The Roleplaying feeling still lives on, but it sometimes hard to reunite the old gang
But I can tell you we lived some really great and passionate adventures
Whatever may happen, I will always remain very affected by the German game system "Das Schwarze Auge" we started playing in the beginning , because it was translated in Dutch ("Het Oog des Meesters") and French ("Oeil Noir"). This adventure game had a basic rule set plus additions and lots of translated scenarios. These adventures are based on European Medieval Fantasy and Nordic Mythology, and take place in the Realms of Arkania. We played group-scenarios, solo-adventures for days and days and had a lot of fun. The best thing of this game was that you got to know your friends really well, their personalities and inventiveness, and we became a tight group of players.
I myself began to collect everything I could find on the Runequest game system. What's special about this gaming environment, created by Gregg Stafford , Sandy Petersen and others, is that you have a complete magical world at your disposal, populated by various races: Glorantha. Like Jane Williams says: "It's a Bronze age universe where the Gods are extremely real, with a very rich and well-developed history". The purpose in this world is to gain more powers through knowledge of Runes. A lot of additional Runequest material can be found on the net.
Meanwhile, a friend and I found the original 1985 box of the game system based on J.R.R. Tolkien's writings about Middle Earth. MERP, the so-called Middle Earth Role Playing system by Iron Crown Enterprises. This game has some of the most beautiful campaigns and scenarios. The problem is the rules for this game are so complex, we finally only used very little material.
Next to that we tried out the Elric! game system, based upon the stories by Michael Moorcock: Elric of Melniboné. We only tried it once, but sold it in order to buy more material and scenarios for the next adventure game: Chtulhu
Over the years we got bored with pure Sword & Sorcery environment. Perhaps we just outgrew this. We got very interested in a Horror based system: Call of Chtulhu. The rules are quite like Runequest but easier and allow characters to evolve in the 1920's fantastic tales created by Howard Philips Lovecraft. A whole pantheon of Old Gods, Outer Gods and other slimy creatures, who used to rule primeval Earth have returned! The horrifying situations and monsters the player encounter are rich with mythology from Persia, China, Ancient Egypt and folklore. H.P Lovecraft in his writings invented an imaginary book of Damned Souls: The Necronomicon. The stories are quite chilling and are reworked in lots of scenarios by different writers.
I started looking for something altogether different and came upon an alternative science-fiction adventure system, created by some very creative people: The Skyrealms of Jorune. Jorune was originally designed as a counterpoint to the dark side of Fantasy gaming. Where other games spend most of their time in underground mazes or fantastic castles, Jorune adventurers travel to distant places and reveal more of the planet's mysterious past in the hope of creating a better future. Jorune adventurers were intended to live in light: to retrieve the lost past, to drive back the hordes of Ramian and Crugar, to return the secrets of the lost human technology to the service of the future. But light without dark has no meaning.