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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 2, 2020 1:17:21 GMT -5
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 2, 2020 1:26:25 GMT -5
The first topic is "How You(I) Got Started" meaning how you go started in D&D.
I started with this topic because I posted a good chunk of it in the Introduction thread on Jan. 13th 2015 as one of the first threads I started while building this forum. So first for a little copy/paste.
Now in the blog post I am going to expand on that a little, probably leave some of it out and add other things in, but that is for later today.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 2, 2020 1:28:23 GMT -5
Now if you if you have introduced yourself before, feel free to copy/paste and feel free to add to it. If you have not introduced yourself before, then this is a great time to bite the bullet and give it a shot.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 2, 2020 21:43:27 GMT -5
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Zka
Wanderer
Posts: 10
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Post by Zka on Jan 11, 2020 0:33:33 GMT -5
Hiya, I showed up because of your posts coming on over from MeWe. I haven't really played, some of my older cousin used to play some at family reunions when I was a little kid. Just wondering around looking, reading, trying to figure out what it was all about. I'm Gina.
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Post by verehaden on Jan 11, 2020 1:26:23 GMT -5
I've been playing for a long time, started off with Holmes and then played some B/X and AD&D. Have been out of it for a long time and kinda feelin' my way back. I don't talk much, but most places want you to post something.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 11, 2020 1:39:29 GMT -5
Hiya, I showed up because of your posts coming on over from MeWe. I haven't really played, some of my older cousin used to play some at family reunions when I was a little kid. Just wondering around looking, reading, trying to figure out what it was all about. I'm Gina. Hi Gina ( Zka) , Welcome to The Ruins, this is a great place to just wonder around, read and learn about things. If you have questions just ask, and someone will try to help you out.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 11, 2020 1:43:49 GMT -5
I've been playing for a long time, started off with Holmes and then played some B/X and AD&D. Have been out of it for a long time and kinda feelin' my way back. I don't talk much, but most places want you to post something. Welcome to The Ruins verehaden, come on in and check us out, this is a good place to get your feet back on the ground. We like posters and we like lurkers, but we do encourage you to speak up if you have something useful to share or a question, because that way we all benefit.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Feb 26, 2020 23:55:33 GMT -5
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Feb 26, 2020 23:56:28 GMT -5
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Feb 26, 2020 23:57:43 GMT -5
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Feb 26, 2020 23:58:59 GMT -5
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Feb 26, 2020 23:59:56 GMT -5
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Feb 27, 2020 0:00:52 GMT -5
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Feb 27, 2020 0:02:13 GMT -5
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Post by Paladin on May 16, 2020 19:33:28 GMT -5
I greatly enjoy reading your posts, PD. I wasn't around for that time period and so stories of how things were in the early days of roleplaying fascinate me.
I got my start in gaming reading 'choose your own adventure' books as a child. My mother liked to poke around in thrift stores and she'd pick up a book here and there. This was in the late 80's and early 90's. I had grown up on Howard Pyle, Sabatini, Dumas, Tolkien and Lewis, among others, so it's easy to see how my mind was primed for D&D. About 1996, twelve year-old me got hold of a D&D Classic boxed set. I only had one friend who would play, so I ran adventures for him and my mother, the one time we could convince her to play.
As time went on, I got the AD&D 2e books. Then 3rd edition. It took me ages to save the money for the 3e books, and by the time I had all the main books, 3.5 hit shelves and I gave up on staying "current" with the latest and greatest. I turned back to my 2e books. The internet was around by this point, of course, but it would be years before I had a computer. So I piddled with my 2e books generating and running solo adventures for myself. My one gamer friend discovered other pursuits more to his liking and abandoned gaming, so I was stuck with just books and a fertile brain.
I got a job at a bookstore at 17 and ended up getting myself fired because I enjoyed reading the gaming section more than I did shelving books. Oops. I went to college after that and fell away from gaming for years. I played two sessions of Pathfinder 1e with a friend of a friend, but it wasn't to my taste. The rules were too fiddly and the GM was short-tempered and pushed us to follow his plot. I ducked out of that game. It wasn't until I got married and had a few kids that I stumbled across the Acquisitions Inc podcasts. It was Chris Perkins and some other guys playing 4th edition. I recall thinking that it sounded nothing like the game I'd played years ago, but it was vastly entertaining at first. It whetted my appetite to play again, so I pulled out my old books and scanned through them.
Then I got online and realized there was a whole movement of people looking back at older editions and what the game was like in the years before I started playing. And people who never stopped playing the original game. I was immediately fascinated. Ever since that first glimpse at OD&D, my gaming focus has been on nothing else.
