Thanks Garbar. I have downloaded the quick start in the past and was interested. I think my players would really like the Age of Conan setting. I'll check it out.

Not a Conan expert myself, only seen the films, but as Dragon Age only has Rogues, Warrior and Mages, it does seem a perfect match for the setting.

And to Rich H...
I deleted the potentially offensive comment.

Cheers mate, want the thread to stay positive and friendly, and people could react to it.

That's the age range that can afford RPG's these days.

The 20somethings are either in school, or underemployed. At least in my hometown.

I'm 34 and I started with D&D (the "red box").



The list of games I like without particular order:

- Legend of the Five Rings (the original, not the D20 version).
- Vampire the Masquerade.
- Warhammer Fantasy RPG (again the old one, I haven't tried the latest two).
- The Lord of the Rings (by Decipher). I run a two years long campaign and after adding some house rules it was enjoyable.

So far I've been unable to gather a group of gamer to play TOR.

Wow. Great to be with all you old fogies.

Me, I am at the tender age of 40.
And I started with the D&D basic box set like you. I thought I was supposed to start with that and then move on to the AD&D box later. heh

Faves are

Shadowrun (lifetime lover of all editions except new 4th)
Star Wars (West End, not D20)
Vampire and Mage (old versions again. Loved the creative possibilities in Mage)
Wraith (but I was one of the few. Incredible setting)
Legend of the Five Rings (new 4th edition surprising enough)

And The One Ring has become a new favotrite. Can't wait for each session. I have not come across a game machanics that have so well reflected the setting.

Geriatrics unite!

That's more or less accurate, but I try

I'm 27, and I started with D&D 3.0 in high school. As for top 3 RPGs:

1. The One Ring
2. 13th Age (though I haven't gotten a chance to play it yet)
3. D&D 4E

Whole second box, and playtest materials for third box.

That's red box design #2... That's the Mentzer 1984 era box.

THE red box is Moldvay

Source shows moldvay.

The Tom Moldvay box is STILL my preferred D&D edition.

My copy is only slightly less battered.

I started off around 1985 with a translated version of the German "Das Schwarze Auge" I then soon graduated to red box D&D and AD&D. I have about 60-70 RPG in my collection. I was mostly on hiatus since around 2000, but picked up a few years ago with Pathfinder and TOR.

Faves include Pathfinder, Castle Falkenstein, 2300AD, Pendragon, Runequest, Cyberpunk, Battletech, Mutants and Masterminds

31, been gaming since I was 5.

Favorite games (roughly in order, most favorite first):
1. AD&D 1e
2. Paranoia (XP)
3. TOR
4. AD&D 4e
4. Smallville

Hi:

Hijacking the thread a bit...
Yet, I consider the "WFRP 3rd Ed" the best one!


My top 3 games are:

*Call of Cthulhu
**Over The Edge
***Paranoia

Started buying D&D (the "Moldvay Box" ) when I was right about the "recommended playing age" stated in the box, but had a devil of a time comprehending it. Luckly for me Star Frontiers came out right after & was waaay more EZ to understand! Been RPGing stuff ever since.


Ñ

I'm 52, & have played for more than 30 years.

My fav RPGs:

1. TOR - someone finally gets Middle-earth
2. D&D 1st-3.5 - a number of us on here apparently had the original sets (scary )
3. Warhammer
4. A friend's home system (it rocked, but it's been years & he no longer has the rules, more's the pity)
5. Boot Hill
6. Twilight 1943 (we tweaked Twilight 2000 for a WWII game & had a blast, but I don't recall our rules)
7. Chill
8. Call of Cthulhu

Continuing the threadjack...

Played in a Warhammer first edition campaign in the late 80's and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Enemy Within was one of the best campaigns that I played in.

The setting was great and atmosphere tense.

Sadly, i changed jobs and had to move away from the game before the campaign ended, so my poor human highwayman never got to save the world... or go crazy in the process!

And yes... he did fall for the... 'This letter proves you are to inherit... whatever it was!'

Would love to complete that one day!

And speaking of classics... who remembers the 'Salt Marsh Trilogy'?

Heh heh. I guess if they weren't attracted to TOR at launch, we won't get the kiddies in until December and the first TH movie...

