RPGaDay 2024 - Barking Alien Edition - Day 2

I think I might have told this story before, long ago but what the heck...it's an excuse to post about one of my favorite old RPGs.

I didn't have enough money to purchase the first game I bought with my own money.

It was 1982, I was 13, and this was the first time I'd gone to New York City from Brooklyn without an adult. I was with a bunch of friends and we endeavoured to reach The Forbidden Planet, a Popculture/Sci-Fi/Fantasy super-store selling books, comics, toys, models, and of course RPGs. 

Reach it we did and there on the shelves, beside the Ampersand Game and its vast array of modules and supplements, was a box featuring a superhero and supervillain at odds. The bold colors and dynamic art was truly eyecatching.

As I do with all boxed set games, I turned the package over and over in my hands, reading the front, back, and every side. It was the back that go me really charged up. So charged up in fact, that I immediately ran over to my buddy Martin and showed him the box. I suggested we go 'halfsies', splitting the cost and sharing the contents. He was interested in it being a Superhero RPG but wasn't so sure...

I flipped the box over and in my best imitation of Ted Knight as narrator of the Superfriends cartoon voice, I did a dramatic reading of the image below.

After Martin stopped laughing, he said yes to picking up the game. We started playing it a week later and before long it became one of our most commonly played games. 

What made me buy it was pretty simple: It was the first Superhero game I ever came across at a time when I was really into DC and Marvel Comics. It was also the Golden Age of RPGs and any new game we discovered immediately inspired us. 

Up, up, and away!

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Barking Alien

BONUS FEATURE: Day 2 of the official RPGaDay 2024 Prompts:

The game I played most recently was our homebrew Hogwarts/Wizarding World game, now in its 6th or 7th year. This asks nothing else about it but I'll say it was fun but I rolled terribly. 

Next!