Remembering the Beginning

I was remembering how I first began a lifelong fascination with tabletop role-playing games and was considering what they meant to me. It occurs to me that the reasons that I latched onto them may also be relevant to some of you.  So here is the story…

Before, discovering gaming, life was pretty quiet and vastly uneventful. Robbins, NC was a sleepy town. It was not very big, not quite 2000 people, with only two stoplights. There were no fast food restaurants, movie theatres, malls, or big box stores. It was just a main street with very little on it; a bank, a diner, a shoe store, barber shop and a Five and Dime. The mills that had kept the town alive for years had closed and many people were starting to move away. On the average weekend, I rode with my family thirty miles to the nearest movie theatre to see something…anything. Maybe best friend, Jimbo and I would go fishing at Horner’s pond, or go bike riding. There were no mobile phones, or streaming services; VCRs were a luxury and forget about cable, the likelihood of that ever being made available didn’t seem to be on the horizon. Once per year, there was a local holiday, Farmer’s Day, with a parade and everything.

My mom, trying to find anything that would peak my interest, came across the Dungeon and Dragons Basic Rules. She bought them, but when they arrived she was disappointed that they didn’t look like other games she had bought before. Given the price (expensive for the time), she felt it was a bad purchase and was going to return it for a refund. She quietly put the game in the trunk of her car and was going to return it to the post office after the Holiday.

In a random conversation I mentioned having seen this new game and asked for it for Christmas. It sounded like something thrilling and mysterious to me. She rolled her eyes, stuck her tongue into her cheek and admitted that it was in the trunk of her car. I became very excited at the prospect of it. She went outside and took the box out and gave it to me. She didn’t mind giving it to me early, because she was certain that I would be disappointed, so there would be enough time to return it and get something else. I was already dreaming of adventure. Of course I wanted to play this new kind of game. She was stuck in the dual rolls of both deciphering the rules as well as the task of being the Dungeon Master.

After weeks of reading the rules, and admittedly not “getting it,” she decided to try it any way. All that was left was to call my best friends together, sit down, and play it. The night before the first game I could barely sleep, I dreamt of knights, bandits, dragons, and wizards. I still wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.

We all came together and made characters. I won’t mention the players by name, but I will list all of the characters that were created: Brosen Browler, Condor Forogen, Gaudior Festishia, Fandango Marauder, Freenan Sterling, Nash Pondue, and Ranked Moncheze.

Finally, we played. The adventure quickly manifested in my imagination.  In one afternoon, I journeyed to a place I had never been, faced unspeakable danger and thankfully the group of intrepid adventurers came back alive with such stories under their belt, that it could hardly be believed.

The story of how we were scared that enemies were following  us in the forest, so Condor  made a show of burying a length of wooden pole in  the ground  just to see if someone might be overpowered by their curiosity and come out of hiding to dig it up and see what it was.

There was the story of how we fell under a monster’s magical spell and began wandering in circles. We all blamed the mapper for not paying attention. Very frustrated, the duty was passed off to someone else, and another, and another, before we realized there was something else—something magical going on.

There was the story of how Fandango Marauder landed the final blow against a horned and hulking monster that would have surely killed and devoured us all. I still remember the jeers and moans when he announced that since he was the one who slew it so he alone should get all of the treasure.

Of course, the next thing to do was play again, as soon as possible…then again and again. Yeah, my Mom saw where this was heading and realized our thirst for this kind of game were voracious and bottomless. She handed all of the books to me, and withdrew from the role of Dungeon Master; now it was up to me.

I dove right in a week later and the group of us, each developed our own stories so that we could all have chance  to play. You probably already know how it went from there, the games became more complex and more exciting. There were three games going on by that point, and that meant we all had three different characters. We gamed in six to ten hour shifts, took breaks to play War or basketball or something, and continued; you know, I don’t remember sleeping on those marathon sessions. Saturday was all about gaming and Sunday was pretty much the same, which began with a breakfast of hot fried bologna butter biscuits, which was refreshing after a solid day and night of potato chips, bean dip, and Mountain Dew.

Unable to go very far on my bike with miles and miles between Robbins and any other town, I discovered a way to travel as far as I wanted, without limits. I could see other worlds, and best of all I could take my friends with me.

That was over forty years ago, and I am still going strong, not content to play other people’s games but instead to write games of my own (first The Dark Fantasy of Sundrah, then the Worlds of Pulp) and like the unceasing appetite I had then, I am still without limits—no end to it in sight—seeking adventures somewhere beyond my dreams. Butter Biscuits and Mountain Dew have given way to Keto and Keurig, but the clatter of dice is still my favorite sound and any day gaming—my favorite holiday. And of course there are a lot more people around my table.