SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The game originated in the early 1990s in the mind of Richard Garfield, at the time a graduate student working towards a PhD in combinatorial mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania. A life-long tabletop gamer, he had approached a publisher to pitch an idea for a game about programming robots, only to be told that the company needed something more portable and cheaper to produce.
Magic was Garfield's response, and it involved one major innovation that set it apart from any game previously released.
...
Magic's latest set marks a turning point for the game. Magic Origins focuses on five of the game's most popular recurring characters – a move that provides a jumping-on point for new players intimidated by over two decades' worth of accumulated storylines.
I played D&D, Gamma World, Traveller, and many RPG's avidly into college, but when I first saw Magic and its $20 price for a single card I discovered there were lines I would not cross. As an adult I have a civil engineering friend whom I've watched over the last decade and a half disappear and then emerge, going cold turkey, only to re-submerge for another year. For those who took up Magic, why did you take it up and do you still play?
Original Submission
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:39PM
I remember Magic: The Gathering well. At the peak of Magic's popularity one see people playing it just about anywhere, and that's when my friends and I (who lifted a lot of weights and played sports) would beat them up or chase them away and take their cards. Alternately, we would sneak up to games and smack all the cards off the table, so they would go flying and get all mixed up as they flew onto the floor. One of those angry players had a big stick and angrily brandished it at me, warning me that he knew the art of the staff, but I simply grabbed his stick and snapped it in half with my knee. He had clearly spent a long time carving it and adorning it with rope and knots, too.
Ahhh, those were the days.