Larian Studios Forums General Chat Games that made us gamers

In 1974 I was introduced to table top DnD, that started an obsession that has never ended. In 1977 I sat down at my first computer, a main frame system call Plato and played a game called Bugs and Drugs that used the DnD format for educational purposes. I was hooked and never looked back.

My first tabletop game was DnD - second edition back in the days. My first character there was an elven ranger lady, so pretty standard and basic.
My first computer game was actually Baldurs Gate 1 and it got me hooked.

Well - that was basically Baldurs Gate. It came with a graphics card, I think ? Without addon, back then.

I didnt liked BG too much. The final battle for example, oh boy. I was so happy when I found out that you could win by just flooding the place with summons from wands. And indeed that did the trick. They later "fixed" this "bug". Also I wanted to play Bard, and boy turned that out to be a poor choice.


BG2 was the breakthrough though. The levels got higher and the magic system turned out to be a lot more complex and interesting. And trying to optimize my Sorcerer spelllist was such an interesting challenge. I think I must have played through BG2 as a sorcerer at least half a douzen times, total.

Ever since I tried to find another BG2, but it never occured. It still has an unique charm, a charm BG3 doesnt have, even if BG3 is a great game in its own right.


NWN2 for example was a boring game. I really hated how the races looked. Only humans looked tolerable. I didnt liked any of the party NPCs much either, they are boring. The "romance" you could get with that elven lady was literally ONE DIALOGUE. Compared to what you get with Aerie in BG2 (the only one I ever really romanced in BG2), thats just so bad. All in all I only played this game once, as a human Rogue(4)/Fighter(16) with Intelligence 14 and fully able to handle traps and locks. I took the Rogue levels just so I wouldnt have to party with that annoying Tiefling all. The. Friggin. Time.

My favorite piece of NWN2 was actually the second expansion Storm of Zehir. It contained interesting trade and crafting options. Ultimately I never played it more than once either though.


Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic had the good storywriting from Bioware, but nowhere near the depth. The game was in most places really easy and turned even more easy when I found the optimal build, with which even the final battle isnt much of a challenge. Still, thanks to the writing, I must have played this game like a douzen times or so in total.


Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines was probably my second favorite game after BG2, but its completely different. You play only one character, and its a vampire, and it plays in modern times. Still, it has awesome art, especially also the speakers, and it has four very different vampire clans to play (Malkavian, Nosferatu, Gangrel, Tremere), while the remaining three play sort of the same (Toreador, Brujah, Ventrue).


A really awful, but in some aspects great game was The Temple of Elemental Evil. It had the best combat I ever saw in any game. Really challenging, up to about character level five. After that it was less interesting. I hated this game in every other regard though. Like, the party NPCs you could pick up had gross stats and stole from you. Thats why I only played a five people party. You could have up to eight people in party, but only five of them selfmade. And the interface. How often did I want to move a character to a place and instead they started looting a character, losing the action. I didnt want to loot anything, I wanted them to be in the right position. Boy did I hate the poor interface. And the bugs of course. Yikes.


I never finished Planescape: Torment. Thats the one game that just had too much dialogue. I also didnt really liked I was forcefed a character.


After that there wasnt really going on much with roleplaying games for a very long time. And since thats my favorite kind of game, well, that was really bad. I did have some fun with No Man's Sky though. Even if thats not a roleplaying game.

By the way I tried Fallout but I really didnt like it. I was forced to do a dungeon and, well, I died. And that was that. I had trouble motivating me to play this in the first place, too, because I just find the whole setting so depressing.

I also tried Gothic and really hated it with a passion. The world was also depressing, you couldnt create your own character, the lore was horribly uninspired, stereotypical and boring, the class choices have been very limited, the first game IIRC had no women at all and the later parts would also not have great female characters, and finally of course bugs would be rampant. My least favorite roleplaying game of all times.

Hey that's very cool. It was exactly the same for me, except for that my elf ranger was male. It's why I still have a soft-spot for the ranger class.

8bit era: Maniac Mansion. Mostly playing arcade and sports games at that time: Still remember seeing that on a school friend's Commodore 64 and being all excited about a game with "real people" talking and walking around an actual place you could relate too... even chasing you... unfortunately, I had an Amstrad CPC at that time. (Actually still got a C64 after the disk drive went bust much later).


16bit era: Probably Ambermoon on Amiga. It's the first beefy RPG I spent a whole lotta time on. It wasn't merely an RPG to me. But a foreign world to escape to... helped by the map that's shipped with the game. It also had texture-mapped 3d dungeons you explored real-time in first person, which at that time was fairly novel still, in particular on Amiga computers (combat was a seperate mode switching to a 2d turn-based screen).

PC: Thief. As a recent retrospective on Looking Glass Studio's other cult classic, System Shock, had it: "We were trying to build the holodeck." You see, Looking Glass tried to bring the agency roleplayers had in a pen&paper session likewise to the screen, ever since their first game Ultima Underworld. Only that they did this by different means than copying pen&paper stats and to-hit rolls. Like systems interacting with one another, which can be manipulated (which BG3 actually has too, like the elemental combat systems, physics etc.)

