The a-ha moment

This past Monday my youngest son told me that the Back to D&D Basics campaign session from the previous night was his favorite to date. When asked why he responded that he had an a-ha and suddenly knew how to play his cleric.

Up to now, my 11 year-old has preferred fighter types when he played D&D he would charge into battle and hack and slash through the enemies. His favorite character to date is his Warforged fighter from my oldest son's Eberron campaign. But when we rolled up characters for Back to D&D Basics his stats seemed to lean toward being a cleric. So that's what he became.

During his rise through the first 4 levels he was lamenting various aspects of his character: no spells at first level, only healing and protective type spells, and (the most troublesome) no edged weapons. He frequently tried to push his way to the front of the battle, but was often relegated to the back because the dwarf and elf had the first rank covered. His sling stone attacked missed more often than it hit.

He had great difficulty in seeing what he was bringing to the party. He didn't see how his curative spells let the party adventure longer. He had picked up a magic mace from a Chaotic cleric that drained levels. I informed him that use of that ability would cause him to move away from Neutrality and toward the alignment of Chaotic. This frustrated him so much that last session I offered to let him roll up a fighter to swap out for the cleric.

But then they had an encounter with a captured hobgoblin. His cleric was the only one who spoke that language, but my son did not feel confident that he would ask the right questions, so the player of the dwarf offered to ask the questions to have my son's cleric repeat it in hobgoblin.

This could have been hand-waved and let the dwarf's player ask the hobgoblin (me) the questions and my son would not have had to do anything, but instead I said this (or something to this effect):

If you repeat the question exactly as the dwarf said then just nod your head, but if you want to ask anything different then ask your question. Once the hobgoblin answers, if you repeat it exactly as he says just nod your head, but if you want to say something different say what your character says.

The group suggested passing notes, but I didn't want to slow things down. I reminded the players to not let their knowledge of what was transpiring affect anything their characters did. So off we went.

The dwarf said:

If you answer our questions honestly we'll free you as long as you promise to never return here. If not, we will slay you as we did your chieftain.

The cleric said:

If you answer our questions honestly we'll free you as long as you promise to never return here. If not, we will slay you as we did your chieftain which will make my god cry.

Wow. I didn't want to disrupt the flow of play, but internally I was taken aback by his modification. Questioning continued and the cleric took charge of the hobgoblin prisoner. As the hobgoblin started leading the party through their cave complex they encountered more hobgoblin guards.

The cleric stepped up with his prisoner and told them that their chieftain was dead and the party was willing to let them leave peacefully if they promised never to return. I decided to let the hobgoblins' reaction be decided by a roll. The first roll indicated that the would not attack but that they would growl and wait one round to hear what the cleric had to say. Also the next reaction roll would be at -4.

The cleric spoke to try to discourage the hobgoblins from attacking. I changed the modifier to -2 to show that his talk had some effect and then I rolled the dice. With the modifier the result was a 2 which indicated the hobgoblins attack.The hobgoblins won initiative and opened fire on the party with crossbows. Two bolts found their home in the captured hobgoblin's chest. He fell dead to the floor and the cleric was crest fallen as the fighters of the group rushed past him.

This was his a-ha moment. He knew how to play his cleric now. I don't think we'll need to roll up a new character for him and I can't wait to see what he does next time we play. I'm so pleased I got to see this moment first-hand.

Follow Your Bliss,
JJ

Narration Rights

A recent blog post from Troy Costisick has me thinking about narration rights in games. A while back I talked about including an Inspectres-style narration approach in my Back to Basics game. This went over wonderfully. It was embraced so well, in fact, that my sons have started doing it in our 3.5 edition of Eberron. All in all, this is great, but when we had an encounter in our most recent B2B session, I'm rethinking the whole thing.

Here's a little background. I'm running B2 Keep on the Borderlands, a Gygax classic. Since it came in my Basic boxed set of D&D I felt the need to run it. I never really understood D&D well enough back in the day to do it justice. I wanted to run it even more now as a way of sharing a bit 'history' with my boys (like explaining LPs and introducing them to Canadian rock legends Rush, much to my wife's chagrin).

