My first 40 years as a role player

Today, I turned 51 years old. And, as I've mentioned on numerous previous birthdays (and probably numerous "how did you get into gaming" posts), I got my Mentzer Basic Set for my 11th birthday. So I've been a D&D and other RPGs player for four decades now. 

For the first decade, 1984 to 1994, I both ran and played BECMI with my friends and family. We also ran a lot of Star Frontiers. We also played some AD&D of both the 1E and 2E variety, but not that much. And occasionally we'd play, or at least make characters but never get around to playing, lots of other games. Gamma World. Star Wars d6. Cyberpunk 2020. TMNT and Other Strangeness. Marvel Superheroes. I'm sure there are others we tried or at least sampled that I'm forgetting. We played a LOT of BECMI D&D though. Tales of this decade are labeled as The Old BECMI Group, obviously.

For the second decade, 1994 to 2004, after a bit of interruption in RPG play due to Magic: The Gathering and not wanting to associate with the campus Gaming Guild who embodied most of the negative gamer stereotypes that were out there at the time, I got back into gaming with a group that played a mix of 1E/2E AD&D. Then I went to Japan, and by the time I got a group to game with, 3E had just come out. So we dove into the world of the d20 system, playing 3E D&D and a bit of d20 Modern and d20 Star Wars. The final few years of this era, I had moved to a different part of Japan, and started gaming on RPOL.net since I hadn't found a group to play with there. These tales are under the Evansville Group (1E/2E), and Toyama Group (initial 3E stuff) tags.

From 2004 to 2014, I got in with a group playing in Tokyo. Again, we mostly played d20 stuff, including 3E, d20 Modern, and d20 Conan. But through this group, I also got to try a variety of Forge-style story games, and also it rekindled my love of old school D&D. I also got involved (finally) with some local gamers, and we played some Abberant (an obscure White Wolf game), 3E, and old school D&D. We also developed Presidents of the Apocalypse, which I know I've mentioned many times before, but no, it will probably never get released because it's so scattershot. In the middle of this era, I moved to Korea. For a few years, the emphasis was on board games, but eventually I got some old school D&D going, using the house rules that have by now evolved into Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins. I also got to try 4E and we sampled a few One Page and microlite RPGs, played a bit of Gamma World (the 4E D&D stuff AND classic GW), Pathfinder 1E, and a few other games here and there. I continued to game on RPOL, and also got to sample various OSR offerings through online realtime play (Google Meet, when that was a thing). I also developed, play tested, and released Flying Swordsmen. You can find these stories in the tags Ebisu and Yamanashi Gamers for the Japan era, and Busan Gamers for the Korea era.

My fourth decade, 2014 to today, coincides with the release of 5E D&D, and I've played it a fair amount. As a player, it's fun. As a DM? Not so much. So I've mostly stuck to my TS&R old school D&D rules as a DM. And I've been running my d6 Star Wars game for many years now. As a player, there have been a wealth of games and game systems, that are face to face, online realtime, and play by post. While I've mostly given up on 5E (except for a really good game on RPOL), my TS&R game and SW d6 game are both going well. I've sampled lots of OSR and micro-games, both in person and online. I've recently started both a Gamma World and Star Wars game on RPOL. And very recently, just joined a game of RECON. I developed, play tested, and released Chanbara, and have recently finished up releasing everything to make TS&R a complete game that others can play. I've been too busy to post about that. These last few years of gaming can again be found under the Busan Gamers tag, as will most games I post about going into my fifth decade of gaming. 

The first 40 years of gaming have been on the whole really good. I'm excited for the next 40 years!

Gaming as an Ex-Pat Part 2

I lived in Japan from the summer of '98 to the spring of '08. I didn't get into gaming until 3E came out, though. That's when I found some other teachers were also gamers, and we picked up the new rules and gave them a go. This was in Toyama prefecture, pretty far from the big cities (about 4 hours by train to Osaka, 5 to Tokyo). I picked up the brand spanking new 3E PHB when I was in the States over the summer, and used my 2E books until I was able to order the other core books from Amazon. There wasn't anywhere to get stuff locally, although some boutique shops sold polyhedral dice. I'd occasionally check in second-hand bookstores for Japanese RPG books, but never found any.

