Sean Kelly has started playing the original Dungeons & Dragons again (pen & paper version) and he recently sent out his list of 10 Awesome Things About D&D:
1 – Rolling a Natural Twenty when the fight is on the line
2 – Leveling up
3 – 0 hit points, unconscious, possibly dead
4 – The 10‘ pole
5 – The druid spell Shillelagh
6 – Being a 1st level Halfling mage with 1 hit point and a dart
7 – Drinking ale in the tavern
8 – The planar asymmetric synergy of polyhedrons and lead figures
9 – Scimitars
10 – Treasure Type Q, the best Treasure Type
My list would have fighting a Beholder, those things were so badass.
What kind of things would make your D&D top ten list?
UPDATE 1: A bunch of great comments coming in. The nostalgia spell I cast worked!
UPDATE 2: For those of you thinking about getting back into D&D and trying out the new 3.5 ruleset, here’s the Wizards of the Coast official website for Dungeons & Dragons. TSR, company formed by Gary Gygax that originally published D&D, was bought by Wizards of the Coast in 1997. D&D 4th Edition is scheduled for this May.
UPDATE 3: All of this talk of D&D made me think of Dungeon Majesty, a hilarious public access TV show from 2004 where four women play D&D and act out the various battle scenes with ridiculous green screen effects.
UPDATE 4: Remember the awesome Dragon magazine? Well I just read the sad news that after 30 years it stopped being published back in September, however back issues are still available through its publisher Paizo. It’s great to go through there and just look at the covers of the issues I used to own.
Wade Rockett let us know that Dragon magazine editor Wolfgang Baur recently started the Kobold Quarterly to fill the void left by the end of Dragon.
UPDATE 5: Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, passed away on March 4th, 2008.
Here Are A Few Related Posts You Might Enjoy:
- Dave Arneson 1947-2009, Co-Creator of Dungeons & Dragons
- Gary Gygax 1938-2008, Co-Creator of Dungeons & Dragons
- Tributes To Gary Gygax & Dungeons & Dragons
- Dungeons & Dragons Spellcasting Soda
- Dungeons & Dragons Beholder Monster Photoshop Contest
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- Bags of Holding
- When you get to the point where you laugh at a horde of orcs rounding the corner of a dungeon
- Gelatinous Cubes
-Having great DMs to play with. This would make or break the whole game.
-All of the worlds and books that were created, esp Dragonlance series and Icewind Dale
The 1st edition DMG has all sorts of bizarre stuff, including a 2+ page section near the front on the game mechanics for various diseases. It’s some of the greatest bathroom reading material ever.
Oh, man, love the gelatinous cube.
I have a copy of Dieties and Demigods, the first edition before they revised it to remove the stuff that they didn’t own the rights to.
I feel like a lot of the stuff I use in my professional life (particularly writing and public speaking, but also more basic stuff like organization and leading teams) got started in fifth grade when I was playing D&D. I can’t wait until the new edition of this comes out so I can buy it and teach it to my kids.
But, but… halflings can’t be magic-users if you play by the book. Reference the Character Race Table II: Class Level Limitations on PHB Page 14, for instance.
:-)
Chaotic neutral. Which may be the alignment of most Coen Bros. flicks.
The original AD&D? Wasn’t there something about becoming a bard that made it totally not worth it? Like having to be a fighter for a few levels, then a thief for a few levels without using your fighter skills, and then you could be a bard if you passed a standardized bard test or something? Neither me or anyone I ever played with ever attempted that bard path, and I’ve never had anyone start telling me about their D&D character unsolicited by starting with “So I did all the work to become a bard,” either.
Carnivorous Flying Squirrels.
Boy does this bring back memories…
I laughed out loud at the 1 hp halfling mage with a dart.
I had a long, long discussion about evil with Donald Bruce on a drive across the country. We concluded that the purest evil was Neutral Evil. I went back and checked: all things that were lack of humanity were indeed Neutral Evil. Gary’s Lich in the Tomb of Horrors, for example. Then we tried to figger out what kind of evil Steve Jobs was… or Hitler. Interesting game for a long drive.
Anyone ever play Verbosh?
Holy Avenger FTW!
The original AD&D guides increased my vocabulary insane amounts, even though it didn’t help with pronounciation…
Two short stories:
A friend of mine won a class jeopardy contest because of D&D. “Trebuchet”, which he pronounced “tray-bu-shet”
In third grade sunday school, we were talking on why we call Jesus “Lord”. “Does anyone know what a lord is,†the Nun asked?
