My History with TTRPGs

Feel like sharing my history with tabletop RPGs and how my exposure to the games and other media have affected my beliefs, in regards to games and how I houserule and homebrew things.

My first introduction was to Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition, and Shadowrun 3e by my older half-sister, when me and my younger sister went to visit her at college back in… ‘03? ‘05? Somewhere in that range. I saw her Player’s Handbook and flipped through it, not fully grasping what all the terminology and phrasing meant, but I was captured by it. Later that day, she ran a short demo for me and my younger sister, where we built some really light characters, and rolled the d20 and such, going through how the game went. We didn’t do anything with Shadowrun, but I think I did ask her about it and got a basic bit of information.

Fast forward to my first year of college in 2007. This is where I got to play Dungeons and Dragons, and Shadowrun, for real on my dorm floor. This was also where I ran my first ever session as a GM, since the DnD game went for like, one adventure with the first GM then I ran a single session.. Then I think winter break happened. It was a fun experience, and it led to me buying the 3.5 Player’s Handbook from a local game store.

Over that following summer, I ran a few one shots for a few friends, including games at two separate graduation parties. I’ll tell you one thing, playing D&D outside, in the middle of the night by lamplight, with a bonfire crackling a bit behind you is quite the experience.

Over the next two years when I was out of college, I would run a few 3.5 one shots here and there, and I remember running a short, 3 session long World of Darkness game for some friends to sort of expand my boundaries.

When I went back to college in 2010, I didn’t hook up with the same group of friends I made freshman year, because they were now upperclassmen and I was basically a sophomore and they were closer to graduating, plus a bunch of them had already transferred. Made some new friends, and joined the Tabletop Club on campus, which didn’t exist when I was a freshman. Here’s where I learned about Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition, and I reconnected with some of my old friends to play in a Vampire the Masquerade game, and then a Shadowrun game, which was fun. This was also the year I ran my longest running campaign to date, which went weekly for like, 6 months. As a brief aside, I vastly prefer 4e to 3.5.

After that, I moved and transferred to another school and city, the one I live in now. Lost my groups. Ran like, 2 sessions total between 2012 and 2020, when some of my friends from High School moved to the same city, before they moved again. Tried to get into online games, but depression, anxiety, and imposter syndrome type shit got involved and prevented me from running anything, or even playing anything really.

What filled that gap though and kept my enjoyment and love for tabletop stuff alive were two Actual Play podcasts: The Adventure Zone and Friends at the Table. Both of these audio Actual Play shows let me keep connected to these games vicariously through them. The Adventure Zone reminded me of the screwball 4e game I ran in college, while Friends at the Table constantly impressed me with their worldbuilding and introduced me to so many new games that I now have my own copies of. Games like Dungeon World and The Sprawl basically are streamlined versions of games I love, while Mechnoir showed me that you can do some really crazy things if you take HP away as a number. Their Merielda arc showed me how cool the Blades in the Dark and Forged in the Dark games are in general. Even for the games I don’t really want to play, like Heart the City Beneath and Firebrands, I appreciated learning about them and potentially taking ideas from them. I might play a version of Heart in a different setting, who knows.

These two shows are also very influential on how I want to run games. The Adventure Zone falls right in line with my “fuck it, let’s let it ride and figure it out later” type mentality I’ve liked to have, and it feels nice to have it done by someone else. Friends at the Table showed me that ruining your own character’s life for a dramatic moment should be encouraged. A flawed character that fucks up and makes mistakes and does things that aren’t in their wheelhouse is good.

From the games they’ve played, I’ve been able to branch out too. Running in the Shadow is a game I grabbed because it’s essentially Shadowrun but Forged in the Dark, and Hack the Planet is another cyberpunk FITD game. Cyborgs and Cigarettes reminds me of another system I can’t remember (Savage World? Mutants and Masterminds? Can’t remember), but has a neat 1920s noir + robots aesthetic. Blades of Ether is a neat Xenoblade 2 inspired game I’m interested in diving into more. Burning Hearts Forever seems like a really versatile Powered by the Apocalypse engine game that fits a lot of genres I like. Numenera might be my favorite game system at this moment. And Lancer remains as cool today as it was when I first read about it a couple years ago.

My list of games I want to run or play is now a dozen or so deep, before even hitting Dungeons and Dragons anymore, and that’s so cool, to me. It is really something to look back on the past 20 years, and see exactly what the flash points are for my inspiration, what I enjoy and what I want to make my games become.

What a cool hobby.