I'm playing it as part of the B1-9 In Search of Adventure mega module. This adventure is just one stop along the way, but one I thought worth spending time on. It is very different from most of the other adventures in B1-9. Being released in the early years of D&D it lacked any 'boxed text' descriptions (more on this in another post). Its style is also more 'sandbox' oriented than story driven (again, more on this too in another post). Suffice it to say that B2 is more setting based rather than encounter or event based.

The event that triggered all this rethinking stems from the first set of caves they've been exploring - the kobold's lair. Specifically, when the hoards of little, scaly, dog-faced creatures started swarming the party the players wanted to describe their successful attacks. This had the effect of really slowing the game down. I felt the urge to keep the action moving and was chafing at their descriptions. I had thought that they could only describe their finishing moves when dispatching a kobold, but since almost every one of the little buggers dropped from one hit this didn't help to speed things along.

Let me state for the record that if our B2B group gets to play a total of three hours in one session that is rare. With the younger players, life and work schedules, we generally only get about two solid hours of play in any given week; it will take a total of three play sessions just to get through the kobold's lair. You can imagine how slow progression is in this situation.

At its roots, the issue is a battle between my gamist - tactical combat, problem-solving, room clearing, treasure grabbing - and narrativist - why are the characters doing what their doing, story telling - sides of me.

After reading Troy's post I see that the problem lies in trying to add narrative control to a task resolution system rather than a conflict based resolution. To highlight the difference: conflict based - characters wish to defeat or drive back the kobolds attacking them; task based - character swings his sword at the kobold in front of him. Since D&D deals with every swing and strike, it is inherently task based. Adding elaborate description to each swing adds a lay of detail that may smother play.

For now, to keep things moving, I'm planning on limiting the successful descriptions to make key encounters more special. This may tip my hand at 'boss level' encounters, but that is something I'll worry about after I've tried it out for a while.

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ

Hey, you got your story in my game!

I have been inspired by a recent Canon Puncture podcast (recent being a relative term, since I just plowed through over a year's worth of shows in several weeks' time) talking about items to loot from independent RPGs to bring into traditional RPGs. The particular loot I decided to work with was player narration of successes, borrowed from InSpectres. With the players' approval we added this concept to our last gaming session using Basic D&D.

Here is how it worked: Players would make their combat rolls as normal. If it was a successful attack they indicated the damage done. I would let them know if this was a fatal strike or not. The play would then narrate a short description of the successful strike within the parameters stated. If they failed their roll I would indicate why they missed their target. The same also was applied when the monsters attacked the PCs. If the monster hit, I would describe the attack; if the monster missed the player whose character was being attacked described how they avoided the blow.

This led to colorful descriptions and everyone getting into the fun. The orcs they battled seem to be more fearsome and the characters more heroic as a result. The players all contributed to the description. The orcs took on more three-dimentional and individualized aspects - they weren't just a bunch of orcs the party had to hack their way through, they were worthy foes. One of the descriptions also earned a player a +2 circumstantial bonus on his next attack when he described with such color why the orc missed him.

Another wonderful scene in the combat was when a player described his fatal attack as knocking back the dying orc from the force of the attack. I picked up the ball and ran with it to effect the way the orcs reacted on their movement by holding the action of one orc, keeping him from rushing forward to fill a void in the ranks, as he held his dying comrade in his arms. The next round the grieving orc charged forward with blood in his eyes (the orcs passed their second moral check).

The descriptions did slow combat down a bit. We were only able to get through the major encounter with the orcs and do some retracing of their footsteps in the current dungeon, but no one seemed to complain. The battle with the orcs was made more memorable because of the interactive descriptions.

As a side effect, the players started describing some of the aspects of the dungeon they were exploring. This was pulling in another item of loot, namely scene framing and colaborative narration from Primetime Adventures. When one player's character discovered a loose stone and an empty cavity in the wall a different player called out to turn the stone around to see what was hidden in the brick. The adventure called for nothing other than a cavity in the wall filled with treasure, but I decided to take the two potion bottles from the treasure and embed them in the hollow of the brick (much like Ben Franklin's spectacles from National Treasure, from which the player was pulling this image). There was no harm in this, and I would not have kept the treasure from them had they not added this, but this one detail made the experience more vivid in all the players' minds.

