Last week, I wrote about my teenage discovery
of the horror roleplaying game, Chill back in the mid-1980s. This got me
thinking about all the other RPGs that I experimented with around
that time and the more I thought about it, the longer that list grew!
This was the during the so-called “Dark
Times” before the internet (yes, Billy, some of us grew up before the advent of the "World Wide Web") where one learned of new games via various
publications, word of mouth, rare local conventions (we were fortunate to have
an annual one in our area), or just by reading blurbs on the backs of shrinkwrapped
boxes or flipping through books on the shelves of your friendly local game shop. If
a game looked or sounded interesting, you simply took a chance and bought it or,
if you were lucky, you signed up for a session at a con to experience it for
yourself, hopefully at the hands of an experienced game master.
I was fortunate that my circle of friends were all interested in roleplaying games alongside all our other shared hobbies including filmmaking, improvisational comedy, cycling, and exploring the dense, mysterious woods that surrounded our small village of Spencerport in Upstate New York.
Together we played first and later second edition Advanced
Dungeons & Dragons (our Basic D&D days were already behind
us when we became friends), but we soon began to dabble in a number of other RPGs, sometimes learning and playing a particular game just once or twice before
deciding that it didn’t suit us and agreeing to move onto something else.
Throughout the ‘80s, I played, ran, or at least owned and read through all of the following. This list is by no means complete. (I still own (and in some cases still play) those titles marked with an asterisk):
- Tunnels & Trolls (1975)*
- Bunnies & Burrows (1976)*
- Gamma World (1978)*
- Villains & Vigilantes (1979)*
- Top Secret (1980) (later Top Secret/S.I. (1987))*
- Call of Cthulhu (1981)*
- Stormbringer (1981)*
- Star Frontiers (1982)*
- James Bond 007 (1983)*
- Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game (1983)
- The Adventures of Indiana Jones (1984)
- Arcanum (1984)*
- Chill (1984)*
- Marvel Super Heroes (1984)
- Middle-Earth Role Playing (1984)
- Paranoia (1984)*
- Star Ace (1984)*
- Time Master (1984)*
- Toon (1984)*
- DC Heroes (1985)
- Doctor Who Role Playing Game (1985)*
- Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game (1985)
- Sandman – Map of Halaal (1985)*
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness (1985)
- World Action and Adventure (1985)*
- Ghostbusters (1986)
- Ars Magica (1987)
- Star Wars: the Roleplaying Game (1987)
- Talislanta (1987)*
- It Came from the Late, Late, Late Show (1989)
- Shadowrun (1989)
Looking over that list of 31(!) titles, I can’t help but find myself a bit puzzled by some modern-day gamers
who started their journey with the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons
and have yet to try anything else beyond that despite now living in a world where
there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of tabletop roleplaying games out
there, most of which are available via download from sites
like DriveThruRPG! I’ve heard every excuse in the book, but that’s a topic for
another time.
If you have any questions about any
of the aforementioned games, feel free to reach out! I have vivid memories of
almost everything on that list and would love to share stories including the
time I was running Chill for my friends in my parent’s basement and our
table was suddenly invaded by a cascade of newly-hatched baby spiders! 🕷
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I am always baffled when I hear other gamers talk about their friends' unwillingness to try new RPGs. Back in the 1980s, my group had an insatiable appetite for different games and genres. To this day, if I want to run something new, I have many potential players from a wide range of ages. I have an embarrassment of riches in that regard, I guess, except for one factor: scheduling conflicts.
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