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An OLD friend came over with his wife today. He was wearing dark sunglasses for some reason. I mean Large super-dark sunglasses.

Turns out he has gone blind ( ) and is giving away his rpg collections...He and his wife brought them with them in the back of the van.

I took a look at what he had still. System Failure was there...and I took it. The rest of his collection was mostly D&D3e crap. Alot the aweful sourcebooks made by Fly-by-night companies....

I used to game with this guy back in the early '90s playing Marvel Superheroes Advanced and AD&D Dark-Sun. I asked were his Marvel went to (just curious) He told me he sold them years ago for store credit to buy these D&D3e books before me. I laughted and told him he got ripped off then...

Anyways...
Now I'm the owner of System Failure at last...
I have been reading it and WOW...talk about Inspiring as heck.

His Wife and him drove all the back to Florida just to offer me a few of his old rpg books. Dude lives in Washington State state in Seattle. Next they were off to find a few other local friends we gamed with. I tipped him to which one would love his D&D3e stuff...

He asked me what games are Popular Locally around here nowadays.
I Told him :

Palladium/RIFTS/Heroes Unlimited/Nightbane
Unisystem (Buffy-Angel) Which caught his wife's attention when I show them to her. I gave her the Eden Website addie so she can check them out.
GURPS
Vampire the Masquerade / Werewolf the Apoc... (nWoD is not popular around here)
Exalted
Scion
AD&D

He was surprised I did not mention D&D3e at all. I told him it get more popular the closer you get to the Big Cities around these parts. I reminded him he did ask about Local games/popularity...

BUT now I have System failure

I know that this is slightly off topic, but what happened to the dude's eyes?

Mike Taylor wrote:I know that this is slightly off topic, but what happened to the dude's eyes?

Bad Eyes to begin with (needed glasses)
Joined Military
While in Iraq, Flash Granade at 3 feet burnt out his eyes for good. When I say White, they are white...now.
His wife said if his eyes get worse (Die and rott) the docs will have to remove them completely.
He has facial scaring from the heat around his eyes.

This info in me reading between the lines. It was a very touchy subject to both of them. I knew he was Military awhile back, on reserve status.
They ementioned him being in Iraq then shut up fast...He started to shake as if scaried man...So i take he got called back to active service at some point.

Mind you they were really try to downplay his loss of Eyesight...but the wife's expressions and his were very telling. That and the few good tibits of info they let slip out just talking.

OHHH
He did mention how Popular RIFTS was among the Military. That is like the 12+ military person I've talked to that said RIFTS was extremely popular with Military personel as a means to waste time and relax...

He'll talk about it when he's ready. I imagine he's got a pile of stuff to work through. I gotta wonder though. If he had bad eyesight to begin with, how'd they let him into the Armed Forces?

As far as Rifts, I'd be willing to bet it's because it was something a lot of those guys grew up with and it was familiar. Kinda like how D&D was big with the soldiers in the first Gulf War.

Mike Taylor wrote:He'll talk about it when he's ready. I imagine he's got a pile of stuff to work through. I gotta wonder though. If he had bad eyesight to begin with, how'd they let him into the Armed Forces?

As far as Rifts, I'd be willing to bet it's because it was something a lot of those guys grew up with and it was familiar. Kinda like how D&D was big with the soldiers in the first Gulf War.

Glasses corrected his eye sight when he wore them. He was a computer geek/Comms specialist or something like that. Never knew exactly what he did though.

As for RPGS and the Soldiers...
Yeah. Then again I heard Palladium was very populareven in the first Gulf War. (knew several people from High School was was introduced to it while there).
They usually talk about the Combat OCCs alot too. CS Grunts, CKs, Borgs, etc...with the Tech books being favorites...
It must strike a cord at some level in the military to play the more military OCCs. I can understand that big time.

TechnoGothic wrote:As for RPGS and the Soldiers...

It must strike a cord at some level in the military to play the more military OCCs. I can understand that big time.

yeah, and they surely add to a game.

on the other hand, if I were in the military, I would want to play something completely different in my time-off.

Vidynn wrote:

TechnoGothic wrote:As for RPGS and the Soldiers...

It must strike a cord at some level in the military to play the more military OCCs. I can understand that big time.

yeah, and they surely add to a game.

on the other hand, if I were in the military, I would want to play something completely different in my time-off.

Some soldiers just love to play "soldier" alot.
or maybe they use RIFTS as a Military War-Game of some sort.

One of my friends I used to game with who was in the AirForce did that alot. He used RIFTS as a War-game...PCs had to be CS/FQ/NGR soldiers...

Some soldiers just love to play "soldier" alot.
or maybe they use RIFTS as a Military War-Game of some sort.

One of my friends I used to game with who was in the AirForce did that alot. He used RIFTS as a War-game...PCs had to be CS/FQ/NGR soldiers...

I spent 6 years in the military myself; two tours in the "sandbox". I played more Rifts and Nightspawn/Bane in the military than at any other time of my life (including high school!)

RPGs, especially Palladium's, are great for military folks. You only need one or two core books, some dice, and that's about it. When you're not on duty, you've got a lot of free time and you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. Got to have some way to pass the time.

On an unrelated note, my heart goes out to your friend and his wife. In some ways, its as tough for her as it is him; military spouses are something else. My two tours left me with one bullet wound and two knife scars. Thankfully, aside from some residual soreness, no real permanent damage from any of them. I thank a variety of supreme beings daily for that; it could have been much worse.

Guy_LeDouche wrote:

Some soldiers just love to play "soldier" alot.
or maybe they use RIFTS as a Military War-Game of some sort.

One of my friends I used to game with who was in the AirForce did that alot. He used RIFTS as a War-game...PCs had to be CS/FQ/NGR soldiers...

I spent 6 years in the military myself; two tours in the "sandbox". I played more Rifts and Nightspawn/Bane in the military than at any other time of my life (including high school!)

RPGs, especially Palladium's, are great for military folks. You only need one or two core books, some dice, and that's about it. When you're not on duty, you've got a lot of free time and you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. Got to have some way to pass the time.

On an unrelated note, my heart goes out to your friend and his wife. In some ways, its as tough for her as it is him; military spouses are something else. My two tours left me with one bullet wound and two knife scars. Thankfully, aside from some residual soreness, no real permanent damage from any of them. I thank a variety of supreme beings daily for that; it could have been much worse.

(knocking on Wood) Yep it could have been worse alright.

You could have found yourself forced to play D&D3e+ in the Sandbox

You could have found yourself forced to play D&D3e+ in the Sandbox

Ok, that was to freakin' funny!

No worries there though, haven't played D&D since 1989!