The 90's RPG Nostalgia Bug

 I've been thinking lately about how getting older impacts your perception of current value in change vs. the experience held from long ago. Or, put another way, the contrast between where gaming is now vs. where it was (for me, at least) in that golden era I hold in memory that is the late 80's and early 90's. 

I think a lot of people who get bitten by the nostalgia bug tend to think of their gaming experiences in their teens, but despite being a very active member of the fanzine gaming community in the eighties during my middle and high school years, I don't actually have a lot of "fond" memories of that time to fill with nostalgia....despite being so active in gaming, I didn't get to actively game very much at all until I was in college. I spent most of those formative years on a remote ranch in the middle of nowhere, so gaming was something I did on rare occasion during trips, or vicariously through the fanzines and play-by-mail resources. My sister and I managed some one-on-one gaming, but my first real, consistent game group didn't manifest until I was driving 63 miles one-way to my first year in community college. 

That first group was great! We were all around the same age, having the same new freshman college experience, and the group was very forgiving of my desire to mainly run DragonQuest (the SPI edition mixed with the somewhat sanitized TSR edition) and Runequest 3. They eventually convinced me to pick up AD&D 2nd edition and the rest is history. My college years were laden with consistent weekly games throughout the next six or so years, with campaigns designed to last one whole semester each. It was fun stuff.

So for me, my fondest memories of gaming are during college. I started thinking about how it would be fun to look back upon that time, and contrast how things were then with where things are today. How many of the RPGs I loved back then are still around now, and how many would it make more sense for me to find some old copies of on Ebay to "relive" that moment in time? How many back then are actually not worth revisiting? And....how many are still around today in a recognizable manner?

So first off, what were the games I ran iin college? I have a fairly modest list:

AD&D 2nd Edition - this was the go-to system. I ran AD&D in its new incarnation pretty much weekly from late 1989 all the way until D&D 3rd edition arrived on the scene. 

Runequest 3rd - I actually ran a fair amount of this early on using just the Standard Boxed Set and later ran the Deluxe book with more enthusiasm by 1992ish. My Realms of Chirak campaign initially started as a Runequest campaign in its very first form (there was also a Gamma World connection).

DC Heroes (MEGS Edition) - I ran a lot of this in the 80's and by 1992-93 I ran a very fun campaign using the 3rd edition of the DC Heroes MEGS rules.

MegaTraveller - This was the edition of Traveller I truly cut my teeth on. I had run a miscellany of Traveller Classic in the 80's, but the vast majority of my Traveller campaigning was during college with MegaTraveller. I even actually used the Imperium setting for most campaigns back then, too. I was one of those gamers who eventually washed out with The New Era, but I did give it my best shot.

GURPS 2nd and 3rd - I used GURPS for most of my campaigning that didn't fit neatly anywhere else. I used GURPS for most of my Cthulhu Mythos games as well, interestiingly; I preferred it a bit over Call of Cthulhu (which was I believe up to 3rd and then 4th edition in the 90's).

Call of Cthulhu - I only ran a bit of it (I used it as a resource for GURPS Cthulhu mostly) but it counts; it was pretty pivotal in terms of my horror gaming preferences.

Metamorphosis Alpha - not the original but rather the Amazing Engine powered game! I ran a lengthy and very fun campaign using this singularly unusual edition.

Dark Conspiracy - I loved the first edition of this game, it was amazing; I have heard it is now owned by Mongoose Publishing, and I am keen to see what lies in its future. Dark Conspiracy was a fantastic weird, dystopian horror setting and I ran a lot of it.

Kult 1E and 2E - the other horror game I ran a lot of; when I wasn't running GURPS Horror or Dark Conspiracy was Kult, which was as close to "Clive Barker the RPG" as one could get, even now. Back then Kult was a fantastic, creepy reality-warping deep dive into weird non-Cthulhu horror and I loved it.

Mutant Chronicles - I loved this RPG and collected all of it. I managed to run a couple campaigns, but it never quite took off the way I'd like it to.

Cyberpunk 2020 - this was the second most played system in my college years behind AD&D. Cyberpunk was highly formative for the time, so much so that it resides in memory as a fantastic reflection of where we imagined a future we'd live to see might go....and how so very different (and yet similar) that future actually is now that 2020 is in the rearview mirror.

There were likely other RPGs I dabbled in, but those were the big ones for the most part.

