Day 13 of #RPGaDay2022 brings out the shoulda/coulda/woulda in me: "How Would You Change the Way You Started RPGs?
I would have started earlier, it would just be figuring out where the deviation point would occur.
Most of early junior high (6th/7th grade was sandlot football, wiffleball, bikes, and collecting baseball cards with the crew (Upper Deck didn't even exist yet). I could have picked up the D&D Basic Set from Waldenbooks (or an adventurous bike ride to Hobby Hangout on the other side of town) at any point earlier, but getting that group to play (with super strict Catholic parents) would have been difficult.
Since Satan was real to them, but the Force was okay, I could have stumbled through the 1st Edition Star Wars rules, but I probably would have delved into the Strat-o-Matic/AAPA Baseball game side of games more than I did.
The best option would be to become gaming friends with my high school crew earlier, which is fine. I was already in classes with most of them a year or two before, it was just that RPGs weren't a popular topic of conversation. Our group formed because everyone was a 15 minute max bike ride from each other. Knowing now what I had learned about that year, I would be been able to scratch Star Frontiers and Palladium TMNT off my bucket list, and become a GM earlier, probably still trying to run Temple of Elemental Evil.
These pictures are about 15 years after I started playing RPGs.... |
.... and almost 20 years ago. It's our Hackmaster game, btw. |
With some of my savings, I'd focus on other games I purchased later in life, but would have enjoyed in high school. I'd also have a larger budget for Crazy Egor's when they came down to our local convention scene in '90/'91. I'd also ponder investing in proper paints (probably Armory) for all the Grenadier figures I didn't paint properly until 25+ years later.
And if I'm going to be all Biff from Back to the Future II, I've got to save up a good pile of cash to pick up anything that says Magic: The Gathering from late summer of '93 until Spring of '94 and just sit on it until now, or maybe. 2030.... but that's outside the realm of RPGs.
I really, really enjoy reading all your answers, they're all so very well thought through.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how I could have changed much of anything about how I started...? And it hurts my brain to think about any ripple affects that might have had...