D&D General My Journey with D&D

[gban007]

Well, as often happens, life gets complicated, and a new baby in the house soon after ths was posted derailed things, but wanted to post to say I've appreciated reading everyone else's journeys in this space.
Has reminded me of a couple of things:

Gamebooks - good old Fighting Fantasy and Blood Sword series helped tide me over between Basic and AD&D 2nd edition (and potentially blurred with Basic) - I have fond memories of the game books (especially Forest of Doom), and the TTRPGs they also tried - both Riddling Reaver one I got from library, and the Advanced Fighting Fantasy books I managed to get my hands on (including Titan and Out of the Pit) which I'd use to create a character, then run through random encounter tables based on terrain from the maps, to see how long my character would last. Nostalgia strong enough that I've bought pretty much all the 2nd edition of AFF stuff (in PDF outside of the deluxe book) and backed their adventure creation system for more RNG fun.

3rd Edition templates - great fun these were to add to monsters to add ever more variety, and I even started a book going through the Dragons adding various templates / classes to come up with dragons for each CR(?), though I didn't get as far as I liked, started and finished with Black Dragons, and think only got to around the 20s - unfortunately don't think I kept that book as does have fond memories (I think in the back of the book I think I was also looking to convert Titan from Fighting Fantasy to 3rd edition D&D as well).

 

[pemerton]

Well, as often happens, life gets complicated, and a new baby in the house soon after ths was posted derailed things

Congratulations - I hope all is going well!

Gamebooks - good old Fighting Fantasy and Blood Sword series helped tide me over between Basic and AD&D 2nd edition (and potentially blurred with Basic) - I have fond memories of the game books (especially Forest of Doom), and the TTRPGs they also tried - both Riddling Reaver one I got from library, and the Advanced Fighting Fantasy books I managed to get my hands on (including Titan and Out of the Pit) which I'd use to create a character, then run through random encounter tables based on terrain from the maps, to see how long my character would last.

I never played the Fighting Fantasy RPG, though I do have a copy (correction: I just checked my shelf, and I have Out of the Pit but not the actual rule book).

But I played a LOT of the gamebooks, with volumes one to nine having been collected as they became available in Australia in the early 80s, and then various other picked up over the years. I still have my carefully preserved maps in a folder on my RPG shelf!

Do you remember the Crown of Kings "special" series, with its spell memorisation rules?

 

[GuyBoy]

Cool thread, and reading through the "Making of D&D" tome is certainly bringing back memories right now so here goes:

White Box Set; Started playing this in 1976, aged 13, when it found its way to the UK and my school. I've been hooked ever since, albeit to slightly varying degrees.

1st Edition; I moved to this aged around 17 and played pretty regularly right through University and into early career, though there was juggling with career, early family and rugby.

2nd Edition; How did I miss this change? I guess I didn't play much from around 1986 to 1992 and only played this when I "returned" to the game with a pub group, some of which still play together in our regular games (shout out to @TheSword )

3rd Edition; We played this A LOT throughout its lifespan (including 3.5) and had a real blast with several great campaigns.

4th Edition; I did go to the UK launch in the London Dungeon but really didn't like this system and our group migrated to Pathfinder, which we enjoyed but it did seem to bloat quite badly.

5th Edition; Absolutely loved this and we will be moving with the times as the 2024 stuff emerges, although we also play WFRP a fair bit

 

[gban007]

Congratulations - I hope all is going well!

I never played the Fighting Fantasy RPG, though I do have a copy (correction: I just checked my shelf, and I have Out of the Pit but not the actual rule book).

But I played a LOT of the gamebooks, with volumes one to nine having been collected as they became available in Australia in the early 80s, and then various other picked up over the years. I still have my carefully preserved maps in a folder on my RPG shelf!

Do you remember the Crown of Kings "special" series, with its spell memorisation rules?

Thanks, everything going well so far

Yep, I do remember Crown of Kings / Sorcery! - though tended to only be able to get hands on the last two volumes, and not the separate spell book so somewhat limited, but was quite a cool idea really.

Forgot to mention have moved to the digital version of the game books now thanks to Tin Man Games for main book availability, and Inkle for Crown of Kings, saves book shelf space and have some good adaptations an features.

 

[pemerton]

I do remember Crown of Kings / Sorcery! - though tended to only be able to get hands on the last two volumes, and not the separate spell book

I have the first two. I remember playing at least the third, maybe the fourth too, by borrowing them from a public library in the late 80s.

The spellbook must be in the first volume of my imprint, as I did have it and didn't have a separate book for it.

In my memory I think Port Blaxland (FFG 5, City of Thieves) and the evil town in Sorcery v2 (starts with "Kh"?) blend a bit. Both were cool FRPG-style cities!

 

[gban007]

I have the first two. I remember playing at least the third, maybe the fourth too, by borrowing them from a public library in the late 80s.

The spellbook must be in the first volume of my imprint, as I did have it and didn't have a separate book for it.

In my memory I think Port Blaxland (FFG 5, City of Thieves) and the evil town in Sorcery v2 (starts with "Kh"?) blend a bit. Both were cool FRPG-style cities!

Looks like it depended on what version you had of the books as to whether published separately or not:

The Sorcery Spell Book

fightingfantasy.fandom.com

I agree that there were similarities between the towns, but both cool