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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hatmatter" data-source="post: 9364806" data-attributes="member: 75077">I love this idea for a thread and I have enjoyed reading the journeys from those who have shared. Thanks, G Ban 007 for getting the ball rolling.1980: My first experiences with D&D were actually live-action. I was six and the neighbor across the street who had the AD&D books as well as bookshelves filled with Tolkien and other great gateways to other worlds took me on live-action adventures in his yard. A garbage can lid was a shield, a broom handle my sword, the in-ground swimming pool was a pit of acid into which I maneuvered a troll after luring it out of its lair. It was a hoot.For Christmas of 1981, my sister got the Moldvay Basic set and the AD&D Player's Handbook. I played a character in a D&D game that a girl down the street three years older than me would DM or that my sister would run.Then around 1985 or so I started playing in some AD&D games with classmates. In 1987, I met my long-term friend Wes who was also three years older than me (and who would die of H1N1 in 2009). He DMed and I played the son of my first character -- a paladin -- in Wes's campaign.In 1988 I GMed for the first time: Marvel Super Heroes by TSR. My friends -- especially Wes who was stuck always being the DM -- loved playing in it.1989: So, I went from GMing Marvel Super Heroes to DMing AD&D 2nd edition. I was hot on 2nd edition, which had just come out. I had been reading all of the promotional material on it as it was being developed. I had picked up the 1987 grey-box Forgotten Realms box set and decided to save myself some time in world-building by setting my first campaign in the Realms. This campaign was a great success. Our dear friend Josh, who played Minya Mardin, died when he was 17 of Hodgkin's disease. I was one of his pall bearers. The campaign continued and Wes's character became a demigod in it. Josh's character went missing and no one ever found out what happened to him. The face of my version of the Realms changed to where it would be unrecognizable to anyone familiar with the Realms. Wes played the daughter of his previous character. We picked up a few more players. Wes and I would dream up all kinds of new spells. I built-up a thick binder of all of my homebrew rules and spells.I attended Gen Con in 1992, '93, and '97 (after hitchhiking across the country and arriving without a badge...but I found one at the entrance, picked it up and went in and found Wes and another friend and hung out with them and then got a ride hundreds of miles home a few days later). At Gen Con in 1993 I met Gary Gyax...we spoke about a number of things, including his view that fantasy had never been adapted to the silver screen. As a fan of Excalibur, I didn't understand...but later I would (see below). I would also meet Dave Arneson. Unlike my time with Gygax, we didn't talk for very long.1996: I began playing live-action games, including a well-run and played Vampire LARP in Manhattan, where I was living at the time. We met at different locations in the city, including the Winter Garden at the base of the World Trade Center, which would be destroyed five years later.When 3rd edition and 3.5 were released, I read them but mostly sat them out.2007: I began to anticipate the release of 4th edition after reading a promotional book about its development that emphasized the new cosmology. I was taken with the addition of the Shadowfell and Feywild, which I realize were in 3rd edition, but which I first learned about at this time. My campaign world had basically became a Shadowfell version of the Realms, so it resonated with me.2008: I was hyped up about 4th edition and joined a game. I introduced it to my wife and we played with the group I found and, after a number of sessions, I became fatigued with how long combat would take and how weak the narrative and role-playing opportunities were with that particular group.2014: I skipped participating in the D&D Next playtest, but kept abreast of it. I was more than skeptical that the design team could achieve their stated goals. It seemed about as unlikely as making a successful film version of The Lord of the Rings. But just as I walked out of the theater after seeing The Fellowship of the Ring and finally understood what Gygax meant about how (until that moment) fantasy had never been translated to the screen, when I picked up the new Player's Handbook on the day it first appeared on shelves, I took to it right away. The seeming impossible goal of uniting fans of all editions had been achieved.So much did I like its design, that I began DMing again: I DMed my daughter (who in a twist of fate, was born on what would have been Wes's 39th birthday on his first birthday after he died) in a continuation of my Realms campaign. I DMed a world mostly filled with gnomes and halflings. I DMed a world where most NPCs were inspired by rock stars and the great villains were Beatles-inspired and had a yellow submarine as an Astral plane-spanning artifact. Now I am DMing a Elizabethan England campaign where magic derives from the Feywild, which can be accessed on certain full moon nights at certain portals where ley lines intersect. My players are two families of parents and children (seven players) who were introduced to D&D by me.2024: I have been keeping abreast of the development of the new core books and I am excited...mostly that the design team gets to tweak the things it wants to after a decade of play, but that they are keeping the engine under the hood the same so that we don't need to purchase new "editions" of the various adventures and campaign settings released in 5th edition. My overall sense is that the game is in good hands and it is a fun activity for me to share with my daughter and some friends.</blockquote>

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