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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stormonu" data-source="post: 5685976" data-attributes="member: 52734">Back in the '80s, the first and only RPG club I knew of (and was a brief member of) was a D&D club at my high school.  There was a small ($2 per month, I think) fee to use the facilities and it had a crowd of about 20 folks who would play during our 1 1/2 lunch hour and from 3 pm - 5 pm after school.  Of course, the members were 9th-12th graders, so around the ages of 14-17, with a teacher/patron watching over the group.There were about 4 different groups playing in that club and about 7 DMs total, and most of the players would switch up between adventures.  About 3 of the DMs were pretty steady at only being DMs (back in the day when the DM books were forbidden territory for players to access), though the rest would regularly switch between being DMs or players.  Between adventures, the DMs there would often talk shop, either swapping DMing tips or nefarious ideas for "putting PCs back in their place" - usually consisting of deathtraps or devious monster encounters.  Sometimes, the DMs would borrow or swap modules from other DMs (or players) to run their own group through something.  The players from the various groups were constantly seeking play tips, strategies and swapping Dragon magazine articles - anything to try and boost their ability to survive the adventures coming up.  However, talking about specific modules encounters was frowned upon, and could get you kicked out of a play group.This was a time when a lot of the classic modules already existed, but being students, few folks had the money to afford any of them.  If we had access to them, we ran them, but most of the time we were making our own stuff up.  However, I do remember Tomb of Horrors being on the list of "the" module to beat, along with solving White Plume Mountain.I don't remember any tournaments or competitions and the atmosphere was casual, though I do remember it being about the time Dragonlance was coming out, and the DM with a copy of the modules (DL1 & DL2) had an auction for who'd get to play, and what characters they would play.  That auction (which I didn't participate in due to lack of funds) was what got me to hunt down and buy those modules at a later date (about the time DL5 came out) - and probably saved my interest in D&D, which was beginning to flag around that time.After about 5 months, I quit the club due to the fact one of my player's couldn't keep paying the dues, and I began to question why they were even collecting money since we were playing in classrooms at school. So we just switched to playing in the school library and stopped associating with the club.</blockquote>

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