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Another poster, Commissar Von Toussaint got me started on this one. I really think its an interesting question.

So, my viewpoint. I have gamed only in the United States. The United States is, of course, a pretty big country, so it is fair to say that I've gamed in two major regions, the Midwest (Ohio) and the Deep South (Georgia). In those areas I've mostly played D&D, generally OSR, 1ed, some 5rh ed., as well as Traveller, various versions of 40k roleplaying (First ed rules with some rules grafted on https://www.scribd.com/document/112035819/Orcs-in-Space# basically a very OSR-like game), Inquisitor and a very little Dark Heresy, which I didn't care for. I played an extended En Garde campaign (GDW, then Small Furry Creatures Press), which I thought was very good, and a lot of different OSR systems, including many D&D variants, from cowboy shoot-em ups, to a variant where you are a Napoleonic Officer trying to help the Emperor conquer the world, until you come to realize he's a demonic entity, and have to try to put him down.

But I digress.

Anyway, our good Commissar brought up the idea (a pretty powerful one, as I think about it) that rpgs have kind of transformed since the inclusion of women into the genre from "whack-the-monster-and-grab-the-gold" affairs (D&D) into games more of rising in social status (Vampire). If I'm wrong, or not giving this sufficient treatment, I hope he'll correct me.

But the point of this thread is that, IMHO, they were really neither of those things in their best iterations, but rather simulations of the epic quest.

I think its fair to say that rpgs started with "Braunstein" gaming, which was an immediate success among tabletop wargamers, but really never got past the old grognards until D&D came along.

The Braunstein was enormous fun for old guard wargamers, who wanted an opportunity to actually roleplay from the point of view of "The Napoleonic General", "The Drunken Deserter", "The Tavern Keeper Who Wanted Neither The Frenchies Nor The Brits To Burn Down His Establishment And Drink All His Liquor", etc., but really never took hold in the public consciousness until Gygax (probably really Arneson, in fairness) brought hobbits, magic swords and dragons into play.

But I think that in its very best iterations, rpging is neither Conan (beat the monster over the head and give me cool stuff, oh, and I'll take a crown too, thankyuhverymuch) nor angst filled teenage vampires worried only about blood and hair gel, but the truly epic quest. That quest may be the Illiad-Odyssey, the Lord of the Rings, the Foundation Trilogy, and similar.

In my view, the best rpgs are and always have been, attempts to simulate tales of the great heroes, some of whom may be just that in appearance as well as fact (Zimiamvia), others seem like quiet, bookish types, who nonetheless have "the right stuff" deep down (Middle Earth) and their attempt to keep the world from going horribly wrong in some way, but doing so in a form where the heroes may, in fact, lose.

Probably I should wind this post down more than just chop it off right there, but this is a forum, and all about us contributing our ideas, rather than the first poster thinking he's stated the Eternal Truth.

So I'll stop there, and, hopefully, listen to other's takes on the subject

I think it's more than location, but also system.

I grew up in a college town, and now and again, a gaming club emerged at the high school. It was all-male, except for this one boyish girl (pageboy haircut) who was really, really popular with the nerd set.

When I went to college (in the same town), the "one girl" varied in terms of her features, but not in the ratio. D&D was a guy thing.

When Vampire: The Masquerade burst upon the scene, the local hobby shop (which hosted games I did not play in) evidenced a more even gender balance. A couple of years later, LARP became a thing, and my housemates persuaded me to join them in a session. It was almost exactly a 50/50 split, and a significant amount of the interaction was social status driven.

With 30+ actual PCs involved, there was plenty of player-on-player combat, but one element that was of particular (sociological?) interest was how male-dominated groups were quite happy to "hire out" to act as the heavies for female cliques.

The notion of "kill the monster and get the treasure" was at times completely obscured by interpersonal conflict (which I think was why people showed up in the first place).

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
I think it's more than location, but also system.

I grew up in a college town, and now and again, a gaming club emerged at the high school. It was all-male, except for this one boyish girl (pageboy haircut) who was really, really popular with the nerd set.