It felt raw and lean compared to the glossy, lengthy tomes I grew up reading. It was menacing. Deadly. Archaic. And I fell in love. That sparked a desire to know more, and I began to research the people and events linked to the early days of D&D. Gary, Dave, Mike Mornard, countless others--I scoured forums and websites and blogs looking for their names or handles and read voraciously every word I could find. A few years later, that's still my passion where gaming is concerned. I take as much enjoyment from learning more about the game as I do playing it.
These days my energy is devoted to teaching my children the joys of dungeon-crawling and wandering the vast wilderness. Their very first full-length campaign is being played on the Outdoor Survival map stocked with a gonzo variety of creatures stolen and borrowed from every source imaginable. Hope to have many more fun times playing my favorite game.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 17, 2020 0:26:01 GMT -5
Wow! Paladin that is quite a journey you've had!
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Post by simrion on May 25, 2020 16:51:55 GMT -5
For me it was 1980. Prior I was into Asimov magazine and saw an ad for Moldvay Basic. Birthday was coming so I asked and received! Learned just enough to play incorrectly (mages with armor) but played nonetheless. 9th grade ran into highscoolers playing 1E. Invited to play the Cleric of course. Haven't looked back!
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 25, 2020 17:48:42 GMT -5
For me it was 1980. Prior I was into Asimov magazine and saw an ad for Moldvay Basic. Birthday was coming so I asked and received! Learned just enough to play incorrectly (mages with armor) but played nonetheless. 9th grade ran into highscoolers playing 1E. Invited to play the Cleric of course. Haven't looked back! There are a lot worse things than mages with armor. A lot worse.
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Post by simrion on May 27, 2020 13:52:22 GMT -5
For me it was 1980. Prior I was into Asimov magazine and saw an ad for Moldvay Basic. Birthday was coming so I asked and received! Learned just enough to play incorrectly (mages with armor) but played nonetheless. 9th grade ran into highscoolers playing 1E. Invited to play the Cleric of course. Haven't looked back! There are a lot worse things than mages with armor. A lot worse. True that! Honestly as a DM I could care less especially if using the Hid Dice by Class rules. If you REALLY want your Mage with his/her d4/level HPs and nonexistent to hit score to wade into combat with sword and board have at. Just remember there is no crying in D&D
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Post by Admin Pete on May 27, 2020 14:42:05 GMT -5
There are a lot worse things than mages with armor. A lot worse. True that! Honestly as a DM I could care less especially if using the Hid Dice by Class rules. If you REALLY want your Mage with his/her d4/level HPs and nonexistent to hit score to wade into combat with sword and board have at. Just remember there is no crying in D&D A Mage with Armor and a Sword, can't cast spells, low hit points, poor to hit number. Sure go for it!
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Post by hengest on Mar 29, 2021 23:17:33 GMT -5
There were many bumps in the road before I made it to this forum, but the initial event was a kid who brought the books (or a book, probably some piece of BECMI) with him to recess. He would sit on the bench and "play," having me play a character. He had to nurse me through every little thing, it seems insane to remember it. Honestly I can't even remember it that well. But it definitely happened. He had me play a cleric -- I think he advertised them as being able to do magic AND fight. I remember how the little map looked, and some kind of figurine that represented me. As I recall, I tried to cast a spell, and then was stuck "chanting" for what seemed like the longest time.
I remember not really understanding what was going on. He seemed so certain about everything, but I had never seen anything like this before. "Let's pretend" with reference to printed materials? What was going on?
And now I can't even remember his name. Wonder if there would be any way to find him. Wonder if he still games or lost interest the next week.
Now, decades later, it's the one thing I wish I got to do at a table (most things I get to do at a table, like type, I don't like all that much).
How did he hook me? Get me to "play"? Introduce me? How did he describe the game itself? Of all that I have no memory at all.
"Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving But how can they know it's time for them to go? Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming I have no thought of time" Sandy Denny, "Who Knows Where the Time Goes"
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Mar 30, 2021 0:41:44 GMT -5
hengest great story! Yeah, nothing like gaming face to face at the table together.
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Post by mao on May 18, 2021 4:19:51 GMT -5
The roots of my gaming started in 1974 when I was freshman in high School. I saw an add for the board game "Ogre"(gigantic tank warfare in the future) I was hooked on adventure gaming from the moment I got it. Purchases of Melee and Wizard board games led to my finding The Dragon Magazine and inventing a very primitive RPG using Melee in a post apocalyptic Setting From there I started Miniature gaming and purchased "War Gamer's Digest.. In it I saw an add for a local group of Miniature club(To be Continued).
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Post by multiarms on May 19, 2021 13:28:35 GMT -5
I got started in the early 80s. Not sure what year exactly but I must have been less than 10 years old. An older boy in my neighborhood had some D&D books, which I used to like to look at. He was in high school and busy with sports and girls, so he gave me his Fiend Folio. That was my first D&D book and it's still my favorite. I used to read it over and over, and invent all kinds of stories and adventures in my head. But I didn't have any rules or anyone to play with at that time.
