Quote from: Black Vulmea;534459As far as the idea that when you become aware of something affects how you view its past and future, sure, I think that's pretty readily understood.

It's one of the reasons I'm not a fan of James Maliszewki and Grognardia. He started gaming only a couple of years after I did, but those couple of years, and his lack of a wargaming background in particular, produced two very different views of roleplaying games. He's made his bones 're-discovering' a style of gaming that he actually rejected back in the day, so what he writes about is often glimpsed in hindsight and reinterpreted through his subsequent experiences, and to me it utterly lacks the authenticity and clarity of original experience.

Yes, this seems reasonable to me.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;534459Now contrast James Maliszewski with Mike Mornard. If Old Geezer doesn't write a book about roleplaying games before he dies, it will be a crime against history.

Yes, I agree.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;534459[/snip] That's my "imprinting," and every bit of it is as relevent to the gaming I do right now as it was when I was first exposed to it back in the day.

Yes, I believe so as well.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;534459But in addition to those influences which imprint themselves on us, I think we also need to consider what we rejected as well. To this day I've never played in, run, or even read the original Tomb of Horrors. I never owned or used either the Greyhawk folio or the Forgotten Realms box set.

Yes, this is worthwhile to consider as well.  

Quote from: Black Vulmea;534459We like what we like, and we tend to like most that which defined our initial exposure and shaped our original experiences.

Again, this seems reasonable to me.

Thank you for answering the call and clarifying your thoughts on this subject.

OK, for all the self-taught people, do you think that the friends/people that you first gamed with had any lasting influence or contribution to your 'RPG Imprint?'

This is an honest question, and not meant to be swipe in any way.

Quote from: APN;534493I remember saving up my pocket money and wondering if my postal order would vanish, never to be seen again or if I'd actually get what I'd saved up weeks for. I was 10 at the time, and it was a tricky period for me, moving to a new town and having to make friends. D&D helped in that respect because I met a bunch of guys who humoured the young geek with the funny dice and were happy to join in with his strange game. Not sure how relevant it is to the OP's question, but that's how I started *shrug*.

Totally relevant since it speaks to your first gaming experiences.  Thank you!

My first RPG was the 1981 Moldvay Basic D&D Set.  My attempts to join a group were all negative.  I found myself learning the rules by reading them.  I found myself in the GM role and teaching how to play to others.

Dragonlance was a strong influence.  Dragonlance presented a template to me of how I wanted a game to turn out.  I wanted to run games about heroic characters, not about thugs wandering around caves.   Dragonlance provided an outline of how to do this, with characters who were named more than Fighter1 and ClericABZ, and who had histories, feuds, and romances.

I wasn't satisfied with D&D because I wasn't a fantasy fiction fan before D&D.  I wanted to play Star Wars or Star Trek, not swords and sorcery.  Therefore, I immediately branched out into other games.

Marvel Super Heroes was the first RPG I bought into which was about something I was interested in outside of RPGs, namely superheroes.  It had somewhat emulative mechanics of the source material and an attitude of "play what you want" and "negotiate with the GM for the benefit of the game" which definitely shaped the way I viewed and wanted to play RPGs ever after.

I got into Robotech much the same reason as MSH.  I was and still am a huge Robotech fanboy.  Sadly, dealing with the Palladium system was a universally negative experience for me which I feel damaged my gaming as a whole.  I've kind of wondered how I let myself get addicted to the Palladium crack, but this thread makes me realize that I was always the one who had to know from the source, not by hearsay.  I had to be the one to learn systems and teach them to others.  Since most of the other people I played with wanted to play Palladium, this locked me in a sort of vicious cycle of trying to make sense of the nonsensical and half assed products.

Mekton II is basically my favorite game and has been so since I was first exposed to it in 1987.  My tastes tend to gravitate towards systems with generally unified mechanics with roll over difficulty and contested combat rolls.  I drift toward the heavy side of medium crunch, with BESM3 being a more modern favorite.

Star Wars 1e was another huge influence, because it illustrated how mechanics could really help emulate the source material.

