the field with the SCA. I knew I was addicted when I found myself writing up new weapons and armor tables for the original Arduin Grimoire. Dave Hargrave signed my copy of his second book at one of the first Dundracon conventions, where we had a lively discussion of the virtues of the M60 machine gun. He was a Vietnam War veteran and knew that of which he spoke.

I've been involved in this hobby since then. I was one of the play-testers on the original Runequest and Call of Cthulhu releases, where we played in the dank basement of the Chaosium facility in Albany, CA. I also had the honor of playing with the "Tuesday Night Group" that play-tested the original Champions game. My latest play-testing forays have been Arduin Eternal, Castles & Crusades, and my recently-aborted pursuit of D&D Next (5th edition).

Why did I abort it? Well, I ran into DCC RPG and lost interest in Hasbro activities. I now own several sets of Funky Dice. I've thrown in on the Purple Sorcerer Games Kickstarter with their excellent automation tools for DCC RPG.

I'm excited. I've begun reviewing Appendix N works, having read many of them long ago, and I believe DCC RPG is an excellent system for experiencing the "Swords & Sorcery" genre. Anon!

Christmas 1979.

And I'm only 45; I'm not old.

Although I'm old enough to have played in the mid 70's (and I wish I had), I didn't start until D&D 3.5 was released.

My first D&D was the Mentzer Red Box in 86. I started with LBB Traveller in 83, and also played some Star Frontiers before I tried fantasy out.

I started with the red box Basic set in '91... played that for a while before moving on to Palladium/TMNT/Rifts through high school.

First played in early '80's with cousins during summer visits, I was 8yo, but I didn't start running games until after I saved up my allowance to buy the Red Box edition when I was 10. Most of the serious gaming for my friends and I was done with 1st and 2nd editions.

Moldvay 1981

The 1980s with the Redbox. We first started doing it at Civil War reenactments. Then our parents saw the D&D boxes and went bonkers because role playing would lead to Satan worship, you know; they didn't see the irony of saying that in 19th century CSA uniforms.

So then we just started doing it diceless. We used "pick a number" or "rock paper scissors" but more often than not if you entertained the GM and made your character do something cool you succeeded.

From there, as I became a teenager I just started playing when my parents weren't home. I moved on to 2nd Edition, and then back to Rules Cyclopedia when it came out, because we already covered almost everything in 2nd ed with our simpler house rules and RC collected everything together nicely.

Then we went to Palladium fantasy (1st ed Revised), and the RPG world just opened up from there.

It was either '78 or '79 with the Holmes set and I would have been 11 years old. A friend down the street had it along with a smattering of LBB which came from his older brother. In my first game I played a fighter with a spear that was killed by a gargoyle.

79/80 with the blue holmes edition. then quickly got into the first red "Basic" & "Expert" but eventually played AD&D exclusively. Bought but played very little 2nd edition.

I'm 26. Starting Playing with the tail end of 2nd Edition in the late 90's and then 3rd Edition soon after. Now I love DCC

I hope that the DCC RPG, along with the other strong 'old school' systems will spur interest in 'younger' players who haven't had much opportunity to experience this style of play. I know many of us here are a bit grayer than we'd perhaps like, but I can't believe that the things that got us so excited 25-35 years ago can't trigger the same sort of response in creative types today. My son is twelve, knows his way around an xbox and games like Skyrim like nobody's business, but he LOVES the DCC RPG.

And welcome Warlokk!

+1 but 83

Started playing in 92/93 ish. Grade 7.

I think it was real early 80's. Old Moldvay Red Basic & Blue Expert boxed sets. Awesome stuff. I still have them today.

The Keep on the Borderlands FOREVER!!!!!!
(if you dont know what that is- find out!)

X2 (Castle Amber) and B3 (Palace of the Silver Princess) were awesome too!

I heard WotC were reprinting the 1E books right about the same time DCC showed up on my radar. I had originally planned to snag the 1E books, but, after playing DCC I'm not sure it's necessary.

DCC RPG is the most fun I've had with a game since I began playing. In the ten years I've been in the hobby, I've played 3.0, 3.X, Star Wars 4th Edition, V:tM, Mage, Werewolf, Shadowrun, BESM, The Burning Wheel, Pathfinder (plus wargames like WH40k, WHFB, Warmachine), and none of them even come close to the awesomeness of DCC RPG. Burning Wheel is my other favorite, but it is a very different animal.

It really came along at the right time, too, as I had just finished up an 8-month long campaign and was really burned out on the rules bloat of those systems.

I hear you about the rules bloat.

It isn't just that there are too many rules in some of these games for easy play, but some of them expect you to do far too much work for the play value you get. My rule of thumb is that, for every hour's prep time, I want to get at least 2 hours play value....and I try to reach as much as 5 hours. With even mid-level 3.5, my experiences were the exact opposite.

Say I want to create an encounter where seaside villagers are part shark, to varying degrees, and much fun ensues as the PCs deal with this. I need to ask myself, "How can I best express this in this rule system?" In DCC, this is pretty straightforward, and takes 10-15 minutes work at most. When I tried to write this scenario for 3.x, I had been working for some six hours, writing various templates, looking up others, doing math, etc., and I hadn't even started writing the encounters yet....!

I will always be grateful for the WotC that made 3.0, for the OGL if for no other reason, and for rekindling my love for the hobby. But it is Goodman Games, and the DCC RPG, that took that ember and fanned it into flame. The design team identified the same issues I did, and they came up with better solutions than mine were. I haven't enjoyed gaming so much since 1979-1980.

Yes, encounters in 3.5/Pathfinder take far too long to plan AND playthrough.

Example: The final "boss" of my campaign, an Ancient Black Dragon, took my party 3 hours to kill. The combat was only 5 rounds long. That's 30 seconds of "in-game" time.

Picked the best option: 1982, but I started before that, white and blue dragon edition.

Is there still room to join the Holmes/AD&D mish-mash group, because, hey!, I'm already a member...!

For two or three years, several interconnected circles of friends had a blast running bizarre/surreal homemade dungeons one after another after another for each other.

Those were the days.

Oh, the way Glenn Miller played...

I started out with BD&D back in high school, 1981-ish.