“It’s a ninth level fighter!†I responded.
One of the more traumatic experiences of my life. ;-)
3rd grade Sunday school. Priceless.
An answer like that in my sunday school class would have gotten you promptly paddled. It is hilarious though.
The first time you get to cast a fireball. All the awesome power of 6d6 damage.
Hmm some to add to the list
- Wandering monsters
- Modules S1-4. Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain…
- The loot
- Siege engine damage tables
- Any battle fought outside of the material plane
- The first time you read the first edition DMG from cover to cover (the one with the efrit on the cover)
- Dragon Magazine Issue #49 (those who know, know what I’m talking about)
- Grimtooth’s Traps
- Carving out your own imaginary empire in the imaginary World of Greyhawk
- That 80’s cartoon show (hehe)
If you place a bag of holding in another bag of holding, you open a tear in the space time continuum which eats all your stuff in both bags. Implodes with a *pop*.
I miss playing all day D&D once a month with my friends.
Ahh..the salad days.
This is great. I could sigh all day long.
My favs;
* “What’s my TACO?”
* “This adventure sux, we haven’t found any magical weapons.”
* Monks.
* Getting a new set of dice.
* The four sided dice and laughing at people who didn’t get it.
* Eating cold pizza the next morning and still playing.
* Minatures.
Favs from above:
* Bag of holding.
* 10 foot pole.
* The lord faux pas.
Nice one Scott. Let’s hook up for a game. World of Warcraft lacks imagination!
Mick
P.S. Have to add the Dragon Lance novels. They were awesome.
I’ve been playing 3.5 for a few years now. I tried looking at some old AD&D books and was grateful for the changes.
Now that I think about it, I remember when my older brother would DM back in the early 80s, and someone had a magic sword named Zaxxon which could cast spells like “Flying Fluorescent Mace Head” and “Invisible Stampeding Herd of Buffalo.”
It wasn’t exactly a rules-heavy game, no. Pre-teens for the win.
Dancing vorpal
Bigby’s Fists and other various body parts that did damage
Using the Giant-slayer hammer from one module to take on the 3 consecutive Giant modules. I remember the Trident was called Whelm, and the sword (Black Razor?) took souls–but can’t remember the hammer’s name (Googling is cheating!)
There was only one guy in the crowd who insisted on being a Paladin and then talking down to the group like he was the pope .
referring to 10-sided as “percentile” dice
Naming your dwarves after “Time Bandits” characters
Rolling for secret doors so often that the DM either says “fine–you find one” or “stop–there aren’t any!@”
Infravision
Trying to integrate the word “Succubus” into every day life
and the #1 thing– which is how you can code word new friends to see if they have ever played— “DROW”
I forgot to add an honorable mention..
Count Strahd Von Zarovich!
definitely character names. I had a female fighter called Bbbbbbbalqps (the last bit actually being the letter psi), and a paladin called G.R.O. LaSaller-Ingrate. A friend had a character named after the economist Biblabp das Gupta.
@Chip. S2. White Plume Mountain. The trident was “Waveâ€â€¦ ;-)
Anyone remember “chits†or rolling the 6 sider to determine the 10’s on their twenty sider?
You realize that according to 60 Minutes… by all rights we should all have committed suicide by now.
I’m still kicking myself for letting my mother sell all of my old D&D books, dice, modules, etc.
And reading through the comments dredged three words from the depths of my memory:
Baba Yaga’s Hut
Nothing. Nada. Caput.
I never have played. I laughed at people who did. I’m sure you all had a lot of fun not fitting in. Ha!
I do miss all the good drugs my D&D friends used to bring along though. Ahh, those were the days.
I loved ignoring all the encumbrance rules.
and creating characters were like doing your taxes…heh!
favorite (or least favorite, if you prefer) moment: a critical miss with a ranged weapon. you usually end up shooting your leg off.
Playing with my cousins from 9pm-5am – at age 29…
Chip’s theme song of the evening
Rolling back to back 1’s
Battling with foam swords, way too recently
Playing with the popular kids in high school and them requesting that it remained a secret
Gully dwarves named Scabris
Some other great things:
Deck of Many Things
Wand of Wonder
My friends paladin we referred to as “the meat wall” because he actually never hit a single creature until he was past level 10 (thousands of upon thousands of monsters….first edition took forever to level) but he was good for soaking up damage so the other characters could survive to deal damage.
