What type of gamer are you?

[flatscan]

This is only tangentially related to Conan but...

I recently was hanging with a good friend of mine who was talking about anime and after listening to him drone on for 15 minutes I finally had to stop him and say, "Look, I don't care one whit about anime. Except for Miyazaki's stuff (and a very few others) it's all juvenile crap as far as I'm concerned." This led me to begin thinking how different my attitudes towards stuff most gamers seem to like and what I like are.

What I hate:

1. Final Fantasy - I wish an abyss would open up and suck Square/Enix straight into hell.

2. Anime - I can watch Miyazaki's stuff if it's on, but I won't go out of my way to watch it. Most other anime is just retarded.

3. Comic books - I used to avidly collect Batman until I realized those comics (like most comics) are just a soap opera with a recurring set of villains and grew completely and utterly bored with them.

4. Most TV shows other gamers seem to gravitate to - I couldn't stand Buffy or Angel (though I did thoroughly enjoy Firefly), or Star Trek even.

5. Indie RPGs - I think it's mostly the attitude of the gamers that like these games which turns me off them. Because of the hate on sites like rpg.net for D&D 4e and other such mainstream games I will never play Pathfinder (hardly indie these days, but still), Barbarians of Lemuria, or many other indie games. Just a note to publishers that should read this, your fans are your own worst enemies as I know I'm not alone in refusing to play such games because of the bile they spit on games I do enjoy.

I like:

1. Pulp fiction - I can read Robert E Howard and H.P. Lovecraft stories all day every day.

2. Gaming - But mostly only games I run. I set high standards for myself when GMing, pushing myself to create interesting encounters, setting up playlists on my iPod for music during the game, spending hours with Photoshop and e-adventure tiles to make playmats, writing 5+ page blogs of each game session, etc. Most of the people I game with as a player don't put that much effort into the game and I'm always left wanting.

3. Video games - For the most part. I've been playing video games since the Atari 2600 days. Usually I get obsessed with a single game for months at a time. My current obsession is Age of Conan. Before that it was Halo 3. Before that it was Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (in spite of its anime look).

What about all of you? What are your geek likes and dislikes? Do they line up with gamer stereotypes?

 

[Strom]

I follow your likes and dislikes exactly except for the generalization of comic books. I still love comic books but not super-hero comics. Comic books like Conan the Cimmerian, The Unknown Solider, Kull, Solomon Kane, Northlanders (only buy the trades) or Knights of the Dinner Table are quality comics that deliver every month.

 

[flatscan]

Yeah, the Conan/Kull/Solomon Kane comics are the only ones I buy these days. As you know I have major issues with Conan and Solomon Kane as currently done by Dark Horse. But compared to the superhero comics they are shining stars of awesomeness. Knights of the Dinner Table is quality, I agree, though I don't buy it regularly.

 

[Twin Agate Dragons]

I happen to like Final Fantasy, but only specific games (IV, VI,& VII). I don't have any taste for anime since I've never had proper exposure to it. As per comics, I pretty much stopped reading after completing The Death of Superman. I've only read two since. When it comes to TV, I find that I'm more drawn to science fiction more than fantasy. I rarely watch anything other than 70s/80s/90s classic shows and never anything that's morally ambigous (Wife Swap, etc) or too seemingly realistic (ER, Jon & Kate, etc.) with the exception of King of Queens.

 

[VincentDarlage]

I can't stand:

Anime: Just never really cared much for it.

Video Game RPGs: Never really played them (I never really got beyond Atari in terms of technology), but they are too addictive (so I stay away) and combat heavy and... just really don't care for them.

Superhero Vampires & Werewolves: Especially those that fight each other. I mean vampires that are treated like an alternative lifestyle but with super powers, as though being a vampire or werewolf is a wonderful thing or a viable choice to make. Vampires are dead people walking. They track down and destroy things that are wonderful in life. They shouldn't be treated like a viable lifestyle choice with the added bonus of superpowers. Same goes for sexy good-girl vampires. Give me a Christopher Lee vampire over a David Boreanaz vampire any day.

