Part Eighteen: Junta ‘85 – A Historical Overview of Role-playing from the Trenches

Rules, Systems, Mechanics TSR's Dungeon Hobby Shop I’d like to touch briefly on a comment I received a while back. The poster expressed some surprise that I liked games he found dissimilar. My response was that I played the big, popular games that came out at the time the hobby was new and shiny. To …

Part Seventeen: 1984, Oh Brave New World. A Historical Overview of Role-playing from the Trenches

Those common cultural references again And so, the role-playing hobby entered its second decade of life and man the joint was jumpin’. There were a few giants in the industry, and there were a lot of scrappy little contenders grubbing around in the dirt at their feet. With some disillusionment we had absorbed the news …

Part Sixteen: 1974-1983, The First Ten Years – A Historical Overview of Role-playing from the Trenches

Let’s stop at 1983 for a look back, and pause to sum up that decade. Shall we? It was the best of times... and you missed it. All you get is this dumb t-shirt. Seriously. In that period the RPG hobby had sprouted and then bloomed, over the course of ten years. There was creativity, …

Part Fifteen: Rich Man Poor Man, or What the Well-heeled DM Was Buying in 1983. A Historical Overview of Role-playing from the Trenches

We’re still looking back at 1983 and the years running up to it. It really was a rich time for role-playing gamers. As the period progressed there were a lot of games popping up, although then as now there were only a few clear winners as far as market penetration is concerned. But for this …