The
folks over at D20 Dark Ages issued a blogging challenge for the month of
February to commemorate the 40th anniversary of that most venerable of Role
Playing Games, Dungeons & Dragons. Well, I failed that
challenge because it’s now March 9 and I’m just now getting around to tackling
the list of 28 questions that were supposed to be answered one per day during
the month of February and I’m also not linking my blog to the random hop to
other blogs since it’s well past the end. I hate that I missed out on the
challenge, but figured I’d still answer the questions - albeit in one chunk
instead of one per day.
Day 1:
First person who introduced you to D&D? Which edition? Your first
Character?
I don’t know that I can say that there was one single person
who introduced me to D&D. I kind of introduced myself when I found the “red
box” basic edition at a local discount department store next to the board
games. From there, I found out that a friend of mine already played, and so I
guess I could say that he “introduced” me to it, but only because I had already
discovered it on my own.
I honestly don’t remember my very first character. The first
character I remember is Uhnk, a half-orc fighter who was one of my first
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1st edition) characters. To this
day, I use the name “Uhnk” for my main character in World of Warcraft®
and as an online handle for Twitter (Uhnk13).
Day 2:
First person YOU introduced to D&D? Which edition? THEIR first character?
I’m not sure, but I
think it may have been either my friend James from school, or the next door
neighbor Chris (who was a few years younger than me). Again, no idea what their
characters’ names were because that was 30-ish years ago.
Day 3:
First dungeon you explored as a PC or ran as a DM.
The first dungeon I
explored was the introductory adventure that came as part of the basic set; the
printing of it that I had came with a thin, sort of “choose your own adventure”
story booklet to help introduce new players to the game. That same basic set
came with another introductory adventure that I used to try to DM the people
mentioned in the answer for Day 2.
Day 4:
First dragon you slew (or some other powerful monster).
Funny as it may seem,
I don’t recall every slaying a dragon while playing Dungeons & Dragons. I
recall slaying a basilisk in one of my first adventures, and Uhnk befriended a
baby gold dragon once, but I don’t think any of my characters ever slew a
dragon.
Day 5:
First character to go from 1st level to 20th level (or highest possible level
in a given edition).
Actually, I’ve never
had a character make it to level 20. Uhnk made it as far as level 11 or 12 I
think, but that’s the highest level character I ever had in D&D.
Day 6:
First character death. How did you handle it?
Believe it or not, I
don’t believe I’ve ever had a character die in D&D. I guess I’ve just been
lucky.
Day 7:
First D&D Product you ever bought. Do you still have it?
The Dungeons &
Dragons Basic Set (aka, the “red box); no, I do not still have it. In fact, due
to going through a couple of ultra-religious phases in my late teens and again
in my mid-twenties, there are quite a few RPG materials that I no longer own
from back when I first started playing.
Day 8:
First set of polyhedral dice you owned. Do you still use them?
My first set of
polyhedral dice were the ones that came in the basic set; no, I don’t still
have them.
Day 9:
First campaign setting (homebrew or published) you played in.
The first campaign
setting I played in was, I guess, more or less, homebrew, but it was based on
the setting from the basic D&D set, “The Grand Duchy of Karameikos”.
Day 10:
First gaming magazine you ever bought (Dragon, Dungeon, White Dwarf, etc.).
Day 11:
First splatbook you begged your DM to approve.
I’m not 100% sure
what a “splatbook” is, but if this means a supplement to the core rules, we
usually used elements taken from Dragon
articles.
Day 12:
First store where you bought your gaming supplies. Does it still exist?
The first store where
I bought D&D was a discount department store called Rose’s. They are still
in business, but I think they only exist in North Carolina and, frankly,
they’ve pretty much become a junk store of sorts. There were also a couple of
hobby stores that I frequented in Fayetteville, NC; one was called Hayes Hobby
House, which still exists but they were never a gaming store per se – the
primarily deal in model trains I think. The other was called The Hobbit Hobby
Shop and it does still exist and was one of, if not the, first hobby stores to
carry Dungeons & Dragons when it first launched in 1974.