I'm 43, and have been gaming since just before my 13th birthday in October 1981.

That was when I got Basic D&D; I got AD&D two months later and never looked back.

I guess I've played at least a bit of most of the usual suspects already listed.

Rolemaster and early HERO System were my escape route away from the shackles of AD&D, though I still eventually played at least a bit of every edition of D&D since.

RM gave way to MERP in my early 20s, and I spent 12 years reinserting RM rules, rules from the RM Companions, and my own innovations into the MERP I was running.

I really liked White Wolf's Vampire, Werewolf and Mage, and did a lot of Werewolf via MUSH. (Think of the best elements of the WoW or LOTRO multiplayer community experience, via the medium of plaintext!)

HarnMaster deserves a special mention as a favourite. There are many good things about CoC, but BRP disappoints at every turn; Trail of Cthulhu is a massive improvement. Savage Worlds is good but needs to be about more than just fighting.

My love for Riddle of Steel, Burning Wheel and FATE -- from reading them -- sadly remains unconsummated...

System matters. But these days we can get by with any system, if only we can get really good adventure material.

Cheers,
--Os.

I am 46 years young. Been gaming since '84. Like a few others, I started with Basic DnD box set(Moldvay ) but happened upon the original Stormbringer box set in my LGS and became hooked on D100 gaming.

Fave Game Rules- D100, TOR, Savage Worlds.

Fave Settings- Stormbringer/Elric/Hawkmoon, Warhammer(Empire and Kislev),Ravenloft D20, Conan D20, Slaine D20(all of these done using variants of D100 when run by me), TOR and Solomon Kane SW, CoC.

Fave characters- Captain Jack 'the Devil's own' Bamford of the Connaught Rangers(Cthulhu by Gaslight) and Breacan Ap Bran, Sword Dancer of the Fir Domain (Slaine Rpg).

If we are starting on fave characters...

I'll go with Violet Staunton, formerly Marvin Mundane, Private Detective (CoC).

His body was appropriated by an ex-girlfriend (actually her evil father in her body... making the whole 'sleeping together' thing all the more freaky - shudder!).

Had a long (for CoC) career of thwarting evil and remained relatively sane (not a book reader), but was eventually killed... falling out of a first floor window (second floor I believe in america)!

Such an anticlimactic end seems perfect for CoC!

56 and counting here.

I started with OD&D back in the seventies, and then got my own copy of Call of Cthulhu. Then I started DMing the latter and kept playing the former.

I had the privilege to translate Call of Cthulhu to Spanish in the eighties and kept doing it for almost a decade, until the Spanish publisher folded, but managed to collaborate more or less with the following publishers. At the end of August there will be a new, complete, Masks of Nyarlathotep edition also signed by me.

I have been in charge of Dungeons&Dragons translations for all the 3rd and 4th editions, and now I've found another love: The One Ring (also translated by me).

All along my gaming career I've played all sort of RPGs (yes, even the infamous Cyborg Commando), but the three above I consider the very best.

Ok, if we are also graduating into fav characters;

-Elvander "Night Star"- Elf Ranger 3rd ed D&d
-Alexander Nichols-Mob (Irish) Hit-man Gangbusters
-Hiru Tanaka- Kuritan Mech Warrior Maj. General (ret.) Rank earned during play (started campaign as a 2nd Lieutenant)

Honourable mention:
Jacob Thorne- Captain of Her Majesty's Privateer The Black Marie. RM game, the only PC in the history of our group to kill an opponent in one round. Also, only PC to kill an opponent with an "A" Crush crit while using a rapier.

Late to the party, and never ask a lady her age, but that said...

I played my first RPG in the summer of 1989, at the age of 12. There was a gaming club that met every Saturday in the local library. It must be one of the continuous running gaming clubs out there: every Saturday, for every thirty years now. My brother and I discovered that, and around the same time discovered our father's old stash of wargames, tucked away in the attic when I came along.

My first game was, as I recall, WEG's brilliant Star Wars RPG, although my brother (who discovered gaming with me, that summer long ago) claims we played Palladium's less brilliant Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first, then Star Wars. This is a matter of some sibling dispute. Nonetheless, despite the dispute, WEG's Star Wars remains my favourite game of all time, although, frankly, TOR is threatening to take on that title.

