Which RPG have you owned the longest but not played?
I originally bought this in the mid-1980s. It got a lot of reading and I tested out the rules with the given scenario plenty of times. But it never made it to the table to play with others.
It’s a shame, because it was a breath of fresh air at the time. I was mostly playing fantasy AD&D which I enjoyed a lot. But the idea of something rooted in actual history, with no outlandish magic, but a dark, gritty and apparently mundane existence was quite compelling.
It started to cement a fascination with low fantasy. Stormbringer, for instance, which I got a bit later, never really got much of a run out – it had already begun to feel too heroic.
By the time Games Workshop announced Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, I was absolutely in the market for what has become known as grimdark.
That’s unquestionably my first favourite game, but it wouldn’t be if Maelstrom hadn’t existed. I probably wouldn’t also have learnt quite as much about herbs and indulged so fervently in cooking without the extensive research that Alexander Scott brought to this early classic.
It’s not long had a minor resurgence, released under license by Arion Games, along with a new companion book. So maybe I will still get to play it. Then again – this may also be one of those ‘never meet your heroes’ situations …