I hope this was helpful in illustrating that you can teach an old dog new tricks. Our group enjoyed the experience and I'm sure these story game elements will remain a regular part of our play. Next I'll try introducing some scripted NPC-only scenes to give the players a greater understading of the story behind their adventures. I'll be sure to let you know how that goes.

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ

RPGs and Goals

In looking back to the beginning of my passion for RPGs I also decided to more closely examine the games that I played in my younger days. As mentioned before, I've been running several RPG groups using Basic D&D to see if it still clicks and, more importantly, why it clicks in the first place. The short answer is that it does indeed still click because it is cool. If you're happy with that, stop reading; if not, read on.

In related research I came across this definition of a game by Kevin Maroney. Perhaps this would give me a clue as to why I loved RPGs so much more than card or board games. In short,

"A game is a form of play with goals and structure."

Very simple and straight forward. Let's see how it stacks up against RPGs. I think it's safe to say without much argument that RPGs have stucture, some more than others (Role Master vs. GHOST/ECHO). Without structure it's free-form. Board games have structure. Card games have structure. Video games have structure. Cool, one down two to go.

Play, according to Kevin, is best defined as the opposite of work. It's a leisure activity; it's fun. We engage in these activities with the primary purpose of entertaining ourselves and others. Sure it can be educational or inspirational, if used to learn a skill or lesson it can be viewed as training, but at it's heart it is entertainment, pure and simple. Here again I think that RPGs, most card games, board games and video games are a form of play. Neato, two down. Now to tackle goals.

Kevin says

"The actions that players take in a game are directed toward achieving a goal."

The goal of Monopoly is to have the most money at the end of the game. The goal of the card game War is to be the one with all the cards. The goal of Tic-Tac-Toe is to align your symbols. The goal of D&D is...different for everybody, or at the very least can have a nigh-endless variety of goals.

Basic D&D can be said to have one implied goal (and no, "to have fun" is not it a goal, it's play) and that is to explore and adventure. Early games had all the power and information in the hands of the DM with players exploring the game world through their characters. This exploration was the motivation for the characters to delve into dungeons, suspense high as the party moved from room to room. Traveling the land the party is driven to see what was over the next rise. As such, exploration is open-ended, well, at least as far as the DM had finished mapping.

But exploration is not enough. Exploration should lead to excitement and adventure; adventure leads to wonder. Part of this wonder was never knowing what was next. This is why we DMs have that screen we hide behind. Don't look behind the screen, you'll destroy the magic! But adventure was reason enough to gird your sword and heft your backpack. Goblins moved into the woods? Let's clear them out! Dragon holding a princess random? We'll bring her back. To adventure!!

Soon each adventure became it's own goal - we have to get back all seven parts of the rod, we have to destroy Vecna, the schemes of the giants and drow must be stopped at all costs. Cleverly strung together these adventures goals would build into larger campaign goals. It only ended when the players decided there were no more worthy goals to achieve.

(Now once players realized they did have power in the game, they stopped blindly following the DM's carrot-on-a-stick, but that's a discussion for another post.)

Now, alignment can be argued as a motivation: we're Lawful, so we have to clear the woods of goblins. I'm not buying that. The way I see it alignment is the way you explore for adventure, not the goal in and of itself. However, it can be part of a self-imposed goal: I'm going to portray the best Lawful fighter I can so he can become a Paladin at 9th level.

Self-imposed goals are truly limitless. The ability to make your own goals in the game sets RPGs apart from most other games. Each player could have their unique goals and these could be layered with the goals of the play group. As RPGs became more story driven, characters were created with an eye toward more specific goals - I will reforge the broken sword and reclaim the kingdom. As RPGs continued to grow and evolve the games began to be written with specific goals in mind, but this rarely precluded a player/character defining their own goals in a game.