True to LGS "holodeck" ideal however, Thief also sported a really minimalist UI and HUD too. Nothing was supposed to remind you that you were just playing a damn game. Thief has one mission dumping you into a series of crypts and caves and tombs, with barely anything to go by but a vague in-universe map at your hand (at one point, even the game's character just notes down a "WHERE AM I"? on it.) Then you suddenly HEAR the item you came looking for -- and can navigate the crypts by its 3D sound, which still holds up. In 1999, that looked (and sounded) like the future of gaming to me. Everybody's talking Virtual Reality these days. But LGS tried to do it back then. All with software.

Unfortunately, it never much evolved from there, as nobody's picked up Thief and completely RAN with its ideas -- it's not that this had ever been the perfect execution of those ideas, you know. And aside of visuals, things often times regressed. As so many first person games CONSTANTLY remind you that you're just playing a game with all their markers and intrusive UI and HUDS, tutorials, cramped corridor levels (or open world theme parks) etc. to the degree that even a three billion Dollar holodeck wouldn't save them.

(There was one exception. Which was Trespasser, a game based on Jurassic Park. Made by former Looking Glass staff such as eventual XBox designer Seamus Blackley, it took the whole VR idea a tad further -- a tad too far perhaps. The game had no HUD whatsoever and also lets you control the characters arm. And it also was overly ambituous, performed like poo even on the best machines and not much fun to actually play. But yeah).

I played D&D with friends back in middle school, but it didn't take at the time. (I ended up playing a decent amount years later with some friends using...3.5 I think), but the first video game that got me hooked on video games was Pong.

Yes, Pong. Just that little console you could attach to your TVs antenna that advertised itself as having "seven different games". Four of which were just pixel tennis and then the other three were "Breakout." For me, I think the initial draw was "ooooh.... TV you can interact with!" Because I was like 7.

We had the Atari 2600 afterwards, but those games didn't grab like Pong did. Just basically more of the same in slightly more complicated forms. I got more interested again when the Super NES came out, but really it's PC games that would make me what I would consider to be a gamer. There was an old game that came out in the 90's at some point.. The Journeyman Project. It was first person. You were a time agent and you traveled through a photorealistic (which was a big deal at the time) future solving a mystery. No combat, but it was the first time I really had the sense I was navigating a character through a virtual space, and felt not only engaged by the fun, but immersed in it.

Free to download demos of games from BBS systems like Wolfenstein, Duke Nuke'em, Doom, and Quake gave me a thirst for virtual blood.

And then Baldur's Gate came out, which I HATED at first. Hated. Wanted to throw the CDs across the room. A month later, I tried again with a fresh perspective, then I went out and bought a new monitor because it didn't look pretty enough on the old one. It is the only game I have ever played at a LAN party. Kicking ass with Minsc and Boo saw me through plenty dark winter nights. (and neverwinter ones, too.)

mhmm, for me the anwser is simple my father bought me an OG xbox and on there I played the first game that really pulled me into gaming, well two actually. Halo Co-op splitscreen with my brother and the first Fable.
Both of them hold a special place in my heart and made me get a good bond with my older brother. It kinda made us best friends in our childhood as we are only 1,5 years apart.

The game that started it for me was Star Fox 64, 20 years later and I still have my original cartridge! It was so amazing to play with aunt, she would play the hardest levels for me when I was little, then we would just take turns when I was older and had more ability.
She also used to play some games on the computer like World of Warcraft, and liked to collect dragon statues. Even though she didn't play D&D, she liked to bring me to this park where a lot of people would play it and we watched their adventures.
I only really started to get into RPGs when I played The World Ends With You (which is really different from other RPGs) in middle school. After that I started playing Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem, etc., and fell in love with the genre.

Cool topic..
Well the first time i get to enjoy a Game was Tabletop the classic.. playing with my cousins
We used to travel the entire family toguether to a Place pretty far from the city.. like in the Middle of Nowere for real..
So we used to Play a Lot the Classics.. like Wheel of Life, War, bunch of Deck stuff too..
But i always looooooove to play the Table top man.
That stuff for me was like Freedom.
i could really do whenever the hell i want.. and my gm always eat my balls becouse of that.. fun times..haha lol

I get to Play first the Classic D&D but i play a Lot of Cyberpunk.. the classic tabletop..
So lets burn my way down the Rebel Path! lol
Hell Yeah Jhonny! lol

BTW since then i eat this stuff alive.. like some of yu may notice from the topics i make on BG3 forum..haha
im that kinda a Guy when i love something i really eat the stuff alive..
Did the Same with Witcher 3, RDR 2, BG 1, BG2, Doom the classic and remakes, man SOULSBORN BAYBE!
Yeah i play all of then.. till max lvl and start to just gank people online.. i even get to Met the Real Blood God in a pvp on Bloodborne..
Holly molly that battle was amazing.. made me cry.
Theres nothing better then to become a god in Souls Like..
That thing teach me to never gave up man.

