Monday, May 24, 2010

Where it All Began Pt. 5


After those early years I met some people in high school and moved onto Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Middle Earth Roleplaying, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Paranoia, Rolemaster, Car Wars and probably several others. The longest running campaign I played in was Dragonlance which we played up until module 8.

At the end of high school I didn't play very much and then not at all as I went through university. It wasn't until I was in graduate school that I got back into it. On a whim I went to the university's roleplaying group one night and happened to be in the right place at the right time to join a Mage the Ascension game.

The game was part of what White Wolf called "a renaissance of gaming". A little grandiose to begin with perhaps, but in many respects the games did lead the way for a shift in the types of game being produced. Their games were at the vanguard of a shift towards emphasis on character, cohesive backstories and a fleshed out mythos players could legitimately feel their characters had a stake in.

First edition Vampire, Werewolf, Mage and Wraith certainly weren't the first games to place the emphasis here but they captured my imagination like The Mystery of Chimney Rock had. I preferred the style of roleplaying they encouraged but it was the way the GM made it work that really showed me what was possible with roleplaying. We played that game every week for about three years and it was great every time. I still hold myself to the standard he set today.

Since then I've played pretty consistently without too much concern for the exact system. The whole time though, in fact since I knew what roleplaying was, I have wanted to make writing games and playing games my living. This blog is about my attempt to do that and if you're reading this I guess I have succeeded, at least in producing one game, if not fame and riches.

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