Did you ever wonder what you'd be like (in relation to gaming) if your gaming had started with a different system?

Like many gamers of yore I started with Basic D&D and moved on to AD&D.  This comprised the bulk of my gaming for many years (about 4, until we started trying other games like V&V, CoC, TOON, and Star Frontiers).

In any case, while I have some beefs with D20, I find that I'm still drawn to it because it embodies many of the core elements I like to use in play.  The biggest being Hit Point systems.

A good contrast is Savage Worlds, which by all standards is a better fit for me...except for the wound system.  While it works well and all, I just can't get away from my desire to have a simple Hit Point system.

Makes me wonder if this is something that stems from my early gaming?  What if my first system would have been Star Wars D6 (of course I had already been playing for about 7 years before that came out, but that's moot)?  Would I find hit point systems incomprehensible compared to wound systems?

I despise hit location charts....what if my first exposure to RPGs would have been Runequest?  Would I find hit location charts a total necessity to any RPG after that?

I just wonder how much out first experiences effect how we define good role playing or good systems throughout our RPG "career".

I think our experiences generally define our tastes.  The new gamer who has played one or two systems probably has some strong opinions for those systems, or even favors them.  As time goes on and we're exposed to more and more things, however, I think our initial experiences matter less.

I can't say that D6 Star Wars colors any of my perception or tastes.

I think they do, but not necessarily in a positive light, as you describe.  My first roleplaying experience was with 1st edition AD&D, and what I came away from that experience with was an intense dislike of level and class systems.  It was the second game that I played, Traveller, that showed me that RPGs could be done without levels, and my third RPG, RuneQuest, that showed me it could be done without character classes.  After those two discoveries, I had little but derision for anything related to D&D until the last few months.  So, in many ways, my first roleplaying experience caused rather a reaction formation.

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaI think they do, but not necessarily in a positive light, as you describe.  My first roleplaying experience was with 1st edition AD&D, and what I came away from that experience with was an intense dislike of level and class systems.  It was the second game that I played, Traveller, that showed me that RPGs could be done without levels, and my third RPG, RuneQuest, that showed me it could be done without character classes.  After those two discoveries, I had little but derision for anything related to D&D until the last few months.  So, in many ways, my first roleplaying experience caused rather a reaction formation.

This is more consistent with my own experiences as well though without the derision.  We had a brief anti-D&D period but came back to it.  I think it's gone for good now, though.

Quote from: HalfjackThis is more consistent with my own experiences as well though without the derision.  We had a brief anti-D&D period but came back to it.  I think it's gone for good now, though.

When 2nd ed AD&D came out I had a huge anti-D&D period...durring which I tried to find a game that did exactly what D&D did, but wasn't actually D&D.  I've had some pretty strange attitudes throughout the years.

Quote from: grubmanWhen 2nd ed AD&D came out I had a huge anti-D&D period...durring which I tried to find a game that did exactly what D&D did, but wasn't actually D&D.  I've had some pretty strange attitudes throughout the years.

2nd Ed is my hole too -- there were a couple of years of looking for something new and then 10 years with no gaming at all.  Then 3rd Ed came out and I started gaming again.  But I think I've shaken that monkey for good now.  Well, until 4th anyway.

Quote from: HalfjackWell, until 4th anyway.

I must be an idiot, but I generally like new editions of games.  Being a guy who isn't crazy about most supplements, I generally just use the core rule books.  New editions often breath new life into a game for me...plus the possibility of a new line of supplements I actually will like gets me excited.

So, while others are complainging I'm generally excited.

Quote from: C.W.RichesonI think our experiences generally define our tastes.  The new gamer who has played one or two systems probably has some strong opinions for those systems, or even favors them.  As time goes on and we're exposed to more and more things, however, I think our initial experiences matter less.

This is similar to my own experience, although in the last few years I've found myself drifting back to simpler systems with low prep time. I think in part it's the legacy of the Moldvay edition D&D Basic Set -- I've come to remember that complex rulesets aren't necessary for the depiction of complex worlds. To that end I've found myself settling on TSR's old Conan game, which is getting a fair amount of renewed attention. It's not a game I played with any frequency as a kid, but posesses similar levels of free-wheeling abstraction to the systems I used to enjoy so much.

