My First 10 RPG's

I've seen some recent discussions of people talking about their first RPG's, and it got me to thinking about it. These are the first 10 RPG's I ever owned.

1. Keep on the Borderlands
2. AD&D/D&D (Moldvay edition)
3. Gamma World
4. Star Frontiers
5. Marvel Super Heroes
6. Indiana Jones (TSR)
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
8. Top Secret SI
9. GURPS
10. Dragonquest

Keep on the Borderlands

While not a stand alone RPG it was the very first RPG product I ever owned and it had those invaluable combat matrix and equipment tables which allowed me and a friend to fumble through playing the game. This adventure is a classic, and considered the best adventure module ever written for beginning play.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st Edition

The first AD&D books I got were: Player's Handbook, DM's Guide, Deities & Demigods, and Fiend Folio for Christmas in 1982. I didn't get the original Monster Manual until a year later. So the FF was my monster manual, which might explain a lot of my weird tastes. Despite its warts AD&D 1st Edition has a particularly great flavor. Reading the DM's Guide is still entertaining and informative, almost a train of thought straight out of Gary Gygax's imagination and extensive knowledge of the fantasy and historical genres. I make it a point every few years to read the DMG from cover to cover. I mentioned the Moldvay Red Box in the list, and it's a bit fuzzy as to timing when I got the Red Box set, so I lumped them together.

Gamma World, 2nd Edition

I own just about every edition of Gamma World, actually, I think I have them all including the awful White Wolf version. I recall some kids on the bus in middle school having a copy of 1st edition, but I didn't get a chance to look at it then. I got Gamma World 2nd edition right when it came out, and in hindsight I consider it the best version. They took some of the best things about AD&D and applied it to the post-apocalyptic genre. And your characters started out super powerful, it's almost a super hero game. Each edition does have its own charm, though I'm hard pressed to find anything I like in the White Wolf edition. The last version has a card based mechanic I liked in theory, but in practice had some clunkiness. One thing Gamma World shows is that if TSR had any sense or awareness of the market they should have turned the AD&D system into a universal roleplaying game before GURPS took that title.

Star Frontiers

It says a lot that this game still has a small but loyal fan base. You can find resources still being created, blogs, and discussion groups. I recall liking Star Frontiers when it came out, but being disappointed that it didn't have spaceship combat so was glad when Knight Hawks came out. (A mistake I oddly repeated with my own Colonial Troopers RPG, and fixed with the starship supplement, though that is another story I'll tell at a later time)

In hindsight Star Frontiers was just too safe and mundane of a setting. It was very generic sci-fi. If it'd taken a more kitchen sink approach like D&D did, throwing in every cool idea from every science fiction novel from HG Wells to Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, Philip K. Dick, Heinlein, and so on then Star Frontiers could have been a really compelling setting. I do like the cover art by Elmore, I might like his Sci-Fi work better than his fantasy.

The Adventures of Indiana Jones Roleplaying Game (TSR)

The Indiana Jones RPG gets a lot of flack for being the worst RPG ever, and probably deserves that moniker if you only consider the boxed set. I've written before my fondness for this much maligned set. Once you add the Judges Survival Pack it's a pretty nifty game that captures the spirit of the genre. The production values and art were very high quality for its day, and the adventures are quite well written and playable. Someday I'll finish my in depth review of the system itself.

Marvel Super Heroes

I don't care what anyone says, Marvel Super Heroes is the best superhero roleplaying game. Yes, I've played Champions and appreciate that system, but measured for shear fun playing super powered characters the FASERIP system is the best. If you were familiar with the comics you could instantly stat out any character. The addition of the advanced set was remarkably well done, they could have gone crazy with complexity (yes Champions, I'm looking at you) but instead Jeff Grub maintained the integrity and simplicity of the system.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was one of my favorites, and the first non-TSR RPG I owned. I still get a warm fuzzy feeling when I think about it, even though the Palladium system isn't the greatest. All the supplements for this game are just great. I was looking into getting the GM's screen, since it's the only item of this game I don't own but yikes are the prices high on it!

DragonQuest

DragonQuest was feared by TSR as a potential DnD killer. Looking back their fears were a little silly, Dragonquest is ok but was never a threat to DnD's throne. They bought the game, published like one book or something, then left it to quietly wilt away unsupported. I should do a review of this game, it has some things that were innovative in its day, but are dated now and represent a different direction from where the RPG industry went.

Top Secret SI

Not much to say about this. I got this on a whim at the game store, read the books, but never got anyone to play it. Sometime later I did play the James Bond RPG, and that game is so good it's hard to imagine playing spies with anything else.

GURPS

After high school I played way too much GURPS while in the Army. It was during the 2nd edition era of AD&D and I didn't care for what TSR did to the game. GURPS had a fully skill based system, crunchy combat, and no classes or levels. Everything I thought was wrong with D&D at the time, funny that now I think the opposite.

