Over the following years until I left High School roleplaying games played a huge part of my life. Being geeky and unsocial I developed a great love of poring over the rule books and trying to work out what would happen if a wizard made a demon divide by zero. On the critical fumble table I made up very bad things happened. Very, very bad things. By this stage we had moved on up the role playing ladder to the giddy heights of the companion and the master set.
[caption id="attachment_545" align="aligncenter" width="439" caption="D&D Companion Set (Source The Acaeum http://www.acaeum.com/)"]
[/caption][caption id="attachment_548" align="aligncenter" width="443" caption="D&D Master Set (Source The Acaeum http://www.acaeum.com/)"]
[/caption]Eventually the gaming circle expanded enough to include actual girls. Which as far as I can tell is still a little bit novel. Nowadays though there are many, many more girlish haircuts which makes it a little harder to tell. The introduction of the deadlier of the species changed the dynamics. The games they ran tended to be more about relationships, feelings and that kind of stuff. On the upside they still managed to include sufficient amounts of bloody mayhem and slaughter which was good.
Many games were played. The best of the other was Call of Cthulhu (3rd Edition).
[caption id="attachment_587" align="aligncenter" width="612" caption="Call of Cthulhu 3rd Edition (http://totheblogmobile.com/2009/05/28/more-roleplaying-games-you-should-play-marvel-super-heroes/coc-3rd/)"]
[/caption]This game should be made a compulsory rite of passage for the male youth of today. The female youth are far too squeamish to play a game so full of HORROR :) Anyone reading this post should not need to be introduced to the Mythos. This book, and later editions, is one of the best love notes to the concept I have ever read.
Despite the joy of new games like Space 1889 and board games like Dungeonquest (1st Edition) roleplaying became just one more activity among many and then eventually faded away as the social awkwardness of saying;
"Hey babe, I'm a Dungeon Master, fancy a wee game?"
became too much. Apart from once but the less said about that the better.
Eventually my life and roleplaying games parted ways. But I must have known something I always kept the character sheet of my favourite ever character and my plastic RBS money bag of dice near me at all times. This connection surviving well more than a dozen moves and hundreds of miles.
All the shops I loved starting closing down. When I started gaming Virgin used to stock games, by the end ... not so much.
Playing With Myself
I tried computer roleplaying games eventually. Zelda, FF7 all the rest. Interesting, FF7 blotted out hours and hours of my life, but not proper roleplaying. All you ever did was follow the path set for you. Eventually I got a PC and tried things like Baldur's Gate, still not good enough.
Then I discovered Sheena Easton.
Coming soon Part IV: My Love For Sheena Easton's Tail
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_People_Play_(book)
http://www.waynesbooks.com/callofcthulhu.html
http://www.heliograph.com/space1889/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/472/dungeonquest
http://www.ffonline.com/ff7/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dungeons-Desktops-History-Computer-Role-playing/dp/1568814119
http://uk.gamespot.com/n64/adventure/legendofzeldaoot/index.html
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