Quote from: HalfjackThis is more consistent with my own experiences as well though without the derision.

"Derision" was probably too strong a word.  My disdain wasn't open or active, but I was baffled at the continued popularity of a game that featured what I thought were a big ol' ball-n-chain on the roleplaying experience.  Mostly, I just ignored the whole scene for a couple of decades, and when people would crop up saying, "Hey, I play D&D" I'd ask them to clarify, "Do you mean 'D&D' as shorthand for 'roleplaying'? Or do you mean 'D&D' the actual game?"  For many years I was of the opinion that class/level-based games in general, and D&D in particular, were stages that people were supposed to grow out of.

I honestly don't mean for this to come off as a session of D&D-bashing.  I appreciate the game now, and many of the things that I disliked once I now view as features for a particular type of gaming experience.  This is, however, how my initial roleplaying experience affected my gaming career -- it decisively headed me off along a tanget very different from my initial vector.

!i!

The first game I actually got to play was Star Wars D6, and in many ways, I think it influenced my tastes for sometime thereafter.  

I like simple, unified core mechanics that apply consistently throughout the whole game, which is something D6 did fabulously well.  I like a decent amout of flexibility in a system's character generation.  And I like elegant simplicity in all things, something that, once again, D6 did very well.

I liked GURPS 3rd, because so long as you left out the Advanced Combat chapter (something the game said was optional anyway), it met those criteria to a tee.  The core mechanic is relatively simple, character creation is extremely flexible.  

I hated D&D prior to 3.0 because it was almost the polar opposite of that.  Non intuitive, inconsistent mechanics, and almost no meaningful character customization (a fighter is a fighter is a fighter syndrome).  

3.0 fixed my displeasure with previous editions by and large by switching to a much more consistently applied core mechanic, a hell of a lot more flexible character creation system, and plus, by that point I'd found Fallout and fell in love, and a lot of elements from that game found their way into D20 as well.

Experience definitely has a big influence on gaming preferences.  

My very first game was the original DeadLands with buckets o' dice and lots of skills.  The system was deeply tied to the setting, and I loved every second of it.

My second game was Savage Worlds.  I got into it becaue I like and trust Pinnacle.  It showed me how coola generic game can be.  

I think the combination of the two taught me to love mechanics, both setting-attatched and generic, which in turn gives me a good feel for what works with what sort of setting or idea.

It's also why in my scant years of RPG hobbying, I have come to love many, many rulessets and settings.  I also love to mash them together to get cool new things, and then fiddle around with mechanics to see what fits.

So yeah, I'm an RPG system grease monkey.  Largely due to my early gaming experiences.

No, my early gaming experiences (Red Box D&D, followed by AD&D and Star Frontiers) did not effect my entire perception of rpgs, it did not create my perception of rpgs.
 
It didn't even affect my perception of rpgs, strongly influencing how I thought about roleplaying.

I just played, and later I played some other stuff. My ideas about what's fun in a roleplaying game session are a reflection of me, of my own personality; they are not a reflection of the first rpgs I played.

I think my early games had a formative influence, but I can point to later events in influencing my attitude as well. My attitude towards homebrewing underwent major revision in the 90's, about 15 years after I started playing.

If formative influence means zero tolerance for certain kinds of games and automatic acceptance of others, then no. There are so many games I haven't had a chance to try out yet, and I'm not going to pass on them based on a set of increasingly narrow preferences acquired over time. If a GM I respect were to run Rolemaster next week, I'd play. If he were to run 7th Sea, I'd play.

I tend to view every game through the lens of Basic D&D.  I tend to view every adventure through the lens of the Keep on the Borderlands.  These things are true at least partially because I'm an unrepentant man-child.  I refuse to completely grow up.  That being said, there's been a lot of rad stuff done in the hobby since 1981 and I try to remain open to the infinite possibilities of our universe.