Bringing this back to the my examination of Basic D&D and current play, I see more clearly the implications of exploration and adventure. Adventure modules were written with very little in the way of story hooks. It was often assumed the party of adventurers had heard news of troubles and were riding in to save the day. And guess what, it's still just as fun today as it was then with nothing more than a goal to explore and adventure in the shared imagined space created around the game table.

I look at my players now and they don't question the reason for adventuring. Exploration and adventure are their own motivation and reward. They don't think twice when the Patriarch asks them to investigate an ominous fortress on the borders of their land. They jump in both feet first. And I find myself cheering along with them.

But this ability to have dynamic goals is magic. I can start to see each player beginning to formulate unique goals - I want to get my character to second level so I can cast cure light wounds, I want my character to get more money, I want my character to slay more monsters. No doubt they will soon turn toward different goals - what does it mean to be Traladaran in the Grand Duchy; I want to join the Elven Guard; I want to rise above the poverty that I was born into; I will bring faith to the faithless.

But this introspection has also raised a question for another time: What is the goal of the GM?

This post has come about as the result of a rather serendipitous journey started when I asked Judd Karlman a question about libraries and gaming and he responded with some links for me to explore. Thanks Judd for putting me on this path, I can't wait to see where it takes me next!

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ

D&D Game Day 2009

This weekend to celebrate this year's D&D Game Day I will have gamed a total of 12 hours: 3 hours Friday night and 2 hours Saturday morning (DMing Team Beta in the Back to D&D Basics campaign), 4 hours Saturday afternoon (playing in a D&D 4E sanctioned event), and 3 hours Sunday evening (DMing Team Alpha in B2B). For me, especially these days, that is a lot of gaming.

The happenings regarding the B2B Campaign can be found here. It was a lot of fun to play so much D&D with my boys and their friends. Friday night's group encountered a magical trap which put one of their party to sleep. An attempt to wake him led to an entire room in the ruined castle of Mistamere being set aflame. Eventually the sleeping member was wakened from his slumber with the casting of a Dispel Magic spell by a high level magic-user (which also depleted the party's funds).

What I found amazing was that simple encounter was the talk of the night and went into the next day when we sat down again to play a couple more rooms before having to return boys to their respective homes. This glimpse into their sense of wonder at the event was enlightening and encouraging that the time spent playing was truly appreciated by all.

As a counterpoint my experience with the Game Day event at a local game store was...interesting. My expectation was that this would be a scripted beginning adventure for 1st level pre-gen characters. The adventure was not scripted. In fact it was more of an adventure toolkit than actual adventure. And the pre-gen characters were not 1st level.

Each table of participants first gathered to create the adventure. This included selecting the creatures to be used in each of the two encounters and providing tactics and background story to get the party of characters involved in the action. This sounds like a great idea, but I would imagine this would seem very unusual to a person who had never played D&D before and was participating in the event to see what all the fuss was about.

Once the adventure was created the DM from our table went to a different table to run the adventure that was just created. Likewise, another DM came to our table to run his adventure for us. Now this seems odd to me because his adventure used all or most of the same pieces-parts (i.e., monsters) that our adventure had used. We had all read over the monster stats as we were putting together our adventure. Somehow there was little room for wonder once we got into play.

I will admit that the way that the monsters were implemented and the background to the adventure were unique in each case, but, I don't know, it didn't really sing to me. I knew that we would be facing minotaurs and dark dwarves, probably a scarecrow and demon priest. I guess it's no different than going to see a Bruce Willis movie and knowing he'll save the day, but not knowing how he'll get there.

The characters that we had to pick from were all 6th level, which in 4E means they have a laundry list of abilities as long as my arm (and I was playing a human fighter). In fact, some basic abilities were left off the sheets due to space limitations. I have played 4E on two other occasions and I've been playing RPGs long enough to stumble my way through. But if I had been a new-comer to the hobby, I think I would have walked away thinking this is way too complicated to be fun.

Another thing that rubbed me the wrong way was that once we arrived there were seats for us to join, but we each had to go to different tables. I didn't get to see how my son played. That left me a little sad and may have colored my overall appreciation of the event. I did enjoy gaming with the players at my table - most of whom I'd have no problem inviting to one of my games. This exposure to other players was refreshing.