So where do these RPGs stack up by contrast today? Unsurprisingly (as this hobby does not grow as much as it seems) just about every one of these games is either still around in a new edition or has had a recent revival within the last 10-15 years. But are the new editions comparable in experience, particularly in terms of the nostalgia factor? This is my own personal take:

AD&D 2nd Edition - well, we all know where this went. It got more complicated (3E), then jumped the shark (4E), then revived itself spiritually (5E), and lately may have both jumped the shark and stagnated at the same time. But interestingly, I no longer feel an overwhelming desire to play the original 2E edition.....I would rather, like many other older gamers, look to what is new in the OSR community where the spirit (rather than the design) of the game thrives. My current poison of preference is Shadowdark or just sticking with D&D 5.5 or Tales of the Valiant. So Nostalgia does not win here (yet).

Runequest 3rd - The thing I liked about Avalon Hill's edition of Runequest was that Glorantha was optional. I could use the rules to make my own setting (as I did), or to run adventures in a mytho-historical earth. The current way to do this is with the admittedly excellent Basic Roleplaying RPG, but unless you have the reprint monographs that were based on Runequest 3, you won't have all the resources that originally were packaged in the Runequest 3 Deluxe Set. Runequest Glorantha in its modern incarnation is, while a fine system, entirely focused on Glorantha and is not welcoming to Runequesters who were fans of the mytho-historic earth settings. Chaosium is thankfully rectifying a bit of this with the new Vikings RPG using BRP, but even then....not the same as what the original Runequest 3 accomplished. So for my purposes? Playing this game in its original incarnation is a strong preference.

DC Heroes - interestingly this game had a successful Kickstarter reprint that may release later this year. I will be curious to see where that goes. I loved playing this back in the day, but my enthusiasm to revisit it is conditionally dependent on the players I have; the group I ran for in 1992-93 was very much in sync with the spirit of a comic book superhero RPG; these days it is harder to find such a group.

MegaTraveller - my memory of this edition is that it was great for the day, but it only got more convluted before it got less. Thankfully the great thing about Traveller is that its current edition with Mongoose Publishing is arguably the best edition to date, and this is one case where the contemporary version of the game can scratch that nostalgia itch quite easily.

GURPS - This is a rough one. I do believe that the current edition of GURPS (4E) is its most comprehensive and well organized, but something changed in the translation from 3rd edition to 4th edition that made the game a harder sell and less "friendly" for lack of a better word. GURPS 4E has an entire line of resources today in the form of "How to GM" books that suggest something was lost in translation from 3E to 4E. Unfortunately I suspect that it had a lot to do with the fact that 3rd edition was more concerned with parsing out content by setting book, and providing a flexible but less complete core experience, which accidentally meant is was more digestible and modular....while 4E became more comprehensive, but like Hero System, it also became more overwhelming and less welcoming to the new gamer, or the crowd that used to be able to do pick up and go games of GURPS. I mean....remember when GURPS provided a quick random character generator and it didn't pose any problems for quick play? Yeah....unfortunately the shift in design focus to 4E removed that convenience, replacing it with awkwardly formatted templates and a never-ending focus on mechanical rigor. So maybe finding an old copy of GURPS 3E might not be such a bad idea here.

Call of Cthulhu - like Traveller, this one only got better with time. You can even find 1st and 2nd edition in print again if you want thanks to a Kickstarter, and the 7th edition can be as nice or cruel to players s you desire. Call of Cthulhu's contemporary experience is if anything even better than it was back in the day, or maybe my ability to run campaigns with it is simply easier now thanks to experience? Either way, the newest edition of the game scratches that nostalgia itch just fine.

So how about the rest? Well, with Mutant Future you had a revival but it scrapped the original game engine and wedded it to the 2D20 engine from Modiphius, which was a mistake in my opinion. Then Kult worked out a Powered by the Apocalypse hybrid approach, and while it works....it's also somehow no longer quite the same feel as the original game (imo). Then there's Metamorphosis Alpha, which got a reboot on the original from Ward and Goodman Games, which is definitely cool but unfortunately my unique niche case for running the Amazing Engine edition is, I feel, unreplicatable....I will forever remember that campaign fondly for the unique and unrepeatable moment it rests within. 