Note that I love TOR for much the same reason I loved WEG's Star Wars: both capture brilliantly the feel of the universe. WEG captured well that sense of swashbuckling space adventure, and TOR that sense of being in an enchanted world that is in constant danger from corruption and shadow.

As a side note, WEG's Star Wars allowed the most memorable campaign in which I've ever played: back in the mid-90s, before the Prequel Trilogy That Will Never Ever Be Named, we created a whole back story for the Clone Wars, and ran a campaign set in that era. A big part of the attraction of that era at that time was that it was almost entirely unexplored in canon material. So, you could play galaxy altering characters, and just as long as there was still a Galactic Empire at the end of things, it was all good. As I recall, eventually our characters discovered that we had been unwitting tools in the rise of the Empire. This was supposed to lead into a "Dawn of the Rebellion" campaign, with characters who survived the first campaign now working to build up what would become the Rebel Alliance, but that never materialized.

Oh, wistful memories of days gone by. Sigh.

On the subject of favourite campaigns(so far).

Best played- The Horned God and the Moon Sow for Slaine D20. Epic stuff with a very distinct feel.

Best GM'ed- Secrets of Tragic Europe (Hawkmoon MRQ)

Looking forward to running- War of the Dead(SW) and Tales of the Wilderland.

I'll chime in with my best campaigns:

WFRP - The Enemy Within
CoC - Delta Green: Countdown
KAP - The Great Pendragon Campaign

/wolf

@Garbar, Absolutely! I love that trilogy. In fact, I'm converting U1 to fit into a Middle-earth scenario for TOR (sans Lizardmen, heavy magic, & such, of course ).

In summary, the Dúnedain established a series of watchposts to gird the North-kingdom, & the house from U1 was/is one of these ruins. The smugglers are a gang working with the Ruffians who move up The Greenway-with or without Saruman or the Witch-king is unclear to the heroes initially (per The Hunt for the Ring in UT where the Witch-king haled the 'slant-eyed southerner'...

I only mention it to show that we can use anything, anytime, as long as we tweak the material to fit Middle-earth by reducing or eliminating the magic & treasure.

Good luck with your game - you've posted some great ideas on here!

Speaking of the Enemy Within Campaign... it's on ebay (first three parts anyway), but I just spent a load on boardgames and really should budget...

Woot! One of mine, and one I'm quite fond of.

Well, credit where it is due. SoTE was great fun to GM and you even sent me the missing stats for the NPCs.

The little sojourn in Garathorm and 'The Divine Mother of Jaguars' were my personal favourites.

It's great to read about fave games, campaigns, characters and how folks got gaming. So many of your experiences strike nostalgic chords for me.... I must apologise for the length of this entry, but I'm inspired to throw my 2bits in.

A 44 yr old Aussie - I read LotR at 10yrs old, was greatly inspired & raved about it continually to my family (The Hobbit, Silmarillion & Unfinished Tales digested by 12). One fateful day in 1981 my Aunty passed a shop in town and saw "a game based on LotR - called Dungeons & Dragons". I told Mom I had to check this out next time we went to town, but Karma interceded a week later when Mom's boss gave to her his son's unwanted D&D set (old pre-Basic blue rules) with B2 Keep on the Borderlands and some old chipped dice. Mom got home late - and I stayed up ALL night reading the books, trying to make sense of it all.
The next day- lunchtime in the library showing D&D to my best pal. We soon took to rolling the odd dice (I laugh now at the thrill we got simply throwing the bizarre polyhedrals!) when LO & BEHOLD the table next to us jumped up in fits of amazement. They had just the night before inherited a copy of Empire of The Petal Throne .... BUT they had no dice. We promptly joined forces and thus was born my first gaming group - with me as DM for D&D and a new friend running EPT.
I soon moved on to Advanced D&D, Runequest, Tunnels & Trolls, Traveller, Stormbringer, Call of Cthulhu, Aftermath & Bushido. I bought the first set of Rolemaster to arrive in my country and immediately began a MiddleEarth campaign (pre- MERP!). In over 30 years of playing, creating & running many RPG campaigns, one-offs, convention tournaments, etc I'd have to say that currently my favourite game systems are Call of Cthulhu and The One Ring (I'll always have a special place in my heart of course for AD&D, RM & EPT).