Oh, and there was this little bric-a-brac shop that sold airsoft equipment and collectible figures and stuff. I found a pack of vintage Grenadier "Knights of the Round Table" minis there and snatched them up. Still have them. For the most part, we were limited in what we had to game with to what we ordered from overseas or could access via the internet. One of those internet goodies was a free pdf game WotC released called Dragon Fist (fantasy martial arts RPG using the 2E rules). We played that a few times in addition to 3E.

In 2001 I moved to Yamanashi prefecture, just an hour and a half outside of Tokyo. Again, it took me a little time to get into the local gaming scene, because I wasn't sure who gamed and who didn't, and people were still kinda reluctant to bring up gaming in casual conversation. But gamed online with some of the Toyama guys about once a month. We tried d20 Modern and the d20 Star Wars rules, along with D&D 3.5.

Then, I got invited to a group playing White Wolf's Trinity around 2003 or 2004. After the Trinity game ran its course, some of the same gamers ended up playing D&D with me. We played a 3E OA game that I ran for a while.

Through the WotC message boards, I came in contact with a couple of guys in Tokyo and we formed a group. One of the Toyama guys was now living in Chiba (also near Tokyo) so we invited him, too. A few other players came and went. We'd meet once a month for marathon 6-10 hour sessions, mostly of 3.5, although I ran a successful d20 Future game set in the Aliens/Predator universe.

Gaming in Tokyo was great, because there's a chain of hobby shops called Yellow Submarine. They had minis, dice, rule books, modules, Dragon and Dungeon magazine, plus board games and other related stuff. Whenever I had time before or after the sessions, I'd usually stop by because the bus or train from Yamanashi pulled into Shinjuku station, and a Yellow Submarine was just around the corner.

One of the Tokyo guys was trying to develop his own Story Game RPG, so we play-tested many versions of it. And from the Forge message boards (once the home of story gamers online), he got interested in playing Classic D&D again, which got me interested. And so I discovered the OSR (Old School Renaissance) just as it was kicking off.

Before Steve got transferred back to the States, we played a few games of old school D&D. And I got my Yamanashi group to play it, too. And it was pretty fun. I also tried a bit of Star Frontiers with them.

Oh, and my buddy Paul and I developed our own "story game" type rules light system, Presidents of the Apocalypse. This became our "someone in the group is leaving, let's go out with a fun game" game. We're still not 100% happy with the rules, but eventually we plan to publish it in some form or other.

The OSR back then was all about making "retro clones" that were rewritten versions of the classic games, released under the d20 OGL. So OSRIC is basically AD&D 1E, Labyrinth Lord and Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game are Classic D&D, and Swords & Wizardry is original D&D. I remembered having fun with Dragon Fist in Toyama, and started thinking about how I might make a retro-clone of it. But then my wife got pregnant, and we decided to move to Korea to be near her family...

And speaking of knights...

Why don't we see more jousting in D&D?

Mentzer's set had the nice tournament jousting rules, which we used to good effect back in the day.  But I don't see much love going to the lance in most games. 

Sure, in a dungeon it's impractical to bring along a war horse.  But goblins mounted on dire wolves with lances would make for a tough and memorable encounter, I'd bet.

In the wilderness, though, I'd expect more players to equip their fighter types with lances, and use them.  But I rarely do.  Why?  In Classic (Mentzer/RC, or Moldvay with variable weapon damage in play) lances do 2d8 damage on a charge (if, like me, you embrace the 3E idea of 'double damage' doubling the dice rolled, not simply multiplying the single die's result).  That's a fair amount of damage, if that charge attack hits.

I have used jousting/lance combat in games before.  In the first 3E game I ran with the Toyama group, I was basing many events on Malory and the Mabinogion, so there were a few places where NPC knights would challenge the party to a joust.  The players seemed to like it, but they never initiated a joust of their own.

Is this just something about the people I've been playing with?  Or is it also common in other groups?  Where's the love for the lance?

Another take on Gamer ADD (and my 100th post)

Reading about Gamer ADD makes me rethink my own games for the past 15 years or so.

