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D&D Older Editions
Listening to old-timers describe RP in the 70s and 80s
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<blockquote data-quote="bloodtide" data-source="post: 8948357" data-attributes="member: 6684958"><p>I'd also add that it was a very different world back in the Time Before Time, depending on where you were:</p><p></p><p>West Salem 1986. The town has a post office, gas station and hardware store. Back in these ancient days that gas station only had a couple shelves of junk food(chips and twinkies), glass bottles of coke in large ice filled coolers(bottled water had not been invented yet) and cigarettes not anything like the modern food mart. There was no Dollar General. The closest grocery store was a good 12 miles away. The closest bookstore was the Village Booksmith, some 32 miles away. After that you had to go to 40 miles, where there was a Waldenbooks in a shopping center. </p><p></p><p>So as a kid, the bookstore is far out of reach. You hear about D&D, but have to wait to go buy it. You save up some money, and wait for a family member to go some place close, roughly a mile or so, to the Village Booksmith. They would stop just long enough at a spot you picked and let you get out. Under no circimstances were they going out of their way to take you to a bookstore. You agreed to meet them back at that spot in "a couple hours". Then you'd have to walk, follow a couple roads, but mostly just cut through fields, farms and backyards to get to the Village Booksmith.</p><p></p><p>The Village Booksmith is simply a former house converted into a store. So it's a bit small with narrow isles. They had a good selection of books though. And they had a whole RPG shelf. A mix of games, but mostly D&D. They have one 1E DMG, but no PHB. They might have as many ten modules, almost always only one of each. And often they are missing pages, inserts or maps (shrinking wrapping modules was not invented yet). They would have no dice. They did have the Basic Red Box basic D&D(that came with dice!), so you bought that. Then you had to walk back to the pick up spot. Chances are your ride was done doing whatever they were doing quickly. Remember this is a lifetime before cell phones, let alone smart phones. So then they would just randomly drive up and down the roads in the direction you went looking for you. Sure the "knew" you were going to the bookstore, but they did not know where that was anyway. After some time they would spot you and you would get picked up and head home. </p><p></p><p>Then you'd have the Basic Red Boxed Set. You'd read it over and get some friends to come over and get a game started. You don't have a module or an adventure. All you have are the random dungeon creation rules in the Basic set: so you use them. </p><p></p><p>As time passes, you can make it back to the Village Booksmith and buy everything they have....but it's not all D&D. So you get the Keep on the Borderlands, The Shady Dragon Inn, The Horror on the Hill, Ravenloft, FASA Doctor Who game, and <em>Creeks and Crawdads! </em>So not a pile of adventures. So you can play through each module over and over, or make your own adventures. </p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="bloodtide, post: 8948357, member: 6684958"] I'd also add that it was a very different world back in the Time Before Time, depending on where you were: West Salem 1986. The town has a post office, gas station and hardware store. Back in these ancient days that gas station only had a couple shelves of junk food(chips and twinkies), glass bottles of coke in large ice filled coolers(bottled water had not been invented yet) and cigarettes not anything like the modern food mart. There was no Dollar General. The closest grocery store was a good 12 miles away. The closest bookstore was the Village Booksmith, some 32 miles away. After that you had to go to 40 miles, where there was a Waldenbooks in a shopping center. So as a kid, the bookstore is far out of reach. You hear about D&D, but have to wait to go buy it. You save up some money, and wait for a family member to go some place close, roughly a mile or so, to the Village Booksmith. They would stop just long enough at a spot you picked and let you get out. Under no circimstances were they going out of their way to take you to a bookstore. You agreed to meet them back at that spot in "a couple hours". Then you'd have to walk, follow a couple roads, but mostly just cut through fields, farms and backyards to get to the Village Booksmith. The Village Booksmith is simply a former house converted into a store. So it's a bit small with narrow isles. They had a good selection of books though. And they had a whole RPG shelf. A mix of games, but mostly D&D. They have one 1E DMG, but no PHB. They might have as many ten modules, almost always only one of each. And often they are missing pages, inserts or maps (shrinking wrapping modules was not invented yet). They would have no dice. They did have the Basic Red Box basic D&D(that came with dice!), so you bought that. Then you had to walk back to the pick up spot. Chances are your ride was done doing whatever they were doing quickly. Remember this is a lifetime before cell phones, let alone smart phones. So then they would just randomly drive up and down the roads in the direction you went looking for you. Sure the "knew" you were going to the bookstore, but they did not know where that was anyway. After some time they would spot you and you would get picked up and head home. Then you'd have the Basic Red Boxed Set. You'd read it over and get some friends to come over and get a game started. You don't have a module or an adventure. All you have are the random dungeon creation rules in the Basic set: so you use them. As time passes, you can make it back to the Village Booksmith and buy everything they have....but it's not all D&D. So you get the Keep on the Borderlands, The Shady Dragon Inn, The Horror on the Hill, Ravenloft, FASA Doctor Who game, and [I]Creeks and Crawdads! [/I]So not a pile of adventures. So you can play through each module over and over, or make your own adventures. [I][/I] [/QUOTE]
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