Games I've most enjoyed include:
MiddleEarth RoleMaster; AD&D Ravens Bluff (Forgotten Realms); AD&D Greyhawk; Space Opera (Fantasy Games Unlimited); Call of Cthulhu; World of Darkness (combined Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, etc); Cyberpunk; Man, Myth & Magic (by Herbie Brennan)

Fave published campaigns/adventures:
Masks of Nyarlathotep, Shadows of YogSothoth (CoC);
Ardor (MiddleEarth Rolemaster) - as a Tolkien purist I still feel conflicted by this one!;
S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, U1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, I3-5 Desert of Desolation series, I6 Ravenloft, N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God, N5 Under Illefarn (all AD&D);
B1 In Search of the Unknown, X2 Castle Amber (D&D)

Games/adventures I most wish but are yet to run/play:
Horror on the Orient Express (CoC); King Arthur Pendragon; Dresden Files

Fave characters:
1. Lauremir Ingwerion Fealatar - Vanyar Elf (don't hate me!) returned to MiddleEarth to champion the Valar and rekindle Eru's fire in the hearts of Free Folk (played >20yrs). The only character I know to have surfed the breaks of Aman!
2. Aremiel Falstaff - Transhuman TechnoMage space captain and reluctant galactic hero (>10yrs, Space Opera)
3. Isilath DuLotho - Half-elven Nightblade of Umbar, swashing his buckle to foil the forces of darkness.
4. Valric Ulfwine - Hierophant Druid of Greyhawk (a hulking & hairy gentle giant... until he's angry!)
5. TomBomJollyTom ShabaLalala - psychadelically-tattooed featherless birdman hippie shaman .... in space!
6. Kuz LongHair - noble savage who fails to see the point of wealth, but survives by his cunning, athleticism & natural charm .... and his almighty great spear.
.... the list goes on .... and on ...

Thanks if you've read this far

Ardor is one of the modules I originally ignored because it wasn't canon. But I changed my mind and eventually found a copy. I haven't run it yet, though.

It's not canon, but it is set outside the boundaries of the novels, it allows the players to become major players in Middle-earth without having to change any details in LOTR. Mind you, the PCs better pretty high level, as they'll have some powerful opponents.

Alternatively, you can file off the serial numbers and run it in a campaign not set in Middle-earth. That works just as well.

It just occurred to me that the forum structure does provide for 'Nosey Parkers'.

In weeks and months to come, if I'm ever curious about a person it'd be neat to find their post from this Topic copied into their Profile, instead of having to find this Topic again to look them up.

I've done mine.

Cheers,
--Os.

Great idea Os ... mine's now updated accordingly

Just updated my info as well.

48 ... will be 49 next weekend. I've been playing RPGs since the Summer of '75 ... I was 11. I started playing Avalon Hill and SPI wargames, the Summer before that.

In no particular order, I've played... (ones I ran, too, I marked with an "*")
Of course ... The One Ring RPG ... I've ONLY ran it, though
D&D (started with the old white box) ... ran Basic/Expert D&D and beyond
DragonQuest (from SPI, then TSR)* ... my first campaign was in this system
Chivalry & Sorcery, 1st edition+*
Call of Cthulhu, all editions*
Chill
GURPS*
The Fantasy Trip (pre-GURPS ... Melee and Wizard)
Pendragon
Theatrix
RuneQuest
Aftermath
The Morrow Project*
Villains & Vigilantes
Bushido
Champions*
Hero System*
Marvel Super Heroes (pre-SAGA versions, 1 and 2)
DC Heroes
Cyberpunk (1st edition)
Traveler
Space Opera
Star Frontiers
Universe
Boot Hill
Top Secret*
James Bond RPG
Role Master (or as some of our group called it, Role Bastard)*
Space Master*
MERP, all 3 versions*
The Lord of the Rings RolePlaying Game*(once)
World of Darkness*
Vampire the Masquerade
Werewolf the Apocalypse
Empire of the Petal Throne
Metamorphosis Alpha
Star Wars (WEGs version ... the best version)*
ElfQuest*
Basic RolePlaying*
Elric (1st edition)
Stormbringer
Legend of the Five Rings
7th Sea
Warhammer FRP
Beyond the Supernatural
Heroes Unlimited
Serenity
Supernatural
Star Trek RPG (FASA version ... generated a character for the Decipher/Last Unicorn version, but never got to play it)
Babylon 5 RPG (generated a character for the Mongoose version, but never got to play it)
Pathfinder*

If I can think of any more, I'll amend my list.