When I went to college (in the same town), the "one girl" varied in terms of her features, but not in the ratio. D&D was a guy thing.

When Vampire: The Masquerade burst upon the scene, the local hobby shop (which hosted games I did not play in) evidenced a more even gender balance. A couple of years later, LARP became a thing, and my housemates persuaded me to join them in a session. It was almost exactly a 50/50 split, and a significant amount of the interaction was social status driven.

With 30+ actual PCs involved, there was plenty of player-on-player combat, but one element that was of particular (sociological?) interest was how male-dominated groups were quite happy to "hire out" to act as the heavies for female cliques.

The notion of "kill the monster and get the treasure" was at times completely obscured by interpersonal conflict (which I think was why people showed up in the first place).

Just digressing from my point to the sex ratio issue, I have to say that my experience was different. For whatever reason, when I was stationed at Ft. Benning, Georgia, I actually played with more women than I have before or since. Why, I don't know, and more interestingly, none of them were GIs, and very few their wives, but more the local girls who were in college.

Columbus, Ohio is, of course a college town (go Buckeyes) but I didn't experience it here. Strange.

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:


Just digressing from my point to the sex ratio issue, I have to say that my experience was different. For whatever reason, when I was stationed at Ft. Benning, Georgia, I actually played with more women than I have before or since. Why, I don't know, and more interestingly, none of them were GIs, and very few their wives, but more the local girls who were in college.

Columbus, Ohio is, of course a college town (go Buckeyes) but I didn't experience it here. Strange.

I'm going to throw out two assumptions, both of which will likely get me in trouble.

The first is that "army brat" daughters have a higher comfort level with "guy things" than other females. My own daughters are proof of this.

The other is the "An Officer and a Gentleman" effect, were local girls are seeking a...let us put it delicately...attachment.

I'm from Germany and started during my military service with "das Schwarze Auge" (short DSA), a German RPG. In the meantime I have tried out Pathfinder/DnD (especially because I love Baldurs Gate) and a One shot, a Mass-Effect and antique rome setting, Warhammer Fantasy, legend of the five rings, one where we were all "monsters" etc. but overall I kept to my original system.

I don't know how much of it was our group and how much it is a local thing, but from my limited experience DSA differs from what I saw in "foreign" RPGs in putting a lot more focus on talents/skills outside of combat. Don't get me wrong, combat is still a very important factor, but there is a ton of talents regarding social interaction, craftmanship, agility/fitness, nature, knowledge etc. We currently use a set of houserules that is also pretty popular around here that goes even deeper into that, further expanding this by a big set of traits you can take that allows you to do things for example socially that others can't.

Also due to this, "kill the monsters and grab their stuff" is very much less common. It's often more of "Maybe we can bribe the guard? Convince him to switch sides? Intimidate him to surrender?" But I think that is personal group taste.
The one Pathfinder adventure I joined as a player (I'm usually the GM) also was a stark contrast in that I had the impression that the world barely interacted with the characters. What I mean: NOBODY cared that we were a completely ramshakle collection of species/cultures, as that seemed to be very common, while in DSA cultural barriers are very much relevant for social interaction. As might be social status. Lets say when you are in a medieval central european culture and a complete stranger with cat ears and a Katana enters a bar, he is DEFINITLY the center of attention and might have some problems just "slipping into a dark niche and acting unsuspicious.

The ratio of males to females in RPGs and LARPs has always been close to 50:50 anywhere I played in all age groups (unlike wargaming ).

The interesting local thing is how Warhammer Fantasy RP was regarded here in Poland. Due to a series of influential articles the game got this reputation where you have to play it as desperate and dark and realistic as possible, which wasn't that different from what the original book suggested, but was devoid of it's monthypythonesque pastiche vibe. I guess the first peak of popularity of the Witcher books is also a culprit here (similar, down-to-earth fantasy).

As a result it is jarring now to me, how kids nowadays who are mostly into power fantasy colourful D&D and have never played WFRP (an absolutely dominant system in my youth), are surprised with this mud, despair and rotten teeth approach to RPGs.

