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With the original version of this thread now wilting away, it feels like a good time for a clean slate.
This is a place to discuss the journey each of us has gone on and is going on throughout the hobby. Tell us how you got started in tabletop Roleplaying games, tell us what games you’ve played, tell us what games you’re excited to try next, tell us what your favorite die type is. Anything that celebrates the diversity of the hobby and your personal experience is more than welcome.
This is not a place to edition war, or to compare the systems others bring up to your preferred system. All views are welcome but I would prefer it not devolve into a constant focus on one system.
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To begin at the beginning with the system journey approach - my pathway from entry to the Paizo community is maybe a little different than some. While my first attempt at play was in 2nd Edition AD&D - that experience lasted maybe three sessions and didn't really do much to excite me about playing RPG's.
I got my real start in the hobby a year later with West End Game's D6 Star Wars - which was (at the time) a less rules heavy system than D&D that allowed more focus on character and narrative due to a more simplistic and uniform die resolution system. When I graduated high school, I figured I was done with Tabletop gaming and left the hobby behind.
In 2001/2002 I was brought back into the fold by a group of friends who were playing Exalted First Edition and needed a player to step in to replace an outgoing player. I was recruited, joined that group, and have remained an active member of the communities of gamers ever since.
White Wolf's Exalted was based on the Storyteller System used for Vampire: The Masquerade and other such games and was very narratively focused while providing a bit of crunch - and it wasn't long before the launch of Vampire: The Requiem brought along the new Storytelling System which was a much more streamlined mechanical approach to the World of Darkness games. This became a favorite system, ultimately leading to one of my absolute favorite games: Hunter: The Vigil
The groups I played with spent a lot of time playing in that system or in trying things like Cinematic Unisystem, Gurps, Deadlands, WEG Star Wars and D20 Star Wars; Decipher's Star Trek. We never circled back to D&D proper until 4th Edition and while we found it enjoyable to play for the first several months - it quickly lost its luster and we switched to Pathfinder almost immediately once it dropped.
This worked out well for some of the players in group, but not much for me. I'd spent so much time running games set in worlds, settings and systems that leant themselves so easily to a sandbox that 3.X encounter based design felt like a shackle.
The feeling of complexity and the necessity of system mastery in 3.X and PF1 I think simply comes from the wealth of options and the synergies that exist within them being so robustly presented. I know there are many like me who came to 3.X or PF in my case AFTER it was already sort of fully formed. It's easy to forget that 3.5 came out with a HOST of options from 3.0 having already been published and then caught on bigger than its prior edition had. Paizo dropped PF1 and then launched a rather quick option release to get those 3.X options back into play.
For narratively focused players less interested in created the perfect feat synergy - this could feel a bit overwhelming, and did in my case. I continued to prefer more narrative focused games like White Wolf products or Fantasy Flights Narrative Dice offerings. 5e didn't quite fit the bill for me either because it ejected a lot of the uniqueness of the game in favor of a universal simplicity.
PF2 dropped and honestly the first time I've felt a D20 system suits my needs as both a player and GM by being balanced enough from class to class while still providing options to players.
Throughout the pandemic my table played a lot of PF2 and a lot of Vampire: The Requiem. I took a six month hiatus from game when my kid was born, and while I was away Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition came out.
I rejoined my table and we dove right into Hunter.
Now we stand on the edge of Exalted: Essence coming out, a streamlined version of the 3rd edition of the game that brought me back into the hobby, more than that it is about to be the 20th anniversary of the launch of the last epic campaign we ran in that game system… so a return to Creation is already in the works
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I got into the hobby in the earliest days of 4e (when I was in middle school!) and while I struggled with combat-heavy miniatures-focused gamplay, I had a great time. Chronicles of Darkness and Delta Green really opened my eyes to other options, but Fate Core was really the transcendent shift for me as I finished up high school. There was some dabbling in the old Fantasy Flight d100 games for Warhammer 40k that went pretty poorly, and then a bad group got me out of the hobby for years.
I ran some Shadowrun 3e for an ex boyfriend. Dream Askew got me back into the hobby in a big way, and led to me putting together a group that plays almost anything I want. We’re starting a Girl by Moonlight campaign in a week that closes off a three year arc that’s spanned a ton of systems: Microscope, Scum & Villainy, Armour Astir, Kingdom 2e, Songs for the Dusk, Virtuous Service, Artefact… We’ve done a ton of PbtA and Forged in the Dark stuff together, as well as a lot of Mothership.
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I know it's the official title now, but I so seldom remember to call the stuff Onyx Path is putting out by the name Chronicles. Spent too long calling it the New WoD I guess.
What was the Chronicles game that really clicked with you?
