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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wombat" data-source="post: 2572745" data-attributes="member: 8447">How old were you when you started playing?  I was 16, lo!, 30 years ago...How often did you play?  Back in the day?  At least once a week, often more.  I remember the 24 hour games, the "game each day of the three-day weekend", and all like that.  Nowadays, it's once every other weekend  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />What did you like best about the game when young?  1) It wasn't a minitatures wargame where there were hordes of arguments all the time and 2) that there were no "Winners" or "Losers".  Ultimately, however, I was drawn in through a love of history and mythology -- here was a chance to act out some of my favourite tales!  The fantasy literature aspect was pretty much secondary as there were not a lot of fantasy authors that I knew of that I particularly enjoyed (and most of the ones that I did like didn't translate over into D&D-of-the-time very well).Were you ever taught to run the game or create adventures?Nope.  I was the only person in town for about six months who even had a copy of D&D.  I was entirely self-taught at first.  I have picked up ideas and tips in the intervening decades, but I still cleave pretty close to my own style.Did you find any gaming materials hard to read or difficult to understand?Sure.  I mean, those Three Little Books had a lot of gaps in them!  There was no information on weapon damage until Greyhawk came out!  There was a lot of "making it up as you go along" back then.  Luckily eventually I found Alarums & Excursions...Now that you are grown, do you plan on teaching your own kids to play D&D?Well, I don't have any kids of my own, but I have been teaching my niece and nephew (ages 9 & 10 respectively) as well as giving a lot of tips to teens who show up at local game stores (or contact me on the internet -- I should open up "Uncle Wombat's House o' Gaming Lore"...What would you do differently?  The same?From the original days?  Lots different -- dungeons-qua-dungeons are very rare, we do a lot more character development, I try out lots of different systems, I don't worry if I am playing the game "right" or "like everybody else", towns have reasons for existing other than to service adventurers; I could keep going, but these are the important points.  But what is the same?  The sense of adventure, the notion of a shared world being created as we go along, the fun of getting together with friends to do something we all enjoy, the fascination with history and mythology.  Thirty years playing around at one hobby is a long time.  A lot of things have changed, but many of the reasons I am still here are the same as what got me into gaming.  I love this game!</blockquote>

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