Share your Dungeons and Dragons memories.

[Werewolf]

Dungeons and Dragons is a classic game (and toy line) which doesn't get talked about too often here. So, I thought I'd start a topic where people could share their memories of D&D. The games, toys, cartoon, etc.

I have a huge amount of affection and nostalgia for the early editions of D&D. The recent release of D&D's 5th edition got me thinking back over the early editions of the game and how it has changed over the years. Like, originally character races like Elf and Dwarf were considered a class like Magic User or Fighter. For example, you couldn't be a Dwarf Wizard or Cleric. You were a Dwarf and they were all fighters. That was it.

The game was also very, VERY, VERY hard for starting level player characters. The player characters were weak and under geared going against very tough monsters. Several of which had magical instakill attacks which could only be countered with saving throw roles. It was especially tough for Magic Users because they had very low hit points, armor class and had to lug around a large spell book. A level one Magic User also had a limited choice of weak spells to pick from and from those you could pick only one spell. To make matters worse you could only use it one time per adventure. So if you used your one magic missile or sleep spell early on in an adventure, you were pretty much toast for the rest of the quest. You wouldn't last long against mobs of Goblins and Bugbears wearing a cloth robe and wielding a small dagger.

[GordoCrisp]

I loved the game for a few years, ended up getting burned out. Loved the Magic User characters as well. Loved the variety of monsters too.The High Fantasy stuff was a blast.

It really helps when you play with cool, fun people. Not so much when get a strict rule fetishistic jerky type of player or DM.

You may already know, but there was a recent book written about the history and impact of D&D: Of Dice And Men by David Ewalt.

I recommend that to any and all D&D fans.

[Werewolf]

It really helps when you play with cool, fun people. Not so much when get a strict rule fetishistic jerky type of player or DM.

The game could be brutal with a mean spirited DM. When I played the game as a kid it was just me, my mom and my sister. So, it was more about the story and enjoying the quest then trying to kill off the party as quickly as possible. When I DMed I also placed good treasure and weapons early on in a quest to make the adventure go smoother. Otherwise it would be nearly unplayable with a small party.

[jayraytee]

My Uncles were in the military and brought the original D&D home with them from overseas. My whole family was pretty much made up of guys, my Mom had three brothers, I had three brothers and two guy cousins. We played from around 1974 unntil maybe around 1982 fairly heavily, then occassionally through the 80s. We had all night pizza party adventures in my grandma's basement, it was a huge amount of fun.

By the mid-80's my brotehrs and cousins switched to PC role playing games; Ultima, Wizardry, Bard's Tale, etc. And then in the 90's we switched to Everquest. I still have my Everquest characters, but almost never get online anymore, maybe once every few months. I was for a time a Guide on that game and also was part of a lot of the BetaTests.

[Werewolf]

We played from around 1974 unntil maybe around 1982 fairly heavily, then occassionally through the 80s.

Neat! You had the original white box D&D. My first D&D was the 1981 Basic D&D set with Keep on the Borderlands and the TSR Dungeon board game. Which is still my favorite board game.

[Werewolf]

Here's an excellent LJN D&D article by Plaid Stallions. It's interesting that the article mentions Mego competed with LJN for the license. I love the LJN line but I still wonder how Mego would have done it. I'm guessing not 8 inch scale. It probably would have been too expensive and difficult to do with the level of detail the clothes and armor the character's had.

http://www.plaidstallions.com/ljn/dd.html

The sad thing about the toy line is it didn't do better. While it came it the height of D&D's popularity, it was also at the height of controversy over the fantasy themes. There were so many characters that appeared in the story books and other merchandise that didn't make it to the action figure line. It's so disappointing this line has never been brought back and Hasbro does nothing with the characters. Popular characters like Warduke, Strongheart, Kelek and Mercion didn't even make it into the Kre-O line.

[Grimjohn]

Oh my yes, for the Christmas of '84 I got the Basic (Red Box) and Expert (Blue Box) D&D rule sets and my friends from school and I would play D&D a couple hours after school. Yes, the classes/races were very restrictive. A year later I got the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook, Legends and Lore and Dungeon Masters Guide while my friends got the Monster Manuals and Fiend Folio and THAT broadened our role-playing horizons as we now could create Rangers, Paladins, Druids, Assassins and Monks. And, races were elevated to its own category in the character creation process and a whole new set of advantages and disadvantages were added to a character's persona and their value to an adventuring party.

The core group of friends and I continued playing for three years until just before high school and had great fun running nearly all of the pre-written D&D adventures/campaigns and a few our own custom written adventures/campaigns. By that time we had figured out how to tweak the rules so we could play more creative race/class combinations like my Lizard-Man Ranger.

I continued to play Pen & Paper D&D off and on whenever I could hook up with fellow D&Ders (either through school, work, community bulletin boards, etc.) up until 2006. With roots in D&D, my video and computer gaming habits would always be spent on RPG's from the original Final Fantasy on NES on up to Everquest. I miss playing Pen & Paper D&D though.

[Magenta]

I have an affinity for it. But never had any friends that played! I only played twice in my life. One in middle school with a DM. One time in college with another DM. I did collect the books and toys however. I WISH I had someone to play with. A group would be nice. But alas...Loved to spend hours combing through the Monster Manuel. The first one.

[4NDR01D]

I loved D&D in the early 80's. I think it probably started with the cartoon, I would have been 8 turning 9 in '83. I had a stepbrother introduce me to the role playing game shortly thereafter, as well as, fantasy inspired heavy metal which seemed to go hand in hand. I think I only had Warduke as a kid as far as the toys went. I would have flipped for some figures from the cartoon series. I never knew they made a Tiamat toy until I was an adult collector.
I was kinda a little **** to play the role playing game with, I'd always get bored after a few hours and never took it as seriously as the kids I played with. I'd always turn on my own team. I thought it was funny at the time.

