The RPG evolution of Jason

I don’t know what it is, but I am feeling a bit nostalgic. I blame mostly Josh for it, as he perpetually lives in the 1980s and likes us to know it.

But this time peculating in my head is thoughts of RPG, the paper based kind. With Monday RPG Night coming up I was curious as to how I am still chugging along with RPG all these years later.

So after combing through the memory…yes it is still there…I gathered up the games of yesterday and today that I have run with, for better or for worse.

1980s

I was just a young kid looking for something to do in the summer while school was out. And in Texas that meant trying to find something to do in 100 degree weather…at 10 am. Mostly that was stuff inside. On my street there were not many kids, and just one family who was up to doing anything. And it was at their house that I faced my first dragon.

Dungeons & Dragons

It was D&D where we started. It was the basic set of rules, which was really wide open and up for interpretation. I was so young that I actually named my first character Massacer because I couldn’t spell Massacre correctly. The GM was always a little treasure hungry also, which meant rerolls on the treasure rolls. He was good at the story lines also. So I had gold and gear. And in the end, most of sessions turned out to be mostly hack & slash with little repercussion. Good way to get someone hooked I would say.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

I did that for a summer or two, found a couple of twin brothers the next street over who also played D&D. On that street I met a friend who would be around for my high school years and into the first couple years of college. He was connected to a running summer game of AD&D on the other side of the neighborhood. And for the first time I got a glimpse of races and classes, movement and weight restrictions, and a DM who was bent on trying to kill as many people as possible. It was a larger group, so it was harder monsters. But there was bonus, the guy whose house we played at had a hot cheerleader older sister.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

When things started to fall apart with the AD&D group we came back together and tried to start a RPG of our own. And the source material we choose was TMNT. It was the hot thing back then, and the system was somewhat common and easy to grasp. The combo of mutations and animals was the really fun part. Too bad I think we nuked the world. And after killing our characters we really didn’t seek a second campaign in the setting.

Marvel Superheroes

So we grew up and moved on to more mature material…superheroes. We had moved into comic books and comic book collecting. X-men was big on our list, and Spider-man on mine. It was a logical conclusion. The game set even came with a nifty cityscape to move around in. I think we got through making characters and introducing the first campaign before we abandoned it to play baseball in the cul-de-sac or hoops at the neighborhood court. A change was coming it seemed.

1990s

Well the 1990s are a blank spot when it comes to RPG. Unless you want to count the time I spent on Wheel of Time MUD, roleplaying my way through a Child of the Light online. But these were the years I tried to ignore the fact that I had the geek gene and tried to go mainstream through high school and college. Sure it had its upside, I got to play a lot of basketball and drank a lot of beer. Found a girlfriend. But was I really whole? Given a chance to do it again, I probably would choose to do the same thing. At least I found the other half of myself.

2000s

I graduated college and moved on to be a professional sports writer. And I moved to small town. So to pass the time I continued to read. Probably reread The Wheel of Time and the Shannara Saga a couple of times. But in a little town, I was actually a change of pace. It was slow for me, it was fast for them. And that is how I played it.

Wheel of Time

When I met my wife, it was because of the Wheel of Time. A large group of fans in the area got together to hang out. A year or two later, we were engaged and she had the manual for the Wheel of Time game. It had been so long since I had played a paper based game. Took a look at character creation, maybe even started a character. But due to the lack of people to get a game going, the manual was really just relegated to source material for other Wheel of Time projects.

Serenity

Then in 2005 I was introduced to a small television show entitled Firefly…after it was canceled. Good thing a little movie named Serenity was right around the corner. By that Christmas I was a full fledged, card toting Browncoat. And as a reward, the family got me the manual for the Serenity game. However it wasn’t until a year later, after I had relocated to Utah that I found a group to play with. Somehow I have hung around and they haven’t tried to get rid of me.

Shadowrun

And that brings us to current and a part of the evolution you may be more familiar with. A new game, similar traits as Serenity, a damn lot more rules. Three sessions surrounding just character creation. Last time we actually got the ball rolling. And early on it looks like it will be a haul. Hopefully the payload is worth it and we can just have fun with it. I am really hoping the rules don’t get in the way of a good time. Whichever way it goes I am just happy with the group we have going. We can all roll with the punches pretty easily. More to know in a couple of days.

All that said, I think if given the chance I would jump into a D&D group pretty quickly if they were as cool as my Serenity group. Learning curve would be sharp, but there is just something about the fantasy genre that just calls to me.