Super Polished Artwork: I know the artwork in 3.x and 4E D&D is probably technically better, but I really prefer the old 1E AD&D artwork. It had more heart and more atmosphere.

Forgotten Realms: I have never cared for Forgotten Realms. It always seemed generic and uninteresting to me. Mostly it was the names. Why adventure in a place called "Waterdeep" when you can visit "Shadizar the Wicked." Most of the names in the Forgotten Realms really just left me cold and did not evoke atmosphere or culture. A good name should do both.

I like:

Pulp stories. REH, Lovecraft, CAS, CL Moore, Seabury Quinn, Carl Jacobi, Hugh B. Cave, etc.

Horror Stories and Movies: I like horrific vampires, ghosts, etc. I love the old Universal and Hammer horror films. Here is a good description of a vampire type that I like: "...vampires are about as appealing as bubonic plague and as seductive as blood-sucking leeches. A predatory ghost who murders people to prolong its own unnatural existance, the vampire is perhaps the least attractive and most destructive of all monsters." (John Michael Greer, Monsters)

Classic Novels: Frankenstein, Dracula, the Turn of the Screw, Siddhartha, Gone with the Wind, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, The Three Musketeers, etc.

Older TV Shows: Perry Mason, Adventures of Superman, Doctor Who (I haven't seen the new ones), Dark Shadows, and so on. I am actually enough of a nerd that I own two scarves in Tom Baker's Dr. Who patterns (the colourful one and the red & black one of his last season).

Errol Flynn Movies: I love Errol Flynn movies. Captain Blood! Yay!

 

[Dark Lord Skippy]

Well, maybe its a gamer thing or an age group thing... who knows. I could go on all day about a million of these, but I'll hit on those already touched upon by others.

Final Fantasy: I barely know what it is. I've seen some ads. It didnt interest me in the least, thus why I know so little of it.

Video Games: For the most part, anything you play on a PS3 or an Xbox holds very little interest for me. Could care less. My wife got a Wii for Xmas a couple of years ago and some of those make good party games, but thats about it.

MMORPGs: To me, this is a misnomer. Its just a video game (see above) that someone is mislabeling as an RPG. I could care less.

Gamer gravitated TV shows: This one varies. I loved Firefly but wouldnt watch Buffy or Angel if you put a gun to my head. For that matter....

Vampires: Hate 'em. Dont care. Nothing you do with them can overcome my complete disdain of this "genre".

Comic Books: I'm a fan for any of them with good art and a decent story arc. I love the Dark Horse Conan, the Dynamite Red Sonja, and a few of the superhero books (although it varies according to which writer and artist is working it).

Anime: Could care less. I've been exposed to a lot of it and can honestly say I disliked 99% of it.

 

[Bygoneyrs]

Well first off I am 46 years old male in the US, and have been playing RPG games now for 33+ years. I started playing WarGames from companies like SPI and Avalon Hill before that. I grew up on D&D/AD&D, Gamma World, Traveller, and Champions.

Now when I was growing up very few folks had Color TVs yet (we did and they were HUGE consules sitting on the floor in wooden cabinets). Next Cable TV had just got stareted, and with cable you got like maybe 12 channels, and I was lucky because HBO demo'd in upsate NY where I grew up too. No MTV yet, till almost my college years. The first PCs were extremely expensive for a long time and folks didn't start having them till I was in my mid 20s.

Now as for my likes and dislikes...well I always collected Comics like Thor, Spiderman, Green Lantern, Flash, Avengers and etc. I have boxes and boxes of these in plastic backed with cardboard in storage boxes. I don't really collect anymore, and haven't in nearly 15+ yrs, BUt my 13 year old son has started and has picked up where I left off.

Online gaming: just does mot appeal to me at all. Oh for a while I played 1st person shooters like Tribes and etc...but that is no more. Who has the time for such things as that anymore.

Video games: well my two sons have the PS2, PS3, Xbox360, and Wii they love the game sysems and have hundreds of games but poor old dad just doesn't have the reflexes to do that stuff, and it doesn't hold my interest either.

