February 2014 Blog Hop Day 28

Most important lesson I learned from D&D?

The ability to role play.  Often we find ourselves in a position where the ability to put on an act helps us communicate.  This is because the role we assume is a common one that the other parties in the conversation can relate to.

I've been fortunate to work with kids off the reservation or out of the cotton field; to individuals who listed their occupation as managing the family fortune.  By assuming an appropriate role, I fit into their world view and was able to better influence their opions and actions.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 27

What would I do differently, if I started over?

Probably nothing as the decisions I made were proper for the time and information I had.  If you postulate foreknowledge, there are other choices I would have made professionally, but nothing that impacts gaming.  This is just a hobby to me, not the core of my existence.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 26

Do I still game with the group that introduced me to the hobby?

No, in the sense that I haven't gamed with the UMD group since I left northern Minnesota for college; I never played D&D with them though. It was more war gaming, with the occasional EPT session .

 Yes in the sense that when I moved back to Minnesota, I hooked back up with one one of my college group who got me into D&D proper.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 25

Longest running gaming group/campaign.

Well, my current group has tolerated me since 2000, so fourteen years.  They were playing together before I moved back up.

The longest single campaign during that time was a four year 3e campaign I ran that took them from 1st to epic levels.

One of the players is from my college and early Navy group, so we've been gaming together for about 35 years.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 24

First movie I associate with D&D?

I don't?  I know there were a couple of D&D movies and of course Legend and The Brother's Grimm.  But I don't really associate them with D&D, they're standalone stories.

LoTR and The Hobbit movies I associate with Tolkien, obviously.  But despite his overwhelming influence on the hobby, I don't think about them in terms of gaming. 

I don't want to run in a setting based on a movie or a book, stories are railroads, they're going to a particular destination and I like to go off roading while I'm playing.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 23

First song I associate with D&D?  Monster Mash, our college DM, Chris, played it for a special Halloween dungeon he ran us through.

It's also the only song I relate to D&D.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 22

First D&D novel. Quag Keep, by Andre freakin' Norton.  That's right, the very first D&D novel was written by a nationally recognized author, not some kid in college.

The novel itself isn't that good, despite the claims on the back.  D&D players magically transported to Greyhawk and go on a quest.  I didn't find the plot, story or characters at all compelling. I understand a collaborative sequel was published posthumously.  I'm not looking to read it.

I've tried reading other D&D stories, Salvatore and Greenwood's efforts come to mind, but in the end they're one shots not worth another look. 

Norton did play D&D with EGG before she wrote the story; and since it predates publishing of The World of Greyhawk Gazeteer, she either had access to his notes or did an extensive interview on the campaign background.

Still here's the cover and the front piece from my old paperback.

Cover by Jack Gaughan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Front piece unattributed artist

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 21

First time I sold some of my D&D books?  I don't think I have. Although I can't find the Psionics Handbook.  I have all of my 1e and 3e books. Along with Traveller books. All of the 1st edition Shadowrun; I even picked up a friend's 2nd printing Runequest when he got rid of somethings.

That's the beauty of government moves, you never half to throw things away.  Although, I did have a (broken) VHS player and some handtools not make into and out of New York.

But the game books -<a href="About That Box in the Basement"> they're in that box in the basement.</a>

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 20

First non-D&D RPG I ever played?  Regular readers probably think I'm going to say Chivalry & Sorcery.  But that was the first one I bought.

The first one I played was Empire of the Petal Throne in 1977, at a war gaming group  at UMD.  I've never found a group that played it again, but it stuck with me. 

Of course that might have been the effect of a pre-internet 16 year old coming across this picture while reading the rules.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 19

First gamer who annoyed the hell out of me?  I was just reminiscing with an old friend about this guy earlier this month.  We had a pretty tight group who played together in college, but a couple of times, Mike who still games with me took me along to another group he gamed with occasionally.  There was this kid (mind you, I was only 19 or 20 at the time, but lack of maturity made him seem much younger than me).  He had both the Grand Master of Flowers and the Great Druid as characters.

My memory is that he had just rolled them up at that level, because he could.  Mike argues that the group he played with were Monte Haulers, who went through the published modules with a vacuum cleaner and never missed a copper.  In either case, this kid had these super powerful characters, which he couldn't play.  He didn't know how any of the special abilities worked and he was just generally obnoxious to have in the group.  A my way or the highway sort of guy.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 18

First gaming convention?  Never been to one.  Unless I made it to Con of the North.  Didn't have funds for GenCon in it's heyday and not a whole lot of interest since.

And I didn't make it to Con of the North either. Plowed across town (south rather than west to the con) to have dinner with a couple of old Navy buddies (and gamers) and their wives.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 17

First time I heard D&D was "evil"?  That started going around in the early 80s while I was in college.  I think the first time I heard the claim was in a quote about a student in Michigan[?], who had been what we would now call LARPing in the steam tunnels under the university. 

The last time was around the first Gulf War, in Virginia Beach.  I wrote a letter to the editor, saying how stupid the thesis was, but it wasn't published as far as I know.

