Col_Pladoh
Gary Gygax
Thanks for the interesting account.francisca said:No, but I believe I've seen them, and almost had a copy. Shortly after I first started playing D&D, I was telling a neighbor about it. He told me he played the prototype and the "first real edition" which would have been the woodgrain boxes when he was in college at UW-Madison.
A couple weeks later, he showed me the copies, which were very faded at the time and must have been duplicated on a ditto machine as it had that characteristic blue type, along with his wood grain box set. I can tell you for sure the copies were not of the 74 boxed set.
He mentioned he was going to give them to me at some point after he read through them again, but never did.
As for my experience, I sat in and watched my older cousins playing the '74 rules using GH, Eldritch Wizardry, and various Judge's Guild products in the late 70's.
I didn't start until 1981, in 7th grade. I played with some guys who used a mish-mash of the 80/81 Moldvay edited Basic book and AD&D. I liked it so much, I crocked up my own system on a deck of 3x5 cards one weekend, and made my Dad play. After talking with the above mentioned neighbor, he went out and got me a copy of the Modvay edited boxed set. Shortly afterward, he picked me up the first edition Gamma World boxed set (both purchase at G&G Hobbies in Griffith, IN). Later, I saved up all my money and bought the 1e DMG, PHB, and MM all at once at the Toys R Us in Merrilville, IN.
I left D&D around Jan 1987, as the group I played were getting to be complete rules-lawyering tools and railroaders (hence, my hat of DL1). I didn't start playing again until 1998 or 99*, with my buddy in Indianapolis. I ran a 3.x game form 2001-2004, then ditched it and went back to running 1e and B/X D&D.
*Totally skipped 2e.
As a matter of fact the 20 or so copies of the initial draft ms. (50 pp.) and the 30 or so copies of the 2nd draft (150 pp.) of "The Fantasy Game" were indeed photocopied and sent around to others, and it is not beyind the realm of possibility that copies were duplicated in mimeo or ditto process as well.
The first wave of D&Ders were mainly college students. When they brought the game back home, their younger sibblings picked it up, so that the average age of players kept dropping from 1975 on through about 1980.
All I can say in regards to your taste in D&D versions is that it agrees pretty well with my own
Cheers,
Gary
