[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Seventeen

Day Seventeen: First time you heard that D&D was somehow "evil."

This one's kinda easy, although I can't put a specific date on it. My parents, I guess, bought into the hype of the day a few years after I started playing. Let's call it the early 1980s.

Throughout my junior high days, they counseled and argued about the "wisdom" of playing, and expressed a lot of concerns, although I'm not sure that I ever actually heard them use the word "evil" in connection with D&D. I knew they considered playing it a bad idea and were concerned about its possible effects.

I have no proof that a Jack Chick pamphlet was ever in my parents' home.

In high school, I let my gaming taper off; by then I was more into Car Wars, Champions, and Star Trek. By the time I graduated and started my undergraduate studies in 1987, I'd pretty much put everything away. It was a personal choice, not one imposed on me. And it was a choice made based on time-use and priorities, not "evil vs. good."

A dozen years later, I picked up my dice again.

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day One

Day One: First person who introduced you to D&D. Which edition? Your first character?

Technically speaking, it was the good folks at one of those places that use elementary school kids to peddle their wrapping paper to the neighborhood that introduced me to D&D. I truly wish I could remember the name of the outfit; I can see their brochure(s) as if it were yesterday, but it's been 30+ years.

You may remember them too: slick paper, full color, almost epileptic fit-inducing busy-ness on each page. Every inch of every page touting what you could get with 100 points, 500 points, 1,000 points! Oh boy! Oboyoboyoboyoboy there's even trips to exotic places if you sell enough (read: travel to another state and a 2-night stay in a seedy motel) wrapping paper. I remember hitting up everyone in my church's congregation. Neighbors I had never met. Family members, both immediate and extended. Parents, aunts, uncles, friends' parents. All in an effort to get enough points so that I could see for myself what was inside that box.

And all for what I thought was the neatest thing in the catalog that year. It was this cool new game called "Dungeons & Dragons." And just what was that dragon guarding? Yeah, I'd heard about it (vaguely) at school. I'd never played it. This was the image that grabbed me, hooked me, and reeled me in. I still have it. Unfortunately, my first character -- indeed, all of those pre-21st century characters -- are lost to the ages.

Note: early on in my blog, I mentioned that I was introduced to D&D by a friend at school. While this is true, this friend was my first DM and so I'm saving him for that entry in the bloghop. In addition, I may have gotten some of the dates wrong. I remember "pushing the miniatures around" in the late '70s/early '80s, but I didn't even meet this particular friend until 1981, so the "miniature pushing" may have been with a different friend entirely. Also, I'm serious when I say above that "technically" it was the gift wrap people that really introduced me. My parents weren't going to buy this for me on their own; I'm not sure they would have even known where to find a copy if they'd wanted to. Certainly after all the Jack Chick hysteria started, I wasn't going to convince them to use their money to buy it. So, what I said back at the beginnings of the blog and what I say today are both true.

From a particular point of view.

The First Step

"Who are you?"

Well, that's a long story. So far as this blog is concerned, and so far as the interest of time allows, suffice it to say this: I am a Gamer.