There are certain RPGs (such as Justice, Inc., Bushido, James Bond 007, Space 1889…) that I remember from back in the day with such wistful fondness that I am occasionally tempted to haul them off the shelves and play an adventure for nostalgia. The usual result is that I quickly rediscover the quirks and failings that drove me to abandon them back then, and if the adventure or campaign is to continue I replace the nostalgic dinosaur with a modern game designed in 1986. But there are a very scant few that I think I would be content to play at length, even after all these years, without drastic house rules. I’d play RuneQuest III (1984). I think I might play DragonQuest 2nd edition (1982).
What’s the oldest RPG you would be happy to play without extensive patching?
I did play Rune Quest (based in Glorantha, was it?) a long time ago (late 80s) and it was a lot of rules from what I can remember. I don’t know how much distance in time has managed to distort that concept but I think I would give it a go.
Empire of the Petal Throne, published 1975. It fixed and clarified many elements of D&D and has an utterly compelling setting. I’m quite happy running it as is.
Judging from social media posts, there are still plenty of people playing AD&D these days - and that’s getting on for 45 years old. I haven’t played any RPGs for years but the West End Games D6 Star Wars RPG of 1986/7 was pretty robust and I would probably be able to play that without changes. There are a few I’d happily cope with though for the nostalgia, especially the Palladium TMNT and Ninjas and Superspies systems which were clunky in many regards but I have such fond memories of from my teens.
There is a difference though between such a “vintage” system being played as a memory jogger and being played for the first time. Most of us older heads could probably cope with a system we remember even vaguely but few were all that easy to pick up quickly, whereas I expect a lot of modern RPGs are written and structured for an easier teach. For example, jumping in cold to AD&D would be more of a headache for a new player than stepping into D&D 5E, and if a teenager or 20-something I know wanted to start roleplaying I’d suggest a modern ruleset to start with.
The thing I miss most when I’m not playing GURPS is mental disadvantages that have some actual bearing on gameplay. There’s a bit of role-playing advice in one of the recent D&D versions (a whole page on role-playing among all the rules on how to kill stuff) that basically comes down to “if you’re a dwarf, talk about gold and ale a lot” – because the system has never really supported the playing of a role, and isn’t intended to. If my character is honourable or greedy or compulsively charitable, GURPS will give me guidelines on just how that will affect play beyond simply talking about it.
If I don’t have something like that, I don’t tend to feel that the game has legs in the long term. Call of Cthulhu is a potential counterexample, though I tend to feel that it is best in short adventures rather than grand campaigns. But still, that’s 1981, 6th edition isn’t wildly different, and that’s the oldest system I play for itself rather than as a nostalgia event.
Well, yeah, but on the other hand a lot of its reputation seems to come from those great big campaigns – particularly Masks and Orient Express. I’m not saying those are bad, but you need a different style of play from the one-shot adventure where going mad and dying is part of the fun; I’ve heard of groups playing Masks which by the end had nobody who had ever met Jackson Elias, or even any of his original friends. (And the rules don’t have modes for longer vs shorter games.)
In terms of game mechanics, well, it’s BRP; it avoids obvious brokennesses and it has skills. It’s the style of play that makes it still interesting to me. I’ve run “Lovecraftian GURPS” with some minor tweaks to fright checks and I think that’s better as a game-mechanics substrate; but CoC will do get the job done.
The first character I ever made was for an extremely short-lived Gurps one-shot (her name was Deirdre Mc Bain and obviously I still have the character sheet somewhere). Something something Illuminati because 90s. From what I remember I guess I’d still play that.
Also: Feng Shui. I don’t know the details anymore but the action and stunts were a lot more fun than the sedate D20 rolling of our German D&D off-shoot (Das Schwarze Auge)… I remember attacking people with high heels and throwing platters of Sushi through a kitchen.
One of the oldest ones I played is Blue Planet which is just now getting a reprint and I am thinking about getting that. It had a beautiful setting. I do not actually remember the rules.
The oldest ruleset I played, remember and would consider still playing is Vampire the Masquerade Second Edition. This thread makes me feel young
Oooh, Vampire the Masquerade, 2nd Edition was what got me back into role playing in the mid 90s, as well as Cthulhu. Good times.
I think if I am honest, the oldest RPG I would play, and mainly because of its theme, would be advanced LOTR. Played it right after I read the book in 1991, and I think it’s just a recook of AD&D, but it was so much fun.
I’m now running a short campaign of RuneQuest II, which is the edition I prefer. It doesn’t have everything I expect in an RPG now, and it could stand to be better organized, but it seems to allow a viable game session. I think that may be as far back as I’d go, though Traveller is a bit older and conceivably it might be playable. I don’t think either original D&D or Superhero 2044 has a complete and comprehensible rules set, so I’d call them definitely too old. They’re sort of like proto-avians rather than true birds, with odd features that show the basic design principles haven’t stabilized yet.
I ran a session of D&D a few years ago using only the rules in the box, not including any of the supplements or magazine articles from a year or two later. Although it works surprisingly well if you already know how to play an RPG it simply cannot be run strictly rules as written, without any modification: some areas of the rules are hopelessly ambiguous and you simply have to decide on your own interpretation, such as how to handle the fact that elves can switch between being wizards or fighters each day.
It’s not as bad as often represented, but even the hardest of hardcore OSR players admit that some house rules are required. On the other hand, I do think it’s worth getting the PDF and reading through, because there are some surprising and easily pinchable elements tucked away in those three little books.
Ironically, AD&D was the point where I nearly stopped RPGing. I had been perfectly happy playing D&D (with a lot of patches!), but back then no one was used to new editions, and money was tight. It was RQII that lured me back in.
Were you using the alternative combat system? That was how everyone ran it back when I encountered it in the 1970s. But I’ve gone back and tried to figure out how to run things using the Chainmail rules, with D&D as an add-on, and I still don’t feel like I understand how it works. These days D&D is practically defined by rolling d20s, but that’s not where it started out.
Yes. I don’t have enough of a wargaming background to get my head around using Chainmail with it. There have been OSR games produced which integrate the original combat system and make it more understandable, but I’m not so into D&D that I care to try them.
The thing that really threw my players was that the original D&D rules didn’t include Magic Missile!
I still use my 3rd edition call of Cthulhu rules from c1985 - they are a mess, but give me all I need.
I’ve always been fascinated by Runequest / Glorantha but have never felt I have known enough to run it effectively. I did run one RQ3 adventure, and then more recently tried out RQ2 but it’s not straightforward as noted above. Just recently bought and read RQ Roleplaying in Glorantha which is gorgeous.
Have always used first edition WFRP from 1986 with hand written pencil errata - most recently about 3 years ago (just converting any newer material on the fly). Have the new WFRP 4 and will probably move to that, though there is some complication in the rule set - so we need to see player tolerance of it, and we can always roll back!
Traveller, I started with the 1981(?) starter set and used that upgraded by some of the little back books (notably scouts, robots, merchant prince) but now I use the pretty reliable Mongoose second edition, which has the virtue of lots of excellent material being published for it.
So I would agree that Call of Cthulhu is probably the most widely used, with the only real change being the current modernised 7th edition.
I have bought a couple of the Goodman Games reprints/reworks of early D&D modules but i don’t think I’ll be digging out the old red box quite yet for some basic D&D …
