How many years does it take for an RPG to become nostalgic, for you?

[Eyes of Nine]

I got nostalgic for Traveller, but I really like Mongoose 2E adjustments and modernization. Hits the spot without being too different.

It wasnt that long ago, but the PF1 AP era was an excellent one for me. To this day, PF1 is my fantasy go to. I dont really dig PF2 and 5E is merely ok.

I love reading the PF APs. Never run nor played in one; not even sure if I want to. I just read them as another genre of fiction...

They are interesting in that they are written by multiple people; often a different person on all 6; or one person does episode 1 and episode 6, the intervening ones by different people. (I assume that's a function of the monthly production schedule). What this means is they can be uneven and also occasionally have gaps or even contradictions. BUT! Wow, overall, they are quite a fun read, at least imho... At a con once I traded a bunch of extra D&D stuff I had for a ton of the APs. Ah, that was a fun con...

Not to get too maudlin; but a close gaming friend of mine recently passed away. He lived in another city about 4 hours away. In between us was LA, and we would meet and hang out at the local con I mention above. I am definitely nostalgic for those times my buddy and I would hang out together, play games, and laugh and have fun.

 

[payn]

I love reading the PF APs. Never run nor played in one; not even sure if I want to. I just read them as another genre of fiction...

They are interesting in that they are written by multiple people; often a different person on all 6; or one person does episode 1 and episode 6, the intervening ones by different people. (I assume that's a function of the monthly production schedule). What this means is they can be uneven and also occasionally have gaps or even contradictions. BUT! Wow, overall, they are quite a fun read, at least imho... At a con once I traded a bunch of extra D&D stuff I had for a ton of the APs. Ah, that was a fun con...

Not to get too maudlin; but a close gaming friend of mine recently passed away. He lived in another city about 4 hours away. In between us was LA, and we would meet and hang out at the local con I mention above. I am definitely nostalgic for those times my buddy and I would hang out together, play games, and laugh and have fun.

Cherish those times while you got them. I lost a gamer friend not long ago myself.

One thing folks miss about the APs is you can often run them like modules with a few minor adjustments. For example, I rate Serpent Skull pretty low overall (to be fair something went seriously wrong with one of the writers) but the opening adventure is a pure gold shipwreck sandbox for like 1-3 maybe more levels.

 

[dragoner]

How many times do planes crash? Just once. Certainly I have nostalgia for past games, though tempered by the knowledge of why I don't go back. I don't want to bag on those games though, and for their faults, we had some great times playing them.

 

[aramis erak]

Chalk me up with those nostalgic for Traveller. Although I think part of it was the release of the floppy black books. I would say about 15 or so years, at least.

It's not like it's not available...
All editions in PDF or on thumbdrive except MGT at $35 per disk; CT has CT, JTAS, and Apochrypha 1&2; MT has one disk, TNE has 2, T4 1...

FFE- Far Future Enterprises: RPGs Role-Playing Games from GDW, IGI, and FFE

 

[Reynard]

It's not like it's not available...
All editions in PDF or on thumbdrive except MGT at $35 per disk; CT has CT, JTAS, and Apochrypha 1&2; MT has one disk, TNE has 2, T4 1...

FFE- Far Future Enterprises: RPGs Role-Playing Games from GDW, IGI, and FFE

That presents an interesting question: can you be nostalgic for something that is readily available? If not, and you feel nostalgic anyway, aren't you actually nostalgic for something else?

 

[Committed Hero]

That presents an interesting question: can you be nostalgic for something that is readily available? If not, and you feel nostalgic anyway, aren't you actually nostalgic for something else?

In my case I had played last in the late 80s, and bought the FBBs around 2000. I didn't really game at all in that period.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

“It's not the years, honey. It's the mileage.”

I don't think it's about necessarily how long it's been, but who I was at that time I had the experience, how much impact it made on me, that makes me nostalgic. Whether it's being a wee kid and picking up then Red Box, an ubergoth teenager sitting on the floor of some friends' unairconditioned apartment with a big pile of 2e books and a (badly) hand-drawn map of my homebrew world, or listening to the sounds of the 3e character generator that came in the books on my first computer.

 

[aramis erak]

That presents an interesting question: can you be nostalgic for something that is readily available? If not, and you feel nostalgic anyway, aren't you actually nostalgic for something else?

I want to recapture the feels of running ALIEN... it's on the agenda, but AFTER Fallout, for both groups.

I do hope the space truckers book includes more spaceframes.

 

[stonehead]

I am not nostalgic for the games themselves; but for the experiences, friends, and time at the table - which the games were a vehicle to facilitate.

That's interesting. I definitely get nostalgic for the game itself. Old descriptions, artwork, and covers trigger nostalgia for me in addition the experiences. Even the layouts of the old class progression tables hits me a bit.

That presents an interesting question: can you be nostalgic for something that is readily available? If not, and you feel nostalgic anyway, aren't you actually nostalgic for something else?

I don't think so. At the very least, I don't feel that way. It's just that being "readily available" requires more than a pdf being purchasable. I mean, most of us still have the old hardcover books for games we used to play. It doesn't get more available than already having it. But finding a group willing to play it, and the time to prep everything is more of a hassle.

I think you feel nostalgic for things after you've stopped interacting with them. I don't feel nostalgic for Smash bros, because I've played it on-and-off for 15-20 years. But a game like Undertale that I played once or twice a decade ago, and never again, is very nostalgic.

Or, for a better example, Runescape was very nostalgic for me around 2015 because I used to play a lot as a little kid. Then they re-released the old servers, I played it a lot, and it stopped being nostalgic. It became just a game I played.

It's harder for me to come up with ttrpg examples, because I don't think my group has ever revisited a system after not playing it for 5+ years. Still though, I think the trend would probably hold.

 

[SableWyvern]

I don't feel nostalgic about RPG systems. The bulk of my gaming in the 80s and 90s was Rolemaster, but my most recent RM campaign was only about five years ago, and I have plans to run more RM again in the future. It makes no sense to feel nostalgic about something I still do.

There is a degree of nostalgia for the specific groups I gamed with and the things we got up to in those time periods, but the fact that the game was RM doesn't really have anything to do with it.