Another Crazy game that made me love JRPG a lot were the Nocturne.. jesus..
That thing was amazing.
and i Deep Down on Persona Becouse of that..haha
But it all started back in a day when i was a Stupid Kid that love to Be a Thief in a Table Top! haha xD

When I was reading PCGamers as a kid, it came along with a disc full of demo games and one in particular just so happened to grab my attention called Thief - The Dark Project..

The idea of being able to sneak into places you are not suppose to be in without getting caught felt like the most exciting moment and being able to do so in a simulated virtual world safely but little did I expect that this was all 100% story driven and because the system was designed with a minimalistic approach rendered the game extremely immersible, you could literally feel the atmosphere of the game environment and cut it with a knife and this kept me hooked leading up to Thief - The Metal Age..

Then simultaneously the game blew up with hundreds upon hundreds of fan made mission packs while the company behind the core game went bankruptcy as odd as it may sound, they released the toolsets before bankruptcy which kept the community together and the game alive for over 20 years.

So goes the story for why I started to enjoy games by one simple reason, to explore the story the game has to tell through a beautifully executed narration and indulge into rules of that world, it also means that I was about close to move on from gaming entirely for lack of games by my standards, the last game I enjoyed for this reason was Red Dead Redemption 2 for example and by some true act of serendipity Baldurs Gate 3 caught my attention and doing so in perfect timing before it went full release on steam, I had no friends telling me about this.

Now I feel like that inner child in me has been rekindled and what it felt like back then, to have never even been aware of this whole dungeons and dragon type of games which might come as a surprise but now you know from where I am coming from.
Baldurs Gate 3 to me feels extremely immersible to a similar degree to how Thief - The Dark Project was, like a work of art brought alive and getting smitten by it.

Sorry, wasn't in here for a while. I moved on to bards pretty quickly, I just lova that class.

My favourite, very early crpg was and is Vampire teh Masquerade Bloodlines. It is very dark, but has some of the best characters I ever encountered in a game, some of them based on the ttrpg lore, like Beckett, others own creations like Gorgeous Gary Golden, Mitnick, Jeanette and Therese, Andrei and basically every other npc. The game is a flawed jewel, because it was released unfinished due to the studio going broke, but until today, a dedicated modder community is working on it.

As for ttrpgs, I play a lot this days. Still DnD, but also Cthulhu, Vampire, Liminal - today we will play The Expanse.

I wish I had a local TT group with whom to play. I miss that whole atmosphere and experience of gaming with a group of friends face-to-face.

I've tried playing remotely using such venues as Roll20 and Discord, but the problem there for me is my hearing impairment which makes following what people are saying very difficult.

I've avoided such genres as vampire games in RPGs because I find the mechanics of guns difficult to accept. It's not the guns per se; I have no problem at all with firearms. It's that I cannot suspend my disbelief with respect to how much damage a single gunshot would do to a person. Yes, the same can be said for fantasy weapons such as a huge club wielded by a giant. But I don't know. Somehow, I can handle suspending my disbelief with fantasy weapons, but not firearms (or energy weapons in sci-fi games).

I don't have a problem with that tbh. And VtMB is such a good game. And they've put into consideration, how much damage you can do to a more powerful being. There is even one being, you can't really hurt much as a new born vampire xxx you have to avoid that being.

As for ttrpgs:I play both remote and at a table and am ok with both. I prefer to play horror RPGs at a table in person because you can bring the atmosphere better across.

I think it is that with fantasy settings you have magic, and I can use magic as a catch-all excuse and explanation and justification for whatever happens in the game. But in other game settings you don't have magic (or anything equivalent), and so it becomes harder for me to accept certain things within those games. I know these are fiction-based games, but I still need quite a bit of realism to be able to accept the game. This is also why it is so very difficult for me to accept TB combat, because nowhere does combat happen in turns in reality.

I'm a big Lovecraft and horror fan, do for me, Call of Cthulhu is a great game. It has magic, but that comes with a price. Mostly your sanity. I love that tbh.
I also like Urban Fantasy settings like Liminal or Rivers of London, because I like the mixture of our world and fantasy a lot. I played Liminal two years ago the first time and it got me hooked.
I also like Sci-fi, because exploring the galaxy is fun. I played The Expanse this weekend and I just love the very different way to approach problems from say DnD or other high magic games.
I generally plays lot of very different ttrpgs, and found a lot of very different settings,I liked through the years. I would say, I can adapt to nearly everything nowadays and always find something, that gets me hooked. I'm more character and story driven.

Maybe I'll look into some of these, as I also am very strongly in the story-and-character-and-roleplay-rich box. Thanks!

kani: Sorry, was away, but those games are highly story and character driven. I really enjoy them.
There iskso a nice game called Koriyo, which uses DnD rule setting, but is based in Korean mythology, which gives it a very unique flair.