I was a nerd, alright? Albeit a nerd who never possessed the academic qualities most often associated with nerds. I loved so many of the nerdy things, but my nerd credentials fell apart when it came to stuff like science and numbers. It's for this reason that I loved the storytelling aspect of role-playing games, but mostly ignored the roll of the dice. Or die.
See? I don't even know which is right. Worst. Nerd. Ever.
RPGs were a huge part of my life for a good ten years. From the age of 14 we'd spend entire days playing through another chapter of months-long campaigns. As I got older, I found a new gang to play with - through which I met Mr Cheese, who later came to work at Digitiser. We'd meet every Tuesday night, but the group broke up eventually, as everyone drifted back towards their real lives.
For me, I always preferred being the GM - the Games Master - to being a player. I'd spend the entire week dreaming up the story for the following week's session, drawing pictures of monsters, creating maps of locations... It scratched that itchy part of my brain which still has a need to tell stories, to create worlds, and characters. Role-playing fuelled and satisfied my imagination.
I still miss it terribly. Video game RPGs don't quite do it for me in the same way that the old tabletop ones did. They're too restrictive, too many rules - which my group would always be prepared to ignore in service of the story.
Tabletop role-playing isn't the phenomenon that it used to be, but it's still around; my step-daughter is an avid Dungeons & Dragons player, a fact I take great comfort in .
Also: I take great comfort in doing this - listing my favourite tabletop role-playing games ever. Here they come now!
See? I don't even know which is right. Worst. Nerd. Ever.
RPGs were a huge part of my life for a good ten years. From the age of 14 we'd spend entire days playing through another chapter of months-long campaigns. As I got older, I found a new gang to play with - through which I met Mr Cheese, who later came to work at Digitiser. We'd meet every Tuesday night, but the group broke up eventually, as everyone drifted back towards their real lives.
For me, I always preferred being the GM - the Games Master - to being a player. I'd spend the entire week dreaming up the story for the following week's session, drawing pictures of monsters, creating maps of locations... It scratched that itchy part of my brain which still has a need to tell stories, to create worlds, and characters. Role-playing fuelled and satisfied my imagination.
I still miss it terribly. Video game RPGs don't quite do it for me in the same way that the old tabletop ones did. They're too restrictive, too many rules - which my group would always be prepared to ignore in service of the story.
Tabletop role-playing isn't the phenomenon that it used to be, but it's still around; my step-daughter is an avid Dungeons & Dragons player, a fact I take great comfort in .
Also: I take great comfort in doing this - listing my favourite tabletop role-playing games ever. Here they come now!
ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
The daddy. Like most role-players, Dungeons & Dragons was my way into the hobby. I was invited by a friend to one of their regular groups. We started, I believe, with few hours of the basic game, before moving onto the more complex, broader, rules of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Being an enormous nerd, creating my D&D characters by throwing dice was the most exciting "rolling-up" I ever did.
It fired my imagination; it felt like an acceptable form of play-acting, at an age when running around in the woods pretending sticks were guns would be considered unseemly for a teenager. One of my favourite AD&D memories was of visiting my sister - then living on Edwards Air Force Base in California - and playing a game with her none-more-80s-American neighbours. The husband looked like Ned Flanders, and they had a US flag on their wall, and we drank Kool-Aid and ate chips.
Though I loved the thick, hardback, AD&D books - the Dungeon Master's Guide, the Player Handbook, the Monster Manual - with their gorgeous cover artwork, I was never a massive fan of fantasy as a genre. I've tried, and failed, on a number of occasions, to read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
When I discovered that there were other role-playing games out there, which were more in line with my sensibilities, I left Dungeons & Dragons behind.
But I still remember it fondly as my gateway drug. Harthor The Hound (yes, I know!), you will never be forgotten.
It fired my imagination; it felt like an acceptable form of play-acting, at an age when running around in the woods pretending sticks were guns would be considered unseemly for a teenager. One of my favourite AD&D memories was of visiting my sister - then living on Edwards Air Force Base in California - and playing a game with her none-more-80s-American neighbours. The husband looked like Ned Flanders, and they had a US flag on their wall, and we drank Kool-Aid and ate chips.
Though I loved the thick, hardback, AD&D books - the Dungeon Master's Guide, the Player Handbook, the Monster Manual - with their gorgeous cover artwork, I was never a massive fan of fantasy as a genre. I've tried, and failed, on a number of occasions, to read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
When I discovered that there were other role-playing games out there, which were more in line with my sensibilities, I left Dungeons & Dragons behind.
