As far as roleplaying games go, in my group I was patient zero. None of us had heard of roleplaying before I saw an advert in Starburst #22 and #23 (the ones featuring The Empire Strikes Back in 1980).
We were all science fiction fans though. I discovered science fiction mainly through 2000AD. That introduced me to Star Wars (I remember seeing photos from Star Wars in what I’m guessing now was the 1977 Summer Special and thinking “wow - that looks incredible”.) Then I read the novelisation that same summer, and I didn’t look back. I must have read the Star Wars novelisation three or four times before I finally saw the film.
(I didn’t realise at the time that the novelization was written by Alan Dean Foster, but I’d started enjoying his novels as well. I remember seeing the NEL edition of Bloodhype, with the great Tim White cover in the school book fair. I bought that and that led to The Tar-Aiym Krang, Orphan Star, The End of the Matter and Foster’s many other Humanx books. I’ve re-read some recently and they’re a bit uneven, but back then I wasn’t as critical and I loved the sense of wonder.)
So I was a science fiction fan, and so Starburst was what I read.
Then I saw this advert….
(I tracked this down online - you can find old issues of Starburst here. This is from Starburst #22)
This is the advert that led me into roleplaying. I can’t remember if I bought Traveller directly, or if I first ordered a catalogue from Games Workshop, but in the summer of 1981 (so a year after I first saw the advert) I spent £5.95 of my pocket money and ordered the Traveller’s iconic little black box.
Now what?
We weren’t quite sure what to make of the Traveller basic set, but I invited my friend Rob over to try it out. We rolled up characters and tried out the combat system.
Rob then bought Double Adventure #1: Shadows & Annic Nova. He ran Shadows for us, while I ran Annic Nova. Annic Nova is just an empty spaceship and not at all exciting. So I invented a bunch of rival adventurers to create some conflict and had a running battle through the corridors of the Annic Nova.
And that is how, for me at least, it all started...
We were all science fiction fans though. I discovered science fiction mainly through 2000AD. That introduced me to Star Wars (I remember seeing photos from Star Wars in what I’m guessing now was the 1977 Summer Special and thinking “wow - that looks incredible”.) Then I read the novelisation that same summer, and I didn’t look back. I must have read the Star Wars novelisation three or four times before I finally saw the film.
(I didn’t realise at the time that the novelization was written by Alan Dean Foster, but I’d started enjoying his novels as well. I remember seeing the NEL edition of Bloodhype, with the great Tim White cover in the school book fair. I bought that and that led to The Tar-Aiym Krang, Orphan Star, The End of the Matter and Foster’s many other Humanx books. I’ve re-read some recently and they’re a bit uneven, but back then I wasn’t as critical and I loved the sense of wonder.)
So I was a science fiction fan, and so Starburst was what I read.
Then I saw this advert….
(I tracked this down online - you can find old issues of Starburst here. This is from Starburst #22)
This is the advert that led me into roleplaying. I can’t remember if I bought Traveller directly, or if I first ordered a catalogue from Games Workshop, but in the summer of 1981 (so a year after I first saw the advert) I spent £5.95 of my pocket money and ordered the Traveller’s iconic little black box.
Now what?
We weren’t quite sure what to make of the Traveller basic set, but I invited my friend Rob over to try it out. We rolled up characters and tried out the combat system.
Rob then bought Double Adventure #1: Shadows & Annic Nova. He ran Shadows for us, while I ran Annic Nova. Annic Nova is just an empty spaceship and not at all exciting. So I invented a bunch of rival adventurers to create some conflict and had a running battle through the corridors of the Annic Nova.
And that is how, for me at least, it all started...
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