Your First Roll

There is a lot of talk around the release of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons reprints in honor of Gary Gygax, and I too have been caught up by it. Like so many D&D was the game that brought me into the hobby that I love so dearly, and it puts us in a very sentimental mindset. Well it does for me anyway.

D&D is the Godfather of modern RPGs and it is on that foundation that so much was built. No, it wasn’t the only game in town, but it is the one that blew up to get the exposure needed to pull in so many of us. Now it was not just the release of these D&D reprints that did this, but also a question on Google+ that made me start thinking about the games that hooked me.

The question was one that is not asked nearly enough. “What was the second RPG that you ever played?” Great question and this is why. The seed was already put into place with our first game, but there was that longing for what else there is out there. That sense of learning and wanting to know that broadened the horizons of our mind and stepped us out in other directions.

Many times these games are far from similar, and that is part of the beauty of role playing games. I have a shelf full of RPGs and with all that is there, it is nothing compared to what is out there.  With so many wild imaginations in the gaming industry that build off of the wonderful minds and published works; there are so many worlds to explore.

How many times have you explained why you enjoy RPGs? How many times has your answer been the same? Do you find your answer evolves as you do as a player or as a GM? How vividly do you remember your introduction to RPGs?

I remember the desire to play D&D. I had heard of it and read about it in some magazines and comics; I had even been watching the cartoon. I had this desire to learn the game and play it. I wanted to see what was so great about it. Try as I might, and with the limited flexibility of an 11 year old boy had, I could not find the place to get the books.

Then one day as the family was out looking at yard sales, there it was before me, my way to get into this world that I has sought out for what seemed like forever. There for one dollar, the First Quest Box Set. My dad got it for me; I had the first piece of my objective. I held within my hands the key to the portal to the realm that was Dungeons and Dragons and RPGs as a whole.

Many more obstacles were in the way, however. Growing up in rural Kentucky and Tennessee, there were not many people around me that shared my enthusiasm for this game that I had yet to play. So next would be to find people that were interested. Find them I did, one of them was my younger brother. We also had a couple more friends in the neighborhood to play with us. So we had four maps and adventures, a set of dice, a few figures, and now there were players.

Next was the rules, we talked about who wanted to be the GM and learn all the rules. No one was too thrilled about it, so I took on the responsibility. It was only fitting because I was the one that was spearheading the whole thing in the area. So I found my place behind the screen. We stumbled through the boxed set a couple of times. The first time it was very much like we were playing a board game, the second a bit better, and by the third time through the players were getting innovative.

On the first map there was a room with several kobolds. Illustrated in the map was a potbellied stove. In the audio on the cd that came with it was the crackling of a fire, and most importantly, one of the items purchased this time through was a large net and a cast of oil. It was my brother’s idea to use the net to catch the clutch of kobolds, and his friend Jamie’s idea to plaster oil on them. From there we could all see where the kobolds were going. Straight into the stove…

Let’s see you do that in a video game.

The ability to think outside the box and creatively solve your problems is part of what makes RPGs so great. The ability to talk as well as fight your way in and out of situations; how fluid the story is and can be; all of these things put together is what I was looking for. That is why I sought out D&D. That is why I rolled the dice the first time.

I could run a game in a world that I created from the ground up with the guidance of the DMG. It was my world and my story that the players were going through. This mindset evolved as I matured to our world and our story; however it is still the same.  You could read a book, convert it to the game and then from there change the things you didn’t like about it, or see how your players would have handled the events of the book.

How those stories change when free will and out of the box thinking steps in. Over the years many wonderful things have come from gaming, including my wife. So far I have not answered the question that was asked that I admired so much. What was my second RPG? Vampire the Masquerade. Forever will it hold a special place for me.  It was in this vastly different world and style of play that helped me evolve to a very different style of DM/GM. But even greater, it is how I first made contact with my wife.

In an earlier blog I mentioned where I got the name of the blog. Who introduces their wife to D&D on the honeymoon? Now the bigger question, and one that even I doubt I realized at the time, was why did I introduce my wife to D&D. Somewhere I believe that I wanted to introduce her to the game that began my journey to meet her, but honestly, it was probably so she could meet the first love of my life. Unlike so many first loves, I could share this one with my greatest love.

So many great games have happened around the tables that I have set at. I have stories from all of them I’m sure. You can’t script the reactions that people will have to events, and you cannot get the experience of setting down with friends and experience stories together, laughing, groaning, enjoying one another’s company. Go out and sit beside friends of old and friends to be. Share a story and build memories.

“Long is the journey…” 

From kobolds roasting on an open fire, to being at the mercy of two people pulling your nearly dead body up a wall, to a mound of snow in front of a cave with two wisps of steam, to cutting your way out the stomach of a sea drake, to losing your imp only to find it with shards of silver and egg yolk on its face, to sharing a vid of a corrupt corp on rftags that spread to every other rftag in the area, to the perfect shot and an epic battle with Cthulhu Star Spawn, to finally killing that pain of an adversary that has plagued you for the entire campaign. Here’s to you, the players that bring the stories to life, and those that live behind the screen to make it real. Keep the memories coming!