The first game I ever played was The Fantasy Trip. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I was introduced to TFT by my neighbor's boyfriend. I was twelve at the time, but the rules to TFT are so simple, anyone can learn them. Well, that group broke up, and truth be told, I don't think they were too crazy about having a twelve year old kid hanging around them.
I began searching for a copy of TFT. Unfortunately, I grew up in a small town. The closest gaming shop was 45 miles away, and my parents weren't willing to drive me there. However, the dice land where they may, I was fated to be a gamer. I grew up outside of the small town of Wellsboro, PA, "way out in the sticks". Whenever my Mom went shopping at the Super Duper, it was a treat to go with her and wander around the one street of my home town. On one such trip, I stopped at a small corner drug store to glance at the Star Wars figures that I knew they had there. Low and behold, there in all its pink glory was a single boxed set edition of Basic DnD (remember the one with the green dragon on the front?). I relentlessy begged my mom to advance me enough on my allowance to buy it, and had she known at the time the monster she was about to unleash upon the world, she probably would have refused. Luckily for me, she thought it would just be a phase. So far the phase has lasted for 18 years and counting.
It wasn't long before I had my friends hooked. I probably ran all my friends through Keep on the Borderlands a hundred times. When we grew bored of that, I created dungeon after dungeon. I set them against every monster listed in the basic set over and over. We had characters with names like "Ace", "Swordmaster" and of course "Conan" (I'll admit it, Conan was mine. Strike one up for originality). It wasn't long before I was begging my parents to drive me to the closest place that carried gaming stuff. That was Waldenbooks at the Arnot Mall, over thirty miles away from my front door. My parents were sports about it and drove me there so I could get it (I'm sure they had a better reason to go to the mall, but we'll paint my parents as people who wanted to prime their young son's imagination). That gave me and my friends, more spells, more monsters and of course The Isle of Dread. About the same time period the made for tv movie Mazes and Monsters was released (forgive me if I get the title wrong, I'm going from memory here). It stared a young Tom Hanks as a easily influenced teenager who took his gaming just a little too far. That movie, and an over religious aunt of mine, almost ended my gaming. I soon began hearing stories from my friends that their Moms were burning their DnD stuff. Gods NO! My parents began frowning on my favorite past time, but they were too late. I was all ready hard core geek. In retrospect, had they introduced me to sex, drugs and rock n roll, it might not have been too late.
That same year AD&D was booming, partly because of the negative media attention. A store called Brass T-Shirts put a small shelf of gaming stuff in the back of the store. It wasn't long before that small shelf expanded to engulf most of the store and the T-Shirts were relegated to about two racks in the back. Every dime I made was spent at Brass T's on anything TSR that I could get my hands on: 1st ed. AD&D, Gamma World, Top Secret, Boothill, and (my all time favorite) Gangbusters. I bought mini's, Dragon Magazine and White Dwarf Magazine but nothing surpassed my true passion: Modules. I bought them all: The Tomb of Horrors, Against the Giants, White Plume Mountain, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (man my friends and I loved the hell out of that one. We were zapping monsters with laser pistols for months), The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, the list goes on and on.
Sadly, my friends grew tired of gaming and suddenly it was considered very uncool to game. So I stopped. The AD&D craze ended, and Brass T's closed their doors to be replaced by a lock smith shop. I still read tons and tons of fantasy and sci-fi, but my gaming came to a screeching hault. I entered high school and discovered the other finer things in life. Namely, sex, drugs and rock & roll. Okay, the truth of it is, I revelled in the rock and roll, and strived for the sex (no comment on the drugs part). The sex came in slim pickins, but I strove for it. My gaming collection slowly dissappeared. I tucked it all away in boxes, some of it was never to be found again, but I still have most of it. I'd thumb through those boxes from time to time, wishing that I wasn't too old to game (I had no idea that adults played!). I would even create adventures that I knew no one would ever play. I started working half-heartedly on a world of my own creation. I told myself that it was for a novel that I'd some day write, but I knew the truth. I was in gaming withdrawl. I was convinced that gaming was a thing of the past for me. Then I went to college.
Man, you wouldn't believe how many classes can be skipped to play roleplaying games. 10 years later, I'm still working on that Bachelor's degree, but I had some great games. I was in my freshmen year, insecure and not sure if I belonged in college or not. I found a sign advertising a meeting for the "Maple Dorm Fantasy Gaming Society". I couldn't believe it. People still gamed after their adolescent years? I went to that meeting not knowing what to expect. It was founded by the dorm manager and his wife. I remember his name was Larry, and his claim to fame was he had gamed with Steve Jackson (I didn't even know who Steve Jackson was then, but I smiled and said "Wow!"). The club offered a place to game (a room tucked away in the basement of the Dorm next to the laundry machines), a shelf full of mini's and a library of gaming material. Larry was DMing a long running Greyhawk game. He had a line of people wanting to play, but precious few DMs. At that meeting, he asked if anyone would be interested in running a game for a few people. I shyly raised my hand and volunteered. I announced that I could play on Tuesdays.
I was nervous before that first game. These people were expecting a campaign! When I'd gamed in my youth, we just haphazardly hacked our way through whatever module I'd pulled off my shelf. I was afraid that I'd suck. I had to come up with something original. The week before the game, I devised a world where Christianity had been introduced into a Pagan Fantasy society. The result was crusading paladins and clerics, and mages living in fear of witch hunters. That first week, three people showed up. They were dissapointed that there wasn't room for them at Larry's table, but were willing to give this skinny kid with long hair and scruffy beard a shot (that kid was of course me).
We played for six hours straight and had a blast! No one had more fun than me. I'd rediscovered a part of myself that I thought was gone. I was reliving my childhood. I remember we would have played longer that night, but two of the guys had a quiz the next morning and hadn't studied yet. The next week, those three returned with four more people. They'd told everyone how much fun and original my game was. Now there was a line for my table! I welcomed them all. The next week two more showed up. Not knowing any better, I allowed all nine of them to play. Soon, we were playing Tuesday and Thursday. Larry himself asked if he might be able to join my game sometime. I was a Geek God!
I continued playing throughout college. I discovered GURPS and loved
it. Considering that the first game I ever loved was TFT (system designed
by Jackson) this came as no surprise. Soon my summers and breaks between
semeters were filled with endless GURPS sessions. Each semester meant back
to the DnD game. Soon, Vampire: The Masquerade became popular. Suddenly,
everyone was wearing black and playing bloodsuckers. I of course ran the
GURPS version much to the cringing of die hard V:TM fans. College ended,
so did my gaming for a too long of a time. I couldn't give it up. I was
addicted. I'd roll up characters for games I wasn't even playing, devise
scenarios for games I had no players for. My withdrawl ended when I moved
to Anchorage, AK and found a large gaming community. Now I'm addicted to
3E, Warhammer FRP, Pendragon, Traveller, GURPS,
you name it, I'll play it.