Saturday 22 February 2014

Dungeons & Dragons - 40 years old



Earlier today I was reading that Dungeons & Dragons is forty year old. This makes me feel very, very old.

My first encounter with D&D was at a wargames club which held weekly meetings at Swansea University, we usually fought with Airfix America Civil War figures mounded on beermats moved across green dyed sheet. D&D had just been released and the then new roleplaying game was a real eye-opener. The bug had well and truly bitten.

I have owned (and still own) some very early D&D games, but I admit that I have not played the game for what must be twenty years. This is a great shame as my memories of those early games are some of my best gaming memories; moving plastic figures across bare tables, throwing cheap coloured dice and keeping track of the results with pencils (and erasers) on sheets of beautifully drawn and home made character sheets. "Those were the days."

As the years rolled on, I have gamed with many groups, but it was that fresh and new gaming experience playing the early editions of Dungeons & Dragons that has stuck with me and in truth been my gaming and modelling impetus for forty years. For that, Thank You.

Happy birthday and may the next forty be just as great.

Tony

3 comments:

Neil said...

Wow. Time has flown by.

Anonymous said...

I paint minis for a local gaming group, but that is as involved in D&D as I get anymore. Still have all my stuff though, in fact I was going through some old maps etc. while spring cleaning last week.

Alfrik said...

Blarg... old.... been that long since I helped write the majic spells for Gygax and submitted the Tomb of Horrors.....glarg...wheres my cane!???