Starting with Dungeons and Dragons

And in the center ring - some thoughts about my beginnings with Dungeons and Dragons and how it led me to meet people who would later become well known in the field of RPG's.

As I mentioned earlier, my start with gaming came with board wargames. I think I've played quite a few now, looking back, but at the time there weren't any role-playing games.

Therefore, I can still remember being huddled over a copy of "Outdoor Survival" with some medieval miniatures and looking for a way to do some of the stuff in a new book we had just finished reading called "The Lord of the Rings" and wishing there was a way to recreate some of the battles in that - including the magic. A friend sent me a copy of "Chainmail" to look at. My copy had a silver-like cover and was bound with plastic binding like I'd use in school. This was a whole lot closer to what I wanted, and I wrote the company and asked them what their next step was going to be. Shortly after, I got a copy of some rules in a larger brown envelope with a note from Gary Gygax that basically said, read these, get back to me, and tell me what you think.

They were, of course, the prototype rules for Dungeons and Dragons. I ran a few of the better ones past the game group I had. "What? You mean we =can= use elves in an army? Cool!" and "What? You mean I can =be= an elf? Cool!" We shortly thereafter had many comments to send back. A few months later, we got a larger package. Inside the plain box (no cover art at all) was the first of the Dungeons and Dragons books - "Men & Magic", "Monsters & Treasure", "Underworld & Wilderness", and one small set of sheets that collected all the important charts (almost like a Dungeon Master's Screen but that would come much later). We used these for a long time and sent info back and forth to the people at the other end. I've got a copy of "The Strategic Review" # 1 around here somewhere.

I'm still not exactly sure how the leap between the miniatures skirmish rules of Chainmail and the role-playing aspect of D&D got made, but I, for one, am glad they did. We abandoned the "Outdoor Survival" board and began running and playing this new game. In the beginning there were few choices - just fighters, magic-users, clerics, thieves, elves, and dwarves. These =were= the character classes.

I started looking for a store that carried the game, as Gary Gygax had mentioned in letters that it had gone under many revisions and printing changes. Finally, my search was rewarded. I found another boxed set of the original Dungeons and Dragons rules - and some new ones besides, with names like "Greyhawk" and "Blackmoor" and "Eldritch Wizardry".

These books opened up whole new realms of possibilities. Greyhawk and Blackmoor not only gave us new character classes but some ideas for adventures - or scenarios. And the Wizardry book, if I remember, gave us some new spells. Later came "Gods, Demi-Gods, and Heroes" and a total revision of the Chainmail rules to "Swords and Spells" (for those still running miniatures battles).

A bit later, I got word that Dave Arneson had left TSR to join another fledgeling company called Judges Guild, and that he would be putting his Blackmoor campaign out in quite a bit bigger format. I got involved with Judges Guild at a very early time, and soon had quite a collection of Judges Guild products including "First Fantasy Campaign" (which is where Blackmoor was for =many= years). I also kept up with Gary Gygax and Dungeons and Dragons, and bought many of their early adventure scenarios which had come to be called 'modules'.

So I knew people like Gary Gygax and company, Dave Arneson, Bob Bledsaw, and many other people that are now known names in FRPG's before they became famous.


And now. in the right ring, some other thoughts.