Ah, yes!

It's the source of one of the ongoing jokes in my gaming group...

My PC grabs an NPC by the collar and pulls him towards him, lifting him from his feet. "You! What's the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh!? You know, Module U2!?" It'd been a long night playing (we'd just finished up U1 and sequed right into U2) and we were a bit punch drunk. It was funny at the time ... but we still reference it when we're hitting up the rumor mongers for information.

Good times...

Crikey Throrsgold - you've been at it for longer than I!
So for interests sake (& bragging rights + risk of being called an old fogie) - who is the most experienced RPGer in our TOR community? Does anyone trump Throrsgold's Summer of '75?

So - is your list in chrono order of playing?
It looks like you've listed every game you've played/owned (For the sake of the thread - I hope it doesn't set a precedent ) ... I'm most interested to hear about gamers themselves, ie: what got you into the hobby, which games were most inspiring & why, great memories, fave adventures or events, memorable characters, things like that. I'd be happy to read your take on those things

I note you played Chill. I got the original Pacesetter game on its release and at the time found it to be refreshingly good fun, quite a stretch from D&D-style gaming.

You too played numerous FGU games. My groups enjoyed fun campaigns with these games - DESPITE the systems being very number-crunchy and somewhat unwieldy. We always joked about Aftermath & how there was even a formula for calculating hit on the body of a target jumping across an open doorway as you shoot a firearm at them (and the calculation included such variables as muzzle velocities, etc!)... crazy complex rules if you wanted to use them all - we chose not to and had great times.

I recall being enthralled by ingenious mechanics & novel systems of new games as they came out, even if they were sometimes clunky or complex. We thought the action tables for Marvel (original) and DC Heroes were really funky, and liked in the western game Wild West how we ran a ruler between two linear scales to determine success targets. (I had a fun character Deacon Deakin - a tough frontier priest who had a sawn-off shotty inside a large hollowed-out bible ... the things we do!)

Besides the above-mentioned stuff - I'm also keen to hear from forum-members what developments in game mechanics & systems were real learning moments or epiphanies in your growth as a gamer.

One example for me was when AD&D brought in THACO so we didn't have to itemise To Hit adjustments for every weapon for each of 21 Armour Classes. I thought that was brillo at the time.
Another is the critical tables in RoleMaster (we jokingly called it "Roll Master" or "Roll Monger"). We LOVED getting crits and describing the results.

From later in my gaming life (post- Dice Jockey!) I cherish my first encounter with Fudge and other narrative-based RPG where the fun is powered by players' creative input more so then the results of dice rolls against tables.

I also love windsurfing, sailing, fine wine and long walks on the beach! Nyuk-nyuk!
But enough about me - let's hear about y'selves...

Sorry for starting a fresh 'Introductions' topic: Elen Sila Lumenn Omentielvo

So, I'm almost 50. I've been wargaming since I was ten, and roleplaying since our school wargames club acquired the first rpg we could get our hands on - 'white box' D&D. We also played Traveller at that time, though my memories of that are hazier. Anyone remember Judges' Guild and their seminal 'City-State of the Invincible Overlord'? That was the first setting we played in which felt anything like 'real' in any way - everything we'd done up to that point was, to put it as crudely as it deserves: 'Zoo-dungeons'.

I had a break from RPGs (and wargaming) whilst doing my first degree. After graduating the first time, and getting married, my wife and I bought (I think this was late 1984, might have been 1985) a copy of ICE's MERP. Whilst photocopying character sheets in the Uni library, she bumped into someone we knew vaguely, who was also photcopying MERP character sheets, and thus was born 'our' first RPG group. We played little but MERP for the first couple of years, but then graually branched out into Bushido (which three of us, keen on Japanese culture, loved, but which the rest struggled with, from a cultural perpective, though they enjoyed the adventuring).

