A very old question...

[stv2brown1988]

I just read Andrea's post where she mentions she's 24 and new to Birthright.

I'm wondering what is the average age of Birthright Players/DMs/Fans (based on this site's fanbase)? (Maybe a poll could be run?) And how are the new (read: younger) people discovering Birthright? Is it through this site? That would be great!

For myself, I'm 38 years old and I remember buying the PS of Ilien as my first BR product. (I thought it was an adventure, :) which led me right back to the store to pickup the boxed set.:D)

[ShadowMoon]

29 here ^^;

[stv2brown1988]

Where/when did you discover BR?

[irdeggman]

50 and starting playing it when it first came out.

I was in a group that was playign primarily Dark Sun when one of the player's saw the boxed set and decided to buy it and run it.

Went through several interations (with different DMs and gaming styles, including a couple of attempts myself at DMing).

Have loved the setting since the beginning - even if I don't get to play it.

IMO BR bards were what a 2nd ed bard should have been - and not the mini-wizard that they had become in general.

[ShadowMoon]

Where/when did you discover BR?

After The Iron Throne novel, I mean I saw the product before, but wasnt sure if it suits me till I got "enchanted" by the mature RPG Birthright feeling...

[Lee]

40, and one of my friends bought the boxed set and Talinie when they came
out. I fell in love pretty quickly, and eventually bought the set from him,
and went on to buy everything else published (I think), except the novels.

[Rey]

I'm 29.

I've begun my FRPG rampage only 10 years ago with a custom AD&D 2nd edition setting my friend DMed. I've heard of it before but never got any chance to play. So when I heard that he's in it, I begged to let me play with his group. :)
Soon after, he tried to run a BR. That was my first contact and I was pretty lost. But we never played it more then once. Then, some 4-5 years ago, another friend started a campaign that is still active (with minor or major breaks), you can see my sig. :)
Always wanted to get everything from it, and D&D in general. So, I was happy like a little kid when a month ago I finally got the BR novels (that is, all except War). I had a hard time finding them since 99% of all online shops don't ship to my country, they've never been sold here and they are not published anymore. So, if you have a copy you don't need... :D

[Rowan]

26, loved BR since it came out, never got a chance to play it tabletop, only in PBEMs, unfortunately. Played plenty of other RPGs, but couldn't get enough people together for BR who liked the strategy game feel--at least not when we had time to do so (one group might have, but we were engaged in an epic campaign prior to it, anyway).

[Sorontar]

35, been playing Birthright since about 1999/2000, when I joined an already started AD&D campaign (called rather imaginatively Team D) with a 3rd level Druid. Brokk is now 12th level but still lets everyone else do the bulk of the fighting.... I've got love weak True Neutral characters (Str 10, Dex 8)!

Sorontar.

[Green Knight]

33 - but still young at heart/mind.

Started playing about a year after the game was first published; dismissed the setting as another trashy TSR product when it first arrievd in my local gaming store...how wrong I was :)

Have played standard P&P domain games, P&P adventure games, PBeMs (not only as RoE DM, but as a player in several short-lived ones) and an EPIC BR P&P adventure/domain game.

[stv2brown1988]

It seems like the people who really love the BR setting don't get to play it enough. I myself have never played as a PC but I 've had a few attempts at DMing. I would appreciate the time and ability to play a campaign myself. I must admit that this site is full of great information and I wish I was a member back when I ran my first BR adventure. It would have helped alot.

[Thelandrin]

Well, I'm 28, nearly 29, and I've been interested in Birthright since roughly 2000 or so. Although I've been playing AD&D/D&D since 1997 (and reading it prior to that), I only really got into world settings in the last five years or so (except Planescape in 1999 and BR in 2000).

[Vicente]

26 here. I've been playing Birthright since it got out (I got to know it by pure chance as one of my friends got if from the UK on a holiday trip).

I've DM/Played lots of games at the domain level on the setting and I really love it for that. For adventuring I haven't had so much luck (as a DM or as a player).