TV shows: well I use to say I like SciFi, but some of the "CRAP" on TV or SyFy anymore is really really BAD!!! I liked shows like Space Above and Beyond, Space 1999, UFO, Earth2, SG1, SGA, BSG Old show (BSG new show was to damn much a Soap), Dark Shadows, Dr Who (Tom Baker was awesome), Blake 7, Red Dwarf, and all those older cooler space based shows.

I never really got into Anime: now I liked Starblazers, Robotech,Old Transformers, Thunder Cats, and some of the older shows but not the new stuff. My 13 year old son watches some of it, but not alot of it.

Games: PBM/PBEM games I have played quite a few of those over the years and I am a HUGE fan of Midgard PBM. The Play By Mail/EMail games are a truely dieing erra or breed, but there are a few still out there. Next we have RPG (table tope roleplaying games): well I have played D&D for 33+ years and feel the AD&D and D&D vs 2.5 were the best versions of the game. Now I own lots of D&D v3.5 as well, BUT when they came out with D&D v4 ...I dropped D&D because I refuse to rebuy it all again, and learn yet another system/style to play the game. Sorry they have taken to much roleplaying out of the game and introduced to much leveling for my taste. I have played Traveller for 30+ years from it's beginning and have tried to buy it "ALL" over the years and have been extremely successful with doing it. I think Mongoose Traveller is awesome and wiull keep supporting it. Next I have played Champions or the Hero Systems for 20+ years. Now I own all 84+ v5 books but, have decided to drop the Hero Systems too because they have come out with HS v6 for the stupid people that can't read/think. I I seem to be supporting the d20 system (Conan / Pathfinder), and Traveller, and Gamma World d20 along with BRP (Basic Roleplaying d100) system too.

So being a older gamer and DM/GM I guess I don't want to relearn new systems for games I already know so well, and I guess too I am getting set in my ways and care more about roleplaying in my games than hack and slash. In the end I care about having fun and providing fun for my gamers within my campaigns. Everything has changed alot over the years and yes the players have changed too. I guess in a way many of us middle aged gamers are trying to in a way recapture our youth again, but the weight of life on us has made us a bit unbennding and set in our ways. We are a dieing breed, and the RPG industry is also changing too.

Just my 2 cents...

Penn

 

[Scorpion13]

Anime: Iwas BIG into DBZ back in the day, but now all I can stomach is Mobile Suit Gundam and other old school stuff.

Vidja Games: I love RTS's (no Paper-Rock-Scissors though, thanks. I can make my own tactics and strategy, thank you), and alot of other stuff.

Comics: Still into them, but yeah, I do hate the constant soap opera of the Big Two, though I will read a TPB of them with no problem. Small press stuff like Hellboy and whatever Alan Moore is doing nowadays is my thing. I loved Wildstorm until the series of reboots.

Movies: Anything with a good plot and clever writing and dialogue is what Im about.

Books: Stephen King is my favorite, Lovecraft, God bless him, sometimes is a fight to read. Dexter Ward took me 2 days to read and I read LOTR in 4. REH of course, but dont forget about ERB. He's pretty damn good at what he does.

TV: Most of its crap, but there are some things I like. House is a good one, Kids in the Hall, UCB, Homicide: Life on the street, NYPD Blue....etc.

Everything Else: Well, Im a big Old School Wrestling fan, so I of course pray at the altar of Fire Pro Wrestling, I like Howard Stern, when he isnt phoning it in like he is usually these days. Warhammer 40k is cool, but I aint getting into the miniatures part, I love the fluff and Horus Heresy stuff is amazing. Achewood is my favorite webcomic, and I always read Penny Arcade, but Kate Beaton and McNinja are in there too.

So, there you go.

 

[zozotroll]

50 years, and I have been playing miniature wargames before there where RPGs. Now, if it doesnt have minis, it doesnt feel like a game.

I have never watched or played final fantasy, so must not like it that much.

I really dislike the GW model, and dont care how good a game is, I am not rebuying a system every 3-5 years just because of the logo on it.

I really dislike 300, and any other movie that takes a good historical story and turns it into a live cartoon.

Actual, I think I dislike most movies based on jusat about anything, as they never get it right. I enjoyed Hellboy, but then I never read the comic.



