Here's a few tidbits that might fit in with what you're looking for.
I started gaming in 1990. That probably makes me a late-comer, compared to some of the folks here. I was introduced to gaming by a friend in high school. I worked my way into two gaming groups. One I got along with very well. I don't feel that I was ever all that welcome in the other group. I stayed because I loved to play and they needed another player.
I like all kinds of games. Card games, board games, miniature wargaming, rpgs, just about anything. Of all of them, I like rpgs the most. There are probably a number of reasons. The biggest one is probably escapism. In a game, I don't have a joe-job, a mortgage, or any of the other "downer" aspects of real life. Other games are pleasant diversions, but only an rpg can actually get you into another life.
I don't really have a huge devotion to one particular system or another. I've bought, played, or run a number of systems over the years. I'm not quite the collector I used to be. At one time, most of my friends claimed I had the largest collection they'd seen outside of a game store. Now, I've whittled down my collection a bit and basically decided to limit myself more to two or three core systems that can run a number of games, rather than every genre or idea having it's own system.
Now, here's a little story about the intetactivity in gaming. For the most part, when I GM, I try to have a rather hands-off approach. When I make up adventures, I have situations and places and people and the characters interact with them. I try not to have linear storylines. The players seem to like this, even though it's a little more taxing for my mental reflexes.
Anyway, I was running a sci-fi game using TSR's short-lived Alternity system. The characters worked for a government that had discovered a method to travel to paralell universes and even limited time travel. Unfortunately, a neighbor in one of those paralell universes had developed similar technology, minus the time travel. This neighbor had also developed a powerful explosive, capable of destroying a solar system. The neighbor decided someone else that could develop dimension travel was too dangerous. He delivered an ultimatum to the star system -- destroy your dimensional travel research and become my subjects or be destroyed.
The characters were tasked with eliminating the threat, by whatever means necessary. They did some recon and discovered this interdimensional bully had become a tyrant on his own world, which was actually a cruel shadow of their own. Some tragic event in his own childhood had turned him into the man he was now. Unfortunately, he also lived in a heavily fortified citadel. The group decided, grudgingly, their only choice was to travel back in time and kill him as a child.
So, they returned home, geared up, and transported themselves back in time. They didn't have perfect control, but managed to go to a time when the tyrant was in his early teens. They found his house, laid in wait, and went in under the cover of darkness while everyone was asleep.
Then, something really cool happened in real life. While one character was searching the house to be sure everyone was asleep, he discovered they tyrant's twin sister. He turned to the other players and said, "Wait a minute guys. What if we kill him and she just grows up to be the tyrant instead?" The beautifully orchestrated assassination ground to a halt. The players proceeded to have a two-hour real-time discussion of not only the chances of history still ending up the same, but the moral problems of killing someone in their sleep for acts they won't commit until thirty years in the future. Even the player whose style can be best described as "shoot first and don't bother with questions" was deeply engrossed.
All in all, I never even had to prompt them to this. They came to it all on their own. It was probably one of my coolest moments as a GM. All I did was put them there and they did some of the finest in-character gaming I'd seen. I never even expected it to happen. I thought there might be a little moral discussion that would promptly be ended with a silenced gunshot, but not this. They were really into the situation. That's what rpgs are really about. When you're playing a battle-hardened soldier whose world is being held hostage by a madman and you're wondering if your character could really live with the knowledge he saved 6 billion people by killing a child in his sleep, you're in character.
Feel free to PM me if you want to know how the story ended.