I found a group of kids playing at our local library during summer break, and I joined up with them. I made a cleric character. I still remember the drawing I did of his helmet. I played a few sessions with them but they were older (in middle school or high school I think), and it was not a long-term group.
There was a hardware store in our town which had a rack of comic books. And one day they had some D&D modules and a pack of blank character sheets. I bought what I could afford and added them to my collection. As I recall, the modules were L1: Secret of Bone Hill and A4: Dungeons of the Slavelords. I still love the art and monsters in those books (especially the cave fisher and myconids from A4 and the vampire on the back cover).
Shortly after I got the Mentzer red box set at Waldenbooks. And somewhere I got a hold of Moldvay's Basic book and B1 module, because I remember messing around with those a lot. Those were my first rule sets. I colored in the little blue dice with white pencil and I did the solo game in Mentzer with Bargle and the sexy cleric many times. I knew that AD&D existed but it seemed too adult for me at the time and also I couldn't afford the hardbacks. My brother was still too little to play so I just read the books and imagined stuff on my own for a few years.
Eventually, when I was in middle school, I started playing with my brother and other boys. We got some AD&D books, and I remember Oriental Adventures being a big deal to us at the time. We loved the weapons and did some of the Kara-Tur adventure modules. We took turns as DM, going through TSR modules or stuff from Dragon Mag. At school we would get graph paper and make our own dungeons with tons of traps and secret doors which was always fun.
Eventually we got 2nd Edition stuff and played that, but all the extra splat books were getting annoying. I think I was a sophomore in high school when Magic The Gathering came out, and everyone wanted to play that instead. I didn't like it, though. Eventually when TSR went under I was sad and switched to reading other RPGs. My friends eventually got tired of MTG so we played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Call of Cthulhu, and Shadowrun. Eventually we got summer jobs and started playing Warhammer miniatures games mostly.
In college, I played some Vampire and even did the LARP (cringe). Eventually I got busy with school and marriage and job so I played rarely, on-and-off in my 20s and early 30s. I remember running a game of All Flesh Must Be Eaten at some point (which was a fun zombie apocalypse game in the early 2000s).
Eventually, my brother and I got back into Warhammer 40K and I started hanging out at a game store in my 30s. I saw the D&D stuff which at that time was late 3E early 4E era. I bought some Necromancer Games modules like Rappan Athuk which I still think are pretty cool. I like the art and the vibe of "first edition feel." But I was mostly into Warhammer.
In 2019 I got back into RPGs big time. I was hanging at my local game store where I buy paints, and started looking at Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. It reminded me of the Necromancer Games stuff, so I bought the core book. It blew my mind and the art was so incredible. I hooked up with a group of guys at that store who were playing DCC every Monday and Wednesday. I fell right in with them and we were rocking it.
Then the pandemic hit. We had to stop playing at the store and we tried it on Roll20 but it wasn't great. Eventually when the virus calmed down we moved back to in-person at my buddy's house who has a great game room. Meanwhile, in 2020 I did tons of reading, writing, kickstarter pledging, buying RPGs, running RPGs, etc. I went all in on the hobby last year. I ran online games using Zoom for a ton of friends and family members, co-workers, etc. We did so many different systems and groups that I can't even remember but I was averaging 4 games a week, usually running at least 2 of them. It was a great way to keep my soul alive during what was the hardest year of my life.
I found that DCC was fun for all, but lost its steam after a few levels. "Rules light" and indie OSR games seem really cool when you read them, but they don't play so well and oddly are hard to learn for new players. Eventually I settled into classic D&D variants and I still think that Old School Essentials core tome is the best single volume RPG that money can buy. My desert island book.
Right now I run an OSE campaign every other week and a homebrew AD&D thing the following week. I run a 5E game with my family most Saturdays, but I don't like it and we are going to switch to something else soon (probably Whitebox FMAG). I also play in a few other campaigns with other friends, so I end up with around 3 table sessions each week.
I will post more here or on other threads about my thoughts and reflections on RPGs, "old-school" rules, etc. Thanks for reading, this is a really cool forum from what I've seen so far!
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 22, 2021 12:47:02 GMT -5
The roots of my gaming started in 1974 when I was freshman in high School. I saw an add for the board game "Ogre"(gigantic tank warfare in the future) I was hooked on adventure gaming from the moment I got it. Purchases of Melee and Wizard board games led to my finding The Dragon Magazine and inventing a very primitive RPG using Melee in a post apocalyptic Setting From there I started Miniature gaming and purchased "War Gamer's Digest.. In it I saw an add for a local group of Miniature club(To be Continued). Yes, please continue.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 22, 2021 12:51:11 GMT -5
I got started in the early 80s. Not sure what year exactly but I must have been less than 10 years old. snip That is quite a journey, I have to admit I envy those who came to D&D as kids, instead of as an adult. Although given the choice between being younger and finding D&D as a kid or being a little older and being one of Arneson's gaming buddies, I would take the latter every time.