I don’t think I’ve ever played an RPG that didn’t quickly devolve into farce and terribly stupid ideas working out surprisingly well.

But, I’ve never played outside of my social circle.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:


Just digressing from my point to the sex ratio issue, I have to say that my experience was different. For whatever reason, when I was stationed at Ft. Benning, Georgia, I actually played with more women than I have before or since. Why, I don't know, and more interestingly, none of them were GIs, and very few their wives, but more the local girls who were in college.

Columbus, Ohio is, of course a college town (go Buckeyes) but I didn't experience it here. Strange.

I'm going to throw out two assumptions, both of which will likely get me in trouble.

The first is that "army brat" daughters have a higher comfort level with "guy things" than other females. My own daughters are proof of this.

The other is the "An Officer and a Gentleman" effect, were local girls are seeking a...let us put it delicately...attachment.

Possibly, though in my case, I was married at the time, so I never experienced that kind of stuff. Do military bases breed tomboys? Possibly, but I think more like fairly messed up kids in general. The military parent's life is usually highly stressful, and the towns tend to have a pretty rough atmosphere. This tends to become even worse when both parents are in the service (again, just my observation).


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 Pyroalchi wrote:
I'm from Germany and started during my military service with "das Schwarze Auge" (short DSA), a German RPG. In the meantime I have tried out Pathfinder/DnD (especially because I love Baldurs Gate) and a One shot, a Mass-Effect and antique rome setting, Warhammer Fantasy, legend of the five rings, one where we were all "monsters" etc. but overall I kept to my original system.

I don't know how much of it was our group and how much it is a local thing, but from my limited experience DSA differs from what I saw in "foreign" RPGs in putting a lot more focus on talents/skills outside of combat. Don't get me wrong, combat is still a very important factor, but there is a ton of talents regarding social interaction, craftmanship, agility/fitness, nature, knowledge etc. We currently use a set of houserules that is also pretty popular around here that goes even deeper into that, further expanding this by a big set of traits you can take that allows you to do things for example socially that others can't.

Also due to this, "kill the monsters and grab their stuff" is very much less common. It's often more of "Maybe we can bribe the guard? Convince him to switch sides? Intimidate him to surrender?" But I think that is personal group taste.
The one Pathfinder adventure I joined as a player (I'm usually the GM) also was a stark contrast in that I had the impression that the world barely interacted with the characters. What I mean: NOBODY cared that we were a completely ramshakle collection of species/cultures, as that seemed to be very common, while in DSA cultural barriers are very much relevant for social interaction. As might be social status. Lets say when you are in a medieval central european culture and a complete stranger with cat ears and a Katana enters a bar, he is DEFINITLY the center of attention and might have some problems just "slipping into a dark niche and acting unsuspicious.

The Black Eye?

Interesting. Can you give us a few lines on what its about?

One thing I've had trouble with here, is that I tend to enjoy games (some) where the PCs are power-players. Kind of like some of the old Braunsteins where the players could be local nobles, colonels or even general officers, government officials, spies, important churchmen, etc.

I'm often surprised at the people who enjoy playing strange characters for the sake of playing them (cat-girl-vampires, etc.) but refuse to push the game up to the next level politically.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cyel wrote:
The ratio of males to females in RPGs and LARPs has always been close to 50:50 anywhere I played in all age groups (unlike wargaming ).

The interesting local thing is how Warhammer Fantasy RP was regarded here in Poland. Due to a series of influential articles the game got this reputation where you have to play it as desperate and dark and realistic as possible, which wasn't that different from what the original book suggested, but was devoid of it's monthypythonesque pastiche vibe. I guess the first peak of popularity of the Witcher books is also a culprit here (similar, down-to-earth fantasy).

As a result it is jarring now to me, how kids nowadays who are mostly into power fantasy colorful D&D and have never played WFRP (an absolutely dominant system in my youth), are surprised with this mud, despair and rotten teeth approach to RPGs.