But I still remember it fondly as my gateway drug. Harthor The Hound (yes, I know!), you will never be forgotten.
SPACE 1889
Steampunk at a time when steampunk didn't really exist, Space 1889 was set in an alternate Victorian era, where The British Empire had spaceships, and the Solar System was colonised.
The most thrilling part of this game for me were the huge fold-out maps of other planets. When I studied the map for our own Moon, I discovered that several of the craters had been named after members of Marillion (not a joke).
The most thrilling part of this game for me were the huge fold-out maps of other planets. When I studied the map for our own Moon, I discovered that several of the craters had been named after members of Marillion (not a joke).
DC SUPER-HEROES
Though I was always more a Marvel fan than a DC fan, the Marvel Super-Heroes role-playing game wasn't a patch on Mayfair Games' DC Super-Heroes system. We used it as the basis for the longest-running campaign - heavily influenced by 2000AD's Zenith, and DC's own Watchmen - I was ever a part of. We swiftly ditched the DC heroes in favour of our own characters and super-hero mythos.
However, I loved its Watchmen modules. Written by Dan Greenerg, it filled in a ton of the classic graphic novel's backstory, using the notes Alan Moore had written for the creation of the series.
However, I loved its Watchmen modules. Written by Dan Greenerg, it filled in a ton of the classic graphic novel's backstory, using the notes Alan Moore had written for the creation of the series.
TWILIGHT 2000
Another long-running campaign of ours, Twilight 2000 was a dour post-apocalyptic RPG set in Europe post-World War 3.
Rather than go all Mad Max, and have mutants running around (though I believe there was a mutant expansion) it tried to keep things grounded. Though real-world events have rendered the game obsolete, at the time it felt real and believable in a way that most other RPGs never strived to be. It may also hold the honour of being one of the most depressing games ever created.
Rather than go all Mad Max, and have mutants running around (though I believe there was a mutant expansion) it tried to keep things grounded. Though real-world events have rendered the game obsolete, at the time it felt real and believable in a way that most other RPGs never strived to be. It may also hold the honour of being one of the most depressing games ever created.
PARANOIA
From one extreme to another... Paranoia was a "comedy" role-playing game. Set in a 1984-ish future city, where all information is controlled by an omniscient computer - whose dedication to secrecy extended even to the rules of the game itself - the core conceit of Paranoia is that players couldn't die.
Well... they could, but every time they did (and it happened frequently; almost any wound was lethal) their consciousness was downloaded into a new clone body. Everybody had a secret - missions kept from the other players - and the general vibe was a bit wacky, and dripping with heavy-handed satire.
We also spent some time playing Toon, an RPG set in a Looney Tunes-styyle cartoon world where being blown up by TNT, or having an anvil drop on your head, would merely put you out of action temporarily rather than kill you. Intended as a parody of other role-playing rules systems, the players and the Games Master - here styled as a "The Animator" - were actively encouraged to break the rules.
Fun, but limited.
Well... they could, but every time they did (and it happened frequently; almost any wound was lethal) their consciousness was downloaded into a new clone body. Everybody had a secret - missions kept from the other players - and the general vibe was a bit wacky, and dripping with heavy-handed satire.
We also spent some time playing Toon, an RPG set in a Looney Tunes-styyle cartoon world where being blown up by TNT, or having an anvil drop on your head, would merely put you out of action temporarily rather than kill you. Intended as a parody of other role-playing rules systems, the players and the Games Master - here styled as a "The Animator" - were actively encouraged to break the rules.
Fun, but limited.
CYBERPUNK 2020
Inspired by the writing of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and others, Cyberpunk was set in the far-off future world of 2020, where everyone wears mirror shades, has cybernetic implants, and is ruled over by sinister mega corporations. Hacking into cyberspace was a big part of the core gameplay, though it was released at a time when the Internet was still a way off - and I confess that I struggled to get my head around the notion of bulletin boards and newsgroups.
SHADOWRUN
Possibly my all time favourite RPG, Shadowrun was a mix of Cyberpunk and Dungeons & Dragons. It took place in a dystopian, cyberpunk-y future, where magic has reawakened.
It mixed hacking, mega corporations and cybernetic implants with spell-casting and dragons. Animals evolved overnight into new magical forms, and some humans transformed into orcs and goblins (though, in a Europe sourcebook, it rather racist-ly implied that orcs mostly came from humans of Indian and Pakistani descent).