Crazy obscure weapons like harpoons, bill-guisarms, falchion-forks and lucern hammers
Getting screwed over by super difficult monsters and modules. Tomb of Horrors anyone??
Module S3 – Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
+ Ioun stones
+ Artifacts, particularly the Vecna pair
+ The Twofold Talisman in Dragon #84 & #85
+ the Wish spell
+ Prismatic Wall, with the successive barriers broken by different counterspells
+ the Forgotten Realms, from the Dragon columns to the boxed set and now a succession of slick books
Oriental Adventures, Kensai, dual wielding katanas
2d10 baby
* Waiting for T-2 “Temple of Elemental Evil” for years, and years, and years….
* Artifacts: The Invulnerable Coat of Arnd, Baba Yagas Hut, and Vorpal Blade.
* Hanging the Grey hawk poster on my wall and putting little flag pins in the places we’d had adventures
* Painting miniatures (wash and dry!)
* “What’s New with Phil & Dixie” cartoon by Phil Foglio in every issue (and the tag line about next issue being the “Sex and D&D” issue – or the issue (64?) where there were dragons everywhere)
* The cool game pull-outs in Dragon (esp. issue #45)
* GenCon!
The Rod of Lordly Might!
Wand of wonder… Enough said.
i thought it was a rod???
Thanks to everyone who posted above. I haven’t enjoyed reading some random site I stumbled upon on the ‘Net this much in a looooong time.
I got almost every reference, felt every emotion, laughed at the obscurities and bizareness, and felt kinship with total strangers I’ll never meet, just because we shared what is was to play pen & paper D&D back in the days.
I salute you all! You’ve all collectively made my day and put a smile on my face.
Calzone Golems.
Also the first time you take a foray into Epic characters, there’s a whole lot of “You can do -what- now?”
Calkins first used his Rod of Lordly Might at Minicon, on his 16th birthday, with a random girl. . . In a stairwell, if I recall. . .
“Hello! Dungeon Master?! I’d like to report an alignment deviation!”
/ah, the good old days.
I won the Sonoma County spelling bee in 1987 and went on to the state finals because, thanks to D&D, I knew how to spell “lycanthropy”.
Thanks, D&D!
Ok,
First to the dude who is complaining about halflings not being able to be mages. That’s technically correct. I just looked it up in my mint-condition, 25 year-old, still-has-the-$12-sticker-on-it Player’s. However, we’re talking about a magical world where monsters that can turn armor into rust fight Elves that can see in the dark … And so, I cast the non-existent illusionist spell Suspend Partial Suspension of Disbelief on you, thereby making it ok for you to be both a halfling and a magician. Also it’s racist. Any race should be able to be any job. However, I must admit you totally faced a dungeon master in a public forum and won (technically), so the next bottle of Mountain Dew is on me.
And Calkins … what you have revealed unto us about your teenage World of Greyhawk years is both beautiful and disturbing. It’s a new word, beautisturbing. Or was that college. Nah, college was Shadowrun.
Making up a “hooker” character class with my friend when i was in 5th grade. We wrote out all sorts of funny tables and rules for it.
I remember the Houri class from Dragon magazine was it? That was basically a hooker. I also remember a ‘corpse’ class from some magazine. This corpse was actually a PC and as such could level up and stuff, and was ‘wielded as a weapon’ by other PCs.
@ Mick Liubinskas
Wasn’t it “THACO”…….
I remember playing in an old camper by gas lanterns….
the dice. all of them.
Monster manual. best.art.evar.
maps. loads and loads of maps.
players who “honestly” rolled and yet seem to have all attributes over 12, and at least 2 17s.
Monstrous Compendium (binder and hole-punched expansions only, please), and imagining a comprehensive ecology where a tarasque might conceivably exist.
Cloak of scintillating colors totally gave me a leg up on the SAT’s.
– How positively uber the original AD&D bard was– by the time my primary character was a 5th level bard he had 117 hit points and was squaring up against Type VI Balors.
(In spite of what the poster above says, if you took the time to go through the fighter, then thief, then bard levels, you were a demigod before the double digits. Then, the bard was sadly– but understandably– gimped.)
– The cavalier class (and anything in Unearthed Arcana)!
my first fav chara was a cav named Strydar with an 18 cha.
i was 11, not a virgin( thanx aunt cindy) and now 33 still wondering why the eff the dice gods blessed me with only one great ability wasted on cha??