Day 13:
First miniature(s) you used for D&D.
The first miniatures
I used in D&D were purchased from Hayes Hobby House. It was a three pack of pewter miniatures that
featured were, I think, generic fighter/knight types of models.
Day 14:
Did you meet your significant other while playing D&D? Does he or she still
play? (Or just post a randomly generated monster in protest of Valentine's
Day).
No, my fiancée and I
met while working at a book store a little over 11 years ago. I’ve tried a few
times to get her to join me in role playing games, but it’s not really her
thing. She has, on occasion, enjoyed watching my gaming group play – for her
it’s like watching “living room theater”.
Day 15:
What was the first edition you didn't enjoy. Why?
I wasn’t a terribly
big fan of AD&D 2nd Edition. I felt like too much of the
original flavor was taken away. I’m also not excited about 4th
edition as I feel that the new combat rules cause the game to become more of a
board game instead of a role playing game (then again, while I did like the
streamlining of the rules in edition 3/3.5, it also had a tendency to become a
board game whenever there were combat scenarios).
Day 16:
Do you remember your first edition war? Did you win? ;)
I’ve never really
“warred” with anyone over which edition was better. I’ve had discussions with
friends about the different editions, but they were never particularly heated.
Day 17:
First time you heard D&D was somehow "evil."
I started playing
D&D in the mid to late 1980’s, which is when a good deal of the “D&D is
evil” arguments were floating around. I remember being made to watch a 60
Minutes interview with one of the game’s inventers, Gary Gygax, during the
height of those controversial days of being a player of D&D.
Day 18:
First gaming convention you ever attended.
I’ve never had the pleasure of attending one.
Day 19:
First gamer who just annoyed the hell out of you.
His name was Chad. He
had uncanny luck with dice roles, tended to overact when he roleplayed and was
“that guy” that always played, essentially, the same character over and over
and over.
Day 20:
First non-D&D RPG you played.
Star Frontiers; this was actually the first RPG I ever
bought. I don’t think it exists anymore, at least not officially, although it
does still live on via a fan site. It was published by the same company that
originally made D&D, TSR, Inc.
Day 21:
First time you sold some of your D&D books--for whatever reason.
Sometime around 1989 when I started attending a church youth
group I actually allowed myself to start believing the “D&D is evil”
bullshit and sold all of D&D books and materials to a local used bookstore.
I was actually admonished by one of my youth leaders for selling them instead
of burning them.
Day 22: First D&D-based novel you ever read (Dragonlance
Trilogy, Realms novels, etc.)
The first, and so far
only, D&D based novels I’ve read were the original Dragonlance Chronicles back in the 80s.
Day 23:
First song that comes to mind that you associate with D&D. Why?
Yeah; I got nuthin’.
Sorry.
Day 24:
First movie that comes to mind that you associate with D&D. Why?
Believe it or not,
the first movie that comes to mind is Mazes & Monsters, which was actually and anti-D&D
film. I recently found a copy of the novel of the same name that the film was
based upon at my local library, but I didn’t make it past the first third of
the book just because it wasn’t that well written, in my opinion.
Day 25:
Longest running campaign/gaming group you've been in.
Probably my first one, back when I was 13 or 14 years old. We
played as a group through, for me anyway, around 7th grade through
10th grade.
Day 26:
Do you still game with the people who introduced you to the hobby?
No, I can’t say that I do. I’ve not even been in contact
with any of them in decades.
Day 27:
If you had to do it all over again, would you do anything different when you
first started gaming?
It has been said that
hind sight is 20/20; if I had anything to do over again it would be to not have
gotten rid of any of the books and materials I had from back when I started
gaming.
Day 28:
What is the single most important lesson you've learned from playing Dungeons
& Dragons?
The biggest take away
I have from gaming is an appreciation for reading and for art. Prior to playing
D&D, I wasn’t much of a reader (like most teenagers, I suppose). Even
though my early reading interests were so I could get ideas for the game, the
end result is that I developed a love of reading and of books, and not just
fantasy and science-fiction stories – I also found that I liked reading about
history and other topics as well.
~ JC
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