We 'tinkered with' MERP's mechanics & we bought Rolemaster, and 'married' the two in various ways at various times... MERP with Rolemaster critical tables was fun - the crits were less predictable than the MERP ones. Crits were the best thing about MERP/RM - they always provided some light relief! MERP was a bit frustrating for a Tolkien 'purist' like me. We had great fun with it, and did all sorts of stuff which 'skirted around' (sometimes right on the edge of) the 'great events' of Middle Earth, as well as wilder, wackier, and more 'far-flung' stuff. But it wasn't 'Middle Earth' the way it was written by the great man.

We tried Spacemaster, and various other 'hard S-F' games, but they didn't work for our group - half the group were physicists of one sort or another, and the rest definitely weren't - not a good combination. But whatever else we played, we always came back to MERP, sooner or later.

I bought Harnmaster, and 'sat on it' for a long, long, time, before introducing it to the group. We had big fun with that - the 'low-fantasy' aspect of it appealed - we played most of it much more like an historical game. And for that it's great - the feudal world Robin devised is brilliantly realised. The system is really good too - it's probably my favourite 'crunchy' RPG system. i was tempted, more than once, to adapt it for Middle Earth, but didn't have time or energy for the task, working full-time in a lab doing research, plus teaching and admin.

Then WFRP2 came out, which answered earlier critisisms we'd had with WFRP (the first version great but flawed, we felt - there were issues of balance). We've palyed it since it came out, finally (?) running out of steam (and ideas) earlier this summer. I find the setting rather too grim for my personal tastes though - one is, at best, simply slowing the inevitable slide into chaos, and it gets depressing after a while. Dark Heresy is quite fun, though the setting is, if anything, even more dystopian. I haven't GMed it though, I couldn't be bothered to learn the system well enough - it's just too detailed for me these days.

And then along comes TOR, which looks, so far, as if it might well be my roleplaying Nirvana. The group has shrunk in recent years, from a high of eleven, to a mere four (one of whom is always at least an hour late turning up), but we've recruited, with no difficulty at all, two more players (a married couple) for TOR.

So that, in a few, is the 'edited highlights' of my roleplaying history.

I also play miniature wargames, and have just had my first set of rules, AVGVSTVS to AVRELIAN, published - they're aimed at conflicts in the era roughly 25BC to AD275 - the height of the Roman empire. I've got a little website about my wargaming. And I swim (I used to compete, and have never really got out of the habit of training), and read, and am churchwarden of a local church - which takes up an awful lot of time, but that's not surprising, as we have a congregation of about 600, and a staff of 11.

Cheers,
Phil

Harn seems to borrow a lot from Middle-earth. The elves call themselves Sindar and even travel to other lands away from the world. I have a few products, but I never played the system, so you know better than I if the system is a good fit or not.

MERP has always been one of my favorites. Not always true to the Professor's vision, but I have a lot of fond memories of that game.

I have developed a (mostly) hard science fiction game using the HERO system, although I've also used GURPS for it.

We stuck with Aftermath! quite hard despite all that, but lost faith when we peaked at 2 hours to do 20 seconds of a firefight for two PCs vs. a couple of droids. We always joked about how there was a formula for how many bullets you could pull out of an outside pocket of a backpack with one action's worth of rummaging. And how with two rulebooks , the rule you wanted was always in the third one you searched through. (There's a lesson for TOR in that, what with its splitting the different depths of rules for the same thing between the AB and the LMB!)

I should have put BUSHIDO in my list of honourable mentions. My group(s) never gained the right traction with it because we were only interested in the adventuring, but everything for an immersive adventuring and cultural characterisation experience was all there in two elegantly slim rulebooks.