[Lawgiver]

29. Got the boxed set when it first released. Instantly fell in love with the more "realistic" poltical aspects of the realms and the lower magical nature. Forgotten Realms where everyone ones multiple magical items and munchkinism abounds drives me nuts.

[AndrewTall]

33, I saw a battered boxed set in a secondhand store and remembered it from the Dragon magazine conspectus. Bought it thinking I might skim it once for ideas - and thereafter got everything as it came out and read it all multiple times.

I've played some short lived tabletop, some recent PBEM's, and spent years more dreaming stuff up for it.

Still never got hold of the old warcards that were missing from the box though :o

[cccpxepoj]

22, well i was a young DnD player that ended up with a group of older players( that was in 2001/2002 ) playing a birthright domain game in local rpg club.
The game sucked, the group sucked( all they did was backstabing one another ) but the setting enchanted me. I managed to find some books but i haven't played it until i found a crew on university that loved Birthright( well we are history students:D ). That was 4 years ago and we are playing non stop by then ( with major pauses during exams ), currently we are playing 3 different campaigns on Cerilia.

[jdpb1]

31 - Picked up the boxed set around 96/97. I love the way magic is handled, the elf/human conflict, the simplified but rich cosmology (limited gods, only one other plane, etc), the war game aspect of domain rulership, and the "cohesiveness" of the setting (as opposed to the "kitchen sink" mentality of FR and other worlds).

Oh, and no Orcs! I hate orcs - sooo overdone!

Oh, and the way dragons are rare, majestic, powerful, near-legendary beings. None of this "a dragon in every cave" nonsense like in other campaign worlds.

I'm sure I can come up with more, but that's most of it.

Joe

[Audric]

I'm 35 and I discovered Birthright at the hobby store when it was new. It sat for a while, as I finished another setting. As I read it, it had all the parts I was looking for in a RPG setting.

After many camapigns as DM, it is now my favorite setting.

Audric

[geeman]

I`m old as dirt.... My first RPG product was a badly produced little
tan booklet (little more than a pamphlet, really) with some of the
most childish ink "art" imaginable and two staples for binding. Back
then nobody had heard of dice that had more or less than six sides,
and finding appropriately geometrical objects to stand in for them
was like searching for the Questing Beast after it had swallowed the
Philosopher`s Stone. There were no computers smaller than a Chevy,
telephones had dials, John Travolta was a Sweat Hog, and if anyone
had ever heard of the acronym "RPG" at all they would have thought it
stood for rocket propelled grenade. Back then many people preached
that D&D was thinly veiled satanism corrupting the youth like sex,
drugs and rock `n roll. (We were in much cooler company back then....)

We gamed the way others drank or chased girls until we discovered
drinking and chasing girls, at which point things changed. Dungeons
& Dragons went into the background not just because it was replaced
by Booze & Babes (after all, we soon discovered that one can game
_with_ girls and drinking...) but because something was missing. The
authors seemed tapped out, or otherwise locked into their own rules
like a genie that has just swapped his bottle for a magical lamp.

I was attracted to the BR setting when I read "Seeking Bloodsilver"
in Dungeon, which I still read even though I didn`t really
game. That adventure illustrated a lot of dynamics that I`d always
found lacking in gaming, but were the things that I find the most
interesting about the _possibilities_ of RPGs. I`d stayed away from
actual gaming for a good ten years before that adventure came out
(only reading Dungeon and a few periodicals as a kind of distraction)
because of exactly that deficit between dice and device, or artifice
and art (if I might wax alliterative and allegorical.) BR brought me
back, and I`ve muddled along ever since, so in a very real sense
gaming *is* Birthright to me now. All gaming experiences I am
interested in have some sort of BR-like dynamic to them, even if that
dynamic is so abstractly conceptualized that most folks wouldn`t
recognize it anymore.

Gary

[Magian]

I am 33.