I think that's one of the things that still leads to a certain popularity with the almost pure combat systems. The D&D type where you have to take out the forces of the evil lich who is cursing the town before the whole population turns into zombies or whatever. Too much pure roleplay can often lead into slapstick humor. That can be fun for an evening, but gets old REAL quick.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I don’t think I’ve ever played an RPG that didn’t quickly devolve into farce and terribly stupid ideas working out surprisingly well.

But, I’ve never played outside of my social circle.

What works for ya, ya do. If you can get an evening full of belly laughs and it keeps your blood pressure and diabetes in check, nobody can say you aren't doing it right!

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
Too much pure roleplay can often lead into slapstick humor. That can be fun for an evening, but gets old REAL quick.

That isn't my experience at all. If anything, combat generally is pretty tedious in RPGs as it is mostly random and rigged.

On the other hand I used to play purely narrative RPGs for years and these are my best memories of running RPGs, with my crowning achievement making my then-gf cry on two occasions thanks to my successfuly making her so emotionally invested in characters and their realtionships (and yeah, WFRP stories being sad stories).

Cyel wrote:

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
Too much pure roleplay can often lead into slapstick humor. That can be fun for an evening, but gets old REAL quick.

That isn't my experience at all. If anything, combat generally is pretty tedious in RPGs as it is mostly random and rigged.

On the other hand I used to play purely narrative RPGs for years and these are my best memories of running RPGs, with my crowning achievement making my then-gf cry on two occasions thanks to my successfuly making her so emotionally invested in characters and their realtionships (and yeah, WFRP stories being sad stories).

I agree, but I think the happy medium probably doesn't involve losing a girlfriend over it Still, there are girlfriends and girlfriends

Oh, no! She was delighted to take part in such an emotional story!

Regarding sex-ratios: we were mostly 50:50, but as we currently have 5 players we are 3 dudes and 2 dudettes.

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:

The Black Eye?

Interesting. Can you give us a few lines on what its about?

One thing I've had trouble with here, is that I tend to enjoy games (some) where the PCs are power-players. Kind of like some of the old Braunsteins where the players could be local nobles, colonels or even general officers, government officials, spies, important churchmen, etc.

I'm often surprised at the people who enjoy playing strange characters for the sake of playing them (cat-girl-vampires, etc.) but refuse to push the game up to the next level politically.

I usually see it abreviated as "the dark eye" when writen in english.
Regarding what it is about: compared to DnD it is a rather low fantasy medieval world. The basic fantasy races (humans, dwarfs, elfs, orks) as well as some extras (reptilemen, goblins) as playable races. A lot of cultures that range from the technology level of the typical natives (Inuit, native americans or amazon tribes for example) up to rennaissance, but the most countries are somewhere in the middle ages. There are mages/mage-capable members as well as clerics/druid-types in most races, but they are fewer and have a certain status, also what they can do mostly remains under the level seen in DnD. Otherwordly beings (unicorns, fey etc.) are scarce and others (demons, elementals) can usually only exist temporarly if being summoned. Gods are real, as are Demons and both fight for the souls of mortals using their followers.

Regarding adventures there is room for everything from what we call "Bauerngaming" (peasant gaming) where you have a group of lets say some village people - a farmer, the local innkeep, a blacksmith - up to PCs that are really high ranking in their respective state.

We for example had one ragtag group who mostly did low level stuff and whose latest exploits was to win a lottery in a very much gambling-adicted middle-sized city and found themselves by that elected to be "chief of police" for a year, torn between "swimming with the flow" and taking every bribe they can and getting justice for everyone. They did it kind of in a middle way that was pretty funny.

Currently we are playing what is known as the most "high powered" campaign called "Die sieben Gezeichneten" => "the seven signs" might be a translation (something refered to as THE campaign by a lot of GMs) were the PCs face the return of an incredibly powerful mage who basically promisses "everyone can be a mage, if he is just strong of mind and willing!" and who... might have a point. If you don't mind the risk of eternal damnation. The dude is also pretty much into social darwinism...
As destiny goes, there are 7 signs, in part magical in part celestial in nature, that are destined to return, when this old mage arrives and the players are in the process of becoming these signs.
But this type of plot is really rare in DSA. The campaign was specifically written to let the players really go 150% with their characters, allowing them to get massive amounts of artifacts, magical weapons etc. because they are right in the middle of an aeon defining moment in history.