Ooh, to trot off the stuff that comes immediately to mind: early stuff like

• the invention of Magic Points to liberate you from Vancian cast-it-and-forget-it magic.
• Rolemaster's combat tables that made AT1 (no armour) a viable or for some people even preferable -- if always risky -- option.
• 'The Creeping Crud' (system-agnostic homebrew!) as a condition that afflicts gamerish PCs who insist on never removing their armour, even to sleep.
• Rolemaster's 'OB/DB split' to let you allocate how much effort you're putting into attacking and defending, respectively. (They missed a trick by calling it OB -- Offensive Bonus -- and letting you alternately commit some of it for DB -- Defensive Bonus. They kept saying 'you gotta parry', but doing it just went against people's nature. In my homebrew I renamed it CB, for Combat Bonus, which was to be portioned out between offence and defence, and I think that made it psychologically easier to portion it out realistically.)
  The Riddle of Steel works in the same direction, but at the level of allocating dice from your pool instead of allocating percentile points, and goes on to do so much more.
• Fate points. I think WFRP 1e got the credit for being the first to bring that into our lives.
• Weapon length rules; probably not a popular choice... But I got into Anglo-Saxon combat re-enactment (regia.org) precisely to find out what it was really like, and this was the one factor was most important. I think HarnMaster probably got it most right (though it ought really to be combined with a Size, i.e. reach, mechanic).
• Though I never played it): TORG's special cards allowing a one-off bonus or special on X -- but which crucially could be traded within the party so that the combat wombat could trade his 'You develop a love interest' card for the narrative player's 'You can deliver double damage on one hit'...

And less historically:

• Trail of Cthulhu liberates everyone from the issues of a character's inventory: it's laborious to tool up with everything you might need, whilst on the other hand being exploitative and 'gamerish' to be fully tooled up at all times. Your points in 'Preparedness' give you a certain level of being able to reach into your carpet bag and pull out X, which you just thought might come in handy, without having had to write it down beforehand.
• Burning Wheel's 'Instincts', like "I draw my sword whenever there's danger", to give you a freebie in some situations -- and possibly an embarrassment in others.
• The boardgame Shadows Over Camelot's mechanic whereby you can do something which admittedly disadvantages the team, but gains you a 'Fate Point' equivalent which you can later spend to (hopefully) greater advantage.
  I think it was Burning Wheel again which cast this principle into RPG terms, as a way of letting PCs do 'dumb' -- but accurately in-character -- stuff without incurring the wrath of their teammates if it meant they got a 'Fate Point' they could use to haul their teammates' arses out of the fire on the next occasion.
• D&D 4e's Healing Surges for recovering from combat without needing recourse to a priest with hands of glowing light.
• TOR's combat advantage dice gained from a Battle roll, to spend on something, at some point in the combat, but which beautifully can be given to another party member.

There's got to be more, but the flow has slowed...

Who's next?

Cheers,
--Os.

I don't remember anyone I've gamed with in Rolemaster using part of their characters' OB to add to their DB. I understand the parrying part; but being mainly AD&D players, I guess we wanted to make sure we hit the enemy first.

But our biggest use of the MERP/RM game was using the Critical Hit and Fumble tables in our AD&D game. That made the campaign deadlier.

Some really great comments in this post, fantastic to see similar shared experiences and chance happenings

Well born in 68 so by my reckoning I'm 21.... Shhh back there! One of our group is 18 though and he is enthralled which is promising.

I Started off in the early 80’s played something round a friend of a friend’s what I later learned was something called AD&D. Looking back to those distant gloomy brilliant memories full of mystery and adventure is magical, and there were painted figures!

Well I dont know about life changing rules etc theres been so many developments over the years, I think if we like TOR we maybe all want rules that support immersion into that setting we love... and I think they may have done it!

There was an epiphany right at the start and it came round the corner without me expecting it, it started when I got a ZX81 'Home computer' one birthday, wow it was rubbish and brilliant at the same time, it promised things maybe it couldn’t deliver but somehow you knew things were coming, better things and having that weird mutated calculator that painfully drew green wireframe spaceships on a black screen… wow, rubbish AND brilliant… and it held interest briefly. Only a few months later Christmas… Dad knew more was needed and thus The ZX Spectrum 48K, glossy black with a rainbow logo and odd but nice rubber keys that gave a reassuring ‘almost’ click when u pressed them, and the games! Lets not talk about Elite or The Lords of Midnight, or Manic Miner we know we loved them. But there were other strange things, Text adventures… and even The Quill, an impossible promise of being able to make your own adventures! And… 2 land mark events 2 computer Games that cemented my fate. Both had books with them, one the Warlock of Firetop Mountain and the other The Hobbit for the ZX Spectrum. I read the Hobbit and discovered J.R.R Tolkien and played the game it accompanied on the Speccy and I discovered Fighting Fantasy too! That lead through The Forest of Doom and Citadel of Chaos to the Shamutanti Hills and beyond…

Add in reading the lord of the rings, the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales over and over and the utter heart break of discovering the great man had followed Luthien beyond the sunset and there would never be any chance of asking him questions or of any more books? Ouch...That hurt my young heart. So I read them once a year, just long enough to forget enough each time i re read them again.

