A Walk Down Memory Lane - 30 years of Gaming

[andargor]

Andagor my man,

Indeed, I recall the whining little kid that wanted to play. One of the Lords of Chaos (the other one is a Tsunami Scientist these days).

He later made for a most interesting ranger my campaign. which I still have stored away in a box after I went off to University; one day I may ressurect it).

Yes, I recall the pleading to his mother to stay past 9pm. His trauma, however, was shared by the rest of us who had to be home by 10:30

Thanks for the nostalgia.

Ezexiel

You bastard, you never did tell me exactly happened to that ranger! It's been what, 15 years?? All I have is a hint at Werewolves! Grrr.

Wow, thanks all again for the replies. Yes, I was misty eyed as well when I wrote this...


Andargor

 

[Orias]

Wow, that is great. It reminds me of when I first started playing. Granted I only have about half the experience that you do (I am 19 years old), I did start around the same age that you did. I remember the pains of my first character death, & the sheer wonder of experiencing playing a "character" for the first time. I remember the first time I actually wanted our characters to just talk about who we were, rather than jump into the adventure so quickly. Fortunately I have recieved the experience of getting some new people into the game, & giving my younger brothers & sisters into the same deal.

 

[Michael Dean]

Christmas, 1980, I was in seventh grade. My parents had bought the boxed set for my twin sister as a present. To this day, I will never understand why they thought she would like it and I wouldn't. I was the big Tolkien fan, yada, yada, yada. I had heard of D&D of course, but only in terms of the controversial aspects of it.

I don't think my sister ever got to do more than look at the box after I opened it. We still laugh about it. I especially remember the little chits that came with the box instead of dice.

Anyway, thanks for starting this thread, it really brought back a lot of fantastic memories.

 

[Rel]

That was fun to read, Andargor. It is very similar to my introduction to the game in (around) 1980. Boy Scout camping trip... yadda, yadda, yadda... I've been gaming for 23 years.

I can still remember the thrill of having the red box in my hands on my 10th birthday. I read that book cover to cover at least three times the first week. And then we went on a trip to my grandparents house!

With none of my friends to play with, I forced my little (7 years old) sister to play. That whole "session" makes me smile every time I think of it.

First off, I didn't have any dice with me, so I stole some d6's out of a board game (Monopoly I think) at my grandparents house. My sister played a dwarf who was after some goblins.

One of the maps at the back of the book was a cross section instead of a "top down" map like the ones we all use now, and so my dungeon map was that way too. I showed it to my sister and said, "You are here."

She explored all over the map, looking for the goblins and killing them when she would find them. Since I had no dice, I resorted to asking my uncle (who was unfortunate enough to be sitting in the room) to "Pick a number between 1 and 20." After a dozen or so iterations of that, I was sternly informed by my father to "CUT IT OUT!" Party pooper.

So then, I took to randomly flipping open the book and using the page number as a random number generator. I'd take the last digit of the page number and roll a d6. Odd meant that the number represented 1-10 and even represented 11-20.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, my sister's dwarf got hit for a decent chunk of damage and decided to flee. Now that the goblins were chasing her, she decided to use her dwarf's pick to start digging her own tunnels. So I took my eraser to the map and soon it was a litteral maze of underground architecture. She finally dug her way back to the surface and went to town where she "had a drink of water" and sold her loot. I think she bought a magic helmet, but I can't quite recall.

To this day, that cross section map sits in one of my old gaming folders and I sometimes take it out and think about how much gaming has shaped the course of my life. I think it is a big reason for the friends that I'm closest to. And I've learned more from my association with gaming (about things like history, sociology, ecology, architecture, ancient technology, language and mythology, just to name a few) than any other hobby I could imagine.

Funny, isn't it?

 

[andargor]

With none of my friends to play with, I forced my little (7 years old) sister to play. That whole "session" makes me smile every time I think of it.

Great story Rel! Does your sister still play?

We very rarely had girls play with us, unfortunately.

Andargor

 

[Rel]

Great story Rel! Does your sister still play?

We very rarely had girls play with us, unfortunately.