Boxed D&D was also about rising in Social Status as you acquired retainers(Companion set, Aquamarine colored box?), strongholds (Master Set, Black Set?), and eventually were demi-gods (Immortal, Gold-set?).

I think what changed is that players got more experienced with RPGs, and at least in my group; the whack-a-monster and takes its stuff style of play got boring. There are only so many times you can do that and not get a little redundant.

Therefore, RPGs naturally began to evolve.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I usually see it abreviated as "the dark eye" when writen in english.
Regarding what it is about: compared to DnD it is a rather low fantasy medieval world. The basic fantasy races (humans, dwarfs, elfs, orks) as well as some extras (reptilemen, goblins) as playable races. A lot of cultures that range from the technology level of the typical natives (Inuit, native americans or amazon tribes for example) up to rennaissance, but the most countries are somewhere in the middle ages. There are mages/mage-capable members as well as clerics/druid-types in most races, but they are fewer and have a certain status, also what they can do mostly remains under the level seen in DnD. Otherwordly beings (unicorns, fey etc.) are scarce and others (demons, elementals) can usually only exist temporarly if being summoned. Gods are real, as are Demons and both fight for the souls of mortals using their followers.

I imagine Europeans have a bit more of a handle on how the actual Middle Ages went, and also traditional fantasy folklore.

Americans have a curious collection of classic Disney tropes, Tolkien pastiches and Conan the Barbarian.

Oh, and we've overlaid it with the usual melting pot sensibility so we assume that even the most isolated hamlet in the hills looks like the campus of a California community college.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Regarding sex-ratios: we were mostly 50:50, but as we currently have 5 players we are 3 dudes and 2 dudettes.

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:

The Black Eye?

Interesting. Can you give us a few lines on what its about?

One thing I've had trouble with here, is that I tend to enjoy games (some) where the PCs are power-players. Kind of like some of the old Braunsteins where the players could be local nobles, colonels or even general officers, government officials, spies, important churchmen, etc.

I'm often surprised at the people who enjoy playing strange characters for the sake of playing them (cat-girl-vampires, etc.) but refuse to push the game up to the next level politically.

Regarding adventures there is room for everything from what we call "Bauerngaming" (peasant gaming) where you have a group of lets say some village people - a farmer, the local innkeep, a blacksmith - up to PCs that are really high ranking in their respective state.

I really think that is what makes this ^^ kind of a campaign work. If everybody is at a race to the top, it tends to degenerate into an ego contest. But if everyone from the emperor down to the town leper is willing to find an interesting way to share the stage, it can be enormous fun!

SOunds like you guys are really on to something here


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I usually see it abreviated as "the dark eye" when writen in english.
Regarding what it is about: compared to DnD it is a rather low fantasy medieval world. The basic fantasy races (humans, dwarfs, elfs, orks) as well as some extras (reptilemen, goblins) as playable races. A lot of cultures that range from the technology level of the typical natives (Inuit, native americans or amazon tribes for example) up to rennaissance, but the most countries are somewhere in the middle ages. There are mages/mage-capable members as well as clerics/druid-types in most races, but they are fewer and have a certain status, also what they can do mostly remains under the level seen in DnD. Otherwordly beings (unicorns, fey etc.) are scarce and others (demons, elementals) can usually only exist temporarly if being summoned. Gods are real, as are Demons and both fight for the souls of mortals using their followers.

I imagine Europeans have a bit more of a handle on how the actual Middle Ages went, and also traditional fantasy folklore.

Americans have a curious collection of classic Disney tropes, Tolkien pastiches and Conan the Barbarian.

Oh, and we've overlaid it with the usual melting pot sensibility so we assume that even the most isolated hamlet in the hills looks like the campus of a California community college.

The real middle ages were pretty rough and tumble, and your status pretty much decided who you were and what you did.

