How old are you

[Nordway 13]

Just wondering how old you are out there.

I am 73, born during the second world war, so I believe there are few older than me.

I started role-playing Call of Cthulhu some time during the 1980, an have kept on since then, mostly as a Keeper.

[Mburnaugh64 85]

First Welcome to the forums!! I’m 53 started rpgs with Dungeons and Dragons in the 80’s, didn’t start with Call of Cthulu till 1999. I enjoy playing Arkham Horror and Mansions of Madness, also play other board/miniature games Star Wars X-Wing 1.0, Armada, Imperial Assault, Destiny also Buffy board game (still have the Buffy RPG Eden Studios put out) Legendary Marvel/Buffy looking into picking up both the Terrinoth rpg and card game. 

[Raahk 184]

I am 28 and my gaming-career started 10 years ago when i purchased Pandemic the boardgame. Since then cooperative games are my favourite way of playing

[Assussanni 528]

20 hours ago, Nordway said:

I am 73, born during the second world war, so I believe there are few older than me.

I started role-playing Call of Cthulhu some time during the 1980, an have kept on since then, mostly as a Keeper.

Welcome! If I'm still playing card/board/role-playing games when I'm 73 I'll be a very happy man. I'm 31 and started off on a diet of Fighting Fantasy books and boxed games from Games Workshop, thanks largely to two older brothers. Went through a role-playing heavy phase at university then got back into board games again after making friends with some fellow gaming-enthusiasts when I started my first job. Co-operative and semi-co-operative games are my favourites, but I'll play anything once!

3 hours ago, Raahk said:

I am 28 and my gaming-career started 10 years ago when i purchased Pandemic the boardgame. Since then cooperative games are my favourite way of playing

We just finished our Pandemic Legacy Season 2 campaign last weekend. Now have time to get back to playing Arkham Horror again, Carcosa here we come!

Edited September 4, 2018 by Assussanni

[zooeyglass 327]

I'm 33! I got into games really with Warhammer Quest, back in.... 1992? 1993? Something like that? And my enthusiasm hasn't really waned since then! 

[Duciris 1,347]

I'm 32 (for a few months yet).  I started with video games at age 5.  I joined the RPG world (still video games) with Final Fantasy IX thanks to a cousin that live across the country in 2000.  Played a fair few card games growing up, but got into real board gaming in 2004.  The first big board game I bought was Arkham Horror 2e.

[Julia 2,809]

On 9/3/2018 at 4:59 PM, Nordway said:

Just wondering how old you are out there.

I am 73, born during the second world war, so I believe there are few older than me.

I started role-playing Call of Cthulhu some time during the 1980, an have kept on since then, mostly as a Keeper.

Hey, you're awesome

What do you like the most? CoC RPG, or AH LCG?

[Veve7 35]

Hello! I am 17.

[grillepainman 8]

Hi all!

73 and 53 that's awesome!

I'm 34 a father of two sons ( 3 years old and 2 months) so free time is scares but I still play Arkham Horror: The LCG once a week, every tuesday, with a good friend, and it's good to free the mind for 2 hrs per week living undimensionnal horrors :p We're one scenario away from finishing the Path to Carcosa Cycle.

[tsuruki 197]

29. A rooted gamer of 22 years.

[CSerpent 520]

Say mid-40s.  I was the kid who wished he had people to play all his D&D stuff with.  I think through an ad in Dragon magazine, I became infatuated with the CoC RPG.  Role playing was always fantasy and sci-fi, so the idea of a horror game in the "real world" was mindblowing.  I lucked into a classmate who was selling his rulebook.  That led to frequent trips to the one hobby store in the area, 15 miles away, that would occasionally have the scenario books, and scouring local libraries for anything Lovecraft.  The Del Rey books with the Michael Whelan covers came out just in time.

Came to modern boardgaming about six years ago.  Still having trouble getting a good RPG fix though.

[Jobu 720]

Mid 40s here.

I started playing D&D in the mid eighties then stopped in high school.  Then in the early 90s, I started playing Vampire the Masquerade AND unrelated to all that got into Lovecrafts work and read most of it.  Played some CCGs in the 90s.  Sometime in the mid 2000s, I got into board games.