They are entitled to have and express their opinions.  After all, I spent twelve years defending every American's God-given right to make a complete ass of themselves in public.  And two of my boys, who are both gamers, have spent time doing the same.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 16

Edition wars?  I didn't participate in them.  As I said in yesterday's Blog Hop post, it's the players and characters I enjoy, the mechanics are secondary.

I will admit that I find later editions progressively less appealing, but more because of how they're played (min/maxers I'm talking to you) than because of the actual rules.

Let's face it, when was the last time someone brought in a Magic User with a 9 intelligence to play?  That was one of the more challenging parts of the way the early editions ended up being played. Sometimes, as in what we laughingly refer to as 'real life'; someone has a passion for a field where they have no talent.  Their short lived  triumphs and foreseeable endings are more compelling stories than that of the generic wunderkin I see around the table now a days.

I blame computers, too easy to build a spreadsheet or write a quick script to produce six random rolls all on the far end of the curve.   Not to mention that computers had their own edition wars twenty years ago.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 15

What was the first version of D&D I didn't enjoy? Why?

Tough question, I was inactive from 1991 - 2000.  I came back in when I returned to Minnesota at that point and hooked back up with an old friend.  So I hit the tail end of 2e; which didn't seem like an improvement over 1e. We moved to 3e; but skipped 3.5e due to budgetary constraints on some of our group and just converted to Pathfinder tin 2012.  We have no particular interest in 4e or 5e.  Personally, I'd like to move back to 1e or a retro-clone like ACKS, but don't think I could get the group to go there.

I've enjoyed playing all of them, but it's the group and the characters, not the mechanics that I like.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 14

Did I meet my significant other while playing D&D?  And does she still play?

Considering the male to female ratio of gamers (yes, I realize that's not a requirement of the question as stated) - not much chance of that.  Actually, I met her standing on a street corner.  She wasn't a gamer then and isn't now.  She did sit in on a few Chivalry & Sorcery games earlier in our marriage, but she' was never into it and hasn't rolled dice in a quarter century or so.


I should say that we honeymooned in Delevan, Wisconsin on the other side of Lake Geneva from the town of Lake Geneva.  My bride of then about 30 hours and now almost 30 years, did allow me to drive through lake Geneva looking for TSR's offices.

starts today.  I mean really on Valentine's Day?  Is this a horrible joke or an irresistible cliche?  (Image from Hereticwerks, who is running a couple of sessions)

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 13

First miniature I used for D&D?  I picked up a bunch for use with miniature army rules in Chivalry & Sorcery.  Did a lousy job painting them.  Traded them to a friend sometime around college for some Judges Guild stuff he had.

However before he left college he'd painted and given me this figure for use as my ranger.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 12

First store where I bought my gaming supplies?  I dunno, George.

It was over 30 years ago in Superior Wisconsin, I've steamed (literally) around the world since then.  Probably some local bookstore.  In college, it was Games by James the  local game store and head shop. They're pretty much out of the RPG business, they went upscale at the Mall of America, two floors above home plate at the old Met Stadium.  They did have some Pathfinder last time I checked; I always have to fight an impulse to ask the clerks if they knew the placed started out selling bongs.

We also went down to Lake Street to the old Little Tin Soldier.  I think that the wooden soldier from there is now at The Source in Roseville.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 11

First splatbook I asked the DM to approve?  OK, I had to look up the term.  I figured I knew what Stellios meant, but wanted to be sure.

Based on that you'll probably guess the answer is 'None'.  And you're right, I never have.  As a DM, I've allowed some and disallowed others, more precisely I've allowed some elements and disallowed certain pieces.

But I've never bothered to run a splat class myself.  Frankly, I haven't come near to exhausting the possibilities of the basic classes, so I'm just indifferent to the allure of odd variants.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 10

First Gaming magazine I ever bought.  ANother easy question after my rummaging through the boxes in the basement.  SPI's Strategy & Tactics - a new board game in every issue.

Before you say that doesn't count, please keep in mind that in the late 70s there was very little separation between the military board gamers who were supporting Avalon Hill and SPI; and the RPG community.  Indeed, a high school friend, Brian Sorvik, and I had seen an ad for a war gamers group starting up at UMD (University of Minnesota Duluth) in 1977 and went and joined that.  That group played everything from Go to Empire of the Petal Throne.  I remember that one of the local TV stations did a quick piece on it, asking why we played war games in the face of all the "anti-war" sentiment of the time.

February 2014 Blog Hop Day 9

First campaign setting I played in?  Easy, TSR's The World of Greyhawk, 1980.  Chris, our DM bought a copy, then we poor starving college students bootlegged it.

Prior to it's publication we were already playing a campaign, although we didn't use the term.  We were just going on adventures one after another, playing home brewed adventures intermixed with TSR modules.  Most f the group had gotten together before I moved south and joined them  I know they had done the Temple and the Giants, but I got there for Vaults of the Drow.  Of course, I may have my timeline confused over the decades.