I like Conan, RQ, Rolemaster and Cyberpunk 2020

I like movies that show combat as a grime nasty buisseness, not WWF with weapons.

I like Pirates. Pirates are way cooler than Ninjas.

I am in the middle on anume, I liked some, disliked most.

I have not read a comic since Weird Warseveral decades ago.

I alomst cant desribe how much I love the net because we can do things like this, and actualy talk to people like Matt and Vincent. Younger poeple will never understand because they will have always had that.

 

[Malcadon]

I'm a real mixed-bag.

What I hate are:

Dungeon-punk Fantasy. This is the style you would see in modern versions of D&D, MMORPGs, Final Fantasy, and anime-styled fantasy.

Tolkenesque Fantasy. I gone over to Conan and Carsosa to get way from all the useful magic, the morality plays, the Elves vs Orcs, the +3 backscratchers, and the half-elf princess riding a white unicorn!

Superhero Comics. I stop reading them after Excalibur in the early 90's, when comics started to suck! (I still like Excalibur and X-men from the mid-70's to late 80's)

Metaplots. I hate having to read a ton of canon-heavy sourcebooks to keep up with things! The 90's was just suck, with all the tons and tons of TSR and White Wolf sourcebooks.

Sexy Vampires. With Ann Rice back in the 90's to today's Twilight, and a bunch in between - it just getting a little too old for me!

The Grind. A role-playing game that focuses only on combat is NOT role-playing! People try to get me into MMOs, and they never understand why I dont like them. All you do is run around and kill sh!t! In some games - like Runescape - all you do is chores. I play game because it fun - "farming" and chore quests are NOT FUN!

D20 Splat Books. I dont have much issue with the fluff - it all the added junk they throw into them! A new prestigious class for jerk-offs, a ton of new Fluffer Feats, and a bunch of new spells that can only scratch asses!!! I like sourcebooks to be informative, but one that just throws rules at me is just useless to me!!!

Photoshop Art. I like hand drawn art. Digital art never looked right to me, and I can always tell when its digital.

What I like are:

Sword & Sorcery. Do I even need to elaborate? High Fantasy got old, and I always liked S&S.

Swords & Planets. Much like S&S, but with super-science. Think Flash Gordon and John Carter of Mars.

Space Westerns. I like space opera when its gritty, and with some classical and cow-boy elements. Classic Star Trek and Firefly are the best examples of this.

Cyberpunk. I just like dark-edged, 80's-styled feel of the game. I dont really care much about Shadowrun, but if the fantasy elements was less Tolkenesque, and more S&S, then I'll be all for it.

Real-Robot War Fiction. Basically realistic anime with giant robots. I like to take mecha and vehicles form a wide range of fiction - Battletech, Heavy Gear, Gundam, and so on - and mesh them into a single fiction, and have them beat the hell out of each other!

Sandbox Gaming. I like an open-ended setting that sets up the basics, and allow the players to full out the details. TSR game use to have these before all the canonizing.

The Kitchen Sink Coalition. This came from my love of Gamma World, mixed with a ton of other elements. Kitchen Sink gaming, is a game that mixes sorcery with super-science with the supernatural, just as it mixes up genres. If you like adventures with mutant monkey ninjas, cyborg zombie pirates, vampire Nazi sorcerers, and the infamous Bear Cavalry, then this is your game! Its crazy, over-the-top, and really fun! TORG, Lords of Creation, and Encounter Critical, prime examples of this. 80's cartoons, like Thundercats, He-Man, and Thundarr the Barbarian are vary Kitchen Sink.

Good Art. I can play a game with no art, but I find art to be really evocative of the setting. I really like line art more then color - much like how I like the art from the Conan Saga comics more then the colorful art in the Dark Horse Conan comics. I tend to see the use of nudity as a sign of boldness and level of maturity in part of the publisher's sense of mature content - if its tasteful, they are sensible; if its shamelessly gratuitous, they are just wankers; if they are covering thing up with long hair, they are too sensitive.

 

[Saxon]

Wow, you guys are filled with bitterness...if I didn't know any better I'd think you were all Americans...but enough about slumping economies effect on out looks...