Cyberpunk 2020 is also unique. I gotta be honest....the new Cyberpunk Red looks great and my son loves it. But when I crack it open I wish I was opening Cyberpunk 2020, and it just doesn't hold up to that edition in time, unfortunately. Worse yet, If I do look at CP2020 I can't imagine going back to it; the 90s really are gone, along with that vision of a future 2020. The new 2020's are both much less exciting and in many ways slowly getting worse than the megacorporate dystopia that was softened by cool cyberware; and the video game exemplifies a fantasy now, not a future projection. Cyberpunk Red and 2077 are both visions of an alternate reality; the next wave of future punk fiction will be a sober look at where the real 2020's today are taking us, which is unfortunately into a bleaker future than anyone really wants to game in (since we're living in it, instead). 

The shining light is Dark Conspiracy, which barely survived the GDW crash in the late nineties, to be tepidly kept on life support in some poorly realized updated editions. So maybe now with Mongoose in control we will finally see the game get properly revived with the dedication it deserves. We shall see!

 

Five Games that Desperately Need to Join the Old School Revival (somehow)

The OSR has done wonders for preserving the memory of games from the first decade or two of the hobby, and it's kept them alive either spiritually or in some form of retroclone. The OSR was strong enough that I think it is at least part of the reason that we ended up getting reprints of no less than four editions of D&D (not to mention the D&D PDF store), and is why we continue to see effort poured into making older games such as Traveller and Runequest available through various editions and iterations.

There are, however, some games out there which are worthy of this sort of respect, but which linger on in limbo, neglected by all save a very small handful of gamers who still have physical copies to play around with. Some non-D&D games have gotten some attention, yes....the 4C System is a decent lowdown on the classic Marvel Superhero RPG from TSR, for example, and others appear in decidedly more nebulous format (such as how Star Frontiers exists as a thing you can buy if you don't mind feeling a bit shady about the process).

Nope, this is about those games which, despite popularity or venerable status as classics, haven't somehow gotten their proper due when it comes to the OSR revival. Or "osr" revival if you're one to quibble that the hobby is exclusively about D&D and everything else is at best a fringe case. So without further adieu....my top five RPGs in desperate need of an OSR revival. All they need is a champion with the spare time to figure out how to massage the OGL into coughing up a suitable replica....or a crazy publisher willing to spew forth a working reprint or revival:

5. Top Secret

Top Secret recently had a module appear....in print no less....in Gygax Magazine. The only thing more utterly inconceivable than a game that's been out of print for close to 30 years getting a new module in print today is a game that's been out of print 30 years and doesn't even have an OSR retroclone to support said module.

Top Secret was part of an 80's wave of spy/espionage games and one of the most memorable. The second edition might arguably have been the better edition, but it was nonetheless a great game and did a fine job of conveying the genre from an 80's cold war style. It's possible later competitors like the Bond 007 game were better, but Top Secret was the one that first grabbed me.

Status: presumably part of WotC's wholesale grab of TSR, it is theoretically possible they could do something with the game but I think we'll be fortunate if they bother to scan it in for PDF re-release.

4. Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes

Even better than Top Secret was Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes, Mike Stackpole's magnum opus of gaming (because sometime after MSPE he moved on to fiction and never looked back). MSPE was based on the same core system as Tunnels & Trolls 5th edition, adding a skill system in and demonstrating rather amply that regardless of how irreverent and beer & pretzels T&T could feel, MSPE could use the exact same system for some serious gaming. The book was, like all Flying Buffalo products of the day, clean and exceptionally well organized with loads of interesting bits. One of my favorite games of the last four decades was in MSPE.

Status: MSPE currently languishes in the hell that is reserved for games that passed in ownership to other less stable/responsible publishers. So while Flying Buffalo exists and is producing new stuff even today, MSPE is not a part of that, having been bought by Sleuth Publications, which folded a few years later and also took Different Worlds magazine with it, as well as some great Tekumel books (as I recall...or maybe it was whoever bought Sleuth, and then THEY folded, too). The good news is you can still get copies of MSPE and most of the content released for it over at Flying Buffalo's online store. If a new iteration of MSPE were ever made possible all the game would need would be a an update to the modern era...the core rules could remain as-is.

