The Lay Of The Land, Part 4...

Saga continuoso...

I played Dungeons & Dragons from 1980 until the early 1990's. By the 90's though, I was unable to keep up with the plethora of gaming supplements that TSR was churning out. There was so much material to choose from. Books, game pieces, multi-world guides, individual character class manuals... Ugh! As mentioned in the first post, I was at a point in my life that I just didn't have time to read all this stuff. The whole game was getting way too complicated and expensive. To make matters worse, when you met new players, you needed to discover what version they were playing and what world they were from! And folks were getting attitudes about this stuff. When I bought into the game it was simple. It was Tolkien thinly veiled. It was one big fantasy world where everything could collide on one giant landscape. It was a world where physics just didn't matter.

At this same time, I was heavily involved in community theatre, jumping from show to show and closing too many bars with fellow castmates. From this wild bunch, I was blessed with some great friendships and, of all things, a core group of folks interested in playing rpgs. I think theatre-folk and game-geeks have much in common. I'll save that pondering for another day.

Now most of these folks had no experience with rpgs. None to speak of at least. So, there was only one point of entry in my mind - the blue box. It was simple. It was fun. It ended up being the right choice, too - initially. We diddled with the introductory module for a bit, cramming in games on weekends when we were not doing shows. Keep On The Borderlands always rocked! The damn thing just works like a charm every time! It's like Colt 45.

When we had worn out the novelty of the basic game, one of the guys was hooked (just so happened to be Evil Minion Master Bob for those who have gamed with us). He went out and bought the D&D Rules Cyclopedia (an update of the basic set). Fed by his excitement, I got one, too - and our happy little band of adventurers traversed along that path for a while more. Playing the old modules and just having the best of times (all over again for me!).

But then... I hit that wall. That threshold where you have to decide which world was best...

So, I went shopping.

And that's when I spied the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying System.

Continued tomorrow...