Anime...really...I'm too old for that...not that its not quality and it did spark a revolution in American cartoon product, but...well...I have a life.

On Vampires I have to agree with Darlage: "Superhero Vampires & Werewolves: Especially those that fight each other. I mean vampires that are treated like an alternative lifestyle but with super powers, as though being a vampire or werewolf is a wonderful thing or a viable choice to make. Vampires are dead people walking. They track down and destroy things that are wonderful in life. They shouldn't be treated like a viable lifestyle choice with the added bonus of superpowers. Same goes for sexy vampires. "

Video Games: I had the ATARI 2600 & 6400, but made the conscious decsion not to get the Nintendo and never dabbled in that addiction again...

Comic Books: Avid, then I stopped, then bought all the 1st in Image a few years later...once in a while I buy a Conan comic when they publish.


TV: love the history channel and its ilk

Movies: Love the historical based movies, even though they are not accurate, they raise awarenss for people to google the event the movie is based on.

 

[Demetrio]

I don't like anime or comics (well except stuff like Calvin and Hobbes - but I've always found 'graphic novels' to be lacking in appeal both visually and in written content).

I whole-heartedly agree, vampires and werewolves are much better as evil creatures rather than a super-power giving lifestyle choice. Ann Rice and White Wolf have a lot to answer for (though to be fair, White Wolf originally seemed to do the 'play a vampire' thing quite well).

I don't like video games but I do like computer wargames (of the strategy sort, not shoot-em-ups so much).

I like TV programmes like Deadwood (series I and II anyway), Rome, Band of Brothers and Firefly and a fairly wide range of films except I hate crap acting (as seen in the Conan films amongst others), over-reliance on CGI at the expense of acting and script, or stuff with obviously choreographed violence (like Woo's rubbish and stuff like The Matrix). Bascially I like to be drawn into the film.

Same goes for books really. Give me O'Brian, MacDonald Fraser, Banks or Tolkien and I'm happy.

In RPGs, I like a good setting. I never liked D&D so much because the settings were just so lame. Whereas Glorantha was brilliant - biggest mistake ever made was moving RQ away from Glorantha. Equally CoC had a great background setting, as does Conan of course. And Traveller was probably one of the worst systems ever devised but I liked it because it had a well developed universe. I guess by that token, I should have liked FASAs Star Trek and Doctor Who games but for some reason they just didn't cut it. MERP I enjoyed tremendously, despite its rather stupid critical tables. I need good adventures too, I can't be doing with making up my own all the time (probably the problem with the FASA games I mentioned - there was a lamentable lack of adventures).

 

[ferrinwulf]

Well I'm 40 and been roleplaying on and off for 25 years, started with basic d&d in the red box.

Anime: My mates like it, my wife likes it but I don't get it. Silly kid faces and screaming. Drives me mad.

Final Fantasy: nope does nothing for me, its all so twee, nice and for the younger generation.

Vampires: Yep like em if done right with angst like Anne Rice and the WW stuff, they are suppossed to be evil but I like the morality tales too in fact I like most of the WW stable apart form metaplot, that bores me.

TV shows and Movies: Will try most out, I love Rome, Carnivale, BSG (new), Xena (I know), trying Legend of the seeker but it sucks a tad.

Books: Anything dark and gritty, Clive Barker, Steven Erickson, Joe Abbercrombie, George RR Martin, Neil Gaiman, Conn Igguldon, Howard Conan, Lovecarft etc.

Comics: Don't like the superheroes much but love the vertigo stuff, Sandman and Preacher were amazing.

MMORPG'S: Used to play them alot but i'm getting bored of them now, tried most out, fave was eq2, hated wow too many kids, played AOC when it came out for 6 months but it got boring just grinding, I like to get xp for exploring and a good crafting system too. Trying Vanguard at mo.

RPG'S: Played or owned most of them, but when it comes down to it d&d and its d20 derivitvies is my bag. I do love the storytelling system and Earthdawn but my present group would not go for it. Sticking with what I know is best as the players are on limited budgets so buying books is a difficult. I like d20 for its many add ons and the grittyness of Conan is great. The other game we play alot is Hollow Earth Expedition, another pulp game and dead easy too.

