New campaign, Old setting: part 2

I've happily killed off my old campaigns several times, each time learning a little something about storytelling and entertaining.  That's all DMing really is, although the genre may change radically from game to game.  Sometimes the game changes the players (several instances of PVP during dark themed campaigns), but most often for me its the players who change the game.

I strive to have the PCs be the center of the show.  They are in the right or wrong place at the wrong or right time and they decide how to play in the sandbox.  They have the potential to be able to change their world.  The NPC's have personal goals and ambitions, but they never take the reins and drive the show.

This Friday I'm starting a new campaign based on one that I ended in 1999.  The setting is the same (Freewold Valley), but set approximately 50 years before the last PCs played.  There will be player familiarity with the geography, but only a very few NPCs will have been around that they might have met.

...yes, I suppose its possible for them to be their own Grandpa.  :-)

New campaign, Old Setting: part 1

I've been DMing since 1978.  In fact, most of my birthday presents that year consisted of D&D books.  My Dad patiently drove me from hobby shop to hobby shop on the Saturday after my birthday as we slowly accumulated gear.

By the time the afternoon was over, I had a good pile of tools to build my first dungeon with:  white box, Greyhawk, Blackamoor, Eldrich Wizardry (a tough sell due to the nekkid chick on the cover) and finally, the Monster Manual.

Oh, and graph paper...lots of graph paper.

The first dungeon utilized every square possible.

A misspent young (and adulthood) is better by far then a wise and productive old age

Tracking our RPG Adventures from Adolescence to So-Called Adults:

1977-2014
(0e, 2e)
D&D "Blue Box"
D&D "White Box"
Supplements - Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldrich Wizardry
Chainmail
Monster Manual
Deities & Demigods (I have two copies of the original)
Players Handbook
DMs Guide
Unearthed Arcana

Traveller
Empire of the Petal Throne (once)
Metamorphosis Alpha ("Dude, what does the red lever do?")
Monsters! Monsters! ("So, a goblin, a minotaur and a troll walk into an inn."
Gamma World ("I'm a radioactive, 5' tall rabbit with laser blast eyes!"
Boot Hill ("We're gonna kill ya, but we're gonna kill you slow.")
Top Secret (more like a morally flexible A-Team
Chivalry & Sorcery (once, but it took 3 sessions to create characters)
Space Opera (all I wanted was a robot friend...but Noooooo!"
Tunnels & Trolls (once)
Bunnies & Burrows (characters made, common sense kicked in)
Aftermath! (twice, "Look! A can of soup!"  cue deathspiral music
Villains & Vigilantes (crappy character generation, great games)
Champions ("roll 53d6 and then calculate knock back with this abacus")
The Fantasy Trip (I think I still have the books...yup, there's Tollenkars lair)
Paranoia (once, but a lot of fun)
Twilight 2000 (See "Aftermath!" above)
Mechanoids (original pulp books, brutal games)
GURPS (all editions, multi-genre)

Vampire (with expansions)
Armageddon (lots of house rules)
Crimson Empire (brutal deaths)
Some crazy space opera game...name escapes me
Underworld (neat concept, tough rules)
Kult (lost some of my humanity with this one)
Little Fears (too sad to play, another neat concept)
All Flesh Must Be Eaten (a summer favorite with my group)

I'm sure I'm missing at least one or two (maybe Runequest?)

One more...5e D&D...lots of fun and I'm not the GM!  Huzzah!

Thats a lot of Role-playing!@