No she doesn't. It wasn't long after this that the lure of Barbie and other "girl stuff" captured her attention. Plus, to be fair, I had plenty of other guy friends to play with and we didn't particularly encourage the presence of a 7 year old at our gaming table.

Honestly, I didn't play any more roleplaying games with a female involved until I was probably 20. At that point, my (now) wife and some of her friends/roommates would play with us occasionally.

My weekly group now is comprised of all guys (including of one I met through other gaming buddies when I was 12 and one who I knew since I was 5 and started gaming with at around 12). But I also DM a RttToEE game around once a month that is mostly couples and close to 50% female. I also run a solo game for my wife once in a while so that group has 100% female players.

 

[Dimwhit]

That was a nice read, andargor. Sounds like we're about on the same page. I started playing in 1980. I was 9, and I first played with my older brother and his friends. My first character was a fighter, too, though human. And I rolled an 18 strength. For whatever reason, my DM rolled the other half of the strength score, and he rolled a 98!

Anyway, I've been playing off and on ever since. The glory days for me were the mid-80s 1st edition. I remember when Unearthed Arcana was released. I still think it's the single best book ever released for D&D. The summer of 84 or 85 (the memory is dim), my friends and I played every single day. I think I lived on Coke and Potatoe Chips that summer.

Good times.

 

[Templetroll]

Well, I was in the US Navy, on a decommissioning crew for my ship which was horribly boring. I went out to a store and found that little white box with three tan books - it was 1977 and I was 22 years old.

It wasn't until I got out of the Navy and found a group to game with in 79 that i was able to finally play. One of the guys had published a fanzine, another wrote an article for it and included his phone number (!) in case anyone was interested in trying the game. I happened to get a copy of the mag in a small scifi bookstore and called.

The game used the PrinceCon rules; the DM was Robert West of the "Robert West Curse System" from those rules. they told me "You have to roll up a dwarf because that is what we have pencilled into the marching order." It still tickles me about that.

So I rolled a 19 strength and a 3 charisma. the rest of the stats didn't matter, I had a character worth playing. Got a +2 mace the first adventure, since no one else wanted it so it was really sweet.

That dwarf got turned to stone because I insisted that he was looking into the mirror shield to make certain it was aimed at the basilisk correctly.... it was. Two other party members got turned into giant cockroaches (cursed scroll - see RW Curse system...) that same adventure and I was carried back on top of the loot on their backs. back to the Duke of Avranches who wanted us to "..be discrete."

I'm still friends with some of those guys and we had many years of fun gaming. Later, with a different group I met my wife and a future employer at the same game. this was the mid-80s and I had a perm growing out so it was big curls down past my shoulders, cutoffs, a muscle shirt with no muscles and knee-high moccasins with fringe. She thought I was the oddest guy she had ever seen. i got to sit next to her on the couch, with this group I had never met before ... and shortly after I introduced my character I fell asleep! Snoring away, they played on and on since they figured I must be really tired. they only woke me when my character had to get into a fight. they didn't want to get him killed.

We had another few fun years there and like I said I got a job with the one fellow later. That was with the online game company and I ended up getting to go to a few GenCons, Origins and ComDex in Vegas on the company tab! Life was sweet... then I got laid off but I'm back there again with a different rpg.



Now, I'm gaming with my wife and daughter with a great group, including one other guy's son. Very cool getting to see the game through fresh eyes - when my daughter started to play the DM described a carrion crawler and her character said, "EWW!" and ran! it was just inspiring to see someone play so sensibly.


She still thinks we older players are nuts with how often we risk certain death; she knows it is best to wait a moment, since we will attract all the bad attention and then she can come in and help out whoever needs it the most.

good stuff, good memories.

[edited for spelling and grammar]

 

[Sam]

Now, I'm gaiming with my wife and daughter with a great group, including one other guy's son. Very cool getting to see the game through fresh eyes - when my daughter started to play the DM described a carrion crawler and her character said, "EWW!" and ran! it was just inspiring to see someone play so sensibly.

Thanks for sharing that. I'm looking forward to running a game for my kids on a regular basis. I've done a few sessions for them, and I think they're starting to get into the game. I think it's a great family activity!