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I know it's the official title now, but I so seldom remember to call the stuff Onyx Path is putting out by the name Chronicles. Spent too long calling it the New WoD I guess.
What was the Chronicles game that really clicked with you?
Oh, it was all nWoD and oWoD when I was playing, don’t you worry - I only use the rebranding for clarity’s sake. I’ve actually kept up a boycott of OPP stuff for years now, despite how big a fan I used to be.
My introduction was playing a Changeling: the Lost character in a friend’s Geist: the Sin-Eaters chronicle (we didn’t know better at the time), but I’d eventually go on to read and run a little bit of everything. I have a Wraith: the Oblivion tattoo on my back (Silent Legion!), I’m one of what feels like four Mummy: the Curse fans on the planet, and Promethean: the Creates was huge for me figuring out some early gender feelings.
Hunter is my jam, Vampire as well. Both significant improvements on the OWoD versions in my mind. I really enjoyed Mummy 1e but never got my group interested enough to play it. The slightly more timey wimey Mummy 2e is even more amazing, but still it remains unplayed.
Why are you boycotting Onyx Path if you don't mind my asking.
I’d prefer not to get into it. There are some good folks on their staff, but I just don’t hang with the company for a bunch of reasons that added up over time.
M:tC really went in on non-linear chronology with Book of the Deceived and Sothis Ascends, two brain-bending supplements I still absolutely adore. I’ve been chasing the feeling for years - and have a new game in development that sort of scratches the itch…
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I know it's the official title now, but I so seldom remember to call the stuff Onyx Path is putting out by the name Chronicles. Spent too long calling it the New WoD I guess.
What was the Chronicles game that really clicked with you?
Oh, it was all nWoD and oWoD when I was playing, don’t you worry - I only use the rebranding for clarity’s sake. I’ve actually kept up a boycott of OPP stuff for years now, despite how big a fan I used to be.
My introduction was playing a Changeling: the Lost character in a friend’s Geist: the Sin-Eaters chronicle (we didn’t know better at the time), but I’d eventually go on to read and run a little bit of everything. I have a Wraith: the Oblivion tattoo on my back (Silent Legion!), I’m one of what feels like four Mummy: the Curse fans on the planet, and Promethean: the Creates was huge for me figuring out some early gender feelings.
CHANGELING THE LOST THE ONLY THING I OWN EVERYTHING FORRRRRRRRRRR
I’d prefer not to get into it. There are some good folks on their staff, but I just don’t hang with the company for a bunch of reasons that added up over time.
M:tC really went in on non-linear chronology with Book of the Deceived and Sothis Ascends, two brain-bending supplements I still absolutely adore. I’ve been chasing the feeling for years - and have a new game in development that sort of scratches the itch…
Been a while since I read any of the 1e supplements, but 2e just flat out establishes the non linear nature of their summoning. I explained it to my players when it came out that if 1e was Highlander where the flashback memories of your life shape who you are now - 2e is Quantum Leap and all the days of your life touch each other and you can be anywhen.
CHANGELING THE LOST THE ONLY THING I OWN EVERYTHING FORRRRRRRRRRR
I never gave Changeling a real proper try. We did a round-robin Chronicle where we all built from different splats and each player was the ST for stories involving a specific group. We had a Werewolf, two vamps, a Hunter, and a 'Ling as a group charged with keeping a very tightly controlled peace in the city.
Our 'Ling player was sort of problematic, and it sort of colored us against the splat as a whole - which is sad.
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CHANGELING THE LOST THE ONLY THING I OWN EVERYTHING FORRRRRRRRRRRI never gave Changeling a real proper try. We did a round-robin Chronicle where we all built from different splats and each player was the ST for stories involving a specific group. We had a Werewolf, two vamps, a Hunter, and a 'Ling as a group charged with keeping a very tightly controlled peace in the city.
Our 'Ling player was sort of problematic, and it sort of colored us against the splat as a whole - which is sad.
The game as a whole is a very elegant metaphor for living as an abuse survivor - at least in 1e. I got out during the fracas over 2e’s development, so I can’t speak to that, but the original game is a masterpiece.
An violent ex wasn’t enough to make me sour on the game. Give it another shot.
It's the only series from nWOD I liked.
I liked it so much i made it part of my Document for WOD, and that's saying something.
Everything else, quite literally, is oWOD.
I’m pretty much the opposite. I prefer most of the New WoD material to the old. I think Werewolf is the one exception where I like OWoD better.
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In Middle School there was AD&D fizzled out but I got the concept. High School there was Teenage Mutant Turtles from Palladium, also fizzled out. College Sophomore year there was the epic AD&D 2nd edition campaign that lasted both semesters that really got me into gaming and made lifelong friends from. I also read a lot of Vampire the Masquerade 2nd edition (this being 1994-1995) while waiting for my turn. And D6 Star Wars, where we accidently killed Luke Leaving the second Death Star. Junior Year there was GURPS used to play an Angels vs Demons because we were excited for In Nomine but just couldn't wait for it. There was more GURPS and a LARP while camping. Then First Senior Year I pulled back on gaming to focus on trying to graduate, notice I said first senior year.