Played AD&D with DL and even the D&D known world setting with the AD&D rules cause my friends had a lot of the materials for those worlds. Since then I've played all the D&D settings except Greyhawk. I made a point to collect all that I could for a later day of gaming and exploring perhaps up and through my golden years. Ive been able to get most of the books, maps, and other spreads on .pdf through my spymasters and other nefarious means. Just yet to read up on the Greyhawk world.

I was into Birthright the day the Boxed Set and I think even Roesone PS and Blood Enemies. Was Ilien and Medore also all released together? I can't remember. Anyway I was into this setting long before I even explored Tolkien world so I have a unique experience with it. However, since I've read up on Lotr I see a lot more interesting possibilities.

The point made earlier about us not getting to play BR enough I think is accurate. I find however when I go around playing other games there is a long-term goal in the back of my mind to take what I've learned and bring it back to BR in hopes of making it better somehow. Even when I went to college I took a lot of classes geared towards this goal. I quit playing WoW cause it is a dead end where BR allows for much more and challenges the player to learn more through reading and research and even innovation and imagination. I still like WoW more for the orc factor since they in my opinion have revolutionized that race like a player in a BR pbem did for me when he played the Goblin king of Thurazor for goblins. Sadly though I've taken up learning the drums and that is taking up a lot of my free time now. So if its true that we stick with BR cause we don't get enough, then I'll probably be with it for a long time to come.

[kolathador]

37, been playing ad&d since 1983, BR since it first arrived at my local store. have loved it ever since, DM'ed over 50 adventures, about half with PC regents, am currently involved with a party of 7, but no regent PC's. my players love the detail in the setting, and as a DM, owning all the published product is very helpful, even managed to get in a couple of all out wars with the warcards...

[zukie51262]

46 here.

First discovered BR, at a Hobby store, was looking for something to run for my group, saw the boxed set, and been doing it ever since.

[epicsoul]

32 and had pre-ordered BR as soon as I heard about it.

[Fearless_Leader]

I've been out of the community for 6 or more months now, as life got a little too busy to hang out on internet message boards (but I'm back now for the moment).

26 years old.

I first saw the BR box at a local hobby store back in 1995, about 3 months or so after the setting had come out. Thought it looked really cool, so I picked it up... loved the political intrigue, the strategy game aspect, the tendency toward a more realistic setting, and all the ancient evils. Between pbems and face to face games, I've definitely played more BR than any other form of RPG. Just concluding a face to face game now in fact. It will most likely be the last such face to face game I run in a long, long time (unfortunately), as I'm making a career move.

[Beruin]

I'm 36 and knew I had to get BR as soon as I saw the first ads in the late and lamented Dragon magazine.
I got everything except a few of the novels and still think BR is the best world ever developed for D&D, short of my home-grown expanded BR world of course - probably finished around the next millenium;)

As for playing, I had a great campaign going for about four years which just started to explore the domain level of play.
Well, in theory, the campaign's still active, but for the last two and a half years, since my son was born, I only seldom found the time to DM - trying to be a good dad next to work makes for long hours.

The last time I ran a game is already three or four months ago, I spontaneously introduced the eight-years-old son of our neighbours and his mother to roleplaying. A friend of mine (a player in my old campaign) also was there and I ran this group through the old Castle Amber module. I made everything about their characters up as we went along, based on the minis they chose and we all had a blast - wasn't enough for the start of a new group, though.

Well, my son already loves dragons, monsters, dice, and my minis (the latter makes for many broken arms, lost weapons etc.) , so I'm mostly trying to train the next generation of roleplayers nowadays:D

[tpdarkdraco]

I am 32. I have been DMing since the product first came out. Fell in love with the tactical and domain running side of things. I was already trying to make my own world just before it came out to do the same sort of thing.

I just love the flavour of the setting and the low magical side of things. I was never into uber gaming and got bored of that sort of thing very quick.

The last two years I have just be DMing on an adventuring level in the Brechtur region and have just started a theif/city based campaign in Brechlen the capital of Muden. My players are not interested at the moment in Domain level stuff. Thats why I play PBEM to get my fix.

