40 Years a Gamer: The Early Years (1986 to 1992)

Welcome back to my 40 Years a Gamer retrospective.

In the last post, I looked at the first game I played. But today, I want to talk about the early years of playing tabletop role-playing games (TTRPG) and Game Mastering, from 1986 to 1992.

If I had to describe this period in one word, it would be: Chaos. Beautiful, creative chaos. It all started in the summer of 1986 with the D&D Mentzer Red Box, and suddenly, the gaming table became a revolving door of neighbors, school friends, and random kids from the building I lived in. And we played everywhere! My house. On the floor in a small nook in the building’s lobby. We even commandeered the ping pong table in the recreation room to play D&D.

The Neighborhood Crew

My first “party” wasn’t a carefully curated group of role-players. It was whoever happened to be around. We had Ricky (Mano Fast, the thief), Jorge (Conan the Elf), Emilio Ruiz (Dragon Knight), Jose Luis, Hector, and, for a moment, Gretchen and Mari Vanessa.

We didn’t worry about campaign balance or narrative arcs. We just played.

I remember running one-shot adventures for up to 13 neighbors at once. Can you imagine running AD&D 1st Edition for 13 teenagers? It was madness. I remember one specific homebrew adventure where the world was flooded by non-stop rain. It was basically a prequel to Waterworld before Kevin Costner had the idea, but with more dice.

Eventually, the group stabilized. My “regular” crew became Emilio Ruiz, Gary Burden, and Luis Miranda, with Emilio Rodríguez joining us for the long haul.

From left to right: Me (Sunglar), Emilio Ruiz, and Luis Miranda, playing Dark Suns in 1991.

We Played Everything

While D&D (specifically the Known World/Mystara early) was our main game, we played many other games, as soon as I could get them and read the rules, at least most of the rules.

• Robotech: Because in 1987, who didn’t want to pilot a Veritech?
• Marvel Superheroes (FASERIP): We spent hours fighting villains in New York.
• DC Heroes & Champions: We dabbled in crunchy stuff, too.
• Star Frontiers: This was a huge one for us. We ran a campaign that ran from 1987 to 1990. I don’t think we had a proper name for it; we just called it Star Frontiers. Because of recurring antagonists, I often refer to it as “Ninjas in Space!” Yes, really. I regret nothing.

I also must mention the countless “One-Player Adventures” I ran for Emilio Ruiz. Whether it was Star Frontiers, Robotech, or Forgotten Realms, if the other people couldn’t make it, we were still rolling dice.

The Birth of a World

Looking back, what surprises me most is that the seeds of my current campaigns were planted right there in the chaos of the 80s.

In 1987, I ran a campaign called Ruma (proto-Lagamur). In 1988, I launched the second version of Lagamur.

I didn’t know it then, but those messy, teenage sessions were the rough drafts for Lagamur—the world I am still running campaigns in today, nearly 40 years later.

What Happened?

Early on, we played a lot, whatever game, whenever or wherever we could, every day if you let us! My grades slipped in 9^th grade, and my mom limited game time to Fridays and weekends. Now and then, we slipped in a game on a weeknight.

While we ran long D&D and AD&D 1e games, mostly set in the Known World, aka Mystara, based on the information in the Expert set, including one with an all-thief party, I am reluctant to call these campaigns. There was continuity of characters, but most of them were one free-wheeling adventure after another, with very loose connections between them and fewer consequences.

True campaigns were the two early versions of my long-running homebrew Lagamur, which I ran with daily sessions over the summers of 1987 and 1988. That and the long-running Star Frontiers campaign, which ran on and off with a rotating cast of characters from 1988 to 1991. I also ran a one-player campaign for Emilio Ruiz around 1987 or 1988.

Other than that, from 1986 to 1992, the rest of my gaming was a series of one-shots, games that lasted a handful of sessions, and trying out the latest new-shiny game. After high school, college was a time when we played whenever we could, often making new characters and not playing long-term. This was not what I wanted out of gaming, so I took stock and made some radical decisions. But that is a tale for another time.

The Stats (1987–1992)

• Total Campaigns: 4
• Primary Systems: AD&D 1st Ed, Star Frontiers
• Vibe: Pure, unadulterated enthusiasm.

Tell me about your “Early Years.” Did you start with a massive group of neighbors, or was it just you and a friend trying to figure out what a hit die was?