I recently dumped about half of my RPG collection (most of what I dumped was purchased in the 1999 to 2008 timeframe).  I'm tired of chasing after the hypotehtical "perfect game."  I'm stabilizing into a group of old favorite games with a couple of more recent games tossed in.  This gravitation towards the old is primarily because I long ago committed these older games to memory and my ability to absorb newer games is diminished because I don't really have the time to immerse myself in learning them anymore.

So, that's where I'm coming from.

Quote from: Drohem;534500Thank you for answering the call and clarifying your thoughts on this subject.

Yer welcome.

Oh, and I learned from a friend.

Here's another wrinkle, though. I think there's a difference in imprinting in when a gamer started to referee. In my experience, referees spend more time thinking about their campaigns, reading about gaming, and so on. I started refereeing almost immediately, so I was looking at adventures, supplements, and such from the perspective of what worked from the head of the table early on.

Quote from: Drohem;534494Honestly, I think it is what it is and nothing else; an imprint.  It's not necessary to view in terms of positive or negative I think since the focus here is just the foundational core of your gaming experience.  (Well, to me at least.)

OK. My formative experience was extremely atypical in other ways. I was an adult - 21 years old in 1977 when I started with RPGs. I was not a geek, but a rocker, a musician. I am extremely socialized and sociable. I recruited people like me, not geeks, but other adult musicians and artists. My first groups was more than half female. I don't share the 13 year old/mother's basement/geek buddies/parental fear of roleplaying common origin story with most other roleplayers. I never met a catpissman. I was good at athletics. I had a lot of girlfriends. Most of the things people talk about here just don't apply, except the games themselves. So know I will be an extreme outlier on your graphing.

-clash

I learned to play by using a copy of B2, which I thought at the tender age of 11 was all I needed to play D&D.  Guys at school played, I looked at a copy of A2 during lunch one day and was hooked.

I pestered my parents into taking me and some hard-earned dough to the toy store and feasted my eyes upon the D&D section.  They had nothing that fit my meagre $10 budget, except a copy of B2 ($4.99) and a set of TSR dice ($2.99).  No shrink-wrapped copies of the Basic rules or the boxed basic set (this was the age of the Tom Moldvay edition of Basic).

So I bought B2 (it was the copy that was suited for the Basic rules edited by Holmes, so creatures had morale, and the awesome half-page minotaur illo by Erol Otus was inside), brought it home and proceeded to inflict it on my sister and my friend from down the street, Tommy Meiner.

You could intuit the saving throws and combat rules easily enough by using the charts within.  Spell descriptions were tougher ("Know alignment"?  Hm, must have something to do with figuring out what the shape of a room was), but most were fairly self explanatory - "Tenser's Floating Disc" was explained to me by my classmates.

My understanding of the rules: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma - all generated via d20, ignore 1,2,19,20.  Everyone had ten hit points.  Magic-users just picked their spells off the spell list appropriate to their level and cast away.  Monsters died in a single hit.  Characters took one point of damage per hit.  I laid the map out flat so everyone could see, and pointed out hazards as the party came on them (the pit trap right in the Kobolds' lair entry tunnel, for example).  I was a very accommodating young Dungeon Master!

Later, when I was in Middle School, I got a copy of Basic, then later a copy of Expert and also played some AD&D with a group of (insane) high-schoolers and got a better handle on the rules.

But man, that first time, reading B2, understanding I'd somehow gotten the "wrong" book and saying "Fuck it" and making up my own stuff...bottled lightning, I tell you what.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;534536I learned to play by using a copy of B2, which I thought at the tender age of 11 was all I needed to play D&D.  Guys at school played, I looked at a copy of A2 during lunch one day and was hooked.

I pestered my parents into taking me and some hard-earned dough to the toy store and feasted my eyes upon the D&D section.  They had nothing that fit my meagre $10 budget, except a copy of B2 ($4.99) and a set of TSR dice ($2.99).  No shrink-wrapped copies of the Basic rules or the boxed basic set (this was the age of the Tom Moldvay edition of Basic).