Being the only one to survive in my party.. again.
Oh and rust monsters!!!
20th level fighter encounters a 3 HD rust monster. 20th level fighter runs away screaming like a little girl!
Great stuff!
reminded of a time before D&D was corrupted and it wasn’t all about the power gamer.
One word. Ravenloft. My favorite.
I miss the Judges Guild and Arduin Grimoire trilogy. Young whippersnapers! I started playing D&D in 1978.
Spending countless hours in class with graph paper, designing intricate maps, mostly mountain tunnels and dungeons, with devious traps and secret rooms.
Riding my bike a few blocks to my friends house to play. Learning about Vic-20, punk rock, and checking out my friend’s older sister, things I would have never learned about at home.
-6 AC
The guy who was always the wood elf.
Wanting to DM, but the guy who owned the manual always did.
Going to the game store and staring at the dice.
Photocopying player pages at the local copy place with my allowance.
Are you guys serious?
On the way back from the Temple of Elemental Evil and encountering a lowly skeleton. And being too scared to fight it thinking it was a Wight or something.
Ice storm. Delayed Blast Fireball.
Rangers with Dual Wielding.
Fighters with 5 WP in a Two-Handed Sword.
Human dual classed Fighter 4 to Mage, with a specialization in Bows!
And Chaotic Neutral characters. Definitely playing the sociopathic CN’s, that was the best, scamming or intimidating the rest of the party so much the adventure could barely move forward out of fear.
Firing a Wand of Wonder at a charging Red Dragon…only to have a cloud of 400 butterflies appear! (The DM rolled that they did obscure the dragon’s vision long enough for the party to escape!)
Seeing the grin on my sister’s face when her character beat the crap out of her husband’s character…
Spending all my breaktime and lunch designing dungeons and NPC’s…then the player’s party choose NOT to check out that cave…
Trying to keep parties of Newby’s alive (as DM) and still keep within the rules…if they don’t have fun they won’t be back next week..An engineer once gave me a formula to calculate how many coins would fit in a Portable Hole…DM is the key to a good game, and compatible players. Thanks for stirring up some good memories……Chaotic Good Forever!!
Redicilep,12th level Human MU
Breaking a Staff of the Magi
Fiend Folio (nilbogs, githyanki)
Explaining falling damage (30′pit =1d6+2d6+3d6)
Wandering what ’sans shield’ ment…
In seventh grade, I bought the old blue boxed set, before AD&D came out., simply because there was a dragon on teh cover and I thought it looked cool. I didn’t know anything about the game or anyone who played.
Anyway, the best moment for me was that “eureka” thing after reading the game book cover to cover three times and finally getting the concept of the game.
I still sucked as both a player AND a DM. Didn’t stop me from trying, though. I gave about 30 of my boxed RPGs to the RPG club when I went to University.
D&D was just a gateway drug to harder RPG games. Anyone remember Gamma World or Traveller? Mutants! Space travel! Blasters!
-My pimp set of clear gold metallic flake dice.
-Using a plastic Captain Crunch figure or a smurf when I “forgot” to bring my actual character figure.
- Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. 1/2 way through the module I drank some poison. The guys in my party, without me suggesting it, took me to the medical robot. They tried having my body replaced with an android body. The DM didn’t really want to allow it, but he rolled 4 20s in a row! I ended up with an android thief!
-The spin-off, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi version-Gamma World, ruled! Rolling for mutations and 6′ tall machine gun wielding jackrabbits among the highlights.
-Tom Hanks’ best movie ever- “Mazes and Monsters”- a cautionary tale of the dangers of LARPing.
- Several friends and I getting our DM manuals confiscated by our teacher (I went to parochial school). We all got a looooong lecture by our pastor about the dangers of demon worship- it was pretty hilarious how serious they took it- and calls home to our parents. From then on we had to meet surreptitiously to play, adding to the experience immensely.
In retrospect, maybe they weren’t so off the mark. It takes a wedding or a funeral to force me through the church doors nowadays, but whenever my old DM is in town I still look forward to the odd all-nighter.
I am actually part of the new generation, I’m 19 and I play with my friends. I’m normally the dungeon master. I recently went away for the summer and now all my players claim that they are “level 70″ and I have a mad power gamer who has a level 5 priest with all 20’s for his stats “because it’s part of his character” I destroyed all their characters in a level 10 dungeon just to prove that I could. that’s why I submit
power gamers
DMing FTW
Wand of Wonder.
