When was YOUR Golden Age of Gaming?

[Weregrognard]

A bit melodramatic, but here goes:

1991 - 1995: The Golden Age. High school. Discovered D&D and several other RPGs later. All-weekend gaming extravaganzas. Many fun, carefree times were had.

1995 - 1996: The Age of Discovery. College. Exposed to other gamers and other styles of play. Exposed to more RPGs (including LARP) as well as pop culture that had influenced gamers of the time.

1997 - 1999: Coming of Age. Joined the military. Plenty of spare time and like-minded friends allowed for several successful campaigns (as both player and GM): Star Wars (D6), The ENTIRE Dragonlance series, World of Darkness, GURPS, etc, etc, etc. Good times.

2000 - 2005: Age of Tumult. What started hopeful with a new edition of D&D became bleak after a series of deployments made establishing a regular game almost impossible. Sporadic gaming, false starts, a D&D system that turned DMing into a chore. An age best left forgotten.

2006 - Present: Renaissance. Went on pilgrimage to the Mecca of gaming, Gen Con, TWICE. Met the fathers of RPGs, Gygax & Arneson, as well as other illustrious gaming figures. A regular job post military allows for regular gaming if planned in advance. Some successful mini-campaigns and one-shot games with different systems. A new edition of D&D and a great group make DMing fun again.

 

[Kralin Thornberry]

From about '86 - '92, then real life entered, I had other interests, and my gaming habits went away, until I graduated from college in '95. I started up again (maybe a Silver Age?), and played until about '98, when I got married. Played on and off, moved, didn't have a group, didn't feel like finding one until about '03. Moved back, got back with my old group, they had a fight, we don't get together as a group now. Now I'm playing a bi-weekly LFR 4E D&D game, and I'm enjoying it.

 

[JDJblatherings]

I'd consider NOW to be very much a golden age. Changes in the industry, fandom and technology in general have brought on a whole new generation of thought and gaming that just wasn't really there 10 years ago. I can read the thoughts of hundreds upon hundreds of other enthusiastic and talented gamers and DMs on a daily basis. What game will the my next campaign be run under? BFRPG, Labryinth Lord, 4e D&D, Castles and Crusades, 3e D&D, Pathfinder, Home-brewed D20, True 20, Osric, good old OD&D or maybe a really cross system mishmash? Will I strive for oldschool flavor, episodic campaign, path driven adventures, empire building, immersive RP or tactical wargame? PCs going to be all human, a classical mix, a new gen mix or a scrapped together from dozens of source?
Having such a large number of similar (but still different) games gives me a lot of room in plottign the next campaign and while the players ay have to learn some new rules or forget a bunch of old ones they can still be in familiar territory. The amount of resources available today is staggering: 30 years ago I had a magazine, a rule book or three , a local library and a dozen players to draw on to build a campaign, today I have many hundreds of websites, thousands upon thousands of gamers and a huge PDf library to draw from when building and running a campaign.

It is truly a Golden Age.

 

[Chainsaw]

Golden Age for me was summer of 1995, when my high school friends and I were playing 2E Homebrew regularly before the start of our senior year. Nothing like DM'ing for a Ninja and a Necromancer. They snuck through crypt after crypt, trying to avoid being overwhelmed by undead as they searched for new necromancy spells and the ever-elusive "magical katana." Not too original, but fun for us.

We played on and off from 1990-1995, but peaked in 1995 before eventually leaving for college. We all live hundreds of miles away from each other now. Wish I could recapture those days, but the real cornerstone of our fun was being good friends (the rules system was totally secondary). Recreating that with new folks means putting in alot of time building new friendships, which can be tough to do as an adult with a job, kids, wife, house, etc.

 

[Wombat]

Very difficult question ... I think I've had three of 'em.

My first Golden Age was when I first got my copy of OD&D back in 1976. Everyone else was talking about CB radios; I was trying to explain hit points and odd multi-sided dice to people. But I got five guys interested enough and we gamed -- no net, no 'chute, just figuring it out as we went along and having fun.

