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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robconley" data-source="post: 8581658" data-attributes="member: 5636">I started out with hex and counter wargames in the late 70s and then started playing D&D off and on starting in 1978. But it didn't become my main source of gaming until the release of the DMG in the summer of 1979. What leaped out at me compared to the wargames I played was D&D's flexibility. Not only in terms of what we now call settings but in terms of what you could do. While AD&D had rules to handle a lot of things, it was obvious to my junior high self that you could do anything that you could do if you were actually there as your character. This was helped by the setup of having a referee and a bunch of players. D&D wasn't oriented to resolve conflicts between players or the players and the referee. There were no victory conditions. Just vague goals of survival and going on adventures. All of this was in marked contrast to the wargames I played where one or players went at each other to achieve some type of victory conditions. That in order to be fair you had to play by the rules of the game. Those rules could be very detailed creating a lot of options to use to achieve the various victory conditions. D&D in contrast jettisoned all that despite often using many of the same types of mechanics wargames use. And it made D&D a far more interesting and flexible game. There was a short period of time that my focus was on running the adventures I bought. But I quickly realized on my own that I could use D&D's flexibility to create my own worlds. That the players could have any type of adventures they want to pursue in those worlds. Given that we were 13 to 14-year-old junior high schoolers what most of us wanted to do is carve out our own realms or niches as the end goal. Players who like wizards wanted to build towers and make magic items to sell and use. Players who played fighters wanted to become lords or even kings.  Thieves wanted t take over or found their own thieves guild and so on.And I was amicable to this and rapidly became known as the DM who let players trash his setting.  My reputation grew because I used what the player did in the previous campaign to become part of the background of the setting for the next campaign.  Adventures still happened however they were a means to an end but not the point of the campaign. As I and the people I refereed grew older the goals became more sophisticated. It became more about making one's mark on the world. Not how I defined it or what the RPG nominally said, but what the players wanted to do. As a result, the above was only true for a very brief period of time for me and for those who I gamed with. "Trashing my setting" was in full swing by 1980.  I still have my earliest notes which folks can see in the below blog post.  <a href="https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/12/from-attic-first-campaign-of-majestic.html" target="_blank">The first campaign of the Majestic Wilderlands</a></blockquote>

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