Never played CoC but have been a fan of the AH series since 2007.

[Antimarkovnikov 152]

31! I've been playing board games since high school.  My debate teacher introduced me to Risk and Carcassonne and I've been playing ever since.

[Captain Mayhem 215]

I am 57. I always loved playing games as a kid. Got into D&D when it first came out. (Got a lot of it when it first came out around 1977. Still have it). Got into Lovecraft shortly thereafter.

Although I don't have any games based on Lovecraft, I have AH:LCG and I love it.

[Zinnaca 1]

38 here! I have been playing games all my life. Boardgames, pen&paper, computer games, to me it does not matter. The most important part of gaming is story telling so lots of roleplaying games and thematic board games.

For the record the best pen&paper game is Cyberpunk 2020.

[OttRod 25]

41, always loved RPGs and Board Games and really got into the hobby around 5 years ago with Game of Thrones 2nd edition.  I enjoy a multitude of games, but mostly adore campaign driven cooperative games.

Currently Akrham Horror, Gloomhave and Imperial Assault.

[Duciris 1,347]

22 hours ago, Antimarkovnikov said:

31! I've been playing board games since high school.  My debate teacher introduced me to Risk and Carcassonne and I've been playing ever since.

Risk and Carcassonne, now that's a game I need to try!

[KBlumhardt 378]

41.  The average age of my game group is probably mid-30s, and it's about half people in the 40-42 range and half in the mid-20s.  I played board games with my family as a child, then was heavy into both RPGs and video games from age 10 or so.  Got heavy into board games about 5 years ago. 

I'm excited to be going to my 4th Arkham Nights next month, as it's only a three hour drive.  ?

[Antimarkovnikov 152]

36 minutes ago, Duciris said:

Risk and Carcassonne, now that's a game I need to try!

Carcassonne is great!  If you're wanting to just try it they recently released a Mobile version of the game.  The best expansions for the game are Inns and Cathedrals, and Trader and Builder.  The other ones can be fun but those two really flesh out the game nicely.

Risk... Risk was one of the first war games I ever played.  It has a LOT of flaws but I still enjoy it from time to time.  Primarily it can be a game where you know who's going to win halfway through the game and it becomes substantially less fun for the other players.

[Duciris 1,347]

41 minutes ago, Antimarkovnikov said:

Carcassonne is great!  If you're wanting to just try it they recently released a Mobile version of the game.  The best expansions for the game are Inns and Cathedrals, and Trader and Builder.  The other ones can be fun but those two really flesh out the game nicely.

Risk... Risk was one of the first war games I ever played.  It has a LOT of flaws but I still enjoy it from time to time.  Primarily it can be a game where you know who's going to win halfway through the game and it becomes substantially less fun for the other players.

They did a great job with Risk Legacy.  In addition to all of the legacy mechanics, the outcome is determined by victory points.  The game is shorter and almost never has player elimination.

[dpj1967 2]

I'm 51, and started gaming with the Fantasy Trip and D&D in the late 70s and early 80s.  Contracted a bout of Christianity for about 20 years, but got better.  Now I'm back into hobbies I had been pressured to give up.  Board gaming at this level is still new to me, but I am loving AHLCG, Mansions of Madness and several other games in the genre.

[papy72 493]

14 hours ago, dpj1967 said:

Contracted a bout of Christianity for about 20 years, but got better.  Now I'm back into hobbies I had been pressured to give up.

It truly amazes me how a hobby that is largely based on groups of people getting together to perform heroic deeds got so vilified back then.  

[papy72 493]

And in an attempt to stay on-topic, I am 46 and have been involved in all sorts of gaming over the past 35 (or more) years.  D&D, other RPG's, CCG's, and now LCG's and miniature games (X-wing).

[Duciris 1,347]

3 minutes ago, papy72 said:

It truly amazes me how a hobby that is largely based on groups of people getting together to perform heroic deeds got so vilified back then.