Illusionary Gold.
Calculating where to conjure the Wall of Iron / Stone so it will topple and crush the most monsters.
My friend’s gnome illusionist (he of the illusionary gold fame) and his giant riding skunk.
editions 3, 3.5 and now 4th are nothing like the previous versions.. everything that was D&D has been stipped away to favour powergaming idiots that can’t count backwards.
Editions 1 and 2 FTW, the rest suck balls.
Josh (above post) you are a prime example of this.. LEVEL 70 WTF?
Level 20 used to be virtual godhood.. new D&D= WOW players. *puke*
When it comes down to it, there’s good reasons to roll 12+’s. I mean, who wants a character with 6 INT , 4 WIS, 3 CHR, and 8 STR?
I mean, besides Chicken John, who has a lifetime of experience with those stats…
I started playing in 1976. I still have a set of the original paperback D&D books. I remember rolling a d6 with a d10 to determine “to hit” rolls.(before d20’s came into being.) I, on more than one occasion, played marathon games lasting for 72 hours or more while in the U.S.NAVY, while stationed on board the aircraftcarrier the USS Enterprise CVN-65. My fav character-(and 1st character) Dwarf fighter/thief named Kinak of Granite hill. Coming to the realization that dragons are not only intelligent but they can be reasoned with. Been a DM since 1978. Still playing.
My favorite spells were always command and Tasha’s Hideous Uncontrollable Laughter. We were once fighting a horde of dudes carrying torches. So I told the one in the middle of the pack to throw. All hell broke loose. It was great.
For those of you concidering getting back into D&D, may I make a solic suggestion? The Ptolus book is about as big as a dictionary… and has EVERYTHING you’d need to have a very very fun and excitting game. My friend is running this for us, with the Night of dissolusion suppliment, and my god, it’s fantastic ^_^.
http://www.ptolus.com/
I hope someone out there finds this helpful.
Spending my graduation money on dice and books.
Throwing a random biscuit into a portal… only to have it come back in every game randomly and hit one of us in the head >_>
Someo of the best days of my life spent with friends I will never forget doing things that we can only dream of.
FINALLY reaching level 20 with my monk.
Learning that I can DM without ruining peoples lives.
Happy happy days…my top 5 memories:
5. Being kicked out of the house by the DM because I made a joke about using Cure Light Wounds after our characters had been riding for several hours…he let us all back in again after we apologised…
4. Creating charcters – drawing the pcture, finding a lead figure to match…
3. Making up physical items for the players when I was DM – parchment, strange jewels (marbles and tin foil), etc. etc.
2. Finally saving up enough for my own copy of the Players Handbook
1. Deathwish, my dwarven fighter, with his unerring ability to get drunk at the exactly the wrong time…
What was the monster that was a mold or jelly? ochre something?
I remember branching out into whatever looked promising at the game store like the little sets of Car Wars or OGRE, or being the ultimate dorks and playing KILLER around school…
I fondly remember sitting around listening to bootleg led zeppelin and yngwie malmsteen cassetes while we were playing and the luxury of the store-bought screen to keep the players from scoping my awesome maps and NPC scripts…
I remember one time getting ticked at a friend of mine while I was the DM. He had some cube of force that when used gave his favorite character a cubed shaped force field around him. He used it against a giant that was throwing boulders at him. He laughed because he said that nothing was ever going to kill his character because of the cube. Revenge was sweet. I had the giant do something smart and place a monster size boulder on top of the cube shaped force field and dared him to turn the force field off. Needless to say, his character got crushed. His character survived only because he sacrificed the cube of force.
Ah yes, the long nights spent in a camper. :-D For anyone who has ever enjoyed paper and pen RPGs, you NEED to go to youtube and search for ‘the gamers’ . I promise you will laugh yourself silly. There are 4 sections, and they should be watched in order.
I remember having to play mostly with my lil bro’s friends because mine were “too cool” and stuff…
D&D instigated a creativity in me that has since thrived. I had alot of fun with it and hope to play it again. :)
Ps. Mages with Katana’s!
The “Head of Vecna” story. Possibly the best bit of gaming I have ever heard of
My standard ‘use anywhere’ password is still the name of my 9th-level fighter from 27 years ago…
-Discovering the concept of covering the table with clear plastic to write on. Changed the whole game for us.
