I don't normally do these "blog challenges", as most times I have way too many post ideas bouncing around my head to pay attention to yet more distractions, but this one seems like fun. So, I'm going to play along :)
I got started playing D&D (technically AD&D) back in my Junior High School days - late 1979 or early 1980 - 7th grade in any case.
My friend Kenny was introduced to AD&D at his school, and being best of buds decided he needed to share it with me. So, one afternoon after school, we sat down and he put me through a dungeon. My character's name was Cyrus (named after Cyrus Vance perhaps) and he was a human fighter. Really, for you first character, especially while playing one on one, is there any other character to choose?
I remember that I killed a bunch of skeletons and recovered a + 1 sword. The rest is kinda fuzzy, but that's because I both knew nothing about what I was playing and was so engrossed in the game on so many levels (story / first person persona / mapping / new fangled dice/ etc) that it was like an information overload. All that didn't matter, as I was hooked.
After the adventure was complete, Kenny had to call a classmate to see if I had leveled (of course I did - you had to bite the carrot to be fully hooked). You see, Kenny only had the Dungeon Master's Guide - limited resources and funds back in those days.
By the following summer, my parents got me the DMG, Plater's Handbook and a set of dice to start me on my own way into the depths of D&D.
Sounds alot like our first days.. There was something about the complete package of role playing, character leveling and mapping that had me hooked. I found mapping one of the most appealing parts of the game.. watching the map unfold as you explored it. We were a bunch of pretty poor kids so we all would pool our money together to buy 1 copy of the book we needed.
ReplyDeleteSounds pretty similar
ReplyDeleteGlad you are doing this one btw. Always great to hear these stories.
My first experience was around the same time, 1979ish. My older cousin had got a copy of the Holmes edition of Basic D&D (blue box with the big red dragon sitting on his gold on the front). It was one of those "hey, come over saturday and check out this cool game I got" kinda' deals. Just prior we had been playing MetaGames Melee and the comment that this new game was "like Melee times 100" had me on the hook.
ReplyDeleteI remember very little of that game itself. It was me, my cousin as DM and a mutual friend as the other PC and some NPCs to round out the party. I know we played "Keep on the Borderlands" and I played a Magic User (because hey, wizards are supposed of be powerful and awesome right? Gandalf was a wizard! What else would I want to play?) We did the whole thing of having a mapper (me) and a Caller (uh...me again). That was the first and last time I ever played a game with a designated Caller. I got hooked from that moment on!
My first experience was around the same time, 1979ish. My older cousin had got a copy of the Holmes edition of Basic D&D (blue box with the big red dragon sitting on his gold on the front). It was one of those "hey, come over saturday and check out this cool game I got" kinda' deals. Just prior we had been playing MetaGames Melee and the comment that this new game was "like Melee times 100" had me on the hook.
ReplyDeleteI remember very little of that game itself. It was me, my cousin as DM and a mutual friend as the other PC and some NPCs to round out the party. I know we played "Keep on the Borderlands" and I played a Magic User (because hey, wizards are supposed of be powerful and awesome right? Gandalf was a wizard! What else would I want to play?) We did the whole thing of having a mapper (me) and a Caller (uh...me again). That was the first and last time I ever played a game with a designated Caller. I got hooked from that moment on!