So I bought B2 (it was the copy that was suited for the Basic rules edited by Holmes, so creatures had morale, and the awesome half-page minotaur illo by Erol Otus was inside), brought it home and proceeded to inflict it on my sister and my friend from down the street, Tommy Meiner.

You could intuit the saving throws and combat rules easily enough by using the charts within.  Spell descriptions were tougher ("Know alignment"?  Hm, must have something to do with figuring out what the shape of a room was), but most were fairly self explanatory - "Tenser's Floating Disc" was explained to me by my classmates.

My understanding of the rules: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma - all generated via d20, ignore 1,2,19,20.  Everyone had ten hit points.  Magic-users just picked their spells off the spell list appropriate to their level and cast away.  Monsters died in a single hit.  Characters took one point of damage per hit.  I laid the map out flat so everyone could see, and pointed out hazards as the party came on them (the pit trap right in the Kobolds' lair entry tunnel, for example).  I was a very accommodating young Dungeon Master!

Later, when I was in Middle School, I got a copy of Basic, then later a copy of Expert and also played some AD&D with a group of (insane) high-schoolers and got a better handle on the rules.

But man, that first time, reading B2, understanding I'd somehow gotten the "wrong" book and saying "Fuck it" and making up my own stuff...bottled lightning, I tell you what.

sir, i would like to play in your next session.  pure dynamite

My significantly older brother played AD&D back in '77~'78 and it was his Demigods and Deities (the one with Cthulhu and Melnibonean mythos) that got me interested. That art and mixture of new, alien mythos intrigued me something fierce. He then showed me where to find Elric saga, Lord of the Rings, Lovecraft, etc. So I was reading that stuff as grade school lit somewhere around '85~'92 (god, it's weird guesstimating time now, I must be getting old...).

Somewhere around '87, a year or so after returning to USA, he ran a hex map adventure board game whose name escapes me. I was enthralled by the map and the idea of traveling around this world of imagination. That evening he ran AD&D 1e for me, and it was fun, but dungeon crawling solo was also nowhere near as cool as that hex map filled with adventure, an epic villainess, orc hordes, and grand armies.

Shortly thereafter I was re-exposed to the new generation of my first love, video games. With NES and SMS released, I attended a birthday party where Miracle Warriors on the SMS was being played on a 50" TV and I was done. Overland map adventures, dungeon crawls, epic adventure story, all ran by video game managing the details -- it was too much. Throw in an underdog status of Sega Master System versus the Nintendo Entertainment System behemoth, enslaver of the casual gamers who have not found the One True Way, and I was over. I moved from a layman proselytizer of Pac Man and the general Atari empire monolith (barely much of a war), to an acolyte of Sega in the second of the great console wars (8-bit). I had purpose now, and with games like Y's and Phantasy Star coming shortly thereafter, along with all those crazy PC games like Space Quest 1, text based adventure games and the like, a long inculcation period of video gaming with rpg roots would continue.

I rejoined rpgs in the mid 90s, somehow aware but mostly avoiding the trappings of WW V:TM fever. I ended up in a D&D 2e game, where I had a lot of fun, and found that to be my halcyon days of rpg gaming. During the college years I was introduced to Mechwarrior, Battletech, Star Wars WEG 1e, Deadlands, In Nomine, WW stuff, Rifts, Champions, etc... Ended up paying my societal dues by working part time at both a hobby game store and a video game store during the Pokemon phenomenon -- I still have scars to this day. Saw the rise of L5R from CCG that could to RPG, Clan War minis, to AEG flagship. Saw the rise of AD&D 3e and participated in the shared "nostalgia trip" (to be honest, most of the people I played new 3e games with never played AD&D before because they were afraid and had no idea how to start w/ 1e or 2e products cluttering the shelves).