- Pint containers of Hagendaz ice cream.
- Painting the lead figures
- Oh God, the dice! I still have them.
First hit with the sword, follow-up with the buckler.
Dwarves Rocked.
Totally misusing the portable hole as a temporary refuge.
DM conveniently allowing us to bring our bag of many things into the hole without tearing the space time continuum.
- Bruce Dusan
the illustration of Hecate in the AD&D Deities & Demigods (wicked sexy)
the ingenuity of players in defeating powerful monsters that the DM is pretty sure is going to destroy them
the Entangle spell
Fond memories…:
Bohemian Earspoons
Chaotic Neutral
Familiars
DMing
Recently my sister shipped me a few boxes of old stuff which included all of my RPG gear. Very nostaligic.
This is the most interesting random link experience I’ve had in a while.
Strange how familiar *ALL* of the above comments are.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Room / Monster / Treasure
Basic D&D set – where Halfling, Dwarf, and Elf weren’t just a race but a class.
Module – Castle Amber (with the 300′ guy that used a tree as a club 10-80 damage I think)
Module – Isle of Dread – I think we had about 5 copies of this one for some reason… came with the Expert set rule book that we always lost and had to re-purchase
Mace of Disruption
Raistlin’s Cursed Money
DEFINITELY Ravenloft
Rod of Lordly Might
Ahhh good times!
Pre-Generated Neutral-Evil Gnome Rogue/illusionist character at a convention, playing with 5 other Evil characters head to head with another table of 6 Good characters. Being the only one to leave the dungeon alive, and with the prize!! I took out 3 of the 6 good characters, and the last Evil character (Anti-Palidan) right after he finished off the Good Palidan. Loads of fun…
-The DM shield – “Keep your eyes out!”
- OOC or “player-knowledge”
- Critical hits – “to the face!” >_ WOW
I loved it when a player in the game I was running, told me that his dwarf has a phobia of statues. They were fighting a Basillisk at the time and the party thief was turned. The Dwarf promptly hefted the statue and broke it to a million pieces. OUCH.
My other favorite was playing a Kender that kept wandering off. The party never did slow down to chat or think things through, because I never let the game bog down long enough.
Last favorite thing was a elf fighter/mage wearing a Helm of Brillance. A large blue dragon landed in front of him and I won init. I fired off three beams from the helm. It DIED on the spot. DM was so pissed that he made the dragon fall on me as it died.
The LingSter
I too am part of a younger generation of D&D but I understand alot of the humor and stories presented here. My best memory is the DM who didn’t think I would create a monk more powerful than the whole party. when I hit level 18 (mind you he started us at 15 because he was a pretty bad DM) my monk had 58 AC (Later recalculated to be close to 70 by a friend who played much longer than I and I guess I missed a step) Had vorpal hands, could make a wish per day and had not only used an iron palm against a red dragon, but killed the dragon with it. Needless to say, i’m not part of that group anymore. I have however been looking for more experienced people who know what they are doing.
Chip – the hammer in the giant modules was the hammer of thunderbolts…. instantly killed giants with a hit no saving throw.
Other favs:
displacer cloak
regeneration rings
rod of lordly might
figurines of wonderous power
Druids
wall of fire spell
Still have my original character sheets from the 80’s
Had a friend who always played a Paladin named Bayder – until one of the others kept calling him Master…
-Fighting a beholder as a Samurai, getting hit with all ten of its spell like abilitys three times in a row, and surviving the encounter with only 1 hit point.
- Dark Sun in 2E. You could roll 5d4 for your stats!
- Ranger 2 weapon fighting- the envy of all.
The modules.
- Caverns of Tsojcanth, that had no real thought behind dungeon ecology, just monsters upon monsters, in room after room.
- Tomb of Horrors, the ultimate total party kill adventure.
- Vault of the Drow, for 100s of Drow, armed with fungal poisoned hand crossbows bolts.
- Ravenloft, where I lost my best character go man to man with Azalin.
Half Orc Assassins, who always described themselves as “just a fighter”.
Cavaliers, the original ’stick up the butt’ class.
-DMing and having a “rules lawyer” in the party. Ahhhh… the delicious arguments and whining!
The illustrations in the first Monstrous Manual!
Memories,
First game was a power game (the DM said so) i was an a half fiend mindflayer sorcerer, in the party were dragons,trolls and all kinda hybrid creatures as PC. The game was set on the first level of hell during the blood wars (between demons and devils).
