Post the VERY FIRST

Welcome to the First Post of my First Blog (which, in all likelihood will be a vast echo chamber, but whatever)! In this forum I will comment on a number of old roleplaying and war- games, most especially The Fantasy Trip and Original Dungeons & Dragons, but also MERP, GURPS, Universe. We’ll probably discuss some wargames, like Star Fleet Battles, the various MicroGames, and some early TSR stuff in my collection.

But I have a lot of other interests, such as making reproduction Mediaeval arms and armour (and other ancient hand crafts), re-enacting, Star Trek, the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Game of Thrones, and probably a lot of things I’m forgetting right now. So there will be a bit of the eclectic here, as well.

So why start my first Blog on this day, April 1^st, 2013? It’s not at all because of April Fool’s, but rather the fact that on this day, 30 years ago in 1983*, the owner of Metagaming Concepts, Howard Thompson, abruptly closed the company (and its subsidiary Games Research Group, Inc.) and took with him most of the intellectual property associated with the company, most notably The Fantasy Trip roleplaying game system, but also too other titles such as WarpWar, Chitin, Helltank, Invasion of the Air Eaters, and many others. A very sad and cruel April Fool’s day indeed for both employees of Metagaming and aficionados of TFT and the various MicroGames put out by that company (though at the time, being a teenager, I had no idea what had happened). There will be a number of future blog posts discussing this subject, in addition to the MGC games themselves.

So, good day to all and fair travels!

*Technically, I do not know if the date is strictly correct. Space Gamer No. 63 notes that they ceased operations at “…the beginning of April.” However, as the 1^st of April in 1983 fell on a Friday, it would make sense that this was indeed ‘the’ day.

<<EDIT: It's "Games Research Group, Inc." not whatever I brainfarted in the first place>>