 

[Hervé]

I’m 44, and I got hooked on RPGs t the end the seventies (around 78, I guess). Back then it was pretty hard to find RPGs in France, especially if you lived outside Paris. We were of course looking for D&D, but unable to find it we settled on SPI’s DragonQuest, which was rather complicated for a first game (and in English, which didn’t help at all). We then moved to RuneQuest and when we finally managed to get a hold on the Basic D&D set, we found it so caricatural and childish compared to our other games that we just couldn’t play it. That dislike of D&D clichés has been following me all my role playing career, even if we ran some nice AD&D campaigns from time to time. By the mid eighties our playgroup started collecting almost every RPG ruleset that came out, but the Chaosium approach was our favourite, especially with games like Call of Cthulhu. I started working in the industry around 1989 and got my first company in 1993. My last shop, Labyrinthes, opened in 1999 and closed this summer, thus ending my role playing professional career.

At least for now.

Here’s my Love/Hate podium, not necessarily in ranking order:

Hate

1.D&D. I mean D&D and all kind of RPGs that allows the mechanics to take the step on characterization. Number crunching is for me antonymic with role playing. Rules in RPGs are supposed to be a support, not a burden. Classes suck, templates suck. To my opinion they lead to a very stereotypical vision of fantasy that lead nowadays to things like DD4.

Furthermore, elves and dwarves stink. :wink:

2.Mangas. I’m just too old for that. They just bore me. Big eyes and small mouths: yuck, that sucks.
Some of them are probably OK, but it’s plainly not my style.

3.TV. So many things to do and so little time to live. Why spending your precious life watching this crap?

4.MMOs. I hate them. They pretend to be RPGs when only technical stuff is really important. They just reward the time you spend on them, not your ability or intelligence. They are the modern incarnation of Mind Flayers, even worse than TV: They’re eating up your life and soul and making you a slave.

Repeat after me: WoW is evil, WoW is evil, WoW is evil….

5. Cellular phones. The lousiest invention of humanity. Again, a modern day version of a slave collar. Dump them to the bottom of the sea before it’s too late.

Love

1.Pulp. Howard, CAS, Lovecraft, Burroughs and the others. They are the reason why I am here. Tolkien just bores me, as does “traditional fantasy” by the way.…

2.Rock’n’Roll. Nothing’s best in life. But they won’t ever do it as they did it way back in the seventies.

3.Zombies. Zombies are cool. They’re the best critter around. Vampires suck and are just gothic faggots. Zombies rock. You gotta love zombies.

4. Video Games. I always fall for a good adventure like Mass Effect or Fallout. Or a special mood like in Shadow of the Colossus. Here at least the game doesn’t dictate me when and how long I should play.

5. Girls. Gaming is good. Girls are best. Even better than drugs and booze. Try them (I mean the girls of course! :wink.

 

[djd]

Errol Flynn Movies: I love Errol Flynn movies. Captain Blood! Yay!

Me too! I used to have a massive (and expensive) collection of Flynn memorabilia - vintage posters, letters written by Errol and that sort of thing. I have 'Swashbuckling' tattooed across my back.

Comics - 2000AD is the only one I've every really liked.

TV- A lot of HBO stuff - Rome, Deadwood, Sopranos, Band of Brothers, From the Earth to the Moon. BSG, Firefly and Buffy. Dr Who from the 60's and 70's.

Books- a lot of ancient and medieval history, decent sci fi and some fantasy. Some modern and vintage crime writers.

Film- very varried. I like a lot of 30's and 40's stuff but plenty of modern stuff too.

RPG's - My favourites are Traveller, Flashing Blades, BRP, Pendragon, Buffy tvs, Elric (although I prefered the original Stormbringer), Ringworld and no doubt countless others that I've forgotten. Although I started out with D&D 30 odd years ago I really can't stand D20 systems now.

 

[VincentDarlage]

Me too! I used to have a massive (and expensive) collection of Flynn memorabilia - vintage posters, letters written by Errol and that sort of thing.