Then came new friends at secondary school and they played fighting fantasy too and read warlock magazine and another called White Dwarf! Wow so much in that mag back then and it lead us to…

D&D for a good long while that we developed lots of house rules and moved unwittingly but briefly towards our next stop AD&D, then Warhammer Battles with Skaven and crazed Monks and a nuclear powered robot, and lizard men....
Then in the pages of White Dwarf I found Runequest which has always been a great love of mine, even if there are issues with the various rules systems and the lore can feel a bit overbearing at times. Briefly great fun with Paranoia, Tunnels and trolls, Call of Cthulhu – Occasional bouts of this wonderful game. Then a biggey, despite its bad magic system Warhammer 1e was really the biggest campaign we ever played and had some great moments especially between some very strong characters that then unfortunately never meshed with newer players that came later and ultimately lead to the break up of a group that had played for years together, such is life! I have WFRP 2 unplayed but one day... That group did a pretty convincing stint of SLA Industries too which im surprised no one here has mentioned! And Shadowrun. It also lead to me befriending and working with the guys at the brilliant fanzine Warpstone. Castle Falkenstein a great little game. Pendragon mainly the Saxon stuff sadly as I wanted to explore Mallory's mood and story.

I recently discovered some Gems I would like to play
I have all three 40K core books and they look so well done again a must play some day.
The Dragon Age in another setting I think and Mystaria looks interesting I would like to try the classic 4 classes and DA seems to handle it (technically 3 but it covers all 4 + )
Spider god’s Bride One of 3 supplements by Xoth Publishing fantastic Sword and Sorcery genre and anyone that likes Conan/ R.E.Howard needs to look for Xoth publishing imo. Would love to play Slaine and I long to play Empire of the Petal Throne just lack interested players. Space 1889 is waiting to be played too

The One Ring… MERP was one of our most successful campaigns though flawed it let us play there you know… And it all started with the Hobbit book, it’s matching computer text adventure and a Fighting Fantasy book which I still love. How fitting!

Its early days for me and The One Ring but like so many here have said over and over, its simply wonderful, it doesnt intrude on the setting, it allows us to explore it and importantly with respect and obvious love from the creators. I started our first session recently and I described it bravely as possibly the best game I've seen, from the production to the art to the writing and rules. And I stand by that comment, there are games I love, but... My Hope score is high with this game and it's future, I have no shadow upon my brow.

Thanks for sharing, brother Thig
I too found first references to some games in The White Dwarf. (I don't recall seeing many non-TSR games advertised in early Dragon mag.... just TSR and miniatures).
Not much RPG material was coming to Australian shores in '81. I remember drooling over the oh-so-brief gameshop catalogues & ads in White Dwarf (pre- Warhammer, when it covered D&D, Traveller, Tunnels & Trolls, etc). Back in those days I ordered by mail to import T&T, Runequest & more, and even joined TSR's RPGA via snail-mail .... all of which was great adventure for this wee lad but, looking back now from the high-falutin' interweb-age of electrickery, I think I must've been crazy! ie: Send a hopeful letter around the world asking if they would send me a game if I sent a money order, then wait a month for a reply, then send money away.... and without fail I always got my game product a month or more later. Ahh, the good ol'days when we generally trusted everyone!

OK - I'm blathering about the good ol'days, it must be old age setting in! G'night folks!

Haha , yeah they were the good old days you're right. It was like you say and it was an adventure in itself just looking through all those adds and tidbits eh?

As for blathering I think I did way too much but theres a lot of positivity here and its contagious and I blame my mum's Irish roots for using 50 words when 1 does the trick

But what a fascinating subject this thread is, seeing different people's routes and roots

The age range is very revealing alone.