D&D & Gaming & Nostalgia

[Lord Avalon]

In junior high my first RPG experience was D&D, possibly 1st ed (I do remember I bought the box set with the three little booklets), maybe AD&D. I also played a little Traveller. Switched to a public high school, so didn't do any roleplaying. I was also into wargames, Avalon Hill & SPI. In college it was back to AD&D. Then Champions & Fantasy Hero.

Anyone play Gamma World? I had an OP character, rolling (at least that's how it was in 1st edition) 4 physical and 4 mental mutations (the max) - and they were all good mutations. I had Total Carapace, which reduced damage - also movement; but then I had Increased Speed, which gave me an extra attack (maybe 3/2) and increased movement, so I wasn't that slow; didn't have a great Constitution, but I had Heightened Constitution, so I had extra HP; and Heightened Strength, so I did more damage with physical weapons; I had Life Leech, so I could drain HP of creatures within a certain radius; Heightened Brain Talent, so I could figure out artifacts in less time, and got an extra save vs mental attacks; I forget what else, but those were the major ones.

That was quite the change from my 5th level D&D fighter, who had some good stats, but in one epic session, I think he missed in combat more often than his heavy warhorse did. F: *Whiff* H: *Bam* *Bam* F: *Swish* H: *Bam* *Chomp* I think I had a +1 to hit from ST, and a +1 long sword, and 3/2 attacks; the warhorse had hoof/hoof/bite attacks. "OK, I'll just sit back and let my warhorse kill everything."

Oh, I'm reminded of a friend's Gamma World character: a giant green eagle (had the photosynthesis mutation). He was kind of useless indoors (big wings, no hands). One time our party was exploring a bunker, and the green eagle was hopping around. Then we got to a big stair that had more space, and he was just taking to the air when we got ambushed by monsters coming out from doorways below. He got hit with a disintegrator ray for huge damage - more than the HP he had. So our GM says, "PAF! Green feathers everywhere!" And the rest of us cracked up at the imagery.


Computer RPGs, there was a dungeon crawling game on the Mac, I forget the name. You had one character and went down many levels, which weren't that large. You had a small grid you could see, which was part of the level, and text descriptions. Then there was Bard's Tale. I remember playing Wasteland on a friend's Apple IIe. Then one of the early Ultimas - III? A group of us would get together, one sitting at the computer to control the action - and we'd trade off from time to time - but each one of us had a character we would direct.

[Green1]

I remember Gamma World. I had the old second edition module Legions of Gold. I got it on a clearance sale at some hobby store for 50 cents and thought it would at least be cool reading. I did not have the second edition GW rule book, though, so would have no idea about how character gen went. But, the world seemed really, really cool. Too bad my crew was never into sci fi. I tried to push them towards that way, but if I pushed too hard, I would have no one to DM for. They wanted high fantasy. I always wanted a wild cross between gamma World and DnD. But that would have been TOO wild.

I did see a pdf of Gamma World 4th edition. If they would get rid of the stupid cards and make tech into actual statted weapons, it is an elegant and simple 4e system. Screw balance. A plasma rifle is supposed to be powerful. It is not a friggin per encounter card!!!!  Not a big fan of random character gen like in 4e, either. Was second edition Gamma World random generation? It must of been. Who in their crazy mind would come up with a big, green, leafy eagle guy?

[Green1]

You were also mentioning about your fighter. Yeah. I felt that. Second edition fighters I always felt were underpowered. They were simple to play, so we always gave them to inexperienced players. Third edition made some improvements to the fighter with feats, but when you are constantly rolling and each additional attack goes 5 down each time, you effectively have only one attack that hits. Meanwhile your buddies the spellcasters are automatically hitting and are throwing multiple damage dice each time. You could say that is balanced because they have limited spell slots and spell resistance, but once you have scrolls, wands, spell storing items, etc all the fighter is around for is to carry the loot. Oops, Tenser's Floating Disc just called up and told me they got that covered too. And if you actually do need to get in someone's face and begin bashing, Mr. Druid just shapeshifts into a giant badass and takes care of it.

Fourth edition, for as much as the player base maligns it, actually made the fighter really fun with lots of battlefield control.

[Lord Avalon]

Was second edition Gamma World random generation? It must of been. Who in their crazy mind would come up with a big, green, leafy eagle guy?

Yeah, we rolled our stats, though did get to choose type: pure strain human, mutant human, mutant animal - if mutant, roll for number of physical and mental mutations, then roll for what mutation. Initially, bad mutations were mixed in with good; in later edition, not sure which, bad mutations were low rolls, and you got to add your CON, IIRC, so potentially less chance of bad. I wasn't playing CON bonus edition, I just got very lucky and rolled good mutations for all. That friend always seemed to have odd characters. He wanted to be an eagle, GM let him. But he rolled photosynthesis, so was green. 


