[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Ten

Day Ten: First gaming magazine you ever bought (Dragon, Dungeon, White Dwarf, etc.)

Technically speaking, the first gaming magazine I ever bought was the Dragon Magazine Archive CD-ROM. I lucked into finding this in early 2000, shortly after it was released. I say "lucked" because it's quickly become a highly sought-after piece of gamerabilia. I still have these and now use Adobe to read them, as the interface is a little buggy on these new-fangled computers. But hey, I still have the first 250 issues for reference, right? I've even used them since changing over to 3.x edition, so they're still useful and helpful. Plus, they're fun to read.

Then there was this, the first actual hardcopy Dragon Magazine that I purchased was this one: Issue #278. Why, you ask?

Because DWARVES, that's why.

I stumbled across this one day walking through one of the (then) local game shops, saw the "Dwarves" headline and I was sold. Yeah, I was still playing 2nd Edition D&D at the time and most of the 3E stuff in the issue wouldn't come in handy for another couple of years. But the issue contained Dwarven language information and sample battle cries. This was the one that prompted me to collect--ultimately--the other 108 issues. Yup. I have all the others. At least, I purchased/subscribed all the others, from 251 on. Double copies on some issues.

Of course, at last count I'm missing about 8 issues somewhere. I suspect a former GM still has some mixed in with his packed-up 3.x stuff. So, now I'm stuck trying to fill holes. Of course, the missing issues are also some of the most popular issues and replacing them is proving to be more than difficult. But it will happen. Oh yes, it will happen.

And it all started with #278.