Of course I suffer from Gamer ADD. Back in the day, we had D&D and Star Frontiers, and we just played either when someone had a dungeon or adventure ready. We had two long campaigns that lasted from late elementary school into the early years of university summer vacations. 10 years for D&D, 8 for Star Frontiers. We'd try out the occasional other RPG, usually during the summers when we had lots and lots of free time. But the only ones we stuck with were the above.

Then, after I graduated, with the Evansville group and every group I've had since, the big problem with Gamer ADD was NOT that the DM wanted to switch systems or campaigns.

The problem has been (and still is) that EVERYONE WANTS TO BE THE DM.

Too many chiefs, not enough Indians. Especially in my current board game group, there are always one or two of us dissatisfied with whatever is being played, so the usual response seems to be to offer to DM a game the way you like it as a player (which of course then makes someone else want to DM their way).

On another note, I've got the Character Creation rules for the Flying Swordsmen (Dragon Fist retro-simu-something) RPG finished. Character creation basics, classes and kits are done. Next is the martial arts maneuvers and combat section.

And this is my 100th post. Huzzah!

We're getting the band back together

I've got Josh and Alex confirmed for tomorrow night. We're finally getting the Maritime Campaign going. Dave may not make it, but he said he'll be there if he can.

So I'm pretty pumped about that, and I'm going through all my stuff to make sure I've got enough prepared. I never do, but at least I have enough that I can make it look like I do...

Anyway, getting back to gaming with the guys has gotten me nostalgic about my old gaming groups.

The original group: Todd (best friend #1), Ben (best friend #2, and 2nd cousin), Tim (little brother) and myself were the core. Bridget (my little sister), Josh, Adam & Jacob (Ben's brothers) and the occasional other friend would sometimes play. We grew up in the country, so it wasn't unusual for a 'game session' to be just one DM and one player. We mostly played BECM (Ben had Immoratals Set I think, but we never did more than look at it), and Star Frontiers.

Magic the Gathering and some members of my university gaming guild who were the stereotypical gamers you don't want to game with kept us from playing much in college, but after graduating I fell in with Tim (not my brother), Kenny, Jason and Steve. Tim and Jason were co-workers with me at Circuit City, Kenny was Tim's roommate, and Steve was a friend of theirs. We played a lot of short lived campaigns that were a mish-mash of 1E and 2E AD&D, including me running a game set in Feudal Japan for a few sessions. This is the Evansville Group.

Then I went to Japan, and after a couple years 3E came out. A few other teachers had also played, and we were all curious about the rules so I picked up the PHB when I was at home for the summer and ordered the DMG and MM when they came out. With the nature of the expat life, we had a bit of a revolving membership, which included Billy, Chris, David (he's Puerto Rican so it's pronounced Da-veed), Nick (who was actually the exchange student at the high school I taught at), and Gene. This is the Toyama Group. We played 3.0 D&D.

I moved to another part of Japan, and Billy, Chris, Gene and I tried gaming online with voice chat and OpenRPG, but it didn't go so well. We did get to try out d20 Modern and d20 Star Wars though.

After a few years, I got to talking with some other gamers in Tokyo on the Wizards message boards, and we formed the Ebisu Gaming Club. The members were Steve (not Steve from Evansville), Pete, Gene (from the Toyama group, he'd also moved), and toward the end Tim (number 3). We met once a month at Steve's apartment in Ebisu and played marathon 8 hour sessions on Sundays. We played 3.5 D&D, d20 Modern, d20 Conan, and tried out several Forge Indie games including one Steve was working on himself.

Concurrent to the Ebisu group, I fell in with some local guys who were playing a game of White Wolf's Trinity. This was Paul, Brent, Tanya, Mish, and another guy whos name is escaping me at the moment. The other guy was frequently absent, so they asked me to join up. After that game ended, Brent, Tanya and Mish all left Japan, but Paul and I recruited some other friends and formed a second group.

This second group was Paul, Atley, Josh, Jacob, Michelle, and Mark. Later, Lauren, Rick and Renee joined after Mark left the country and Atley lost interest. We started out with a d20 OA game that I ran, but then switched to a Classic D&D game run by Paul. Another guy named JD also ran a 3.5 game with some of the same players, but I was too busy to join them for that. Collectively, this is the Yamanashi Group.

And then I moved to Korea and fell in with my current Board Game Group.