Every Superhero Needs a Good Origin Story

Lately I've been wracking my brains to try and remember how I came to play Dungeons and Dragons. I know it happened around age 14...that would be about 1999. I'm a real veteran, I know. I know none of my friends got me into it, nor any fantasy genre movie or video game. I just remember roleplaying, in my own particular style.

It didn't start off as very similar to DnD, more akin to the result of a choose-your-own-adventure book gone awry. It was always one-on-one, and I was the "dm". My friend and I would just be kicking back, probably in my living room, and I would set a scene for him. I remember those parts vividly. It would usually be something like "you find yourself in a forrest. To the north, you see a sparkling castle made entirely of ice. To the west you can hear the sound of rushing water. " Etcetera. Then he would choose a direction and off adventuring he would go. There would be magical items, like swords that shot fireballs. There would be quests up volcanos. It was great fun.

I didn't know it at the time, but I was pretty dang close to traditional sandbox style OD&D. Sure, there was no dice, nor stats or inventory. Sure, I never prepared any material ahead of time. I just thought of it as a poor man's DnD at the time, since I didn't know how to find the actual game, in a time before the prevalence of the internet and the popular status of roleplaying now.

I finally did get a hold of some product. It was a Forgotten Realms box set thing, 2nd edition I think. I remember thinking the maps were pretty cool. With no one to teach me who knew how to play DnD "properly", I weilded it like child might weild a sledgehammer, bludgeoning the crafted adventures into something I could readily digest and regurgitate to my (usually one) followers.

So while I still consider myself a product of the 3rd edition era, my recent forrays into old-school DnD gaming feels very familiar, like a warm coat. It makes you think, because the metagaming just isn't there. When your DM is running a 3.5 module, you know the conventions. You know that if a door doesn't open now, the key will be somewhere in the dungeon. You know that if the king asks for you to bring him the orb in the Kobold King's lair in exchange for the magic shard, well, that's the only way you're going to get that magic shard. You know that if you don't get a 15 or higher on that search check, there's no way you'll ever be getting whatever cool stuff was in this room.

But now, hey! Maybe that key is just lost for all time. Or maybe with some sly words you could bribe the king's advisor to getting that shard for you. Or maybe, if you just look reeeaaallllyyy carefully at weird statue, you might find that magic hammer.

Go find that magic hammer Svaalgard. Go find it and make everyone RESPECT the skull of your dead king.