I have my high school chum Eric to thank for my gaming career. I guess it was 1981 when he loaned me his Player’s Handbook. Reading it in class like a Very Bad Boy, I was hooked from the start. The ironic thing is, I was really attracted to the magic system, but in the 20+ years since, I have never played a magic-user for any extended period of time! Those old-school illustrations in the Monster Manual really reeled me in too. Jubilex, baby! I still have those 1st edition books, a gift from Eric when I left for college.
In the beginning, Eric and I did what I guess today would be called “solo adventures,” but were really just “two guys figuring out the damn game.” I will always have fond memories of Galadorus and his two henchmen, Mich and Elob. Later we acquired new players from school and the local comic shop, and Eric became burnt out on DMing. I took up the mantle, a pattern of behaviour that has repeated itself with alarming frequency.
We played in a variety of venues in those days, but most often in the garage of my friend Skinner (not his real name, nor his character name). There the forces of evil were beset by names out of legend. Arak, son of Thundarr, who won his vorpal blade in a game of backgammon (dang it, I beat him the FIRST two games, the little shark). Nemex the wizard, who could Get Into Trouble with a teleport spell better than anybody before or since. Aragorn the ranger – and yes, we teased Don about it mercilessly. Igor the dwarven fighter, who could only fail a poison save on a 1 or 2… and often did. Elendril, the elven mage who polymorphed the King of the Fire Giants into a fish because “ones happen.” And Thanos the cleric of death, who planeshifted a hill giant to Olympus just because he’d always wanted to cast that spell. During this time I acquired my fondness for the old school modules. The Keep on the Borderlands, the Giant modules, one unforgettable all-nighter in the Ghost Tower of Inverness. We may not have done a hell of a lot of role-playing in Skinner’s garage, but we did do one important thing. We had a blast.
What I learned from high school: Have fun. It ain’t D&D if it ain’t fun.
As a freshman at college, I was walking down the hallway of my dorm when I heard a voice from another room: “… and it’s claws do 1d6…” I had to poke my head in, and that’s how I met Bob. Bob introduced me to Call of Cthulhu, but it wasn’t long before we got a D&D campaign or two together. I started out as a player, but soon the DM got burnt out and… you get the idea. Inspired by an ancient history class, I set aside the World of Greyhawk and created my own nation, the ultra-lawful Empire of Akkadia. Then my players announced that they wanted to play evil characters. I thought that the Akkadians would be a great foil for such characters, so I agreed. For a while Slaag Garmuush, Bubonic the Plague on all Humanity, and company were content to struggle against the Man, but inevitably they fell to squabbling amonst themselves.
What I learned from college: Never let players fight among themselves. There’s no percentage in it.
Also in college, we played Villains and Vigilantes, Gamma World, and Oriental Adventures. A favorite memory from the latter campaign: the Kensai and the Sohei are overcome by magical despair while the Wu-jen fights alone. The Kensai (Bob) has musical training and the Sohei (me) writes poetry. So during the battle, Bob and I compose the “Ode to Despair” which has people committing suicide across the empire within months. We both rolled 20’s, see…
In 1987 I came to Austin for graduate school. Knowing absolutely no one, I went to Dragon’s Lair comics and perused the gamers’ bulletin board. The University of Texas Gaming Society was hosting D&D2E games, so I went to a meeting. It was there I met the people I would spend the next few years gaming with. One was the brother of my future wife. See kids, the hobby can pay off!
Hopefully you can see this coming up 6th Avenue. I played a dwarven cleric for a while, but eventually the DM became burnt out, and I took over. I expanded the world of Akkadia to include adjacent nations, including the Olympian-worshipping land of Manyhavens. Another group of legends rose. Jhari, the ne’er-do-well illusionist, who led the group almost by default. Conan the Halfling, whose real name was Phil (as in Philodendron), wielder of the Rune Axe Hurricanebringer (which eventually became magical by Conan’s sheer belief). Treth Severhome, who earned the sobriquet “Steedslayer” after rolling a 1 in mounted combat. Knarp T. Gnome, who once caused an entire town to have to evacuate – not just the people, the buildings too. Leiden, the priestess of Lovaithar, the only charater I’ve known with intentionally ripped chainmail (to show off her tattoos). And Dilvish the Damned, who had a knack for killing key NPC’s, and an even greater knack for finding women who wanted to kill him. We played this campaign so long that I finally became burnt out!