Then 2001 and the invite to Earthdawn where I've had a weekly game pretty much ever since, small gaps weeks nothing more than 2 months I think.
Deadlands. Exalted. Decipher Star Trek. Cinematic Unisystem for a ______ the Vampire Slayer Game (we had our own slayer, not Buffy), Angel type game. a mutant hero school game (similar to but distinctly different from any Marvel X-Men). Back to Exalted after having stepped into the DM, GM, ST, Director role with the mutant game that people believed i belonged in way back in that epic 2nd edition game sophomore year of college. And this was an epic Exalted game. 2 ST's. 2 different timelines. 4+ years to an epic conclusion.
Vampire the Requiem LARP. Vampire the Requiem ttrpg. Hunter the Vigil. Revisting D6 Star Wars ("I Will Blow This Planet Up!!!!!), 4th Edition D&D, Pathfinder, Scion, 2 5th edition games, FFG Star Wars ("I Will Crash This Super Star Destroyer!!!), Kitchen Sink Chronicles of Darkness Round Robin Story Tellers, Vampire the Requiem, PF2, FFG Genesys for a weird west Deadlands game. Hunter the Vigil 2e.
By the way I hear there's a stripped down rules lighter version of 3rd edition Exalted called Exalted Essence. Epicness on the Horizon.
Trinity Adventure! for a Call of Cthulhu game coming sooon
I didn't run all of these, some played.
1988 till now. I know I've left some out.
I started in 1987 or 1988 (can't quite remember) playing the D&D red box. Then AD&D and then 2e. I've also played 3e/3.5e, Pathfinder 1, Paranoia, Mage: the Ascension, Alien, The Call of Cthulhu, Middle-Earth Role Playing, The One Ring, and of course Pathfinder 2. I have GMed most of these games and currently am running my group through book five of Age of Ashes. One of my players runs a 5e campaign that I play in, and we alternate weeks. This helps greatly with burnout since I only run games every other week. There are no doubt more RPGs that I have played and am forgetting.
I buy far more RPG rulebooks than I will ever play, but those I am pretty sure we will get to in the near-ish future are Fallout, Blade Runner, Brindlewood Bay, and Cities Without Number. RPGs I hope to play but am not confident we will get to include Delta Green, Dungeon Crawl Classic, GI Joe, Altered Carbon, and Shadow of the Demon Lord.
I spend way, way too much money on RPGs (over $12k since 2017). And this doesn't include multi-purpose things like buying a 6'x 4' RPG/wargaming table. But it does include books and supplements for systems I have yet to actually play. I own every hardcover released for Starfinder so far, and many of the adventures, and have yet to play a single game. I know this is a large amount of money when there are many games I can essentially play for free, but it is disposable income so Mrs. Fumarole can't complain. Besides, I enjoy supporting game developers/publishers who produce quality content.
I like d% as they are underused in most games.
I get that. There's these things called Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Backerkit.
And I just keep backing games I'm sure I'm never going to get to play or run. Alice Is Missing. Solemn Vale. Old Gods of Appalachia. Deviant: the Renegades.
But there's always something that I can use for some other game. Some lore, some setting, some mechanic or just inspiration for something else as I read all these games I don't play.
I'm also in that boat, not Kickstarters, but I like RPG books, even if I'm not going to play them.
I think I currently have books for the following RPGs.
Pathfinder (Classic and 2nd edition)
Starfinder
D&D
Eberron (3.5 edition)
Robotech
Rifts England and Australia
Call of Cthulhu (and Pulp Cthulhu)
Things from the Flood and Tales from the Loop
Star Trek and Fallout.
Probably won't play them but they're fun to look through and read.
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One thing that has helped my group out is each spring when the kids are on spring break, we all take a week off from work and stay at an otherwise empty house (one player's parents' vacation home). I am hoping to get some out of state friends to join, but so far none have, though they have expressed interest. We play RPGs from 9 am until 9 pm for five days straight, and we play systems other than our P2 and 5e staples. So far we have done this twice, and I have run the group through the 26 Draconis Strain trilogy for the Alien RPG, and the other GM in our group has run us through The One Ring. Next spring I am sure we will play Fallout and Blade Runner, maybe Cities Without Number if it is released by then.
A big culprit is Bundle of Holding as I get many of my books from there. This article really hit home hard when I read it last year. When I shared it with my players they just laughed knowingly.
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That sounds like a fantastic tradition. I wish we were able to do that!