I first learned about this challenge on Tim Brannan's blog, and I'm not sure where it originated. I'm kind of keen on doing this because right now is the 2nd anniversary of my very first month-long blog challenge: 2011's September of Short Adventures! (My entries are archived here.) Is it too "meta" to be nostalgic for a relatively recent indulgence in nostalgia? :-)
I wish that I had the time to do daily posts, but I'm afraid I'll have to collect several days' worth of responses into chunks, and micro-style them up for y'all. We'll see how it goes. For now, here's today's question:
(1) How you got started.
It had to have been 1979 when I first laid eyes on the AD&D Monster Manual. That sucker fueled my dreams for at least 6 months before I got the urge to actually play this strange game. I remember wanting to create larger-format copies of many of the evocative illustrations in that book, and I experimented with the grid method with some success. Thankfully, I knew enough not to mark up my book! :-)
Soon, though, I got my hands on a Holmes Basic blue box and realized what it was all about. It took me a while, and several clumsy attempts to run a dungeon for friends (and one girl I was seriously crushing on) before I really figured out that an explicit "game board" (i.e., a dungeon map on which the metal figurines were placed) wasn't needed at all.
Also, my love of all the strange creatures from the Monster Manual impelled me to stock my first dungeons with far too many deadly foes than my friends' newly rolled-up characters could handle. I don't think it helped my chances with my 8th grade crush that I killed off her character (along with all the others in that party)!
It wasn't until 1982 that my friends and I started up the long-term AD&D campaign that got us through high school, and was periodically refueled during college breaks until about 1989 or 1990. We stuck with 1st edition AD&D through it all, though near the end I bought the 2nd edition core books with the idea of converting and writing up some of my adventures for submission to the new "Dungeon" magazine. Grad school (1990-1996) put a damper on those ideas for a long while... but thanks be to the Old School Renaissance, which I discovered (via Jeff) around 2007! :-)
Okay, that was a bit longer than "micro-style," so maybe I'll just end it here for now. Stay tuned!
Dear Cygnus,
ReplyDeletethat sounds interesting (and I'll read it) - though I will not be able to comment often. I simply don't know much of these games. In our house we have an acquaintance who drives to role plays every week-end - a well-trained man, together with his grown-up son, and they seem to have a lot of fun on these meetings. It is as with music: I like to hear (most) of it, but can't comment.
Hi Britta! Thanks for reading nonetheless... I suspected these posts wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea. I'm extremely grateful to have readers coming from so many different places (both geographically and in mind-space)! I'll try to keep these posts understandable to someone who hasn't indulged in this geeky pastime, though. :-)
DeleteThe more the merrier! Calling it a party is hitting the nail on the head (sorry for the flood of phrases...). It's a fun challenge :)
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed! I enjoyed your "How I got started" story, by the way. It's fascinating to see the different array of games and products that were available in Germany, back in the day.
DeleteWow! I'll enjoy following this one. I don't think I could actually answer all of those questions, otherwise I'd seriously consider playing along with you. It's all so long ago now...
ReplyDeleteI do occasionally wonder if my daughter might be interested one day but at this point, I doubt it. She loves storytelling, though, and D&D is fantastic fuel for that. If she falls in with the geek crowd as she gets older (here's hoping!), there may be hope.
Mock's son is probably the better bet. He's only a few months older and suddenly way into the card game Magic. Perhaps in a year or two...
Always hope! :-) My son has recently tailed off in his multi-year obsession with Pokemon, so it's interesting to see what may be coming next.
DeleteGlad to see you on board! I love reading these.
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed reading all the responses, too. Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteYou ready for this? D&D was evil, along with Queen (the band) and unicorns. I went to a Rock Expo sponsored by a church and was told that if you backmasked 'Another One Bites the Dust,' you heard 'Start to smoke marijuana.' I was eleven, and went home and got rid of my unicorn collection because I thought it was the right thing to do. D&Ders were among the worst offenders, henchmen of Satan! Or at least, enslaved by the guy downstairs.
ReplyDeleteSigh.
Yup... there are whole blogs devoted to researching and picking apart the strands of the anti-D&D "satanic panic" of the 1980s. In hindsight a lot of it would be kind of funny, if it didn't cause a whole lot of grief along the way. A lot of it (like the backmasking stuff) was just plain weird.
DeleteTotally. Years later, I was like, Who takes the time to 'uncover' that stuff??
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