Recommendations

[LordSlithor]

When it came to pen and paper, and tabletop games, I've always been kind of a dilettante; always wanted to get into it, but was never able to fully commit either due to time, expense, or lack of other people to play with (also, social skills when I was younger). But these days I've found a few I've been wanting to get into. So feel free to tell me what you all think.

D&D- The classic. 5th edition's gotten some positive press. But I'd also like to revisit 1st edition modules that I never played, especially with the Maximum Mayhem modules by Dark Wizard games.

Starfinder- A Sci-Fi spinoff from the makers of Pathfinder that came out less than a year ago.

Mansions of Madness- A board game with miniatures based on the Cthulhu mythos. Looked cool to me.

Rayguns & Rocketships- Another miniature board game inspired by 1930s-50s pulp Sci-Fi

 

[Stingray]

I've been playing D&D and AD&D in some form on and off for the past 32 years. Gandalf and myself recently were playing in a 5th Edition game for about 2 and half years until our DM was forced to change his hours and had to start working Saturday nights. We made it all the way to level 16 and were about to enter into a major clash with cult of the dragon and presumably Tiamat. It was a good game. Plus socially it was fun to get all the guys together and BS and drink a few beers too.

My initial D&D experience was Basic D&D (red box) where you only had a CLASS. There was no RACE and CLASS system. My first character ever was an ELF. We only played Basic for a few months over the summer until we started back in school in September and found a Dungeon Master who was pretty experienced with AD&D. First Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons had all kinds of cool stuff that Basic lacked like RACES and CLASSES....Weapon Proficiency and it just made for a much cooler game. A few years later AD&D 2nd Ed came out and we played that for probably 12 years. Never delved into 3rd ed....and eventually got into 3.5 a bit. Overall my favorite and most dear to my heart is 2nd Edition with a healthy amount of house rules and special critical charts, etc...

Every now and again we would take a break and play Traveller as well. The rule books for this are kind of hard to find now but it was a D6 based Sci-Fi RPG. Best scenario ever we were playing in a game on a planet that had zero tolerance for weapons. One of our guys had a golf bag with a laser rifle in it and a hole cut in the side to grab the trigger. We got stopped at some point and some guard needed to search the bag and got a laser blast facial. Needless to say we never went back to that planet.

Mansions of Madness is also on my radar. I'm a Cthulhu fan. If it's Lovecraftian I'm interested.

We almost played Call of Cthulhu once but the GM was this weird Frank Zappa clone type of dude who just wanted to transport us into a Rifts game instead.

Tried Gamma World (or maybe Star Frontiers) once with Gandalf. I can't recall who or where we played though. One of us was a titanium stick of butter and one of us was a head of lettuce with tentacles that could also spit out spores.

 

[LordSlithor]

Tried Gamma World (or maybe Star Frontiers) once with Gandalf. I can't recall who or where we played though. One of us was a titanium stick of butter and one of us was a head of lettuce with tentacles that could also spit out spores.

Yeah. That sounds like Gamma World all right! lol

I was always curious about Star Frontiers. Had the basic set when it first came out, but never got to play it with anyone. Starfinder seems to be a nice spiritual successor to it, though.

I have Arkham Horror and some of its expansions. Mansions of Madness looks to be a bit simpler to play, though. I'm kind of a sucker for any game also that has miniatures (like some of the D&D games like Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon). I also have Betrayal at the House on the Hill, and have played a couple of games on that. That's a fun one.

Never really got that hardcore into D&D. I've heard good things about 5th Edition. But there's something about 1st Edition I've always liked. I liked a lot of those early modules like Vault of the Drow and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. There was an element of craziness to them that seems to be lacking in the latter versions. Would like to go back and play some of those old modules.

One RPG I have fond memories of was Palladium's Robotech. Me and some of my high school friends would get together and play that and BS. Fun times.

 

[Stingray]

5th edition is OK. But my favorites in order would probably be 2nd ed, 1st ed, 3.5 and 5th ed. I love most of the original modules too and have ran through several using 2nd ed. characters so there isn't too much of a restriction there. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is hard to beat for crazy. I mean laser guns and robots in a fantasy setting...nice!

I know a guy looking to put together a maybe once a month session to specifically play old modules. If you're interested I can put you in touch with him. I think he's looking to do a game on Saturday or Sunday.

 

[LordSlithor]

I live in MD. If you're in NJ with Gandalf, that may be a challenge! Hehe.

 

[Stingray]

Ahh...I could see that being a bit of an issue. Although it might only be once a month. I guess it would depend on just HOW bad you want to play those old modules.

When our most recent group disbanded due to our DM having a shift change a couple of the guys started up a Shadowrun campaign and they recruited a guy from 4 hours away in PA.

 

[LordSlithor]

Once a month I could possibly do. I still have friends and relatives up there that I could stay with for a weekend.

 

[Gandalf42]

I think all of us probably played Quest together over Marks at some point back in the late 80's. That's also where we played Gamma World, so we may have all been playing in the same game.

 

[Stingray]

Yeah I remember playing Quest at least a couple of times. I recall everything needing to stop for Mark to watch Penn and Teller on TV and somehow we ended up at a bowling alley with two girls who also weren't interested in watching.

I think it might also have been at Mark's house where we were upstairs one time in his Dad's office and we found a box in the closet with a couple of 2400 baud modems which we had plans on using for something sinister back in the 300/1200 baud days. Not sure why we were up in the office or why we were rooting around in the closet but ya know...

Only a few short years later after our play testing Quest and we got in on the ground floor of Gruntbuggler / Forge : Out of Chaos...

https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_1863.phtml

 

[Gandalf42]

Yeah I remember playing Quest at least a couple of times. I recall everything needing to stop for Mark to watch Penn and Teller on TV and somehow we ended up at a bowling alley with two girls who also weren't interested in watching.

I think it might also have been at Mark's house where we were upstairs one time in his Dad's office and we found a box in the closet with a couple of 2400 baud modems which we had plans on using for something sinister back in the 300/1200 baud days. Not sure why we were up in the office or why we were rooting around in the closet but ya know...

Only a few short years later after our play testing Quest and we got in on the ground floor of Gruntbuggler / Forge : Out of Chaos...

https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_1863.phtml

Haha.. Yeah. I told you I got in touch with Kibbe about four years ago and he sent me out a bunch of GB stuff.. I should invite him over here. I think he was trying to get in touch with you at the time..

 

[Stingray]

At least you got copies of the product. I only have the original beta test book when it was still branded Gruntbuggler.

 

[Gandalf42]

Gotta get something for my $300. I think he has some more stock if you want to ask him.

 

[Stingray]

Last I checked he was doing the moving company thing. I'm actually thinking about suggesting him to a friend at work who is lucky enough to have her mother moving in with her from North Carolina.