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<blockquote data-quote="Mark Hope" data-source="post: 4554597" data-attributes="member: 27051">I started gaming with a home-made system.&nbsp; There were quite a few influences that led me to do it (if you are really interested, I wrote <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/170842-how-did-you-start-5.html#post3003296" target="_blank">a post about this</a> in another thread a couple of years back) but the short version is that&nbsp; I had heard about D&amp;D from a couple of friends but was unable to get hold of the books.&nbsp; So drawing on their descriptions of gameplay and various other nuggets of exposure to gaming, I went home and made my own pseudo-RPG called &quot;Castle&quot;.The (now seemingly rather odd) premise of the game was that you had to adventure through this huge, sprawling castle in search of the Castle Lord (who was the GM).&nbsp; When you found them, you got to take over GMing.&nbsp; Later games strayed from this concept into more traditional adventuring, but that was how it started out.My sister and I played it all the time and were joined by some friends later on.&nbsp; It kept us busy for about a year or so until we took our next holiday over in the UK, when I was able to pick up the Basic and Expert boxed sets.&nbsp; We went on to play D&amp;D but would return to Castle from time to time (my sister actually preferred Castle to D&amp;D, lol).As for learning something from it?&nbsp; Its vaguely adverserial nature taught me that the GM needs to entertain the players first and foremost and be impartial when it comes to rules decisions (erring on the side of cool rather than rule).&nbsp; It taught me that my dad would quite happily set fire to everything he could as a means of progressing through the adventure!&nbsp; It taught me that making maps and populating dungeons can be as much fun as actual play (I don't really feel this now, but certainly did at the time).&nbsp; Mostly, though, it taught me how utterly cool gaming is as a pastime, and led to a wonderfully engrossing hobby that keeps me amused and entertained to this day, over 26 years later <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mark Hope, post: 4554597, member: 27051"] I started gaming with a home-made system. There were quite a few influences that led me to do it (if you are really interested, I wrote [URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/170842-how-did-you-start-5.html#post3003296"]a post about this[/URL] in another thread a couple of years back) but the short version is that I had heard about D&D from a couple of friends but was unable to get hold of the books. So drawing on their descriptions of gameplay and various other nuggets of exposure to gaming, I went home and made my own pseudo-RPG called "Castle". The (now seemingly rather odd) premise of the game was that you had to adventure through this huge, sprawling castle in search of the Castle Lord (who was the GM). When you found them, you got to take over GMing. Later games strayed from this concept into more traditional adventuring, but that was how it started out. My sister and I played it all the time and were joined by some friends later on. It kept us busy for about a year or so until we took our next holiday over in the UK, when I was able to pick up the Basic and Expert boxed sets. We went on to play D&D but would return to Castle from time to time (my sister actually preferred Castle to D&D, lol). As for learning something from it? Its vaguely adverserial nature taught me that the GM needs to entertain the players first and foremost and be impartial when it comes to rules decisions (erring on the side of cool rather than rule). It taught me that my dad would quite happily set fire to everything he could as a means of progressing through the adventure! It taught me that making maps and populating dungeons can be as much fun as actual play (I don't really feel this now, but certainly did at the time). Mostly, though, it taught me how utterly cool gaming is as a pastime, and led to a wonderfully engrossing hobby that keeps me amused and entertained to this day, over 26 years later :). [/QUOTE]

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