Looking back at 2nd edition DnD it's not all that bad, just some aesthetic decisions that were a turn off. It didn't go far enough in redesigning and improving the game. The cover art wasn't as cool as it could have been. 3rd edition is really what 2nd edition should have been, well except the covers I'm not much of a fan of the non-illustrated covers.

During the 90's I didn't play or buy that much RPG stuff. Then 3rd edition DnD came along, rekindled my interest in gaming and I went a little crazy buying and playing all the games I missed like Champions, Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, Deadlands, and many others.

Top 10 d20 Products

Frog Gods Games just announced the imminent release of Tome of Horrors Complete , since the original Tome of Horrors was one of the best d20 products published (before the tidal wave of d20 crap flooded the game stores and conventions) I thought it would be interesting to do a top ten list of d20 products.

The "d20" period of D&D is special to me because it brought me back to my first RPG love: D&D. I had long since replaced D&D with Call of Cthulhu, GURPS, Rifts, and any number of other RPG's. D&D3 "d20" reminded me of how much I liked the original D&D.

At first things seemed great, the core books wore solid, well thought out, and had some interesting innovations on the original system. But it didn't take long before the avalanche of utter garbage from the "d20 community" and the official published products themselves that I was overwhelmed, and sought refuge in those humble 3 booklets from the Original Edition.

Still, I have to give credit to "d20", it made me once again interested. And, while I don't have as much time these days to play, I still get to enjoy the occasional D&D game and exercise my imagination.

1. D&D Player's Handbook 3.0. Don't knock this choice, it set the bar for d20 products to follow and opened the gates for fans and pros alike to start publishing d20 products of their own (and really, it was the start of the OSR if you think about it). Among the innovations I like are: removed the awkward "Advanced" moniker, just calling it "D&D" was a good move. Ascending AC, prestige classes, spells organized alphabetically (rather than by class), simplifying all the nasty things that can happen to a character into "Conditions", and removing sub-classes. Sure there was plenty to hate: Feats turned the game into a stat-block nightmare, attacks-of-opportunity were unintelligable, but overall it was a good refreshing of D&D.
2. Tome of Horrors. This book felt as close to a 1st edition product as anything published during the d20 period. It brought back so many classics from the original Fiend Folio and was both nostalgic and contemporary - a difficult task to achieve.
3. Arcana Unearthed. Monte Cook's magnum opus of a campaign setting. He pulled out all the stops to show what he thought the original Unearthed Arcana could have been, but wasn't. This book is well worth reading and drawing inspiration from. While I wouldn't play it as is, it certainly has provided inspiration for my own campaigns. (Actually, I want to say Arcana Evolved, because Monte Cook's revision of Arcana Unearthed was superior in almost every way. Really, a great book.)
4. Call of Cthulhu d20. Of all the d20 books published by Wizards, this one struck me as the best. I love the original CoC and it is my choice of system when running a Cthulhu game, but for pulling Cthulu-esque elements into a D&D game the CoC d20 was the perfect resource. My only complaint is they got too clever with the layout - all the silly diagonal text layout was unnecessary and made it harder to read. But the quality of the writing and the design are superb.
5. Delta Green d20. During the d20 heyday a lot of publishers would slap the d20 logo on anything, but Delta Green wasn't like that - it was a premium quality product.. The Delta Green supplement to the original Call of Cthulhu was one of the best written, well conceived RPG products ever designed. Pagan Publishing found a way to turn CoC into a sustainable campaign. It was creepy, brilliant, intriguing, and fun. The d20 version maintained all the quality of the original without compromises. 
6. Midnight. Fantasy Flight Games published a dark d20 setting with a simple concept: what if in the Lord of the Rings Sauron won? Midnight is a campaign world where the "dark lord" won the great battle in the war of good vs. evil, and now the heroes (the players) live in fear and are part of a rag tag rebellion, it is just a great idea. I might be biased because I illustrated the original edition, but the concept was so strong and the setting so well conceived it all added up to a great game.
7. Mutants & Masterminds. The fact that Green Ronin continues to publish Mutants & Masterminds should tell you something. They found a way to take the d20 system and write, arguably, the best Superhero RPG out there. While Champions my be the, um, champion of "crunch", Mutants & Masterminds took the most familiar RPG system in the world - D&D - and turned it into one of the best superhero RPG systems you can imagine. I just love this game.
8. Magical Medieval Society. Written as if by serious historians and scholars as if magic really existed during the Medieval period. This product might seem tedious to others, but it takes the proposition of magic seriously and the ramifications it would have on a medieval society. It is one of the most brilliantly written RPG supplements of any period, not just d20.
9. Iron Kingdoms World Guide. Privateer Press was very smart in how it took advantage of the d20 open license. They published just a few EXTREMELY HIGH QUALITY (yes, the all-caps was worth it) products and sold enough of them to fund their true ambitions: a cutting edge miniatures company. The writing, art, design, and layout of Privateer Press demonstrate a dedication to craftsmanship that tempts me to call them the Apple of the pen & paper games industry. Everything they published for d20: Monsternomicon, Witch Blade Saga, and Iron Kingdoms deserve a place on this list, if only there was room.
10. Pathfinder. Only because Paizo created something as close to the D&D Rules Cyclopedia for d20 as possible with all the power of modern graphics, game design, writing, and illustration they could muster. I just wish it wasn't in all in 9pt font, wall to wall text. But you still have to be impressed by that core book, it sums up just about everything and the quality is as good as it gets.