Nevertheless, my favourite aspect of Shadowrun were its gorgeous full-colour rules and sourcebooks, which depicted the world beautifully. It was popular enough to become a series of trading cards, novels, and video games. Surely it's overdue for a movie?
It mixed hacking, mega corporations and cybernetic implants with spell-casting and dragons. Animals evolved overnight into new magical forms, and some humans transformed into orcs and goblins (though, in a Europe sourcebook, it rather racist-ly implied that orcs mostly came from humans of Indian and Pakistani descent).
Nevertheless, my favourite aspect of Shadowrun were its gorgeous full-colour rules and sourcebooks, which depicted the world beautifully. It was popular enough to become a series of trading cards, novels, and video games. Surely it's overdue for a movie?
STAR WARS
Oddly, I never played this much, but I absolutely devoured the sourcebooks. By 1987 I'd very much drifted away from Star Wars, but the sourcebooks reignited my love, and became hugely influential in laying the foundation for much of the Star Wars fiction which followed.
It created names for races only glimpsed in the films, offered schematics of never-seen-on-screen ships and locations, and even provided a full floor plan of the Millennium Falcon that successfully made sense of what was shown in the films. Most significantly, it signalled to Lucasfilm that there was still very much an appetite for Star Wars.
The Star Wars Roleplaying led directly to Timothy Zahn's trilogy of novels that kicked off the so-called "expanded universe", and it's possible that without it we wouldn't still be getting Star Wars movies today.
It created names for races only glimpsed in the films, offered schematics of never-seen-on-screen ships and locations, and even provided a full floor plan of the Millennium Falcon that successfully made sense of what was shown in the films. Most significantly, it signalled to Lucasfilm that there was still very much an appetite for Star Wars.
The Star Wars Roleplaying led directly to Timothy Zahn's trilogy of novels that kicked off the so-called "expanded universe", and it's possible that without it we wouldn't still be getting Star Wars movies today.
CALL OF CTHULHU
A game I only GM-ed once or twice, Mr Cheese was our DM supreme when it came to Call of Cthulhu. Set in the dark, mysterious, insanity-filled worlds created by H.P. Lovecraft, it was all old gods, vampires, and massive interdimensional things with tentacles. Unlike most RPGs, sanity was as much a resource as a character's health.
As a setting I always slightly struggled to wrap my head around it. In my efforts I tried to read some Lovecraft novels, but just found them a bit weird.
As a setting I always slightly struggled to wrap my head around it. In my efforts I tried to read some Lovecraft novels, but just found them a bit weird.
UNDERGROUND
One of the last RPGs I ever bought - which I picked up in the role-playing section of the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street - I was drawn to Underground due to its gorgeous cover art by Frank Darrow, who'd illustrated Frank Miller's Hard Boiled graphic novel.
Inspired in part by Pat Mills' Marshall Law comics series, it was a wry, cynical, satirical spin on superheroes - alien technology, super soldiers, a heroic origin, and Virtual Reality brainwashing were all considerations when creating a character.
With its tongue firmly wedged in its cheek, it was set in a world where Chuck D had a national holiday in his honour, Europe was ruled by fascistic Scientologists, Halloween is banned, and US military veterans are hated by the public, but given privileged status by the government.
Players assume the role of super-powered mercenaries, who have been brainwashed into thinking they were former super-heroes, who'd lived in a stylised Silver Age comic book world.
Inspired in part by Pat Mills' Marshall Law comics series, it was a wry, cynical, satirical spin on superheroes - alien technology, super soldiers, a heroic origin, and Virtual Reality brainwashing were all considerations when creating a character.
With its tongue firmly wedged in its cheek, it was set in a world where Chuck D had a national holiday in his honour, Europe was ruled by fascistic Scientologists, Halloween is banned, and US military veterans are hated by the public, but given privileged status by the government.
Players assume the role of super-powered mercenaries, who have been brainwashed into thinking they were former super-heroes, who'd lived in a stylised Silver Age comic book world.
JUDGE DREDD
Another RPG I played only a few times, but which - like Star Wars - was worth buying for the sourcebook alone. It offered a coherent timeline of Dredd's world, and fleshed out Mega-City One. Like Star Wars The Roleplaying Game, it brought coherence and functionality to Dredd's chaotic world.
Expansions offered maps of whole city areas, and blocks, and - having been produced by Warhammer creators Games Workshop - there were a range of rather lovely lead miniatures.
Expansions offered maps of whole city areas, and blocks, and - having been produced by Warhammer creators Games Workshop - there were a range of rather lovely lead miniatures.
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