[drquest]

Early to mid 80's my friends and I would play it. Usually after school. I think once we started getting our driver's licenses it sort of stopped. Sadly I ended up loaning all of my D&D stuff to a friend one summer and never saw any of it again.

I was always attracted to the books, and imagery. I started reading the Dragonlance Chronicles in 1984 or so, was published by TSR and enjoyed those quite a bit. I should probably pick those up again and read them.

[sprytel]

Oh yes, lots of fond memories.

My oldest brother got into D&D very early (the first edition rules), but by the time I started playing, we were playing AD&D. Originally, I think I just really liked rolling all the funky dice. But I got hooked on how open ended it was and how the game rewarded creativity. I had a ton of characters over the years... but my preference was to play as a Thief or a Paladin.

It is an interesting point about how different the game plays based on the personality of the DM. My oldest brother is 9 years older than me, and he was my first DM. I remember this one incident when I was real young starting out playing. In this one room in the dungeon, there is this slime monster oozing down over the pathway to the treasure chest. I proudly announce, "I lift my axe over my head, and charge right through it." It was idiotic... it is the kind of dumb thing that should get you killed. But shockingly my brother declares, "It turns out... the slime was just an illusion." I pass right through and plunder the treasure chest. The other guys in the party congratulate me. But looking back on it, it dawns on me that it probably wasn't supposed to be an illusion. I suspect he pulled an audible, so I didn't end up digested by slime.

If the slime incident was an act of kindness, he turned heartless when I got older. One summer, we had an adventure where I would roll up my character in the morning, and he'd be killed before lunch. I'd roll up a new one in the afternoon, and he'd be killed before dinner. On and on like that for days. It seemed kind of dickish at the time, but all of my deaths were earned. He forced me to play smart-- it would be impossible to just hack and slash your way to the end. And as a result, it made it such a tremendous feeling of accomplishment when I finally was able to complete the quest.

[enyawd72]

The game sounds like it was really difficult to play...I wouldn't know since my parents didn't play games with me or my sister.

We weren't allowed to have friends over or go to their houses either. It was always work, work, work.

I did watch the cartoon though, and loved it. I own the complete series on DVD.

[Nostalgiabuff]

never played the game but had lots of the action figures. loved them. I think is was only the final series I did not get but I remember them being on clearance at Odd Lots or some such store for like a dollar a piece

[Red Hulk]

I never played the game but the action figures were pretty neat.I remember seeing the Fortress of Fangs playset at Kay-Bee in 1987 for 8 dollars.

[Ninersphan1]

Many many memories of D&D, played in high school and into the first few years of college. I still have 5 small moving boxes filled with Hard cover rule books, adventure modules, box sets, etc. We started with the red box D&D set with Keep on the Borderlands and moved into Advanced D&D with the 1st edition PHB and DMG and Monster Manual. Loved the Fiend Folio, when that came out and have tons of adventure modules as I was usually the DM for our group.

There were two times when I wasn't though, that I have strong remembrances. The first was an incident in the classic adventure Tomb of Horrors. Old time gamers know that this is basically a giant death trap of a tomb crawl designed to simply kill even the most high level characters. Well, after playing (slogging) through it for about 4 hours, and getting really frustrated navigating all the death traps, with no real monsters to kill, we enter a room with the walls covered in huge green tapestries. Well we carefully pulled the first one down and found an empty alcove behind it. after this my barbarian character had had enough. I distinctly remember the exchange with the DM (my brother):

Me: Ok my barbarian goes over to the second tapestry and grabs it and forcefully rips it down

DM: Did you say forcefully rips it down??? ( a small smirk appearing at the corners of his mouth)

Me: Yeah I yank that thing down with all my might

DM: You sure you wanna yank it down

Me: ( completely frustrated at this point with the lack of kills and treasure) Yes I rip it down!!!!

DM: The tapestry transforms into a giant green slime, covering your entire body dissolving through your weapons armour and flesh, no saving throw... You're dead. ( he's downright gleeful now)

Me: Crap

The next was memory involved a small group exploring the also classic Castle Ravenloft (basically the D&D version of Dracula's castle). the 3 of us, a barbarian with a strength of 20 (exceptional in the game for those that don't know), a paladin with a magic strength of 18/00 (Gauntlets of Ogre power), and a wizard with a strength of 14. The 3 of us get trapped in a small room behind a falling portcullis. The barbarian( my character) being the strongest of the party attempts to bend the bars to get us out of the room, a feat I have about a 95% of doing successfully due to my strength, of course I roll a 98 on the percentile dice and fail the check. Up steps the paladin, who has about a 85% chance, he rolls a 92. you can now see where this is going, of course the pipsqueak little wizard, who had about a 25% chance of success, steps up and promptly rolls a 23, bending the bars and getting the 3 of us out of the room. And don't think we didn't' hear about it the rest of the session and on into further sessions.

As we got older, it was tough to find the time to play as playing through an adventure module would take several nights worth of 6-8 hour sessions, so our focus started to move towards board/war games that we could finish in one evening. One of the games greatest assets became it's biggest drawback for us. Instead we played Talisman, Axis and Allies, Fortress America, Conquest of the Empire, Supremacy and a host of other "beer and pretzel" board games.

I still have great memories of those gaming sessions though and wish my group still lived in the same city, but we are all scattered now.