My Gaming Memoirs Part 8 - 1990

This was a very active year for me.

On top of the gaming I was also playing Star Trek: Starship Tactical Combat (in which Paul kicked my arse), Dark Future (in which I kicked Paul's arse), BattleTech (in which Paul made me look like a massive loser by kicking my arse) and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (in which Paul continued to kick my arse). Our MERP games were still going strong but Paul obviously wanted to get back to the 'big fight' kind of games and we found that in MechWarrior - enter Matthew Haskenn, crap as a secret service investigator but give him a Rorynex and a few grenades and he'll blow up entire planets. If you ever meet Paul, ask him about Haskenn, the grenade, the ammo dump and 'Chariots of Fire'. Hilarity will be sure to ensue.

I'd started a new job that year so I now had some money to spend on gaming materials. I got in new books and RPGs that caught my eye - my roleplaying collection had started in earnest. 2300AD, Twilight: 2000, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu... my shelves begam to fill with books and material and I lost myself in the rules and settings. They'd be played - not much but they would be played - but I wanted them for the pleasure of reading them and experiencing other forms of roleplaying.

Anyway, Nick had entered the gaming group by creating a character for our Setnin Sector Star Wars D6 games. The games were getting longer, incorporating many wolrds and NPCs, and a large ring-binder folder had been started to catalogue all the designs, and locations. It was turning into a big campaign. Nick also gamed with some guys at a house only five minuites walk from where I lived, so after a few introductions I became involved in an AD&D 2nd Edition game with PaulG, Dave, Phil, Darren, PhilP and Rob. I'd already fallen out of love with D&D after several abismal games, and these games only hardened my opinion. This isn't to criticise the gaming group or PaulG who DM'd the games, it was just that I did not like the system at all. I introduced them to Warhammer FRP and we played some Star Wars D6, and we even went on and played Shadowrun (Paul, MERP Paul, had introduced me to that already, but I wasn't hot on it). I tried to get into character or try to throw them in to epic, emotionally-driven or story-centric plots but most of the time I just made myself look stupid because they didn't go for it - we'd end up just taking the piss and drinking more. They were an excellent group of gamers and friends, and we'd game together and socialise together.

These were fun, dungeon-bashing games. I could bop orcs over the head and moan about treaure, XP and dodgy players whilst knocking back beers in one environment, and get into character, play a role and tell a story in another. I had the best of both worlds. It was MERP I still enjoyed the most, though, but, sadly, Tere Swordsong's adventures would come to an end the next year.

Oh, yeah - I kind of discovered alcohol this year, too. That's a story all of itself, but my party habits didn't really affect my gaming for a couple more years. More on that later.