Quit those jobs and most gaming around 2000~2001; saw the writing on the wall. Everything I knew and loved about gaming died. Sega being relevant, most fun rpgs (a pox upon Sony and Square and their abominations they call Final Fantasy), a smothering death of arcades and such games upon consoles, the rise of 4 -- only 4! genres of video games now and forever -- the Halo/Counterstrike, the God of War/Elder Scroll, the MMO, and the Star/WarCraft Real Time Strat, ad infinitum. AD&D 3e became an exercise in 4 hr character creation and tedious system mastery, with nary a fun game for me, ever. WoD's bloated cast of thousands dies turning into a lame pablum of "localized and personalized horror and mystery." GW spins off more editions and Codices, because well, like Lucas Arts they have a license to print money. Speaking of which the Star Wars prequels supposedly came out, but that's like a hazy nightmare that I still don't believe happened.

Then 4e came out, I barely noticed because I was mercifully away and overseas again. I come back to try it out in 2011 only to find that with this edition, and "Sharing the Speaking Stick" storyteller games, the gaming world has officially ended and we're all dead in an apocalyptic brave new world left to pick up the smoldering pieces. Thankfully I don't seem to be alone with my disgust and there's been holdouts of humanity in the darkness rebuilding civilization from its ashes. The past few years has truly been a phoenix from the ashes moment. Maybe, just maybe, if there's enough culling of the herd and reeducation camps, we might actually have a gaming world worth saving (do I really have to be 'TBP lame' and note that this sentiment is but a joke? Do I? Really? Lone Rangers & "Triggers" anyone?).

So, of course I'm shaped by my experience. What I think bugged me most was having people who play new things that are so different insisting on calling their new and very different toys by my old toys' name. I could care less if you have differing tastes; that's just learning to cope as an adult. It'd have been fine if one could've been left in peace, nursing their Mountain Dew and Cheetos at the FLGS. But to take the name and apply it without regard or distinction is irksome. Don't tell me what I played wasn't what I played, or wasn't what I really wanted to play.

I guess it comes down to the insistence of memory. At least leave me the courtesy of not stepping on my toes while telling me how your fabulous new stuff not only replaces the out-of-date follies of troglodyte ancestors, but is what we truly wanted and should have been playing in the first place. And apparently this foisting of the new, in both the industry and new gatekeepers of community, required a push-back to get it off one's toes. Now with OSR and the like, who needs patience with the industry and fanboy claptrap?
:cool:

I don't really know what the hell an RPG Imprint is.... exactly....


But I started with the 1981 D&D boxed sets before moving to AD&D a short time later.

Quote from: Drohem;534501OK, for all the self-taught people, do you think that the friends/people that you first gamed with had any lasting influence or contribution to your 'RPG Imprint?'

This is an honest question, and not meant to be swipe in any way.

I don't know. It was a long time ago. I'll have to think about it.

I started in 1981 with RuneQuest and went on to play other Chaosium games like Call of Cthulhu, Ring World, Stormbringer, ElfQuest, Pendragon, etc.  

So I guess that I worship at the Church of Chaosium and Greg Stafford!

Quote from: Drohem;534501OK, for all the self-taught people, do you think that the friends/people that you first gamed with had any lasting influence or contribution to your 'RPG Imprint?'

This is an honest question, and not meant to be swipe in any way.

Well, people not so much, but game system-wise I can see where the roots of my preference for simple toolbox skill-based games has evolved from.

I got introduced/coerced/convinced to play by my older brother was the brown book version. Never really got into it until I played in an all female group playing Palladium and a mixed group playing Fantasy Style GURPS. Then I really got into it through a combination of Dragonlance and White Wolf, Mage the Ascension in particular.

Stayed with White Wolf through most of the NWoD run and played a bit of 3/3.5e when I wasn't playing Mage. Dropped out for a year or so then went to Pathfinder/Fantasy Craft recently. Also because of the complexity of those games have gotten more interested in OSRIC and similar style games.

I would say my imprint probably comes from Mage and then Dragonlance for Dnd style games. But I am pretty flexible and eclectic in my gaming tastes.

Quote from: PaladinCA;534560I don't really know what the hell an RPG Imprint is.... exactly....

It's a term (probably lame) that I made up to try and convey the concept that a person's initial/foundational experiences with gaming and game systems has some influence on that person's game style, choices, and/or preferences.

Don't worry, it will be fully detailed and defined in my forthcoming book: RPG Quackery.*  


* Just kidding!