I got to meet Tiamat and was the only person standing there after the dragonfear check.
Was a great time. For all those who thing players can be too powerful. We were in what should have been epic levels and the DM still caused us much pain and death.
Loss of party members was as often other players as it was the DM
How could nobody have mentioned the Deck of Many Things and the anxiety felt when(if) you pulled out a card?
Ahhhhh to have those wonderful, simple days back again….
My halfling theif liked to hid and throw things. Knives, rocks and stuff. He was low level and weak. My whole party was unconcious after a battle with an elder vampire. The only thing that could save the party was two thrown weapons from the halfling. DM said that I would need two consecutive nat 20s to defeat the vamp. Roll em up, shure enough 2 nat twenties. I ruined the campaign in one fell swoop. Saved my party and looted some Vampire booty.
Next week my DM sent a wererat after us. (and by us, i mean me.) The wererat could smell me and chased me down and ate me while the party tried to engage it in melee.
Ahh the memories.
rolling a twenty when a battle was not on the line. Example:
player: “I want to steal her panties”
dm: “… okay, roll”
*rolls 20*
helarity ensues.
Killing monsters that you weren’t supposed to be able to
Getting slaughtered on a cakewalk surveillance mission
Being so in character that no one thinks to roll die
The moral and legal ambiguities that make playing to alignment so interesting
The Illithid Slayer prestige class
Yeah, the crashed spaceship in module S3, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Dork that I am, I actually pulled that off the shelf about two years ago just to read through it again.
Judge’s Guild stuff… especially the Tegel Manor Haunted House campaign. The haunted house was huge! As DM, I took parties in both HS and and college through it, and I don’t think we got more than 1/4 of the way through it.
I tell my wife that I’m going to teach the kids (2, 4 and 6) D&D, and she starts to freak… she (mostly jokingly) says that if she knew I played D&D she’d not have married me. I actually made a Power Rangers game that we play a lot that is like very basic D&D boardgame, and I actually pulled out my old d20’s to use, but wound up sticking with d6’s. If I had time, I would actually play D&D with them. As soon as they learn to read, that is. ;)
Getting the new Dragon magazine… and the great comics in the back.
I never really played D&D — Palladium FRPG FTW.
I GM for my preteens now; spent all Christmas holidays running them through a “save the Wolfen’s (think gnoll?) granddaughter from the evil summoner” adventure, with walk-on cameo from my wife. Good times.
Our group had a special ‘deck of many things’ that we used from time to time to liven up the game.
Meeting on saturday at our local library from 8:30 am (yes AM) till whatever time we could talk the lady that worked there to let us stay.
One member had nearly 100 MONK characters under 1st edition all named Armand Dragontooth.
Spending every dime I had on modules and then using the maps for other adventures.
Writing my first character generator in highschool in 1983 in TRS-80 BASIC!
I had a DM running one of the D modules, upgraded for 2nd edition. We were confronted by an overwhelming force of fully prepped drow that he’d spent hours writing up. My 13th level wizard started the bidding by teleporting into their midst with a scroll of Mordenkainen’s Disjunction. After he spent an hour or so recalculating all of his NPCs’ bonuses, the monk in our party instant-killed four or five clerics in a row with his first post-Stoneskin hit. Yeah, it was just a 5% chance or so, but the dice were rolled in the middle of the table for all to see. The most dominating defeat of a DM’s encounter I’ve ever been a part of.
Also, for those complaining about above-average stats, consider something a friend once told me. If I’m an average person, I’m not going on adventures. I’m gonna stay home and milk Bessie.
And while we’re on that topic, Method V and cavalier paladins from Unearthed Arcana.
By far the best module ever made The Temple of Elemental Evil. After a long day and night of playing, I remember laughing my ass off when we entered a room, and the GM exclaimed, “Out from the pile of rubbish rises a HUGE TROLL!!!” We rolled around on the floor in fits of laughter, and I was stupid enough to go toe to toe with it in a fist fight – me and my 6th level Dwarf with his +2 Cestus on against a troll.. Hilarity ensued (and a near death experience for me).
The Deck of Many Things – I remember my friends and I daring each other to draw from the deck, “Draw!”, “No, YOU draw!” I can’t even count all the belongings lost to the talon card in that damn deck, or the levels gained from the deck.. We wasted entire nights doing nothing but drawing from that stupid thing, MUCH to the chagrin of our DM.