Oh, there was also a time when we played Paranoia. (The Computer is your friend.) That was quite a change. We had some players who had Monty Haul D&D characters (including a Paladin who had way more than the permitted number of magic items, because he was carrying them "for the group" - we gave him some grief for that). It was kind of funny to see them get upset when their Paranoia character died. But life was cheap, and you have a bunch of clones. Also they were going from high level characters to Red level characters who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with their lasers. (And what's a barn?) And it was interesting to have things that were treason to the Computer - like secret societies - and we all belonged to one. We'd go on missions for the Computer, but you'd have a secret society mission, potentially at odds with the Computer's. Mutations were treason, and we all had one. We had a character who got wounded, so a medbot was carrying him, and another character used his telekinesis to pull a pin on a grenade the wounded guy was carrying and blow him up. He didn't reveal himself or his mutation, but fulfilled his secret mission.


Anyone play Illuminati? That was another of our favorites. Also Flying Buffalo's Nuclear War/Escalation/Proliferation, where you try to nuke 'em till they glow, but survive with some population left after a final retaliation strike.

[Green1]

Yeah,I had to look that up online about Gamma World character gen. The 4e one (the latest), you random roll everything. They did away completely with player selected builds.  It seems you do get to select in the 3e and various 2e versions. (I am talking compatibility with whatever current version of DnD was out. Not edition of Gamma World. there seems to have been 7 editions of Gamma World)

The closest I got to Paranoia was a mafia style forum game based on paranoia.

Never played or heard of Illuminate. Google will be my friend.

Sounds like you had a group that liked different things. While my group was a bunch of cool cats, sometimes it got rough to play the same character or DM for the same character after 2 years. I really wished I could have convinced them to play other games or at least mix genres. But, when I tried to put Wookie Sith lords (Star Wars D20) riding psionic dinosaurs in a fantasy environment for a one shot, I almost had an uprising!

[Lord Avalon]

Steve Jackson Games Illuminati, if you didn't already find it (or for those who didn't look yet).

[Green1]

Ah, the GURPS guys.

Never delved much into GURPS. It is a leveless system I think I could have dug. My turn off was the folks in Biloxi that represented them were so exclusive of newcomers. They said they were there to demonstate various SJ games, but in actuality it was just hem holding a gaming session they did at their regular table at the con.

[Buster's Uncle]

My first gaming group was - I got the D&D Basic Set for Christmas of 1980 (I think - it couldn't have been far off that year); played with Buster's Daddy and Mylochka, and a week later, took it to the New Year's Eve youth lock-in at church, set up a table in the storeroom in back, and taught all our friends how to play.

My first gaming group was at church.  I actually founded D&D in my hometown, and started out as a (bad) DM.  Local dungeon-heads soon came to extend a lot further than our church, but I started it...

We always played long single session games at any overnight youth activities - it took about a year for the Youth Director to ask "What are you guys always doing back there?"

"Worshipping the Devil" I shot back.

-Astonishingly, this was not a sophisticated or left-leaning congregation, but we never got any crap about it...  I find that hard to credit, too.

[Lord Avalon]

We tried GURPS briefly. I liked it more than my other friends, who liked heroic fantasy. In D&D characters can survive more damage (the average 12th level fighter can survive a fall from any height, IIRC); in GURPS you can get killled pretty quickly. Fantasy Hero wasn't quite as deadly. I didn't really like the classes in D&D - and back then multiclassing was more limited. I liked the skill-based games that were more open, flexible.

[Green1]

In a brainstorming attempt with me and two other Rue de la Cours DMs in New Orleans, we debated classes. I was against classes. I said it was limiting.

Unfortunately, one of them said that you HAVE to have classes to give inexperienced players a direction and an archetype.

If it were me nowadays and I had willing audience, I would use a bastardized version of Gamma World 4e (7th) for everything. Reviews call it aptly "4e lite". But such things are considered blasphemy and if I was to go, would have to go with an already established and published ruleset. Folks are wary of homebrew nowadays that deviate too far of established norms. The whole "DM's world" thing. Then there is the RPG politics of Baton Rouge. These guys can not even agree on a con here, they fight so much. Look up Babelcon at some point. I was told in a gaming store "We do not let former DMs from New Orleans play here... you may steal the player base...." Talk unwarranted self importance.... damn. I have no intention of doing that. Have fun playing Blood Bowl, which is the only game we can agree on because the gaming store only make s money off of minis.

/anger off.

[Green1]

Man.. that was a tirade on my local city's gaming atmosphere. Had to vent that out. Really miss sittng at a table with geeks and slurping on a brew. Lately the gaming culture in the Gulf coast South is basically expensive war game minis or GTFO. Even the minor con in Biloxi is like that now.

Unfortunately, some cities are not good spots. Now I know why that guy drove all the way from Hattiesburg to New Orleans each week to game. I also recall a guy that lived in Jackson, MS driving monthly to Atlanta to game.

I guess that is another thing related to what BU said about hooking up with folks to be the major pain. If you are not in the right city, you are not gaming. At least the old school type gaming.