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Thread: We are both damn near 40.

  1. #1
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    We are both damn near 40.

    Me and D&D. Crazy stuff.

    I don't remember the first time I played Dungeons & Dragons. I'd have to guess it was '85 or '86? My cousin - who is one of the smartest people I have ever met (and now a Superior Court Judge ) brought some AD&D materials to a family function and I was immediately hooked. For my birthday I begged for the "red box" and then coerced my sisters to learn & play it with me on a camping trip. Going back into school, nobody I knew played it or had any interest so my only outlet was visits with my cousin which were relatively few and far between.

    Heading into middle school, everything changed. I met some folks who played AD&D and we played a LOT of it. Weekends, weekdays, it didn't matter. Sadly, around that time all the conservative anti-D&D propaganda started to appear and it became a real issue at school. Kids got detention for having D&D materials with them, etc. Suffice to say, playing was not a popular pasttime. But, we didn't care. There were probably 20 of us in "my" group, and without a doubt sitting around on Saturday eating pizza and playing D&D are some of my fondest memories of school. Despite being an enormous distraction from schoolwork, it was at the same time a huge contributor to my success. Reading, writing, 'rithmetic and a myriad of subtler skills were honed preparing and playing.

    After middle school, my family moved up to Sacramento and the experience was never the same. Whatever magic there was in that core group just couldn't be recreated in NorCal, try as I might. Over many years, through high school and beyond, I tried to put it back together but just couldn't. All the false starts weren't without some wins, though:

    1. First and foremost, I met my first serious girlfriend through D&D. She gave me experience points, I gave her my virginity.
    2. My high school English teacher yelled at me for using colloquial grammar in a research paper, and told me she's give me the points back when I got published. No worries, wrote some D&D fiction for a magazine and gave her a copy of my paycheck. A+
    3. I got into a serious Dragon Magazine collecting binge in high school and spent a week in SF hitting all sorts of awesome small comic book shops and raiding their back issues. Tons of fun, learned to navigate SF, and met a bunch of cool people.
    4. D&D got me started on my career path, and even gave me a head start. When I couldn't find people in my area to play D&D with, I took to the BBS and learned about MS-DOS, modems, ANSI, and all sorts of '80s and '90s computer stuff.
    5. As a result of haunting comic book shops and playing with computer things, I ended up meeting the guy who I would have to call my best friend. We've known each other for 23 years now, we've run businesses together, been millionaires together, and done a remarkable number of wacky things together. Our lives eventually took on different path (he took the path that sucks, I took the path that rocks), but we both know we'd be there for the other in a heartbeat. Worth the price of admission.

    Thinking about all this stuff makes me nostalgic. I may have to dig out that Dragon Magazine collection tonight.

  2. #2
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    experience for virginity...I think we can all echo that in some way.

  3. #3
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    However, some party members may get more XP than others.

  4. #4
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    40 that's old

  5. #5
    Subaru Unimpreza SportWagon's Avatar
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    It was only about 35 or 36 years ago that I played a little bit of D&D.

  6. #6
    I too was a big rpg fan back in the late 70s/early 80s. Had tons of them - AD&D, Boot Hill, Top Secret, Chill, Gangbusters, Call of Cthulhu. They were always like an engine for my imagination and I had a special love for the maps. Used to spend tons of time drawing dungeons. RPGs also were one of the things that got me into computer programming. I wrote programs to roll up characters and NPCs, build cars for Car Wars, random dice rollers...we had a gaming club in my HS and D&D was played there. It was never really frowned upon that I can remember in spite of the silly uproar that arose around the game at the time.

    I actually hardly ever played any rpgs myself though. Always wanted to and had several brief false starts with friends back then but it never went beyond char gen and one or two sessions. After about '86 or so I left the hobby behind. Then about 5 years ago I read an article on Wired about old D&D modules and that inspired me to google the subject a bit and I learned about the OSR movement and all the retroclones like OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry. In reading various RPG forums and blogs I came across one written by a guy who lives in my city and I sent him an email and ended up joining his group and actually got to play D&D (well, Swords & Wizardry actually but same thing) for a year or so! Had a ton of fun. I plan to play with my sons at some point in the near future.
    Last edited by Zevious Zoquis; January 23rd, 2014 at 01:06 PM.

  7. #7
    Member Member 21Kid's Avatar
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    Cool Story!
    Happy Birthday!!!

  8. #8
    I'm 26 and I bleed out of my asshole on a regular basis. Life happens.

  9. #9
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    Try using a little lube, Bill.

    Even though I've always reading the D&D books since I was 11, I've only played one game of D&D and that was during 7th grade.

  10. #10
    I'm gooder. Phil_SS's Avatar
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    Happy birthday?

    And I am also a big D&D guy. My first experience was because of my brother. He is four years older than me so he got into D&D before me but because he let me hang around some times I got to experience them at a younger age than he did. Every once in awhile they would pull an all nighter and start around 6PM and play till the sun would come up. Of course, there would always be a break around 3AM to play car tag. Which would entail splitting up into 2 cars and then designating an area to go hide. And then when they would be spotted the goal was to get as close to the other car and tag the other car with your hand. All while flying around residential streets. Obviously all our parents would have killed us if they knew what we were doing.

    Anyways. It was always a blast when we would get together to throw some dice. And I got some great experiences at an early age because of it.

    And my second favorite D&D style game was Star Frontiers. Just loved looking at the ships and dreaming of being able to build one.

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