That is AWESOME! I notice you said you used to have a collection. What happened to it?

 

[djd]

Sold most of it when times were tough. Still have a few posters and lobby cards on the walls. 20 years ago I had a spare £2000 for a Charge of the Light Brigade 1-sheet and that kind of thing.....

 

[Hervé]

djd wrote:

RPG's - My favourites are (...) Elric (although I prefered the original Stormbringer) (...)

Really ?!? :shock:
Though I played it a lot in my younger days, the original Stormbringer rules were completely flawed and were probably the worst version of the BRP ever edited by Chaosium (If my memory is good, they were designed by T&T author Ken St Andre, not by anyone from the Chaosium staff). The nationality bonuses were simply ridiculous, the professions too, and magic was super munchkin, among plenty of other flaws. However, I admit it was so cool to have an Elric game back in 81. I had to import my original fat red box through Canada and it costed me half an arm at the time, but it was well worth it. It's one of the games we played the most, though we had to create tons of houserules to fill the gaps and balance the game.

On the other hand, I've always found the Elric/Stormbringer V rules were ranking among the best ever done by Chaosium. Not as stupid as the original rules, not as clunky as RQ nor sketchy as Call of Cthulhu, they were my favourite Chaosium set of rules, at least until the excellent new version Basic Roleplaying came out.

I prefer BRP to the actual MRQ rules, but Mongoose material is very interesting as it sticks more to the mood of the original Moorcock novels. You'll notice Laurence "Loz" Whitaker was already there during the Chaosium days! :wink:

 

[djd]

Yes really ! Partly nostalgia I think (I remember buying the box set at one of the first Games Day conventions in London just after it came out). I actually liked the nationality bonuses as it gave people more chance to play a 'different' character without being a Melnibonean.... I loved Moorcock as an author so that was a factor too. Although magic was very impractical back in that edition, at least it was rare which seemed more in keeping with the books than later editions. I agree the Mongoose background is good (apart from MAPS!!!!) but I play it with BRP rules rather that MRQ. Incidentally, the 'Rome' supplement for BRP is good if you like that period

 

[Deleriad]

43 and started role-playing in 81 when I got RuneQuest II (Games Workshop boxed set for Christmas.) My parents thought it was "Dungeons and Dragons" as did I. (Lived in a small town...)

When I had a bit of money and bought the Basic D&D red box I thought "so that's D&D" and never played it.

I'm a live & let live kind of guy. Hate nothing.

Mainstream US Comics. Used to read them, don't anymore, they feel repetitive now. They always were but once you've seen a cycle you don't need to see it again.

Anime & manga: not my taste.

Graphic Novels. Good graphic novels are to be treasured. Works such as Persepolis, Laikia, Waltz with Bashir can be read over and over. Currently re-reading early Cerebus for the umpteenth time.

Sexy vampires: not my bag, baby.

Ninjas, pirates and zombies. Best as jokes.

Computer gaming and MMORPG. If I ever let myself play them I would play them 23 hours per day and end up a broken wreck of a person.

TV almost none. Tend to watch specific series on DVD sets. Currently watching The Wire. Possibly the Shield next. Will watch Dr. Who when it comes on.

RPG-wise. Mostly contrarian. Prefer to argue against the commonly-held beliefs. So I do not believe that D&D4e is the spawn of evil or that BRP is pinnacle of evolution or that there is one true way to gamer's paradise. I believe that the easiest way to have fun quickly when gaming is to live the clichés. It worked for folk-tales for thousands of years and works just as well for gaming. Prefer my pen and paper gaming not to need a lap-top or calculator.

Mostly GM because I like GM-ing and telling stories. Play MRQ because it's in print, fun, and easy for me. I tend to like customisation anyway and MRQ gives me LOTS of good reason to make house rules.

Bit of a system junky but happy to stay with BRP-variants because I know them so well. Think that MRQ, for all its failings, is the first forward-looking BRP-variant in about 15 years. That said, will play anything if the GM is decent and the setting is interesting. Hmm, just wondering about Lolcats the RPG. There has to be mileage in that.