Dungeons and Dragons, a return

Flying Crane

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We’ve talked a bit about D&D here in the past and I wanted to come back to it for a moment. Couldn’t find the thread I was thinking of, so I’m starting a new one.

I played the game starting probably in the very early 1980s when I was in grade school. I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember enjoying it a lot. We started with the basic set, then the Expert set, and eventually the first edition of the AD&D series, the Player’s Handbook, the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and the Monster Manual. My older brother and I played with a group of neighborhood kids who were a few years older than us, but we were welcomed into it.

Later, my brother and I would play a bit on our own, sometimes bringing in some other friends to join us. I was away from it for a few years but then played a bit again in High School, at the very end of the 1980s.

I haven't played since, but often found myself nostalgic for it. I felt like I would likely never play again, I was just busy with other things in life, I didn’t have connections with anyone who was playing, my wife grew up in the group of kids who thought D&D was for stupid nerds, and since I never played the role of Dungeon Master, I found the idea of starting my own group rather daunting.

So now my wife and I have been watching Stranger Things on Netflix, the show is set in the mid 1980s which is exactly the era we grew up in, and the characters play a lot of D&D, suddenly the interest is back up. Our son is eight years old, we are reading The Lord of the Rings together and he has seen the movies many times. So I finally bought the current edition Starter set, taught myself to be DM, and last night we had our first session of play. We had a lot of fun, didn’t accomplish much and it will take a while before we become good at it and I become a skilled DM, but it was great.

Just wanted to share.
 

Steve

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We’ve talked a bit about D&D here in the past and I wanted to come back to it for a moment. Couldn’t find the thread I was thinking of, so I’m starting a new one.

I played the game starting probably in the very early 1980s when I was in grade school. I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember enjoying it a lot. We started with the basic set, then the Expert set, and eventually the first edition of the AD&D series, the Player’s Handbook, the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and the Monster Manual. My older brother and I played with a group of neighborhood kids who were a few years older than us, but we were welcomed into it.

Later, my brother and I would play a bit on our own, sometimes bringing in some other friends to join us. I was away from it for a few years but then played a bit again in High School, at the very end of the 1980s.

I haven't played since, but often found myself nostalgic for it. I felt like I would likely never play again, I was just busy with other things in life, I didn’t have connections with anyone who was playing, my wife grew up in the group of kids who thought D&D was for stupid nerds, and since I never played the role of Dungeon Master, I found the idea of starting my own group rather daunting.

So now my wife and I have been watching Stranger Things on Netflix, the show is set in the mid 1980s which is exactly the era we grew up in, and the characters play a lot of D&D, suddenly the interest is back up. Our son is eight years old, we are reading The Lord of the Rings together and he has seen the movies many times. So I finally bought the current edition Starter set, taught myself to be DM, and last night we had our first session of play. We had a lot of fun, didn’t accomplish much and it will take a while before we become good at it and I become a skilled DM, but it was great.

Just wanted to share.
I don’t play much anymore but I did pick up the current rules to teach my youngest. She plays with her friends now in real life and also in a virtual session with friends from her school. I really like the current rule set. I’m a big fan of the 3.5e rules and 5e seems to be a simpler version, lighter on mechanics and more geared toward storytelling.

Like you, I’ve been playing since the early 80s when elf was both a race and a class and we had dice that were not very regular in shape and came with a crayon. 😅
 

jks9199

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Like you, I’ve been playing since the early 80s when elf was both a race and a class and we had dice that were not very regular in shape and came with a crayon. 😅
I had those dice, too...

And the hardbacked Advanced game sets, too...

And played Traveller (you can actually find a free version of the Traveller RPG if you dig around a little online), and several others like a James Bond themed rule set, and space/sci-fi themed boxed set.
 

Tony Dismukes

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I started with AD&D back in my teens, then didn’t play for about 25 years. Then about 15 years ago my wife and I were looking for a social activity in a new town and ended up meeting some people for D&D. We started with 4th edition, then Pathfinder, then 5th edition, with a few other systems mixed in on occasion. We’ve had probably 10-20 different people rotate through the group over the years, but we’re back to some of the same people we started with 15 years ago. During the pandemic we switched from in-person to playing online and now we’re still mostly online, meeting in person about once per month.
 
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Flying Crane

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I started with AD&D back in my teens, then didn’t play for about 25 years. Then about 15 years ago my wife and I were looking for a social activity in a new town and ended up meeting some people for D&D. We started with 4th edition, then Pathfinder, then 5th edition, with a few other systems mixed in on occasion. We’ve had probably 10-20 different people rotate through the group over the years, but we’re back to some of the same people we started with 15 years ago. During the pandemic we switched from in-person to playing online and now we’re still mostly online, meeting in person about once per month.
I had read online that 4e was difficult to play with, had some kind of mandatory miniatures that made it expensive, and just wasn’t a great edition. That is probably what was on the shelves when I would see it in the stores and wax nostalgic, but throw up my hands at the idea of trying to reconnect with it. It just felt like it had grown into something that I couldn’t catch up to again.

