When was YOUR Golden Age of Gaming?

[Dragonbait]

Well.. Oddly it didn't come to later in my gaming life (which started in the mid 90's in High School).

Summer of 2003 (?) I ran a campaign using the Palladium rules and only had two players. It was so much fun, though, and we role-played the dickens out of that game. More than we had ever in the past and it was one of my favorite storylines. I remember after three sessions that I had not used any combat. I brought it up, and the other two players realized it too. One said "Well, combat takes so damn long that we don't really want to do it." We then got back to the story.

I'd say 2004-2006. I ran a long-running campaign where I made sure to never pull something out of a story just because I didn't feel like working on it. The players were GREAT, and while they didn't always get along they were excellent role-players. ALSO, as a player there was a game we were in that had such great role-playing that I could "see" all the other characters. Very surreal.. And there were no mind-altering chemicals to help "expand" or experience! ;p

AND

Now. My Friday night group are all friends with whom I could hang out with even when not gaming. This, sadly, was not always the case in the past decade. Some of the groups would consist of my best friend, and other people who I could hang out with but they generally disliked each other.

 

[Remathilis]

from 1998-2001, and again now (2007-on).

Both times I had a stable playgroup to DM, a long-running game, and little-or-no drama. I look back more fondly at the earlier time though...

 

[Wormwood]

Been playing since '79 or so, but my Golden Age was definitely the early '90s---when White Wolf broke me from my D&D/Shadowrun cycle and forced me to re-examine my gaming priorities.

And yeah, Vampire pretty much made gaming fun for my girlfriend (now wife).

 

[Filcher]

Late 80s, for early high school D&D, transitioning into a deep and abiding love for R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk.

Lapse for several years, floating around to different games, before alighting on a second golden age with a 5 year L5R campaign.

Lapse when everyone left grad school for parts unseen. Third golden age now with the arrival of new game that-shall-not-be-named for all the flame wars it incites.

 

[Evilusion]

For me the golden age of gaming was from 1989-2007. Met my best friend and DM the year 1989, sadly he left us in 2007. Since then gaming in general for my group has been off.

Evilusion

 

[Herschel]

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?

I went to a small town school, so I had to wait until college to really get in to playing so I didn't hit that prime immersion until the late 80s/early 90s. My RA (GA?) sophmore year was in a game and got me involved and I've never looked back. I remember we all thought it was cool because our DM could print out neat, clean character sheets on his spiffy new Amiga with the dot matrix printer. I got my Paladin up to 13th level in 1E w/ Unearthed Arcana buffs. A few years later I got in to a group that played a hybrid 1E/2E game when it was still new (and half the original group had graduated).

Later, after transferring to Milwaukee for my final year, I ran a hybrid game and in Madison the next couple of years I played in a fun group with a lot of comedic value also.

Minnesota had been basically the dark ages outside of running games for my son and kids games until the group of guys I met playing DDM.

 

[Rolflyn]

I'd say there were three:

High School 1E D&D where everything was new & fresh because we just discovered D&D and roleplaying. Eventually ended because of college.

Post-College Torg where everything was new & fresh again because of how different Torg is and how its setting and rules cover so many possibilities. Eventually because lack of support for Torg and difficulty finding Torg players when we needed replacements due to attrition.

30something 3.x D&D where we played several multiple-year campaigns because the 3.x rules had so much support and such a large player network to draw from. Ended because our two main DMs burned out, and schedules became more busy and board games became more popular with our group.

 

[the Jester]

My golden age started in 1980, iirc, and hasn't stopped yet.

It has had a couple of brief hiccups when I was on gaming hiatus, but my games are still going strong, still fill me with creativity, still bring my best out. I still get just as excited, and sometimes can't sleep for hours after a good game, even though I now have to work in the morning. Sometimes all I can think about all day is the kick-ass encounter or session or npc or new spell or whatever that the pcs are going to encounter tonight.

I'm getting all excited; I need to get back to my prep for next session- and the siege. I'm hoping to have several sessions take several game years, and put the lie to the damn "20 levels in six months" phenomenon!

 

[DaveMage]

College (1990-1995) was easily my Golden Age. At least one game a week for upwards of 6+ hours a session.

 

[FriarRosing]

The times I remember most fondly was probably the summer after we graduated from High School, 2006 (not really that long ago!). I ran a campaign with my high school chums that, while awful, really sticks out in my memory as something somewhat meaningful. We were all excited for college, and were ready to go off our various ways to various colleges. They were all undead in the campaign, and halfway through I got bored with it and threw them into Sigil for no reason (I was into Planescape after starting up Torment again). Eventually the whole thing fizzled out and we just went to playing a pointless, plotless (but fun) Star Wars d20 game for a while.

While it's true that then was the time when I played the most and least sporadically, I think the real reason I remember it most fondly is really about what that time meant. And that me and those guys kind of drifted away from one another--I haven't spoken to them in months.

But luckily lately has been somewhat of a renaissance. I play more systems, and while I do play somewhat less often, my current players are a lot more into roleplaying and the game in general--with the old guys we mainly were trying to find new ways to antagonize one another.