Wednesday 14 August 2024

RPGaDAY 2024: Half Time Thoughts

As we're about half way through the month, I thought I'd step away from the questions briefly and try to explain my background in gaming, which might give some clues as to where I'm coming from with some of my answers.
If I get the opportunity to ramble on a bit more, all the better.

Firstly, thanks to my good friend Grim who suggested I take part in this. 
Massive thanks also to Autokratik, who organises these every year.

I've been playing RPGs for nearly 47 years. Long time readers of my blog know that I was trying fantasy wargaming for even longer. 
When I started sixth form I joined the Wargaming Society. A couple of weeks later, one of the older members told us about this great new game that he'd tried at the club in town. I went along the following week and was hooked. I persuaded my friends to try and pretty soon the college wargames club was a D&D club.  We later branched out into other RPGs, but there wasn't that much around back then.
Nothing really displaced D&D (then Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) until after university.  After my last final I bought the second edition of Call of Cthulhu, the one published by Games Workshop.  This was another immediate hit, though it's fair to say that our early investigations were still rather 'dungeonish'.
  
Time went on and I've tried all the editions of D&D, and most of the editions of Call of Cthulhu.  I've tried other games, as may be apparent from some of my RPGaDAY entries, but its been mainly these two.

I've increasingly moved towards GMing rather than playing.  It might be that sense of control, or the joy of creation?  Maybe it's just that I'm more willing to put in the time and effort than others?  Regardless, I rarely play as a player anymore.  Perhaps I should remedy that?  

I've come to understand that the games that really interest me are the ones where the characters can become heroes, doing heroic deeds, or at least make a difference.  That's partly why, although I recommended Call of Cthulhu for its one-shots, I find a lot of them too downbeat (yes, I know.  It's Call of Cthulhu, but still).  I've no interest in the 'last one to die' type game, nor games where the idea is to cause chaos and mayhem.  I find that there's too much of this in the world anyway, I turn to games for escape.  Please don't think I'm saying that there's anything wrong with this type of game, its just not for me.

Well, that gives a bit of background where I'm coming from with this, so hopefully my entries may make a little more sense going forward.

No comments:

Post a Comment