Official Nostalgia Thread (thread necromancy)

[Wormwood]

47. You yelled at your cleric if he EVER cast a spell that wasn't a healing spell.

Man, that one takes me back.

/got yelled at a lot.
//stupid jerks
///but I'm not bitter. No sir.

 

[CGoat]

You didn't have Darkvision... You had infravision... you saw heat forms... and if someone pulled out a torch you were blinded for a bit. Oh ... and undead snuck up on you all the time... cause they don't have any bodyheat And we loved it.

 

[Wormwood]

52. When you died, you came back as a 1st level character. If someone died in the Demonweb Pits, a first-level character would eventually just show up and ask to join the party.

53. Electrum.

54. Overbearing.

55. The bigger the monster, the MORE damage you did. You young punks have no idea how amazing it felt to wield a long sword...yet roll a d12 for damage.

 

[The_Gneech]

Green slime was a monster, and was everywhere!

-The Gneech <-- hasn't encountered green slime since the 20th century

 

[cincinnati reds]

You could blind the enemy with a Light spell.

 

[Arnix]

You didn't have "official" dice so you rolled 4d6 and subtracted 4.

All weapon damage used some combination of d6's and subtraction math.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

1. We all hid our Dungeon Master’s Guides under our beds, cause our moms thought they were Satanic after seeing the Geraldo Rivera special on Satanism.

Very, very close to home here.

2. We all thought Advanced D&D was better than Basic D&D because it was, well, “advanced.” Mind you, why this made it “better” none of us could explain. Nor did we need to.

Well, what the hell does “advanced” mean if not “better.”

3. Our dice came with a damn crayon that you used to color in the damn numbers! And we thought this was COOL!

This I don’t remember.

4. Pewter? Bah! Our miniatures were made of REAL LEAD. And we've got the poor report cards to prove it!

When I was nervous, I would chew on the minis.

5. We only ever used about 10% of the rules (especially when playing Advanced D&D). [Come to think of it, I still only use about 10% of the rules when I GM . . . ]

This has not changed so much.

6. “Character background”? “Character development”? “Playing in-character”? My character's "family history"? "Last name"? WTF?

I always went out of my way to eliminate a character history so the DM could not screw me with it.

7. All of our character information could fit on one index card.

Them were really the days.

8. Skeeels? Hah! We don’ need no steenkeen skeeels!

Hah! I still don’t have any (social) skills!

9. Low Armor Class was GOOD! And the coolest thing imaginable was a NEGATIVE Armor Class! WHOA! Sometimes you would hear a comment like, “Whoa! Dude, did you see Dave’s Paladin? He’s got Armor Class negative frickin’ two!”

Them were the days.

10. If your character, Bardok the Brave, died, you simply rolled up his brother, Bardok II. (See #6)

Has this changed so much?

11. All character parties met in a tavern. Their “mission”? To go adventuring. Their “story”? To go adventuring. Their “purpose”? To go adventuring. Their “premise”? To go adventuring. Their “motivation”? To go adventuring. The "plot hook"? "Story arc"? To go adventuring. Listen, you Vampire-playing drama queen, what part of "To go adventuring" do you not understand?

Speak for your self. I just liked killing everything in sight, taking the money I stole from their cooling corpses to fund my next killing spree (when I wasn’t carefully investing it in a diversified portfolio).

12. Charisma? Don’t make me laugh. Who even put that on the sheet, anyway? (For that matter, we didn't really know what "Dexterity" "Constitution" and "Charisma" actually *meant* until the one guy in the school who was even a bigger geek than we were explain them. He then wanted to play with us. We said no.)

Them were the days.

13. “Unified mechanics”? WTF? What is this, auto shop class?

Heh heh heh.

14. Dungeons were for plundering.

15. Monsters were for killing.

In defense of contemporary D&D, monsters (evil, good and indifferent), like NPCs (good, evil and indifferent), as well as furniture, buildings and physical geographic structures are still for killing.

16. All-night sessions at your buddy’s house were mandatory, especially if they involved tons of Pepsi, cheap take-out pizza, and a glimpse of your buddy’s hot mom in her bath robe. (Uh, never mind that last one . . .)

Well, none of my bud’s moms were all that hot. Aside from that, man them were the days I didn’t worry about weight, sleep loss, cholesterol and skin trouble.

17. Dungeons & Dragons was number one. All other games were one-shots.

This has not changed so much.

18. We played loudly and boldly in the high school library at lunch, and didn’t even care when the Grade 12’s came by and laughed at us. When they started hitting us hard in the upper arm, we left.

Them were the days.

19. We had one teacher who was “cool” and ran the D&D club. Until the fundamentalist parents made him stop.

Never happened to me.

20. We pronounced “Paladin” as “Pad-ah-lin”.

I had forgotten this until you wrote that.

 

[Akrasia]

[I posted this over at RPG.net, but I feel like posting it here as well, because I'm bored. ]

My first serious crush: Morgan Ironwolf (the female fighter wearing chainmail spandex in, apparently, cold weather) from the Moldvay ed. Basic D&D Set.

My second serious crush: Aleena (the female cleric wearing chainmail spandex in, sadly, temperate weather) from the Mentzer ed. Basic D&D Set. (And yes, I still hate Bargle for wasting her!)

Also emotionally important: the illustrations of the sylph and succubus in the original Monster Manual.

My early teen brain explosion: the many revealing illustrations in the Deities and Demigods book -- especially, the Egyptian mythos (that Bast picture really messed with my psychological development) and the Greek mythos (Aphrodite).

 

[Henry]

I have nothing new to add, but as a mid-thirty-something, you made me cry with laughter. Thanks, all!

 

[Pyoor]

The corners of your box sets were reinforced with tape after being repeatedly crushed in your backpack. You eventually stop taping and all your box sets are flat.

Your one and only Dragon magazine no longer has a cover on it after being lost from years of being in the same backpack with your box sets.

The local 4-H had a D&D club.