Tekumel - Joseph Saul, Joe Saul In my misspent youth (as opposed to my misspent adulthood), my friends and I were avid role-players. We were that first generation that played Basic D&D (though we just missed the ur-RPG, Chainmail).

At any rate, the "neatest" aspect of RPGs for me was creating worlds. From the age of 11 or so, I would spend many a happy hour drawing maps and imagining histories for all sorts of imaginary places. When M.A.R. Barker came out with The Empire of the Petal Throne, I was transported -- here was someone who had created a fully realized world based on anything but Western Europe.

My RPG group never played EPT but I mined it for inspiration for years to come.

This reimagining of the original was irresistible when I saw it at my hobby store.