We played a lot of other games while I worked through my burnout: Gurps Horror, Golden Heroes (where my charater’s name was Burnout!), Beyond the Supernatural (with Arnold Terminstein), my homebrew Gamma World, and another guy’s homebrew Bureau 13-ish game (where I played Comrade Orka). But renewal came the only way it could: I got to play D&D!
One of my longtime players got the DMing bug, and so I played Ruprecht, the Rightful Prince of Chichester, Knight of Revelry. Actually, he was a swashbuckler with a 7 wisdom, but he talked a good game. We had some initial problems, though, as one of the players felt that his character just had to manipulate, humiliate, and generally mess with the other characters.
What I learned in graduate school #1: Never let anyone show disrespect for his fellow players, even if he claims to “just be playing his character.”
Once we got rid of the offending player, the “Tristan and Ruprecht Show,” as it came to be called, really took off. Those were a couple of great, freewheeling years, with the daring but barely coherent Ruprecht and his “little pal,” the Mage-Theif Tristan. My love for swashbuckling characters is definitely rooted in those times.
What I learned in graduate school #2: Play a character with one miserably low stat. It’s great fun.
The DM for that campaign eventually graduated (rot his bones!) and the campaign ended. Around that time I got involved in Live Action Role-Playing and my time and energy for table-top gaming dwindled. I spent about ten years, off and on, in the High Fantasy Society, even becoming King of the Austin chapter. But politics and infighting, comibined with my now full-time teaching position, motivated me to quit. The release of D&D3E really helped my decision to leave LARP as well.
I wanted to get into D&D3E, and so I searched for a gaming group. All my old crew had moved out of town or were too busy being adults, so I saw this as an opportunity to make new friends. It was during this time that I discovered how fortunate I had been in all my previous experiences with the game. I found DM’s that were too munchkin for my tastes or just outright jerks. I found players who had no respect for their fellow players, and I wasn’t going to play that game again. Finally I decided to start my own campaign, trying to break the pattern by starting a campaign instead of taking one over. It took quite a bit of doing, but I was ultimately able to find a group of people who respected each other and were out to have fun. I dusted off Manyhavens, and we’ve been going for almost two years now. And so a new roster of heroes has assembled. Raman, the furry barbarian, the gentle giant with the pointy metal hat. Aeschylus, the entrepreneural Sorceror / Rogue, who inexplicably is in charge of the party treasure. Silkmist, the young ranger of Artemis, whose worst enemy is not Orcs, but her own rashness. Paulus, the sophisticated evoker trying to get on with these ruffian adventurers. Talia, the paladin of Nemesis, whose mighty sword of vengeance is sorely missed (hint, hint, Poney). And Danralon, the happy-go-lucky Bard and priest of Dionysus, who tries to keep the party alive – oh yeah, and he heals the adventurers too.
I’ve even actually been able to play sporadically. In Poney’s Ravenloft campaign, I play Glynwynyl Caerdannogh, an elven swashbuckler with a 9 Charisma. I’ve never intentionally played a low charisma, much less an elf with a low charisma, so this should be interesting. In Gordon’s Oriental Adventures campaign (when it’s going – hint, hint, Gordon) I play Yukiko, a Sohei / Monk who whips butt for peace. Gotta love those inscrutable contradictions. Hopefully someday I’ll finish my PhD and get into a position where I can get on that cruise control that so many professors are said to be on, and I can game more!
Maybe in time for Fourth Edition…