It’s Worldwide D&D Game Day 2008 and today is also the launch of D&D 4th Edition! So, are you heading to your game shop and playing today? Above is a scanned image of my own original Dungeons and Dragons Players manual from the 80′s. Yep, I still have it. But that’s not all!
Next to it was my original Star Frontiers Starter book as well, put out around the same time as this particular D&D starter kit (well, 1982 to be exact), as a sci-fi alternative role-playing game for sci-fi fans. Naturally, I was a hardcore fan of both. I remember getting the little thin box the books (and maps, character info and such) came in for Christmas one year (yes, while most kids were asking for stuff like footballs, model cars and Red Ryder BB guns (haha), I wanted toy robots, Star Wars action figures and D&D!!!). I remember pulling out all the components, and immediately, I knew what I enjoyed the Most about the games… creating new characters. I LOVED to sit there and create all their abilities, their personality, and I’d ALWAYS draw them up of course. And I always loved the interior illustrations too. I immediately put up a radar for anything by Larry Elmore and Jeff Easley (and the radar is still up today for their work!)… and then Frank Frazetta, and Boris Vallejo, and Frank Kelly Freas, and well … you get the picture. I remember sitting in bed at night with yep, the ol’ flashlight, reading my game books and imagining my characters living out their lives. And I sought out other kids in school who did the same, and spent many a recess lost in imagination. And these games, their art, their imagination-sparking wonder, had a profound effect on me as a young kid from Indiana… and my universe expanded, I started hunting out sci-fi and fantasy novels (mainly for the covers, haha), and I was naturally already a voracious reader of comic books and comic strips, and my love of fantasy and science fiction, and the endless stories and wonder they provided was solidified. Ahh … memories.
Ah, the memories. Didn’t make it out to the WWDDGD, but I spent my lunch hour yesterday busing to my gaming store to pick up my pre-ordered core rulebooks for 4e.
I, too, still have my original D&D Basic set! Don’t know where at the moment, but I know I still have it. Got it for my 10th birthday. I even still have one of the dice that came with it — the little red ones that came blank, and you had to use the white crayon (included!) to fill in the engraved numbers.
So much fun. I still think sometimes about Bargle…
I loved Star Frontieers.. but nobody had the game but 1 friend of mine
Wow I remember this old game from my youth. All I got now are a few TSR modules and dice, post its, dry erase magnetic board, flash cards, etc, etc. That’s about as much I can remember, (oh yea pizza and beer) I’ve played this game back in the old days when it first came out.
I still have ” Chainmail”; this, a medieval miniatures rule set with fantasy supplement, was the pre-Original D&D.