In hindsight the event was not to get new players into the hobby. It was an event for experienced players. This too makes me sad. I was likening Game Day to Free Comic Book Day, in which people who did not read comics or had stopped reading comics could see what today's comic books were all about.

Participating in the event did introduce me to new players and got me into a store that I seldom visit (I was disappointed that a store closer to my home had not planned ahead and had not Game Day events). I now have the opportunity to join a local gaming group with ties to Bash Con, a local gaming convention. So maybe the event did what it was supposed to do, even it was not what I was expecting.

I hope players that enjoy D&D were able to participate in a Game Day event or celebrated D&D in some form or fashion.

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ

Know the Rules

Everything I really need to know I learned from D&D - #1

The first game of D&DB I ever played (which goes without saying, my first game of D&D ever) was as Dungeon Master (DM). I had read the rules cover-to-cover (the booklet wasn't that big back then) and was going to run a short adventure into an abandoned keep. I found a few of my junior high school friends and gathered around the table to play on a warm summer afternoon. With weapons in hand, the characters set off in search of Adventure.

Things were sailing along smoothly (for less than 5 minutes) until the party encountered its first obstacle: skeletons. Skeletons were labeled as first level monsters and the party was full of first level characters; a perfect match. The problems didn't start until the characters started rolling dice to hit the skeleton. They rolled and missed. The skeletons would roll and miss. The party would roll and miss and then the skeletons would roll and miss. This went on for several minutes before one of my friends asked how this was supposed to be fun. Something was amiss.

I checked back through the rules on combat and re-read them. I soon discovered my fatal mistake. When determining the number needed to hit the skeletons I took it as literally the number needed to hit; the party had to roll that number and nothing else would do. Well, red faced, I quickly discovered my misinterpretation: the phrase "...or higher..." seemed to slip my memory when it was time to play. Combat went much smoother after that.

This small detail goes to show how drastically a misunderstanding of a rule can impact the play of a game. Some games are complex and require an intimate knowledge of the rules in order to run smoothly. Some games are simple but open to interpretation. Both present challenges.

When handling a game with a very large rule set it is often best to take it in chunks. Focus on the rules that will be used first. In the introductory chapter of Mouse Guard, Luke Crane outlines the four chapters of the book that should be read first in the section entitled 'Getting Started'. Character creation is not one of the chapters listed. In fact, character creation is one of the last chapters in the book. IMO, Luke is saying, "Wait! Before you even think about creating your character, play the sample missions with the sample characters to see how the spokes fit in the wheel!"

In D&D I look at rules on an encounter-by-encounter basis. Whether reading a prepared encounter or designing one from scratch, I ask myself this question: "What do I need to know in order to run this encounter." I open the rule book to the index and start boning up on rules that will be utilized. Next I look at the characters in the party and see what they could possibly use to resolve this encounter: racial and class traits, feats, type of combat favored, spells.

The last one deserves added attention. It is prudent to read over the spells that both the players and NPCs have access to. I did this not very long ago where I was operating from what I thought the spell did as opposed to what it actually did (just goes to show, it doesn't matter how old you are, there is always room for improvement). Bottom line - read over the spells often to be sure you are on track. Don't worry about the spells that the characters can't cast yet, focus on the ones they have access to.

For games with less structure a healthy dose of interpretation is required to make things move along smoothly. To help prevent misunderstandings I recommend creating a social contract to outline the expected behavior and guidelines for handling disputes. This can be a simple as "if we get stuck we'll wing it" or "we'll roll for the outcome and discuss it after the session". Play of a wide variety of games helps to provide players with a resource of numerous options - "we did it this way in Shadowrun, so let's do the same thing here." For groups that have played together for a long time the social contract is more implied than explicit, but it never hurts to discuss the contract to keep it fresh in your mind.