The second Golden Age was about 3-4 years later when I started my RuneQuest campaign. That game ran for four years itself and was a ball, the first time when I saw people actually getting into character, sometimes going as far as bringing food they thought their characters would bring, wearing costumes, mourning when characters died, wildly celebrating big victories. It was amazing.

The third Golden Age began around 1990 when I started running Ars Magica. After one quick hiccup, we moved into our Gelwich-Aquarda campaign which lasted nearly 5 years, including one session that ran for 7 hours ... and then when I woke up the next morning I found out the rest of my players had stayed at it another eight hours, writing up a covenant charter and staying in character the whole time. I am still amazed over those players.

I have been very lucky in my gaming life.

 

[Humanaut]

Golden Age for me was high school, mid-late 80's. AD&D w/ houserules in a homebrew world our DM made. Regular gaming every Saturday, good times, good friends, wacky adventures.

Second Age was College, new friends, I'm now DM, and lots of gaming whenever we could. Meaning every weekend, then marathon gaming on breaks.

I have fun now, but my current group can be hard to gather with families, work and all. But every odd year my old HS friends and I rent a house at Lake of the Ozarks, for a week of gaming, no S.O. no kids, just beer fueled mayhem! 2009 "Geekfest 4" here we come!

 

[Chainsaw]

I have fun now, but my current group can be hard to gather with families, work and all. But every odd year my old HS friends and I rent a house at Lake of the Ozarks, for a week of gaming, no S.O. no kids, just beer fueled mayhem! 2009 "Geekfest 4" here we come!

Great idea. Maybe I'll try to convince some of my old buddies to do this.

 

[kitsune9]

I've hit two of them

I'm not talking about when the Golden Age was (or is, or will be) for D&D or RPGs or certain companies. I'm talking about you, personally.

For me: I'm finding myself spending as much time "daydreaming" about D&D as I ever have in the past. I'm having a blast actually playing the game, so I find myself less inclined to browse the net, post on message boards (you're welcome), and purchase SF/Fantasy fiction. Those are all things I did when I wasn't gaming as much as I would have liked.

That being said, my "Golden Age" would have to be the heady days of high school. Mid 80s. USA. Rolling dice in my friend's parent's basement. Some core buddies and a constant in-flow/out-flow of other guys playing the game. Watching the D&D cartoon even though I was too old to do so. Flipping open The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth or The Lost City as if they were Biblical tomes. To be honest - I think we played AD&D and B/E D&D without ever really knowing the difference. Amazing, huh?

Anyway...what's your Golden Age? You as happy gaming now as you've ever been? Do you have to reach way back to find that Golden Age? Perhaps you don't have one, but expect one coming down the road in the near future?

WP

I think I hit two Golden Ages. When 2nd ed AD&D came out, we played just about everyday with the 1st edition FR when I was in high school. When high school ended, that was the end with that group and I didn't play for a few years until I ran some people in college, but they were older and more argumentative with each other that AD&D was no longer fun for the most part and frequently burned out from running and playing. The second Golden Age was when I moved to CA and we formed a gaming group that's been pretty strong for the past eight years. We played 3.0, 3.5, and trying out Pathfinder right now, but we're still enjoying it and I don't get tired from running.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Mid to late 90s. Back when I didn't have three kids. (Which, I love dearly and wouldn't trade for the world, but they do have a big impact on the gaming schedule).

 

[Humanaut]

Hey Chainsaw,
We've found for Geekfesting, once we locked in a week we could all do. We rented a place fairly central for all to fly/ drive too, and is close enough to at least one person to be "point man" to get there first, get the key, stock the fridge, etc. We wake up and are gaming by late morning, game all day and into the night, then break to watch shows, play videogames or whatever. Beer and food runs happen faster than you think, and we use that time to make plans for whatever the DM has put us up against.

Good luck!

Sorry about the brief threadjack