I shall recount one of may most favorites personal stories (we're all Christians in this story, past and present).

I had just graduated high school (age 18) and my cousin Jared (age 19) and been at university for 2 years.  We (my mother and I) were visiting her sister while Jared had come home for the summer.  The mothers went to their brother's house (some 20 minuets away) and Jared had decided we were going to play a 2-player game of D&D from the 3.5e Beginner Box.

It is the middle of the day, and I was generally uninterested in a dungeon crawl, but by Grapthar's Hammer, Jared was insistent that we were going to play.  We're 30 minuets into this endeavor when I receive a phone call.  It's my mother, in a slightly panicked state.  "Are you 2 playing Dungeons and Dragons," she asks without preamble.

I look around my cousin's boyhood bedroom for telltale signs of a camera or adult whom I'd previously missed standing over us.  "Are you psychic?" I inquired with real confusion.

"Answer the question: are you playing Dungeons and Dragons?" she replied without mirth.

"Uh, yes?  We're -"

"Is it yours?"

"What?  No.  It's Jared's I didn't even want to-"

"Oh thank goodness.  I didn't think you were stupid enough to bring D&D to my sister's house."

"Mom, I've met your sister.  No.  I would never-"

"Oh that's a relief," she sighed, cutting me off for the third time.

What had happened, if you're wondering whether or not my mother is in fact psychic, is my younger cousin (age 14) had tattled on us.  Subsequently, my aunt had been guilt-tripping my mother about 'do you know what the boys are playing' and 'I can't believe your son would corrupt my son'.

This is the same younger cousin whom had informed our mothers 4 years earlier that we were playing Age of Vampires on the PC.  Cell phones were knew then, and I was forced to explain over the phone that we were in fact playing Age of Empires.

I haven't let Jared forget this.

Yes, it was vilified.  Think pre-Twitter social media hysteria, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_controversies:

Quote

Mazes and Monsters[edit]

Main article: James Dallas Egbert III

As the role-playing game hobby began to grow, it was connected to the story in 1979 of the disappearance of 16-year-old James Dallas Egbert III. Egbert had attempted suicide in the utility tunnels beneath the campus of Michigan State University. After this unsuccessful attempt, he hid at a friend's house for approximately a month.

A well-publicized search for Egbert began, and his parents hired private investigator William Dear to seek out their son. Dear knew nothing about Dungeons & Dragons at that time, but speculated to the press that Egbert had gotten lost in the steam tunnels during a session of a live action role-playing game. The press largely reported the story as fact, which served as the kernel of a persistent rumor regarding such "steam tunnel incidents". Egbert's suicide attempts, including his successful suicide the following year (by self-inflicted gunshot) had no connection whatsoever to D&D; they resulted from clinical depression and great stress.^[3]

Rona Jaffe published Mazes and Monsters in 1981, a thinly disguised fictionalization of the press exaggerations of the Egbert case. In an era when very few people understood role-playing games it seemed plausible to some elements of the public that a player might experience a psychotic episode and lose touch with reality during role-playing. The book was adapted into a made-for-television movie in 1982 starring Tom Hanks, and the publicity surrounding both the novel and film heightened the public's unease regarding role-playing games. In 1983, the Canadian film Skullduggery depicted a role-playing game similar to D&D as tool of the devil to transform a young man into a serial killer.

Dear revealed the truth of the incident in his 1984 book The Dungeon Master, in which he repudiated the link between D&D and Egbert's disappearance. Dear acknowledged that Egbert's domineering mother had more to do with his problems than his interest in role-playing games.^[3]

Neal Stephenson's 1984 novel satirizing university life, The Big U, includes a series of similar incidents in which a live-action fantasy role-player dies in a steam tunnel accident, leading to another gamer becoming mentally unstable and unable to distinguish reality from the game.

 

[papy72 493]

6 minutes ago, Duciris said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_controversies:

And that is EXACTLY what I was thinking of.  I was only 7 back in 1979 so I highly doubt I have any direct memory of the incident.  But I came to learn about it in later years.  

I feel a bit lucky that I had parents who weren't swayed by such things.