It should be noted that while the preceeding paragraphs were from a DM point of view, the same holds equally true for players. Know the rules that apply to your character. If you play a cleric, know and understand the rules for turning undead. If you play a spell caster, know your spells and all the rules that apply to spell casting (range, spell components, recovery, saving throws). Don't put everything on the DM's shoulders, step up and help lighten the load.

It wasn't long before I realized that knowing the rules applied to pretty much anything you came across in life. We spend a good portion of the first 18 years of our lives 'learning the ropes' before we are considered an adult. Heck, I'm still trying to keep it all straight. Rules give structure and order and should (hopefully) be equitable to all parties involved. Whether it is office culture or computer programming, take the time to learn the rules. If there is a lot of ground to cover, learn what you need to get the job done. If the rules are a little nebulous, fall back on your past experiences and do your best. We're still gonna make mistakes, but hopefully they are mistakes we can learn from.

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ

A Sense of Wonder

Last night I had the pleasure of helping a friend introduce his oldest son (8 years of age) to D&D. To do this I broke out my magenta (pink) D&D Basic Set (D&DB). We sat down around his dining room table - he and his son, me (DM) and my two boys along with two (adult) neighborhood friends, the latter two never having played D&D before - and proceeded to created characters for the upcoming adventure to the Haunted Keep.

The character creation process was such that it vexed my oldest son. He has been a player of AD&D3.5 for roughly four years now. He had a particular notion in his head about 'how things should be'. To help illustrate this let me breifly explain the character creation process for D&DB.

1. Roll 3d6 6 times and assign the values in order to the abilities (Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution and Charisma)
2. Look over the scores and see which is highest (this indicating suitable class choices) and deciding whether the character is eligible to be a demi-human (Dwarf, Elf, Halfling). Choose class/race (more on this in a moment).
3. Adjust ability scores (lower non-essential abilities to raise a Prime Requisite)
4. Roll 3d6X10 for starting gold and buy your equipment

What troubled my son was his rolls. Only a couple were in the double digits. While this did not disquilify him from any class he felt that fate had delt him a poor hand. Added to this was the fact that the demi-human races were each a Class (note the capital C) unto themselves, and he felt he was greatly wronged ("What do you mean there is no Halfling Thief?"). I did let him re-roll his stats and start over and he did get stats more to his liking. But this got me thinking about the wonder of character creation in D&D.

Creating characters in the manner described above lends itself to a process of discovery rather than one of sculpting a character to meet some predefined expectation. This is probably why point-buy systems are so popular: Want a super strong fighter? Pay your points and you got it! But when these random numbers are there staring you in the face, you have to ask yourself, "what can I do with this?"

In some cases it is obvious. One player had a fairly average set or rolls except for an 18 in Intelligence. His character seemed predestined to be a Magic-User, which is what he chose. However, there was absolutely nothing keeping him from playing a Fighter, Cleric or Thief (other than Experieince point bonuses there is no real drawback to playing a class with a low Prime Requisite ability score; no limits on spells due to low intelligence or wisdom). In this case he was playing to his strengths: high intelligence = Magic-User.

But what if his stats were more middle of the road? Really, he could be anything he wanted to be; it was all in what those numbers meant to him. This is where the wonder comes into to play. Let's look at the character with the high intelligence again. Sure, the logical choice is Magic-User, but what about the other classes?

• An inquisitive Halfling traveling far from home to explore and catalogue the known world
• A brilliant Fighter that relies on strategems rather than strength of arms
• A knowledgable Cleric who had memorized the holy scriptures at a young age and wished to apply those teachings to the world
• A quick-witted Thief seeking to pit his incredible intellect against all the puzzels and traps the world could throw at him
• A cunning Elf that sought to perfect the combination of magic and arms into a formatable fighting style
• A clever Dwarf out to use his exceptional intelligence to invest his earnings as an adventurer and turn it into a comfortable retirement

Being open to the possibilities, no predefined set of expectations - this is the beauty and magic of wonder: anything is possible. I did notice this to some degree with several of the newer players. They listened to the possibilities then chose a class that somehow spoke to them through those ability scores. For the more veteran players, especially schooled in the art of min/maxing, it can be more difficult.