[Vallariel]

36. Picked up original boxed from a gamer selling off his stuff, loved it and then went on to buy just about everything BR we could get our hands on. In fact, only missing a few minis, lol!
For the last ten years we've only played birthright. :D Last year we started teaching our kid to play too.

[Andrea]

Hi again!

Ehm, I'm a boy not a girl! :o

I play D&D since 10 years ago starting playing AD&D with DL. Then I've always played Greyhawk and I consider it as the best setting never made (no, don't kill me :D). Or the best never played. (Canonfire rules!!!:D)

I reject with all my strength the 4E and having finished the GH campaign I would like start with a new setting. I found Birthright an interesting setting and I hope to enjoy it very well.

Ciao,

Andrea.

[hazard]

i am 26. Br fun from start

[maskmaker]

I'm 20 years old, and found the Gorgon's Alliance about ten years ago. I played the game over, and over, and over, and even read the information attached to it (Ruins of Empire, was it?). Of course then, I had no money to buy the probably more prevalent books and boxed sets. Or now, for that matter!

I have never played a game of Birthright in my life, but am preparing to DM a fledgling campaign soon. Its the unfortunate fact of a roleplayer's life that in order to experience a setting they love, they often have to sacrifice themselves for the greater good (DMing for others, instead of roleplaying in it).

Have always checked this site periodically, but have never had that much to say on the forums, particularly. Maybe it'll change soon, when I get my first Birthright campaign under my belt!

:)

[The Swordgaunt]

33 - but still young at heart/mind.

Bah. You're old as dirt. I, on the other hand, at 32, feel young and fresh.

I was introduced to the setting by a friend, and after a painful campaign as a player, its held a special place in my heart. Its been ages since I've played, but I ran a campaign that lasted until a couple of years ago. Now I run a homebrew on the new Storyteller system, but the BR-influence is clearly visible in this, as in most of my other games.

I do love a little game of thrones every now and then, as do I love the old game of cloaks and daggers.

[cyrano24100]

Yeah I'm 33.
I too dismissed the setting for the first few years it came out (Still holding on to the D&D Mystara setting, loved the "Northern reaches" especialy). Really only got into Birthright when Vos book was published... And then spent my first "real job" money on getting as many books as I can.

[Exile]

Yet another 33 year-old.

I spent the Summer between two of my years at university writing up a game (set in 2nd Age Middle Earth) that revolved around domain-management and rulership, with characters members of a minorly supernatural bloodline.

By the time I got back to university, TSR had released Birthright. Never have I been so hacked off to see a setting and game premise that I liked so much! I spent the rest of the year (over the course of which the game ran) fielding questions about how much I'd "based" my work on BR....

Since then, I've played in a few (mostly brief) tabletop games and a fair number of PBEMs - the longest-lasting of which was the just-finished Rjurik Winds.

I've run a couple of BR games myself, with the best-received being one set in Vosgaard in which the climax of the first campaign involved the player characters finally becoming regents as each secured one level 0 holding in a level 0 province.... I still adore both the setting and the premise of the game, and would love to both run and play a great deal more.

[Dyark]

I'm 40
being playing D&D since the first edition, i always like massive combat (been a Dm since that time) and when the player character get high level, kingdom was always fun to have. But when birthright arrive, oh man, i liked it right away ! Simple rules easy follow up, structure of money and magic from the land. I DM many groups but birthright is one of my favorite .

I play mainly by the web and i just discovered a fantastic tool for anykind of campaign, but i think it fits well in birthright : it is Map tools. I use a map as a background and evrything else if token related by Macro so it is a lot easier to follow up many player.

Well that was my 2 cents ! :)

[Keytium]

wow i'm the youngest. i'm 18. i got into birthright through the old gorgan aliance game, i really loved the way it played at the domain level and i searched up birthright on the internet and that's how i found this site. i got into DnD the same way being a huge fan of Neverwinter nights 2.

[bbeau22]

I like seeing the young folks. Glad you discovered the site.

-BB