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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tellerian Hawke" data-source="post: 6534560" data-attributes="member: 6790669">I Miss The Boxed Sets (A Small Trip Down Memory Lane by Tellerian Hawke)I said boxed sets, and here's why:Back in "tha day," when I first started playing, I began with the Erol Otus "red book" basic rules. The first thing I had to do was to take the included crayon, and color in the numbers on all of my dice. Wow, when I think about doing that, it makes me wonder why they don't sell uncolored dice today. Painting miniatures has become its own sub-culture, its own phenomenon, if you will, but coloring dice just kind of died out. (At least to my meager knowledge---if I am wrong on this account, PLEASE correct me, because I have the sudden urge to spend money on such a thing, if it does indeed exist!)The next thing I did was learn to draw dungeon maps on graph paper. This too, is a lost art, at least in terms of people doing it by hand. It seems that most people prefer to use computer aids these days. And I will grudgingly admit to being among them; I simply don't have the time to that stuff by hand anymore, although I would pay a small fortune to locate the hand-drawn maps from my childhood and somehow retrieve them from "the void;" (read: the landfill---they were probably thrown out long ago, during a fit of spring cleaning)But I think that the appeal of these things lies in their crude, unrefined nature; it makes the game seem like more of a hobby. Not only do you have to create your own character, but you also have to color your own dice, draw your own maps, create your own world, draw your own world maps, paint your own miniatures, etc. In the box set era, the D&D game was more geared toward artistry and customized aesthetics.I will also admit to scrapping my custom world when the Greyhawk boxed set came out, but with very good reason; that boxed set was FANTASTIC. The full-color maps were mind-blowing in their rich artistry and fine detail. I lost my original boxed set, but I was lucky enough (many years back, circa 1997 or so) to find a couple of sets at a garage sale which were gently used / well-cared-for. I immediately took the pristine maps and had them wet-mounted and individually framed, and I still have them today. They now adorn my 8-year old son's bedroom wall, and he is very fond of them.[ATTACH]66957[/ATTACH]Of course, my first "world" was actually based on the map in the back of the Expert Rules book; it was a partial map of the Grand Duchy of Karemeikos (sp?) if I remember correctly. And I drew what I imagined was beyond the borders of that small, little map, which of course was completely different than what ended up being officially published later on in the Gazetteer series.But my point is, I miss the "hand made" feel of all the stuff that I made for use with my boxed set stuff. I think one day I might sit down (probably with my son) and draw out a few levels worth of dungeon maps, and maybe create a world map or two, of a campaign setting that doesn't exist yet. I think that would be a lot of fun. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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