So this week I started reading Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks (An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms) by Ethan Gilsdorf. While currently I am at a part that doesn’t really interest me… It being about the SCA and LARP and such things, I find the book to be somewhat reviving. As (like the author) another of those many boys who spent their high school years of the early 80’s lost in the land of AD&D, soda pop and primitive computer meanderings, I find it somewhat refreshing to be reading all of this. Though I never left the RPG world quite as completely as he did, as though it’s been well over 20 years since I played a pen and paper game, in 1989ish I seriously played Bard’s Tale on my IBM Model 25 and though the 90’s went by without much of that sort, I have played the Baldur’s Gate game series for many a year and even dabbled in MMORPG with the free Runescape.
But I do still have a soft spot for the old games. Specifically AD&D which dominated my waking hours from about 1981-1985, but also Traveller (my favorite Sci-fi game, where you could spend so much time preparing to play the game that you never even had to bother with playing it) and the I.C.E Arms/Claw/Spell law series (also called Rolemaster) which I still think is the best bunch of RPG rules I have ever encountered. Once I start thinking about it though, all those other ones that I played around with at that time pop up in my thoughts: Top Secret, Paranoia, Stormbringer, Star Wars…
Like the author of Fantasy Freaks, I have remained disdainful of people who play pen and paper RPG’s for all of these years, and I am wondering how genuine that is. Do I really have disdain for such things? If so, why do I still have all of those above listed games stored away in boxes? And why do I feel so fondly about them and those glorious days of yore?
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