3. The DC Heroes MEGS System

DC Heroes went through three editions before Mayfair Games had some sort of meltdown and liquidated their RPG line. The core mechanic, called the "MEGS" system for Mayfair Exponential Game System was a stroke of genius and this was my second-most-played game system for most of the late 80's and early 90's outside of AD&D and Cyberpunk 2020....it was such a smooth system, and it handled the vast power differences of the DC universe flawlessly.

Status: Sold to the people who released the system as "Blood of Heroes" and then disappeared off the map, MEGS languishes in forgotten game hell now. The only consolation I can suggest is that Mutants & Masterminds 3rd edition moved to a stat system with exponential values that is distinctly similar to MEGS.

2. Dragonquest

When SPI carved its way into RPGs it did so as only a wargame company could, with complex systems that were viewed by some as on the extreme end of the bell curve of complexity. Dragonquest quickly became my go-to system right after Palladium Fantasy and Runequest back in the day when I formally abandoned AD&D between 1985 and 1988, and I did not leave it as my engine of choice until AD&D 2nd edition (and a large table of begging and pleading players) coerced me into the dark side once more.

Dragonquest was robust, filled with exotic modifiers and details including astrological signs and a combat system that would make D&D 3.5 blush with jealousy. It's format was strongly aligned with the protocol for the era of wargame rulebooks, something that proved daunting to those who had not dabbled on both sides of the fence. It later fell into limbo as SPI was bought out by TSR, and was then revived in a new 3rd edition which received one module for support. A hypothetical future sourcebook still exists on the internet.

Dragonquest was noted for its elaborate rules on demonology with a strong focus on "medieval" feeling magic. When it was revamped by TSR it became a victim (and benefactor) of the "we are terrified of the fundamentalist anti-D&D crowd" focus TSR had adopted, and the demonology was removed entirely and replaced with a new set of rules on elemental summoning. The ideal 4th edition of Dragonquest would include both the new content and the missing old content.

Status: presumably one of many games sucked up as part of TSR by WotC, but suffering because they already have a flagship game. The best we could hope for would be a re-release in PDF down the road. There's a hidden online fanbase for the game as well, if you search hard.

1. Fantasy Trip

Need I say more? Fantasy Trip was for many the defacto alternative choice to AD&D back in the day, and was considered by many to be more playable and functional than other competitors of the time. It became the spiritual father to GURPS 1st edition and the Man-to-Man sourcebook which Steve Jackson Games released was effectively a second edition of Melee. Unfortunately TFT died when Metagaming went belly up after a scandal involving a "treasure hunt" for a million dollar gold unicorn advertised in a supplement, with no prize ever forthcoming. Steve Jackson's efforts to buy TFT outright were thwarted, prompting him to instead create GURPS.

TFT was so amazing because it was such a tight, concise system that offered all you could possibly need or want in one very clean, comprehensive package. It was the anti-D&D of it's day because it managed to be both complex and organized. It had sourcebooks which offered solo play, books like Melee and Wizard which offered tactical combat experiences, and the full "In the Labyrinth" which graduated it into a fantastic full-featured RPG. It was designed by Steve Jackson, and it shows. The map and minis/chits combat was fluid and fun. It was a Full Monte style package. I had a friend back in the day who practically devoted his life to this game...he never played anything else. I tracked down all of the books I could back then, and loved pouring over every detail it offered. This was written at a time when every word was worth reading, nothing was just filler text.

Status: The Fantasy Trip plays like a tight, pared-down version of GURPS which focuses on gritty, low-magic calculating fantasy with an emphasis on tactics.* We could technically have a version of TFT today of SJGames released a Lite version of GURPS which skinned the system down to just the stuff that would coincidentally exist in an iteration of TFT. As it stands, to get the pure deal you need to hunt around online for those sites which keep it alive, sometimes in the form of bootleg PDFs. Then you have to try and explain to your younger gamer crowd (or older D&D-obsessed gang) what TFT was and why it was so amazing. There's also a "version" of it in existence that has some current scenarios in print that model themselves loosely on Metagaming's old boxed sets here. Dark City's pretty close in terms of a modern rendition, but they still don't have a good hardcore "In the Labyrinth" product out, last I checked, to bring it all together.






*Note that a "tactical" experience in 1979 was decidedly different from what we think of as tactical today. A lot grimmer, high mortality rate, and no superheroics or game systems designed to keep you in the game through gimmicky rules designs. TFT comes from an era where tactical meant a sword to the gut was likely your PC's grizzly end.