Great post yesterday from Victor Raymond at his Sandbox of Doom blog about the difficulties inherent in running a game in the Trek universe and trying to keep everyone happy. I, too, have seen how concerns about the dreaded "canon" limit your options in what should be a wide open setting. Check it out.
ADDENDUM 4:15pm: Must be the weekend for great Trek RPG blog entries (too bad I don't have one!). Barking Alien posted a completely different type of entry that really takes me back to my own, similar experience at Graceland Hobbyland in Columbus, Ohio. It would have been 1983, I was 17, and there one day -- surrounded by a magic halo -- was FASA's Star Trek RPG. His story is happier though. I didn't buy it that day, I had to hold out a few weeks until I could afford the Deluxe version. Then when I got home and called my gaming friends, nobody cared. *sigh* Today I live vicariously through Adam, lol.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Trek RPGs - Different Expectations
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"Surrounded by a magic halo", lol. I'll glad it wasn't just my copy.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe no one cared. That just pains me.
With my friends and I, D&D was our first game but very few of the two dozen or so gamers I knew in 1982-83 were actually fantasy fans.
We were 13-15 years old and it was all about Star Trek, Star Wars and Superhero comics. We played Star Trek in grade school the way most kids played cops and robbers, running around with plastic phasers and cheesy communicator walkie-talkies. Ah, youth!
AD
Dude! Graceland! My brother and I bought ours, roughly the same time, at the Drowsy Dragon (or was it the Town & Country Hobbyland).
ReplyDeleteWe couldn't get too many people to play, either.
We couldn't get too many people to play, either
ReplyDeleteMust've been a Columbus thang, lol. Damn shame we never met then!
Drowsy Dragon... that was the little house on the edge of Whitehall, yes (on Broad St? It's been so long!!)?
If so, MAN, I loved that place. I went to HS down the street (St. Charles), so would sometimes just take the bus in the wrong direction to window shop there. That's where I bought and got completely sucked into Call of Cthulhu. And some FASA Doctor Who stuff (which didn't knock my socks off).
But Graceland Hobbyland, that place rocked for models, microgames and my first RPGs. That's where it all started for me, rode my bike there almost once a week. I was back at Xmas visiting family year before last, and was stunned to see the Hobbyland was still there! Budged a few doors down, and very different stock than the old days, but it was comforting to see it was still there.
Was T&C also on E Broad (probably not too far from DD)? The thing I remember about that place was that they didn't seem to carry what I was looking for. But if I had wanted Japanese Macross and Yamato models, I would have been in heaven.
Then there's the place wayyyy out west. Where I bought GURPS stuff in the 90s, but never played at all. Guardtower or something?
Good times, good times.
Dude, you're really really scaring me. I graduated St.Charles in '86. Yeah, d*** shame we never met!!!! (Yes, I looked you up in the yearbooks just now.) How come you didn't play with the school D&D club?
ReplyDeleteYes, Drowsy Dragon was that wonderful little house off E. Broad, practically across the street from T&C. I went there some, because I'm also a board-wargamer. The Soldiery on N.High St. bought out their stock, and maintains a "DD Memorial RPG corner"
Guardtower is still out there, they had a great game room in the back.
FTW?!?! Dammmmnnnnn.....
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't I play in the club? Frankly, I was a little tired of D&D by that time. Can't for the life of me remember anyone else in the club, except maybe Ethan Dick (also '84)? I think I went to the first two, then bailed.
My group was also mostly SC by way of St. Anthony's years earlier (Kerr and Sean Gibson? Was Sean in your class?) and we were a pretty happy group. We'd been playing since '78 (D&D, TFT and *lots* of Ogre and WarpWar). But Kerr graduated in '83 and, even though he only went as far as OSU, the group drifted (in fact, not wanting to play Trek may have been the last straw for me, I think, lol!).
You wouldn't have liked me by that time, anyway. I was all "cool" and punkrock and had a real chip on my shoulder... the kind only Father Bennet could knock around. :) I have improved with age.
Wow. Small as hell frickin' world, fellow Card! Drop me a line anytime, robert AT robertsaintjohn.com .