Role Playing Games
(D&D, Star Frontiers, etc...)
I heard about Dungeons and Dragons when I was in 6th grade. I started playing first with some older guys and then with my friends: we barely understood the rules, but we got the concept. We went through all the stereotypes at first: overpowered characters, anthropomorphic characters, characters based on fictional movie and book characters we liked with almost no attempt to make them original, characters that were oversexualized , characters with overly modern technology for the setting, etc... Duing my middle school years I played a lot of role playing game: many different ones. I also went to the small comic book shop every Saturday for hours to pour over things to buy. Over time my game matured I suppose. I stopped playing as much in H.S. in an attempt to "normalize" as back then D&D was really dorky. I didn't play much at all during the years after college...until later 30s when I met some cool people who wanted to play.
Dungeons & Dragons, D&D. I started with the 2nd edition AD&D Player's handbook in 6th grade and went from there. It wasn't until my late 30s that some boardgaming friends of mine wanted to play that I picked up the new 5th edition. The rules were better and it seemed D&D had become a much more streamlined game. I've done a lot of playing and DMing (being the "Dungeon Master"). It's weird and great seeing it being more socially acceptable/popular. This game has a big place in making me whole I am today: vocabulary, knowledge, humor, and especially creativity and imagination. Speaking of imagination, one of the most fun things about D&D has always been making up my own races, adventures, weapons, classes, spells, whatever...
Star Frontiers. This game is great. D&D in space. Different interesting races, space guns of different types and a very very good system for skills and combat, as well as ship vs. ship combat. My friend Chris Decaen was the DM while me and his brothers played many modules (adventures). Chris is a great artist and so it was even better when he started introducing new spaceships, weapons and so on with drawings and specs for each.
Twilight :2000. A game set in a post nuclear apocalypse world. Guns, military stuff. Small bands of people fighting and doing stuff... D&D with guns done right. Good game. Especially if your interested in guns and you were a middle school kid in the late 80s before all the gun video games there are now.