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Post by The Semi-Retired Gamer on May 25, 2021 16:23:45 GMT -5
Here's enough of my Introduction post to suit the needs of this thread...
It all started in the early part of 1980. I was almost 8 years old and had just discovered fantasy books like The Hobbit, the Chronicles of Narnia, and The Prydain Chronicles. My uncle had a ton of sci-fi and fantasy books so I was always bugging him to borrow more books or watch something else from his movie collection. I still fondly remember watching Excalibur, Dune, and other similar movies with him growing up. Simply put, Uncle David was the cool uncle that every boy should have when they are growing up.
I had some friends at school - Jamie and Dan - that were interested in the same type of stuff. Dan told us about a game called Dungeons & Dragons that his older brothers introduced to him. This game sounded like something that would be perfect to satisfy our quest for more fantasy - better yet, we could make up our own stories about our own heroes. After I went over and played a session of D&D I immediately had to get my own set of the rules and tell my Uncle David about this game.
I happened to be selling GRIT newspaper subscriptions at the time and had enough reward points to redeem for a basic set; I did so and received the Moldvay Basic set a short time later. I also "informed" my Uncle David about this game only to find out that he had been playing for years already. In fact, he gave his Holmes Basic set to me at this time and would eventually give me all of his AD&D hardbacks a short time later. I *believe* that I started with the Holmes set first but it might have been the Moldvay set; either way, both are great introductions to D&D.
Once Jamie and I started playing D&D we found ourselves playing all of the time. I would spend the night at his house some weekends and then he would spend the night at mine on others. It did not take long for us to look for more options and crack open the AD&D hardbacks. At our young naïve ages we assumed that more rules must mean more fun and more game so we "upgraded" to AD&D and stayed for years. (note: yes, I know that both games are great in their own right and no one needs MORE rules to have MORE fun - we were not yet 10 years old at the time.) It seemed like we were always coming up with house rules and new adventures to go on. AD&D would be our main game for quite some time. Of course, when the Mentzer version came out and then expanded the Basic rules up even higher we also started playing D&D again.
We would continue to play role-playing games all the way until we graduated high school in 1991. We would add players to the group and wound up with a total of six players. We played many other games over the years. I always seemed to want to play in the fantasy genre and would try just about anything in the genre. Some of them did not make a lasting impression but several caught the attention of the group. Two of my all time favorite games include Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game (1st edition) and Talislanta.
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Post by mao on May 26, 2021 7:59:03 GMT -5
I completely forgot that when I was 12(1972) I got "Kriegspiel" for Christmas, it is a board game from the old Avalon Hill co. It made very little impact on me so I usually leave it out.
So late fall of 1777(lol left this typo in on purpose), i went to the town next door to The game club. It only played once a week and the host was slowly losing interest in gaming and was running off w his wife at game time(I am pretty sure of what they were doing) The main guy was my friend and mentor , Nevin. He was about 20 years older than I was and was a master gamer. He was also the only DM.
At first I liked miniatures better than D&D(we only played about 4 games of it) But I am horrible at 20th century ground war-games so I started to like D&D better, I usually got the most experience of everyone(by a lot)
Around this time I discovered that I was an idiot savant at any thing involving ships of any era(from WW 2 to Star Trek to Warhammer naval rules. I rarely lose)
My very first D&D game they had me roll up 3 characters so I made a mini party of Cleric(Beowulf), thief( I forget) and fighter(Bertha Battleaxe. I picked a 2 handed ax cause I thought it would do more damage<really needed somebody to tell me about 2 handed swords.>). The mini party was Mormon and the thief and Fighter were his wives. Apparently I made quite the impact w this as even the wives in the group had male characters. They looked at me like I had 3 heads. We explored Spear Mountain(mega dungeon by Nevin). The high lite of the game was a battle w a troll running after a 5th level paladin w a holy sword(who was running away from the troll) Bertha was Behind the troll, hitting him w my ax.about the 4th game I wa hooked Erly spring 1778 I DMed for the first time (to be continued)
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Post by mao on May 26, 2021 9:01:58 GMT -5
After playing about 4 games I made my first dungeon. It was color keyed and used all my music cassets. There were about 8 guys in their mid 30s and I was 17. WE all had such a good time that we ended up playing all day(the guys had to call their wives and tell them that they were staying longer. The party was huge as they all had like 4 characters and they wee several levels above the 1st level dungeon. I was hooked.
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