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Top level
History
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Author: Tony Den
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Publishing date: 26.07.2002 11:49
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Recomendations for games, authers and other stuff.
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Games and Role Playing History
Where to begin? I have played quite a few different RPG's in my time. I started off with Grimm asking me to have a go at Basic D&D circa 1988. I was given an existing NPC (Orcy) and jumped in halfway through the Temple of Death, an Expert Set level adventure. We reached Master Set level before the group split up. I tried a bit of AD&D but never really got into it, just too many Fighter/Cleric/Mage/Half Elf/Quarter Orc/Quarter Bottle Nosed Dolphin characters.
Went to university where I had no success at getting a group together. At the time role playing games were even less popular in South Africa than they are now! There was a lot of anti D&D media and many religious fanatics who were too biased to even listed to reason. I dropped out of university after a year and a half - turns out Calculus and Business Economics were joke subjects. To this day I still wonder what relevance they have to accounting.
On my return to my home town (Pretoria, South Africa), I found my friends to be playing Top Secret SI. Now there is a game that will always be one of my favourites. A very simple system which allows you to decide, "hey, lets play Top Secret" and all you need to do to prepare for a game is watch the news on TV and take 10 minutes to roll up a character. We also found Top Secret SI to be excellent for free forming. Our little group enjoyed Top Secret so well that we juiced up the rules a bit and created our own fantasy world. That was to be my first chance to write some decent campaign material, a task to which I became and am still addicted. If I ever find a working computer with a 3.5 floppy drive, I will make a plan to get my first attempt (The Tars of Tarslavia) loaded onto this site. (As you may have guessed, it is currently on a 3.5 floppy written in MultiMate and I cannot even print it.)
We had great plans to finish our world and market it along with a very hybrid system (which would probably have had T$R's lawyers out to lynch us if we ever went through with it). Fortunately/Unfortunately, other members of our group lost interest and the work in progress was shelved. That time of my life was my role playing heyday. Our group was all in our early twenties and had lots of spare time on our hands. Apart from Top Secret and Lordsquest (don't laugh, that's what we called our hybrid system), we played Rifts (didn't enjoy playing, but the rule and sourcebooks were a good read), Boot Hill (now that was fun, pardner), Legionnaire (fun but general lack of interest led to short playing), Star Wars (minimal playing), Megatraveler & 2300 (didn't even finish rolling up characters), Twilight 2000 (fun but not much playing done), More Basic D&D and my favourite, Rune Quest. Also purchased Silent Death by ICE at that time. Not a RPG, but about the most fun miniatures game you can get. I still play it quite often.
Time moved on, we all went our own way but I was hooked on Rune Quest. Fortunately I had met up with some other friends (Willo & Carol), whom I still play with to this day. We do not get to play that often as we are all busy in our own careers etc, but when we do, its still lots of fun. We also play the odd game of Cyberpunk 2020 (also one of my favourites).
During 2000 I tried out that Mage game, by White Wolf and it was okay, but I am still a percentile man. I am also slowly buying the HarnMaster game and Harn World campaign setting, but have yet to read the rules and play it, although my brother has read it and says it looks very good. Apart from that, I can't report much else insofar as games are concerned, except that I also got caught by Magic the Gathering and forked out huge bucks buying cards before I realised what a money making joke the game is.
I did a brief stint of D&D 3rd ed. early in 2002, but found it to be the same old rubbish, rehashed a bit insofar as skills are concerned (smacks of Rune quest there).
Favourite Authors
I have done quite a bit of reading in my time and have read many of the mainstream fantasy books out there. Times and tastes change. When I was in high school, nothing could top David Eddings and his Belgeriad. Being forced to re read it again, rehashed as The Mallorian was too much. I didn't learn and made the same mistake with The Elenium and Tamuli. I also read Lord of the Rings when I was in high school and was not so impressed. Maybe it was because I just wasn't ready for it or maybe it was the continuous cross selling references to the Silmarillion, Book of Lost Tales, Book of Unfinished Tales etc that got me down. Its been over 14 years since I read it, so maybe I should give it another chance.
Another series which I enjoyed most of was The Chronicles of an Age of Darkness, by Hugh Cook. Interesting, although some books were disappointing and some just ended, leaving many questions unanswered. Before I start giving a review of every author I have ever read, here is my list of favourites:
Sword and Sorcery
Robert E Howard (Original author of Conan)
Fantasy
Glen Cook (Black Company), Lawrence Watt Evans, Mary Gentle (Grunts!)
Science Fiction
William Gibson
Comedy
Douglas Adams. (Terry Pratchett is good, but his later work leaves me a bit cold). I am looking to read some Craig Shaw Gardner and will see how that goes.
Historical
Alexander Kent
Classic
Sir Walter Scott and Virgil
Other
Irvin Welsh and Ewan Clarkson
What else? There are so many categories, but the above are basically what I stick to.
Well, that's about it from my side. I am bound to change my mind about things, so this page may change in time as well.
Favourite Computer Games
Also too many to count, but some made an impression on me.
Fantasy
Warcraft 1 & 2 - have yet to play Warcraft 3
Historical
Caesar 3 & Pharaoh.
Other
Civilisation 1, 2 & Call to Power, all great.
Favourite Movies
Fantasy
Willo, Ladyhawk
Science Fiction
Battlestar Galactica, Robotech (the macross series), Star Wars
Historical
Gladiator, Spartacus, Anthony and Cleopatra, Atilla the Hun, Quo Vadis, Ben Hur - you can deduce the Roman theme!
Other
Too many to mention. Barfly does tend to stand out as well as The Sound of Music.
Favourite Comics
I used to really enjoy them battle/war comics as a kid. Nowadays, I try to pick up old copies of Savage Sword of Conan. A real favourite is Slaine, of 2000AD, although his later stories became kinda lame, with him travelling through time. Many other 2000Ad stories were great. The Ballad of Halo Jones stands out.
Insofar as comic books are concerned, I really enjoyed Tintin, although Asterix was also good.
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