When I started gaming

Over at the excellent blog, James Maliszewki's "Grognardia", he has put up a poll to see how many of the people who frequent his blog started gaming. I put my 2 cents worth in stating:

"1986, grade 7, James Bond 007 by Victory Games. I had heard of rpg's before (going back as far as '84; mainly via comics & Starlog magazine seeing ads for JB) but never had the opportunity to play, or even know where to buy them for that matter."

 Now, that is all true. But then I started reading other posts and it seems that a lot of people (British readers it would seem) consider the Fighting Fantasy books created by Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone to be their first gateway into RPG's. While I am not British, I must admit, that I too was reading those before I started playing fully fledged RPG's like AD&D, D&D, James Bond, Top Secret, MSH advanced set etc.... The one I liked best out F&F was the first one I read: Deathtrap Dungeon. The first book was of course, Warlock On Firetop Mountain but i wouldn't end up reading that for a few years, not until I actually started gaming with more than just myself.

Old School gaming: I don't get it

Okay so that sounds kind of dumb as a title. Of course I get why people are attracted to the old style (or old school if you, as has become popular with the grognards and all); the games were solid then and still solid now, and people inherently do not like change. They also like to relive past glories, get nostalgic about the old days and want one more try to re-capture those halcyon days of their gaming youth.

But what I don't understand, given the technology we have access to these days,is why people play clones? I fail to see why there are all these clones out there & people buying them! Yes, I know, people want to play games that are "living" not dead, that is to say games that are supported with new material blah, blah, blah.

But like, for me, if I want to play AD&D 1E, 2E or Mentzer D&D ( as I like to refer to it), why not just use those rules instead of a clone? I mean yeah, it can be difficult to track down the books on ebay or whatever. But there are pdf's of these things; it is easy enough to "acquire" those things and then print them out for yourself.

Yeah, some people may be saying that the clones are there for people who have never played the old games the first time round. Well, I am sure there is some truth to that. However, I would be willing to wager that if the new people to gaming who have become interested in games of that nature, it is most likely in my opinion, because they were introduced to them by someone who played them first hand (like me).

Holy shit it has been a long time

Typically, I don't write often, if at all. this can be witnessed by my lack of writing here. So. Blah.