RPG A Day 13: Describe how your play has evolved

I was going to sneer and laugh at this question.  I evolve?  But it is true.  I have evolved over the past 33 years that I have gamed and evolved in a few different ways.  Let me spell out the evolutions that I have made over my time gaming.

Alternatively evolved

Most of my long-term friends will tell you that I am a bit of a fringe dweller and always have been.  The first game I ran was from the red box of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) but it was not the first game I owned.  The first game I owned was the Australian made Super Squadron.  We played the guts out of that game solidly.  So solidly that I never got into D&D or its derivatives for a further four years later.  It was not until much later that a friend of mine from Primary school (Elementary for the folks from the USA) stated to me that I loved the fringe games.  I had just asked him to play Earthdawn!  So I rarely played mainstream games.  After finding Google+ my love for the alternative has hit an all-time high.  I love to look at the fringe games and see what is evolving in our hobby.  So I have evolved from fringe to full-on alternative games!

Technologically evolved

Now, I think most of us who are not millennials should be putting this one down.  In the dark of 1985 when I started playing games there was nothing technical about it.  It was all about paper, pencils, dice, tabletop and crafts.  Now I find myself role-playing online once a fortnight.  I record a lot of my materials direct to computer.  The crafts I used to do for handouts is now replaced by the manipulation of digital imagery.  Even when I draw a freehand map it gets scanned and manipulated by a computer.  I have certainly evolved into the use of technology.

Role evolved

Most of my readers would know that it is rare for me to play a roleplaying game (RPG) as a player.  In all honesty, this was not always the truth.  I did start as a Dungeon Master but I also played as much as I ran in high school.  I had heaps of cool characters that I played.  Treva Donnelly was a psionic drugs runner in MegaTraveller who fell in love with an immortal.  Louis Armfeldt was the head of a billion credit mercenary group in Mechwarrior.  Sam was a steady thief working her way into the guild in AD&D.  There were so many cool characters at that time.  I think what happened was I changed.  I played some games with new people and they were less than fantastic.  In those games, I became distracted and less than enthusiastic.  I turned a corner and preferred to be the one that was busy all the time.  The Games Master (GM) role was the only place I was enjoying the games.  Hence I evolved to the point where I only play as the GM now!

I have evolved hugely over 33 years of gaming.  I will be very interested to see the answers of others for this question.  keep rolling!