Sick curiosities, part 2

My love of old and disregarded games didn't really take firm shape until I discovered two different websites at about the same time. The first, The Museum of Roleplaying Games, got me interested in the original D&D game and classic Traveller. The second, eBay, made tracking down old games much easier. And since I'm always on the lookout for reading/playing copies and not mint condition stuff, collecting old rpgs became much cheaper too. Now I've reached the point where old and influential games are not enough, forgotten and largely unloved games are starting to fill my shelves as well. Hence my recent acquisiton of Cyborg Commando. It is a pretty crappy game, by the way. Maybe not as legendarily bad as some would make it out to be, but still not good. Not good at all.

Still, just because Cyborg Commando or World of Synnibarr aren't the best games ever written doesn't necessarily mean you can't have fun playing them. After all, playing a fantasy adventure with the original D&D booklets was pretty hard too. Yet people muddled through and often had a kickass time doing it.

My investigation of oldy, moldy games has clearly established one thing in my mind: Stop looking for the one perfect system. You aren't Jack O' The Lantern for crying out loud. A game that's good enough is good enough. A lot of gamers, myself included, have wasted a lot of hours wringing our hands and bemoaning our inability to find the game that perfectly matches our play style or the kind of campaign we want to run. I say let go of the urge to find the perfect game. Find a game, damn near any game, and get to playing.