Memories of Tabletop Gaming

Role-playing and Miniature Games

Dungeons and Dragons

My friends and I had a lot of fun with the 2006 edition of the Basic Game, released as part of the 3.5th edition. It was a nicely presented package with gorgeous artwork, with some stunning miniatures and cardboard tiles. It really sparked our imaginations.

We never quite managed to make the jump to the actual game, since we quickly got bogged down in the many rules. We were also pretty late, because the 4th edition had already come out in the meantime.

I enjoy the tactility of this era of D&D and its immediate successor. The dungeon tiles and miniatures immediately hooked me, and I've maintained a small collection despite not actively playing the game.

HeroQuest

The best thing about Hero Quest is the miniatures, made in the glory days before Games Workshop had been destroyed from within. Thus speaketh the Bard. There is not an inch of pretentious overcomplexity about them. Any man can tell what they are from 500 yards away, and I know this because I've tested it with a team of Russian ex-Soviet scientists.

I've owned this game for over a decade by now, but I've never actually played the physical version. During my early teens I had a fan-created digital version that I fondly remember, which was likely one of the games mentioned on this page.

I've since also acquired Star Quest, which is the title Space Crusade got here.

General Board Games

Monopoly

This is the one I played most often with my family, often in a junior version or some version with electronic gimmicks.

Cluedo

Cluedo's just perfection. It's a fairly straightforward premise that works well, dipped in copious amounts of good whodunnit vibes. This is one I regularly play digital versions of.

Trading Card Games

Throughout the years I've acquired cards from many trading card games. From the top of my head:

• Pokémon
• Magic: The Gathering
• Yu-Gi-Oh!
• World of Warcraft TCG
• Digimon Digi-Battle TCG
• Wizards of Mickey (very rare English localization of an Italian Disney TCG)
• Middle Earth CCG
• Harry Potter TCG
• Neopets TCG

During my highschool years I played Yu-Gi-Oh! and MTG with friends, and occassionally even WOW and Pokémon. During my years in higher education, I played some MTG and Middle Earth. This was all very casually, of course.

Yu-Gi-Oh!

I was just the right age to get into YGO during the initial western hype. Ancient Egypt had been a special interest of mine earlier, so the theming vibed well with me. I still look back fondly at the early card designs as well.

I got back into Yu-Gi-Oh! in high school, around the time they first started playing it on motorcycles (as all proper card games ought to be played). I rejuvenated my collection with some new old stock I found: the Fury from the Deep structure deck, which is still the basic set-up I gravitate towards in online games. I played against friends, as we slowly upgraded our collections with flea market finds and actual newly-bought booster packs.

Pokémon

This is a game I've collected more than I've played. Given my age, I of course started with the base set. But it's the Neo era that I recall the fondest, followed by the e-Card era.

Magic: The Gathering

My first true exposure to this game was a set of white-bordered 9th edition cards that came as a goodie with a Dutch Board Game Magazine I was fond of. Later on I bought a Fat Pack of the Tenth Edition.

I enjoy collecting trading cards the most, but MTG is a game that I never felt the need to collect for. I enjoy playing it, certainly, but I suppose I've found the theme too broad and non-distinct to want to collect it. I do really like the mana symbols, and I recall getting a promotional item featuring them in Gaia Online.

My long-term plan is to accumulate low-value cards from flea markets and add them to the random assortment I already have. With those I can then assemble a few decks and a cube, put them all in a box and essentially treat MTG as a board game to pull out if someone visits.

Harry Potter

A long-forgotten card game by Wizards of the Coast. It featured lovely illustrations, not too dissimilar from what you saw in merchandise leading up to the first movie.

Beyond the license, the Take Root card's artwork has been living rent-free in my head ever since I first saw it.

Digimon Digi-Battle

The intricate evolution lines of Digimon always fascinated me, and made collecting these cards very appealing to me. Unfortunately I think I only encountered a booster pack once or twice, and mostly relied on a game guide that was for some reason more widely available.