I was hooked on fantasy role-playing games from the moment I got the Dungeons & Dragons blue box for Christmas way back in 1980. How I came to request this gift had to do with the convergence of three things: reading Lord Of The Rings, reading a Time magazine article about the D&D phenomena that swept the nation, and a friend of my older brother who came back from college on Christmas break and told us that he was actively playing this game at his frat house.
I think the mystique of the game had a lot to do with it's immediate inaccessibility. It wasn't a game that was readily available and there was enough murmur to keep interest pinging. You would hear about pockets of people who played. Or maybe you knew someone who knew someone. A very diabolic marketing accident...
There was some disappointment when I found out that my brother's friend did not in fact own the game. Yet, the fact was that contact was made with someone who actually knew how to play the game! And maybe, just maybe, if I got the game for Christmas, this apostle could lead me and some friends down the path to adventure. This plot worked precisely as planned. The game was under the tree at Christmas. I feverishly read through the blue rule book until the wee hours of Christmas Day. I was instructed not to read the accompanying adventure module Keep On The Borderlands (off limits to players, you know...). As I recall, my brother's friend popped by on Christmas Day and whisked that book away in order to prepare for the game the following week.
So, on Christmas Day 1980 this game geek was born, and before the end of the year I entered my first dungeon...
27 years agone.
Wow...
OK. OK. So I was supposed to discuss my jump from D&D to WFRP...
Flashback, sorry.
We'll deal with that tomorrow...
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