Now, I don't think that players should ignore party balance and factors that would cause friction in the group (alignment and Barbarian/Magic-User coflicts leap to mind). I had one player wait until everyone else had picked their class before he decided what he was going to be. He has always been one to fill in the gaps in party balance. But I can't help but wonder how much more fun it would be if he played the first character that popped into his head after rolling the stats.

Try this yourself. No matter which version of D&D you are playing, use the character creation steps above (especially the first two steps) and see what those ability scores say to you. Feel free to post the outcome in the comments of this article; I'd love to hear what you discovered.

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ

PS. For those interested in the outcome of the adventure we played, I ran the sample dungeon out of the back of the D&DB book. The party fell into a pit trap, listened at lots of doors, avoided a water hazard, were surprised by a band of Hobgoblins, slayed all but one, made him reveal the location of the prisoners, defeated the Hobgoblins guarding the prisoners, and made it out of the Haunted Keep with only a few bumps and bruises. All had a great time and look forward to playing again soon.

In The Beginning... (Part 2)

So, I had just discovered the most interesting game (D&D) I had ever heard of and had no way acquiring it. What was a fledgling gamer to do? The only recourse I had was to create a version of the game myself.

So I spent many long hours in my unfinished basement, a dark and solitary place (probably to help foster that dungeon atmosphere), working on my version of D&D. I created maps and made cut-out miniatures. I tried to imagine how to define the abilities of ghosts and other monsters. I had a lot of fun doing all this, but, ultimately, my efforts went nowhere (good thing the hobby wasn't depending on me to help get it off the ground). I eventually turned my attention elsewhere and forgot about D&D, but D&D didn't forget about me.

A short time later (exactly when I'll discuss shortly), as I remember it, I received a present from a neighborhood friend for my birthday. Low and behold it was a magenta (I always thought it more of a pink) box emblazoned with the title Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (D&DB). This box featured the wonderful Erol Otus painting featuring two adventurers about to encounter a green dragon (I love even more the fact that this painting appeared within the cloud of a clairvoyance spell cast by a wizard which was used for the cover of the D&DX box set of the same edition). I was thrilled. It was more of a surprise because I don't remember telling anybody about this game or my desire to play it.

It's important for me to know when this happened. This was one of those pivotal points in my life; I want to understand it to its fullest. This transpired during the time that I moved from junior high school into high school. So many other things were changing then as well - my friends and my father's health just to name a few. I sometimes feel that I stepped onto a path at that juncture in my life, a path that is leading somewhere I can't yet see. I'm trying to better remember and understand my past to chart a solid course for the future.

I always thought this event took place in the late 70's, but according to acaeum.com this edition of D&DB (the 8th) was not released until 1981. This would put me in the second half of my 8th grade year of junior high school (I just realized the synchronicity of this occurrence - 8th edition in my 8th year of school, in my house we would call that a 'magic number'). I remember playing it over the summer with friends that did not attend the same high school to which I was enrolled. If I had received it for my birthday that year I would have already been in high school and therefore would not have played it with my junior high friends. I must have received it as a late gift or some such event that I'm blocking out of memory. For now I'll go with the year being 1981 when my passion for role-playing games was born.

Some might call it an obsession. It was not long after I received D&DB that I purchased (from the Sears toy department) the D&DX (with the cool, aforementioned Erol Otus cover) released the same year (as a side note, the first edition of D&DB was released in 1977 and D&DX was not released until 1981; imagine waiting 4 years before you could rise above 3rd level!). During my freshman year of high school I was introduced to AD&D1 (which was in full swing by then) and never looked back. By the end of high school I had all the core AD&D1 books, many modules, and my library was growing still. In college I began exploring games outside of the TSR line, but that is a story for another time.

With boxed set under my arm I set off on a journey that continues today, seeking high adventure in its many forms. And all is right in the realm.

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ

PS. I did eventually find a hobby store that carried role-playing games products. It was a store out in the suburbs of Cleveland, not far from my high school, that carried all the usual hobby supplies - models trains, planes and automobiles. It also had two book cases devoted to RPGs, right next to the war games. It was a small slice of Nirvana.