It was 1980 or so, I'd just started playing "blue book Basic" with the other kids at school, and the module was good ol' B1, "In Search of the Unknown." My character was one of the pregens from the back, Trebbelos the Boy Magician. The party I'd joined had already made a couple of forays into Quasqueton, and they took me to the big chunk of mica down in the caverns that gives you a random magical effect if you chip off a flake and put it in your mouth. IC and OOC (not that I was really clear on the difference at the time), I wondered if it was some kind of weird hazing stunt for the new guy.
In hindsight, spending a year in an alternative school might not have been the best thing for me - I was already socially behind for my age, and that just got worse since most of the other students were younger than me - but I did encounter both D&D and Choose Your Own Adventure books for the first time there.
After Hearthwind, I wouldn't be in a proper gaming group for almost a decade. I dabbled in early Champions in junior high/middle school, and Traveller, and continued with D&D - but it was mostly solo, making characters and ships and dungeons and such, and driving my parents crazy by talking about the games. Then I got to college...
Finally, I'll note my rather unusual path between editions. I started with blue-book Basic, as noted above. A few years later, I got the Expert book. They didn't quite match up (besides the different levels covered) and I gradually realized that they represented different versions/editions. Then I found the Monster Manual, which I thought was the missing link... it wasn't, but that's how I got into (1st Ed) AD&D. I still have those books, which I read cover-to-cover during a family car trip down to San Diego; even the MM, whose cover and binding I practically destroyed by carrying it around in a backpack and using it for a writing surface for years, not to mention my ill-considered and soon abandoned coloring effort. (I've since acquired another MM of similar vintage for my collection.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-03-05 11:18 pm (UTC)In hindsight, spending a year in an alternative school might not have been the best thing for me - I was already socially behind for my age, and that just got worse since most of the other students were younger than me - but I did encounter both D&D and Choose Your Own Adventure books for the first time there.
After Hearthwind, I wouldn't be in a proper gaming group for almost a decade. I dabbled in early Champions in junior high/middle school, and Traveller, and continued with D&D - but it was mostly solo, making characters and ships and dungeons and such, and driving my parents crazy by talking about the games. Then I got to college...
Finally, I'll note my rather unusual path between editions. I started with blue-book Basic, as noted above. A few years later, I got the Expert book. They didn't quite match up (besides the different levels covered) and I gradually realized that they represented different versions/editions. Then I found the Monster Manual, which I thought was the missing link... it wasn't, but that's how I got into (1st Ed) AD&D. I still have those books, which I read cover-to-cover during a family car trip down to San Diego; even the MM, whose cover and binding I practically destroyed by carrying it around in a backpack and using it for a writing surface for years, not to mention my ill-considered and soon abandoned coloring effort. (I've since acquired another MM of similar vintage for my collection.)