But 5e has been better organized and made easier to play again. I would like to get my hands on an early edition of the basic and expert sets, for posterity.
 

Steve

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I had those dice, too...

And the hardbacked Advanced game sets, too...

And played Traveller (you can actually find a free version of the Traveller RPG if you dig around a little online), and several others like a James Bond themed rule set, and space/sci-fi themed boxed set.
Oh yeah. Boot Hill, gamma world, top secret, villains and vigilantes, traveller, champions, auto duel…. I dont think there’s one We didn’t play! 😅

Regarding 4e, I skipped that one and moved to pathfinder, which was a lot of fun.
 

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It's fun to see how many on this board play D&D.

I was introduced to D&D in ~1979 in elementary school and have kept it up ever since. I've played a huge number of different RPGs over the years and hundreds of hours of D&D during that time. These days I mostly GM Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying, Traveller (Mongoose 1st ed.), and Earthdawn (FASA 4th edition), but I'll play in pretty much anything. I haven't played 5th ed. D&D yet, but I've heard good things about it.

It's funny how things work out. I've spent most of my life in either IT or the fitness industry after leaving bar tending in my middle 20's, but with Covid everything has changed. I've closed my gym and moved cross country. My tech resume is a little stale at this point and I didn't have the contacts here I did in Seattle. I never thought playing RPGs would lead to work, but back at the end of 2021 one of the guys who's played in my games for close to 20 years asked me to write flash fiction and do narrative design and content development for a computer game startup he's involved with. So, now in my early 50's I'm doing something completely new for a living, that's also something I've been doing as a hobby since I was like 8 years old and developing sci-fi, fantasy and other settings for a game company.

I've attached an image that I thought might amuse some of you. It's just the RPGs that I bothered to haul cross country and then unpack at this point.
 

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Flying Crane

Flying Crane

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It's fun to see how many on this board play D&D.

I was introduced to D&D in ~1979 in elementary school and have kept it up ever since. I've played a huge number of different RPGs over the years and hundreds of hours of D&D during that time. These days I mostly GM Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying, Traveller (Mongoose 1st ed.), and Earthdawn (FASA 4th edition), but I'll play in pretty much anything. I haven't played 5th ed. D&D yet, but I've heard good things about it.

It's funny how things work out. I've spent most of my life in either IT or the fitness industry after leaving bar tending in my middle 20's, but with Covid everything has changed. I've closed my gym and moved cross country. My tech resume is a little stale at this point and I didn't have the contacts here I did in Seattle. I never thought playing RPGs would lead to work, but back at the end of 2021 one of the guys who's played in my games for close to 20 years asked me to write flash fiction and do narrative design and content development for a computer game startup he's involved with. So, now in my early 50's I'm doing something completely new for a living, that's also something I've been doing as a hobby since I was like 8 years old and developing sci-fi, fantasy and other settings for a game company.

I've attached an image that I thought might amuse some of you. It's just the RPGs that I bothered to haul cross country and then unpack at this point.
Wow, that is quite the collection! I see there is a game based on Thieves’ World. I read those books back as a teenager, didn’t know there was a game based on it.
 

Rich Parsons

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I was introduced in Summer of '79 going into 8th grade.
I have played Basic, Expert, AD&D 1st, 2nd, 5th & Pathfinder 1 & 2.
The little dabbles into 3.0 / 3,5 I do not count. Never tried 4th .

We also played Boot Hill, Gamma World , Star Wars D6, Top Secret and may others.

I have played Shadowrun form 1st through 5th (including Anniversary). Interaction with the game designers at a Con stopped me while in 5th and have not looked at 6th at all.

World of Darkness, preferred Mage, and have played some Vampire and also Changeling. Just read some Werewolf and Wraith.
I Did not like the next versions after the 90's.

I have played a little Cyber Punk.

I have played Hero, Twilight 2000, Outbreak Undead , and many more

I have helped friends work on their own games, some got published and or their works got them a named position with others.

Currently play testing some rules for a friend.


Never really took a break from Gaming. If one game was down, I would run Shadowrun or something else and find a way to play once a month.
 

Steve

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One of my favorite things about the D20 ruleset is that it really maximized flexibility to take levels in different classes, which made coming up with concepts for a PC really wide open. That along with some rules for monstrous PCs and a little creativity (and a receptive DM), you could come up with whatever crazy idea you wanted and figure out a build. Want to play a rank and file soldier who always felt like he was meant for something more and discovers some wild magical ability? you could even allude to some ancient connection to dragons and start giving him levels in sorcerer. I've run clumsy rogues and dumb wizards, and everything in between. Super fun, and they could be done in a way that was viable.

5e seems to have taken that even further, making it extremely inclusive and welcoming to everyone, including folks with disabilities. One of the kids in my daughter's group uses a wheelchair in real life, and has adopted the rules for a "combat wheelchair" that were developed as a bit of homebrew equipment.

I'm also really happy to see that the D&D community seems to be very diverse and inclusive now, compared to 20 or 30 years ago.
 