And that about finishes the top 10 products of the d20 era. Your mileage may vary.

Best and Worst of TSR

I disagree with some of the choices, but Teague Bohlen posted an interesting best/worst list on his rather enjoyable Topless Robot blog.

Inevitably Indiana Jones is on the worst of list. My high school gaming group and I must be the only people who enjoyed this game. When we got the Judges Pack accessory and were able to roll up our own characters we had a blast. The system was light, fast, and captured the movies effectively enough. The modules were particularly well done.

TSR 10 Best, 6 Worst

I'd never put Boot Hill on any best of list.

Top Ten Round-Up

1. Dungeon Master's Guide (1e)
2. Player's Handbook (1e)
3. Dragon Magazine #83
4. Village of Hommlet
5. Ravenloft
6. Gamma World (2e)
7. Rogues Gallery
8. Dragonlance: Dragons of Desolation
9. Star Frontiers
10. D&D Expert Set

Runners up: Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, Against the Cult of the Reptile God. And it's a travesty I didn't squeeze the Rules Cyclopedia in. In many ways it deserves the number 1 spot since over the years it has grown so much in stature.

I thought doing a top 10 was a great idea to buy time while I got ahead on the Monastery Ruins project. Instead it turned out to be incredibly hard to sort out what my favorites where - and in the end I realized that it is really impossible to categorize these beloved products in this manner. Even now I would probably make a very different list.

Top 10 favorite TSR products, #1 Dungeon Master's Guide

Here we are, #1. Should be no surprise that it is the original Dungeon Master's Guide. I've mentioned before how this book was my first exposure to D&D. I had no understanding of how the game played but this book evoked a fantasy world and a mystery that intrigued me deeply.

Some of my favorite things were the explanations of unfamiliar words like milieu and campaign. Expert hirelings - for some reason the sage was interesting to me. Aerial combat. The sample dungeon! Stronghold construction and siege - something sadly lost in later editions. Artifacts, in particular Baba Yaga's hut and eye/hand of Vecna of course. Random Dungeon generation - which inspired Dungeoneer. The random city encounters table is particularly good. Alphabetical monster charts - which I'd read before ever seeing the Monster Manual. All those wonderful random charts in the back were inspiring and useful.

Then of course were those great illustrations. There is no honor among thieves. Darlene's scratchboard illustration on the page discussing infravision/ultravision. The guy trapped in a flooding room with the skeleton coming towards him. Sutherland's footer illustrations under the random dungeon generation pages. Emerikol the Chaotic!

This book still holds an enchantment on me and just looking at it stirs the imagination.

Top 10 favorite TSR products, #2 Player's Handbook

It's almost a cliche' to even mention this, one of the greatest RPG books of all time. The Player's Handbook!


Hey, wait a minute...something's not right here. I don't even recognize this book! Where did it come from?

Ok, ok. Here it is. The TRUE Player's Handbook!
Words fail to describe the awesomeness of this masterpiece. Gygaxian rambling, I mean prose. Ability tables that have modifiers all over the place. But what made this book really special was the shear ambition it encompassed and the flavorful character it possessed. Full color hard cover, 128 pages, profusely illustrated was unheard of in it's day for the burgeoning RPG market. Instead of me telling you about it, look for yourself.

Top 10 favorite TSR products, #4 Village of Hommlet

The Village of Hommlet. It is to AD&D what Keep on the Borderlands was to Basic. The start of so many adventurer's careers. I remember it being one of my first times playing D&D. We raided a peasant's hovel and I felt horribly guilty. This pulled me into the adventure emotionally and I felt the need to right wrongs and defend the village from the evil out there. Personally I always loved this version with the Dave Trampier cover over the later green cover with Jeff Dee art.
There were nefarious individuals, plotting, planning evil things in the 'innocent' little village. The nearby moathouse (yep, ruins, the best place for adventures) held unknown dangers and treasures. And the suggestion of a still greater evil unwakened - the mysterious Temple of Elemental Evil - it seemed like we waited forever to be published, and boy did it not dissapoint! The first of the "supermodules", packed with more entertainment for your dollars than any book or movie could deliver.
This is the highest ranking module on my list. It was hard to choose, there were so many great contenders. The honorable mentions are:

WG4 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, which has a special place in my heart. While most of the adventure was typical, it was the weird lower levels where Tharizdun was imprisoned that made this adventure so special. And the art was appropriately strange and unlike any other thing TSR published.