There were exceptions of course. Barbara Blomberg was a tavern singer who caught the eye of Charles V, and gave birth to Don Juan of Austria, who saved western civilization from the Ottoman Turks.

Of course, she was just a tad bit of an exception

Stop me if i get blabbering, but just out of fun I would share a bit more about the world of DSA and the adventures within.

First of: We are not really talking "dark and gritty" middleages overall (Even though it is possible to play that way). The whole setting sets various pretty "nice" assumptions that takes out the sting out of a lot of tropes. For example: both sexes are (in almost all species) equally strong/agile etc. and most cultures have no fixed gender roles. So you do have the trope of the brave female knight rescueing the beautiful prince out of the turret as something normal. There are some patriarchical as well as matriarchical societies but they overall balance each other out. Famines and plagues are relatively rare and death in childbed almost unheard of and usually only occur after catastrophies or due to evil intervention (TM). The dominant gods and their churches are overall benelovent and the power of the higher ups is somewhat reigned in by the churches when it comes to pestering the peasants. Of course there are nouances to that, but I think most real medieval peasants would have been incredibly happy to live in that world instead of ours.
While Xenophobia exists, it is usually... lets say directed. One big country has really little love for Orks and imposes more or less strict rules on mages, but has Dwarfs and elfes completely integrated in their society. Another is religiously extremely tolerant, as long as you accept their main god as THE main god and can get really nasty if not etc. So usually the players can adjust the level of adversery they experience from the environment by choosing where they want to go.

Regarding the cultures they are each mostly designed as either one specific historical trope or a mix of such things. In a way that you read about a country and immediatly think "I see, we are talking about 12th century vikings" or "ah, golden age Netherlands meets Imperial Russia" or "Imperial rome mixed with a fair bit of spanish conquistadors in America". At leat for us it is thus usually quite easy to give the players an overall picture by refering to said are and earthly region.


On topic of the mentioned "different ranks in society": we had for quite a while an interesting group in said "Imperial rome mixed with spanish conquistadors" region. One character was on a middle to higher rank within the very powerful state church and kind of an associate of the "pope". He was also from a noble family and filthy rich, the later being the more important part. The other characters were kind of his entourage including (not all at the same time): his bodyguard mage (a bit lower in social status, but still high), a druid (non-licenced mage, so more like middle status), his gladiator (lower range), a courtisan (officially for him, practically someone he used to spy on other people, middle to high status) and a mercenary that was technically a renegade (very low status, a soldier of an enemy nation that got stranded and tried to survive). A lot of the plots could be described as "there is something that must be done for the church/the empire, but it might involve some morally questionable things, the pope should not be linked to..." and then the "boss" taking on that task with his guys and gals. And as everyone had their niche where he/she could contribute, it didn't feel weird to be from such different classes but more enriching.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Stop me if i get blabbering, but just out of fun I would share a bit more about the world of DSA and the adventures within.

However happy the fantasy world presents itself, Europeans simply understand history better than Americans. If we find a house that's 100 years old, we put a sign out front and treat it like a museum.

That means that even if you have settings that are ahistorical, you understand that fact. Americans really do believe that the entire world looks like an Apple i-phone commercial and always has.

This in turn leads to all sorts of weird attitudes towards traditional gaming settings and something of a generational divide between those who see RPGs as a game of personal discovery and affirmation, and the old school types who want to go out and beat up the bad guys cuz it's fun.

The very first RPG event I ever attended had a 50/50 ratio. The GM was a woman. Nobody thought this was odd. And the game was neither a smash and grab nor a status climber. The focus was on character narratives.

And in that decade I never met anyone who played D&D twice.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
And in that decade I never met anyone who played D&D twice.

Wow.

When and where was this, and what do you attribute it to? Other than in those dark and dreadful years (well, really months) of 4th ed., I've never really seen it in the decline. Not on a long term basis anyway. I don't care for the current edition, but I'll certainly admit its popular.

