An Introduction to This Blog

In 1979-80, I was already smitten by Tolkien's Middle Earth and voraciously read any sort of fantasy books I could find at the library. I had a giant comic book collection and was a fanatic for everything Star Wars—the movie having blown my 10-year old mind just a few years prior. Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, Godzilla, Six Million Dollar Man, Battlestar Galactica, Micronauts—all of these things were important touchpoints for my fertile imagination. I was also into staging huge battles with army men or action figures (fireworks included), as well as building and painting model cars, planes, naval ships, etc. 

My neighbor's older brother was an advanced modeler who not only helped refine my painting skills, but also gave me a huge stack of Military Modeler mags. I devoured every page of those magazines, including the many ads for wargames and the "new" sensation, Dungeons & Dragons. To the best of my recollection, this is how I became aware of D&D and began what would become a lifelong obsession.

I didn't actually play D&D for another year (1981), when my best friend Kenny got the Holmes blue box Basic Set for his birthday. I slept over at his house that weekend, and the two of us pored over the books to figure out what the hell we were looking at. We laid the map of B2 Keep on the Borderlands on the table, found random game pieces as our "guys", and the two of us began exploring the dungeon together, boardgame-style with no DM. We were doing it all wrong, but it didn't matter. 

 We figured out the DM thing and began refining our game skills. We didn't have anyone to show us how to play, and as far as I knew (in the days before the Internet), we were the only people in our small town playing the game. Over the following year, I began collecting the newly-published AD&D books (purchased through the Sears catalog and received at the local outlet store) and bought my first adventure modules: S1 Tomb of Horrors, A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity, and A2 Secret of the Slaver's Stockade (none of which I ever ran until this year (2021), when I DM'ed A1 for my Tuesday night regulars.) 

Kenny wanted to be the DM, so he bought L1 Secret of Bone Hill and X1 Isle of Dread, both of which we played through with me running an entire party of characters including Brock Eberifor - Human Fighter; Achernar Ashestaff - Elf Magic-user; and Durne Stonefist - Dwarf. These characters would all later become notable NPCs in my later campaigns, particularly Achernar (who was my world's Mordenkainen) and Durne (who became the king of dwarves). 

My D&D adventures with Kenny came to an abrupt end when my family had to move to a new town in June, 1983. I hadn't started the new school year yet, and the apartment complex we moved into had no kids my age, so I spent that lonely summer creating my own campaign world and adventures. Shortly after I began my 10th grade year in a new school, I happened to notice a fellow kid named Terry reading the Monster Manual before class. It was all I needed to start the conversation and make an instant friend. 

Through Terry, I learned that my new hometown had a fairly vibrant D&D scene, with a half-dozen local DMs who ran regular campaigns. He played in an ongoing campaign that was closed to new players (which didn't make immediate sense to me), but he invited me over one evening to watch their game. To this point, I had only ever played D&D as a one-on-one activity. I wasn't prepared for what I was about to witness.

When we showed up for the session, we entered this large living room dominated by a gigantic table. Surrounding it must have been 8-10 players, with another 5 or 6 people standing around the room's perimeter apparently waiting for their turn. I took up a corner spot out of the way and just watched the action unfold before me. The DM sat behind his screen, and before him was a small army of miniatures and terrain. I had never played with minis (beyond that first attempt playing D&D like a boardgame), and I was absolutely gob-smacked at what was happening. It was so unlike how Kenny and I played, but I was exhilarated. I remember very little about that night, other than the party ventured to/stumbled across the lair of a hydra and mounted an epic battle against it. There was also some sort of inter-party conflict over treasure which threatened to break out into open battle between characters. When we left later that night, my head was spinning. 

As it turned out, though, the universe of local players and DMs was limited, and many of them played in multiple campaigns. As a result, I couldn't find an open seat at anyone's table for a while. I was finally invited to play in a new campaign, but when we showed up, there must have been 15–20 folks crammed into a 2-bedroom apartment. The game was set up in the dining room, with the DM seated at a corner desk smoking cigarettes and rolling dice. Various groups of people formed up in separate rooms, each engaged in some sort of horse trading or planning amongst their characters. After about an hour, the DM instructed me to roll up my guy—a half-elf cleric named Diarmaid. 

The adventure we were playing was S1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, and I happily joined the party in media res. I took up my position in the back ranks and prepared to kick ass. Fifteen minutes later (maybe less), Diarmaid lay dead beneath a collapsed balcony and my first group D&D experience was over. As it happened, however, I met a guy named Scott (the younger brother of the day's DM) who was starting up a new campaign soon. He asked if I was interested and I eagerly accepted. 

I learned a lot from watching Scott run his game, and had many incredible adventures, first as Brennendil Brownfoot—halfling fighter-thief—and then later as Gemini, elf magic-user with a split personality. Within a few years (my freshman year of college), I was confident enough to start my own campaign. Since then, I have basically been a forever-DM, getting to actually play as a character only a handful of times in the intervening decades. I DM'ed a nearly 20-year campaign called Arcadia, but abandoned D&D in the midst of 2nd edition (which was becoming too railroad-y for my tastes). We started playing Bard Games' Arcanum ruleset, and then later I developed my own system using Arcanum as the basis.

As my friends and I got older, got jobs, and (some of us) got married, our game sessions became fewer and farther between, but the game endured. When the D&D Next playtest was announced, I signed up and was impressed with what they were putting together: a return to simplified rules with an emphasis on rulings. After 5e launched, I picked up the core books and developed a new campaign setting. I discovered Roll20 around the same time and was able to connect with my old gamer friends who now lived in various parts of the country.

I mostly play 5e these days, running a 5-year-old campaign on Roll20. When Covid hit, my girlfriend and a few of my best friends—all women and all four complete noobs to RPGs, videogames, or the fantasy genre in general (outside of LotR and Game of Thrones)—expressed a desire to play. I agreed to run a tabletop session for them to see if they might enjoy it, and to my total surprise, all four of them absolutely fell in love with the game. We just celebrated our one-year anniversary and the campaign is going strong. Introducing the game to a new group of players has been a thrill, and returning to tabletop play has convinced me that it is the superior way to play the game over online VTTs.

As 5e has aged, however, it has begun swerving into the weeds, and I am afraid at this point, it is driving into the ditch. It won't be long before it crashes under the weight of content bloat, misguided narratives, and railroad-y adventure books that seem written by people with limited imaginations further constrained by corporate wishywashy-ness. 

I long for the even-simpler days embodied by the OSR—so a change may be coming soon. Anyway, this blog will be a collection of stories, insights, ideas, and session reports from more than 40 years of gaming and DMing. I hope it will be a way to give something back to the hobby I love, and to help new generations of players and DMs.

Cheers!