The drow series is so famous I hardly felt the need to mention it. N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God had an incredible - nearly impossible - ending "boss" monster and the lead up to it was scrumptious. S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth felt like Gary Gygax mercilessly unleashing his imagination, it was such a great adventure and it had the best sourcebook included. I could go on.

But as great as all these other adventures were the Village of Hommlet will always rule my imagination and memories as the best module I ever played and DM'd.

Top 10 favorite TSR products, #5 Ravenloft

Those maps. That villain. The random plot generator. The gothic mood before goth was in. This is nearly my favorite adventure module of all time, there is only one better. But that's for a future post.

Top 10 favorite TSR products, #6 Gamma World

Gamma World is the first RPG I played that wasn't D&D. I was introduced to GW with the 1st edition, but the 2nd edition was the first one I owned, so that edition is Gamma World in my nostalgic mind.

Gamma World is very similar mechanically to classic D&D: hit dice, armor class, abilities (wisdom changed to "mental strength"), it's all there with only classes, levels, and elves removed. To this day I don't understand why TSR kept trying to make new RPG systems when they already had the world's best - and best selling - RPG: D&D! How much more fun if Lolth, Cryptic Alliances, Yzarians, Spiderman, and Indiana Jones could exist together. The imagination boggles at the possibilities.

This was in the 80's. We had the cold war and Thundarr the Barbarian. So in a way Gamma World made sense then, though it seems ridiculous by today's standards.

Thumbing through my old copy I recall it was the first time I'd seen the 3-column layout used, which TSR became addicted to for a while so they could cram more words on the page. Also, Elmore did a lot of drawings for this game. I do so like his pen & inks. And Keith Parkinson was just starting to find his voice as an artist.

If I was to grade the editions I'd have to say 1st and 2nd edition where the high water marks. It went downhill from 3rd on. TSR fell in love with the Marvel Superheroes "column shift" system and slapped it onto Gamma World and it didn't fit well. 4th was a bit like 2nd edition AD&D, which wasn't all bad, but the book felt rushed and incomplete as did 5th edition. 6th is an abomination, I don't even want to talk about it.

Jonathon Tweet probably caught the spirit best in his "Omega World" tribute to Gamma World in the hallowed pages of Dragon magazine.

Occasionally I daydream about starting up a classic Gamma World campaign, but I feel it's one of those things probably best left in my warm memories.

Top 10 favorite TSR products, #7 Rogues Gallery

Ok, I have to redeem myself for that last post. While Dragonlance has a warm fuzzy place in my heart, I realize that likely readers of this blog in general do not hold such introsive, heavy handed story-railroading in very high regard. In my defense I did try to focus on the art (I consider many of the DL covers to be stunning) not the plot.

#7 on my list is The Rogues Gallery. There is little I can say that James Maliszewski hasn't already noted. So I'll try to avoid being a "me too" post (an impossible task).

The first 2/3rds of the book is not particularly exciting, just lists of numbers. It did have some utility for those on-the-fly npc's that are often needed in the heat of running an adventure. Especially as player's tend to do the unexpected. It was the last 3rd of this book that really shined and makes this product rank #7 in my favorites.

After the rote spreadsheet-style npc lists, we get some interesting and useful things like sages, merchant caravans, and monsters like ki-rins and liches kind of detailed out. But the best part was the individual npc descriptions in the very back, making this product special. It had classics like Tenser and Mordenkainen, but for some reason it was Phoebus the lizard man, and Talbot the centaur that intrigued me. They had similiar stories in that they'd each died and due to lack of ressurection availability were instead reincarnated. Talbot was the most appealing to me because his story was tragic. Whereas Phoebus was able to embrace his lizard-manity, Talbot was lonely and an outsider, unable to hang with the centaurs, but no longer feeling comfortable around humans.

This book is monumental in my memorie and imagination and it was one of the most useful D&D accessories from that period.

Of special note, regarding the art, the cover is strange and compelling as to be expected from the illustrious Erol Otus. But this book has the best (and some of the worst) examples of Jeff Dee's drawings. In particular, next to A Paladin in Hell by the late Sutherland, this is one of the most compelling compositions of a paladin:
Doesn't it still make you want to play a paladin? Like right now...