Southern California, late 80’s/early 90’s. My group went for WEG Star Wars in a big way, and so did most of the people my age. We tried a lot of RPG’s, like DND and Robotech and TMNT, and found them all clunky. WEG perfectly fit our less-crunchy, more narrative tastes, and Star Wars was at peak popularity while DND was that cartoon with the roller coaster. Other RPG groups we ran into at summer camps and school were into GURPS and some superhero game, and not at all into DnD.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Southern California, late 80’s/early 90’s. My group went for WEG Star Wars in a big way, and so did most of the people my age. We tried a lot of RPG’s, like DND and Robotech and TMNT, and found them all clunky. WEG perfectly fit our less-crunchy, more narrative tastes, and Star Wars was at peak popularity while DND was that cartoon with the roller coaster. Other RPG groups we ran into at summer camps and school were into GURPS and some superhero game, and not at all into DnD.

Been a long time since I visited SoCal, and I never gamed there, so I'll take your word for it, but in those years I was in Ohio (school) and Georgia (army). The army tends to be fairly cosmopolitan, since it comes from everywhere.

Other than D&D, I played a lot of 40k,aome Champions, tried to do Runequest with no success, some Call of Cthulhu, which is fun, but hard to do a long term campaign with, because everybody goes crazy. Also did En Garde, which had a brief resurgence in popularity in Columbus, laregly due to yours truly, but didn't last because you can basically fight duels, go carousing at Bothwells, fight the Spaniards and the Empire during campaign season, lather, rinse repeat. Also did some Inquisitor, but since everybody wanted to play it in 28mm, and 40k is a lot more fun, it didn't last long.

Star Wars and GURPS... I knew people who played them, but never really got into either. Star Wars you really had to be in love with that specific genre for, and GURPS just had too many rules.

Still, big hobby, to each his own.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Southern California, late 80’s/early 90’s. My group went for WEG Star Wars in a big way, and so did most of the people my age. We tried a lot of RPG’s, like DND and Robotech and TMNT, and found them all clunky. WEG perfectly fit our less-crunchy, more narrative tastes, and Star Wars was at peak popularity while DND was that cartoon with the roller coaster. Other RPG groups we ran into at summer camps and school were into GURPS and some superhero game, and not at all into DnD.

For a minute, you had me puzzled, but yeah, Star Wars would have pulled a different group. By then, the Timothy Zahn books were in full flower and AD&D was a hot mess. This was the era of bringing a small wagonload of books with you because of all the supplements that were necessary to run your chaotic evil with neutral tendencies half-orc barbarian/cavalier/anti-paladin.

With psionics. Can't forget the psionics, which are not magic, not at all.

Talk about design bloat. On the plus side, since it was a player-driven hobby, you could simply ignore the silly bits and no one cared. I remember a game where one guy was really into psionics, no one else cared, and it became established procedure for the DM to simply throw some extra monsters whose sole purpose was to add to that guy's kill tally so he would be happy.

He'd be all like "I"m use Ego Whip, and I score bonus damage for crushing his psyche."

DM, nodding absently. "Wow, you just wrecked that guy, but another springs up to take his place!"

"Okay, I'm using Psychic Crush on him and the guy behind him [rolls dice] and I think I got them both."

DM rolls some dice, pretends to look at chart. "You blasted the one into oblivion but the other one had phenomenal luck. I'm sure he's toast next round. Okay, getting to everyone else..."

My HS RPG ever played D&D. I had before, but in the HS group we really played Shadowrun 2nd and WEG Star Wars.

If we wanted Fantasy, we used a homebrew system built off of the SR system. I wish I had all the stuff we wrote for that still!

 Easy E wrote:
My HS RPG ever played D&D. I had before, but in the HS group we really played Shadowrun 2nd and WEG Star Wars.

If we wanted Fantasy, we used a homebrew system built off of the SR system. I wish I had all the stuff we wrote for that still!

So many of those hacks and home-brews are lost to the mists of time. I still have a few games from back then and the notes make no sense to me now. Abbreviations for mechanics we all knew back then, but now I have no idea what we were doing.

Other than having fun.