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Flying Crane

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I was introduced in Summer of '79 going into 8th grade.
I have played Basic, Expert, AD&D 1st, 2nd, 5th & Pathfinder 1 & 2.
The little dabbles into 3.0 / 3,5 I do not count. Never tried 4th .

We also played Boot Hill, Gamma World , Star Wars D6, Top Secret and may others.

I have played Shadowrun form 1st through 5th (including Anniversary). Interaction with the game designers at a Con stopped me while in 5th and have not looked at 6th at all.

World of Darkness, preferred Mage, and have played some Vampire and also Changeling. Just read some Werewolf and Wraith.
I Did not like the next versions after the 90's.

I have played a little Cyber Punk.

I have played Hero, Twilight 2000, Outbreak Undead , and many more

I have helped friends work on their own games, some got published and or their works got them a named position with others.

Currently play testing some rules for a friend.


Never really took a break from Gaming. If one game was down, I would run Shadowrun or something else and find a way to play once a month.
I really cannot recall when I started, but it is possible it was the very end of the 1970s, I would have been in third or possibly fourth grade. That seems pretty young, but I think it is possible.

I recall Twighlight 2000 and Villains and Vigilantes, I believe I played those a little bit with friends in high school, around the same time we did D&D.

I had the Top Secret game but only tried to play it once or twice, I was a miserable GM at the time.
 

Wing Woo Gar

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We’ve talked a bit about D&D here in the past and I wanted to come back to it for a moment. Couldn’t find the thread I was thinking of, so I’m starting a new one.

I played the game starting probably in the very early 1980s when I was in grade school. I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember enjoying it a lot. We started with the basic set, then the Expert set, and eventually the first edition of the AD&D series, the Player’s Handbook, the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and the Monster Manual. My older brother and I played with a group of neighborhood kids who were a few years older than us, but we were welcomed into it.

Later, my brother and I would play a bit on our own, sometimes bringing in some other friends to join us. I was away from it for a few years but then played a bit again in High School, at the very end of the 1980s.

I haven't played since, but often found myself nostalgic for it. I felt like I would likely never play again, I was just busy with other things in life, I didn’t have connections with anyone who was playing, my wife grew up in the group of kids who thought D&D was for stupid nerds, and since I never played the role of Dungeon Master, I found the idea of starting my own group rather daunting.

So now my wife and I have been watching Stranger Things on Netflix, the show is set in the mid 1980s which is exactly the era we grew up in, and the characters play a lot of D&D, suddenly the interest is back up. Our son is eight years old, we are reading The Lord of the Rings together and he has seen the movies many times. So I finally bought the current edition Starter set, taught myself to be DM, and last night we had our first session of play. We had a lot of fun, didn’t accomplish much and it will take a while before we become good at it and I become a skilled DM, but it was great.

Just wanted to share.
My training brothers and I have had a weekly game for 24 years. Come on up and have a sit down. Jess o Brien is a player. Nei Jia Quan author.
 

Wing Woo Gar

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Oh yeah. Boot Hill, gamma world, top secret, villains and vigilantes, traveller, champions, auto duel…. I dont think there’s one We didn’t play! 😅

Regarding 4e, I skipped that one and moved to pathfinder, which was a lot of fun.
Boot Hill! Awesome!
 

Wing Woo Gar

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I really cannot recall when I started, but it is possible it was the very end of the 1970s, I would have been in third or possibly fourth grade. That seems pretty young, but I think it is possible.

I recall Twighlight 2000 and Villains and Vigilantes, I believe I played those a little bit with friends in high school, around the same time we did D&D.

I had the Top Secret game but only tried to play it once or twice, I was a miserable GM at the time.
I played most of those. I got my first basic set around 1979. been hooked ever since. I probably have around 3500 miniatures, mostly metal, mostly painted. Some are from the 70s grenadier sets but most date from 1980s Ral Partha up to my most recent acquisitions from 2019. Anyone ever play a judges guild module called The Dark Tower? It has been reprinted for 5th Ed. Rules. The company who reprinted it also made a series of figurines that go with the module and represent most of the encountered individuals. I bought the whole set and painted them ahead of starting the campaign. It was great to have the actual figures for both adversaries and allies.
 

Steve

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Gamma World was good. Having played a lot of AD&D, there was something exotic about the hex patter maps and the tech discovery matrixes. I also liked the idea of that post-apocalyptic setting.

Autoduel Champions was another really fun one. My brother and I played both Car Wars and Champions, so combining the two was a no brainer. Mad Max style car battles plus superheroes? Yes, please.

I don't think I'll ever play this game again, but I'll keep this book because it has a lot of good memories of playing with my brother.


autoduelchampions.jpg
 
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Flying Crane

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We have always stayed very tight. There are quite a few of us left that still train. We have a set of five year students that we have been bringing into the fold. Most of the younger s are late 20s or early 30s. The invite was sincere. You are welcome.
Very much appreciated. If I find myself heading in that direction I’ll definitely get in touch.

And of course if you ever find yourself in the Sacramento area, please do get in touch.
 
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