#RPGDNA

 

Champions 4th Edition is the first RPG I ever played or ran and it made it hard to enjoy other games because I could literally build anything, but I still tried plenty of other RPGs. Our group really enjoyed Champions and it still has a place in my heart. While I've played 5E and read 6E the 4th Edition is my true love.

Growing up I read tons and tons of comics and I also watched tons and tons of action movies. Even in Champions, I kept trying to figure out to inject the action movie's tropes and sequences. Feng Shui showed me how to do that and changed or at least codified who I wanted to be as Game Master.

Legend of the Five Rings was the game that introduced my wife to role-playing and introduced me to a mostly new group of players. I ran at her family's stores and I ran as many as 18 people sometimes (youth is wasted on the young) which eventually burned me out on it. Since I was gaming with new people that hadn't known me forever my confidence as a GM grew dramatically.

While Grognardia introduced me to the OSR I discovered Basic Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord, and Swords and Wizardry at about the same time. I chose it because I actually ponied up to buy four hardcovers of this printing and have bought every other printing made available even though I've never run or played it. SnW led me to discover what I had been missing about DnD for several decades and helped me fall in love with DnD 5th Edition.