Ah, such fond memories. I don’t think I could conceivably write everything I am feeling now, so instead I leave you with a funny link:
http://www.llbbl.com/data/RPG-motivational/page_01.htm
Coming home with a new book.
Blibdoolpoolp, naked lobster-headed goddess of the deep!
The Wand of Orcus.
Turning on one another halfway through the adventure.
(FYI, former Dragon magazine editor Wolfgang Baur recently started the Kobold Quarterly to fill the gap left by Dragon’s passing.)
For those of u complaining about how power gamers abound in D&D today , i submit the following :
Girdle of storm giant strength, Gauntlets of ogre power and
Hammer of thunderbolts
The bonuses stack and u could throw the hammer for a ranged stun attack.
There always have been power gamers :)
I remember a monster from one of the old manuals. I think it was fiend folio. It was a 2×4 with wings. Or how about being a dwarf and falling into a lake that had a bunyip in it. My fondest memory has to be getting killed by a fellow party member for my cloak of the bat. Thanks Matt!!
For me (was & still a newbie) the best memory….getting into an argument with my DM, who had made up his own world using forgotten realm rules, & then tried to use a character that was a drow elf ranger. So not allowed. Rangers cannot be evil & all drow elves are evil. We had a long argument about that one. He still used his character but my character, a pixie of all things, plague his every step of the journey! I never did play with them again…..
this is a funny collection of points – one of my fondest memories of D&D is when our DM let us mix and match any race for our characters and someone had a Yuan-ti/Drow mix. It had the ability to transmorgify things using a latent psionic ability. However, because he was a half-breed Yuan-ti it was very random and he could only really master changing things into one form – Bologna.
So, once we were getting our butts kicked by a troll and he tried to change it into Bologna – he hit a 1 on a d100 for success and bam we had trollic bologna.
We never went hungry again – my kender kept the bologna in his bag and would slice it up all the time for bait and dinner. It was troublesome a few years later though when he mixed it up with some manticore bologna.
Thanks Wade, I’ve added that to the update.
@Sean Kelly:
Well, I guess you don’t owe me Mountain Dew because it’s a DM who beat a DM. But I have to admit, the whole idea that any character should be able to do any job is very third edition (loving referred to as “threetards” among my gaming friends). I guess racial level limits are “racist,” too. [rolls eyes]
I’ve been searching since this thread started for a tremendously funny video I remember about D&D. It was a cartoon, and all the players were monsters playing humans. There was a dragon digging through the fridge for Mountain Dew while a disgruntled Ogre DM kept trying to control the game – can anyone find it? I rolled a 1 on Google spell-casting and cannot find it.
Stick ‘Summoner Geeks’ into google and enjoy!
The fact that the 2nd edition book had Capons (castrated roosters) specifically listed in the animal section of the equipment chart, seperate from other chickens.
Buying a few chickens (or capons) to load up on the pack mule in case we found any potions and needed something to test them on.
Losing a character to one of the above mentioned chickens because the potion that we poured down it’s throat was giant strength…
Having the party’s halfling thief get ripped limb from limb early in an adventure and having to drag his corpse along “to get him rezzed later”, then having to repeatedly ask the GM how much of him we needed for the rez…
I remember as we went deeper we kept having less halfling to carry. A leg went to distract some wargs; the arms were lost skipping them down hallways to check for pressure plates; and his torso being used to prop open a door or hatch…
Being the only honest player at pickup D&D games at the local gaming shop… My stats… 6-13. The rest of the party’s stats… 16-19. Amazing how they always managed to get one of their three lucky 18’s on the stat their race had a bonus for.
And for the true geeks…
Gencon
Mecca ( I have a chunk from the demolition)
Sandburg Hall
Killer Breakfast (aka who can bribe Hickman to let them live the longest)
+4 Defenders
+ 5 Holy Avengers
Dragon breath damage equaling their hit points
Umber Hulks
Githyankis
Hot Pockets
Mountain dew
Cheetos
Blink Dogs
I got the basic red box when I was 12, worked my own way through the first adventure and got killed by the rust monster. So I threw it under my bed and never played it again.
Fast-forward to moving out of my house to a big, filthy punk house in Seattle where we organized a group game. I rolled and got a lot of gold, so I bought as many chickens as possible to become the Master of Chickens. DM wasn’t amused and killed all of my chickens, then me.
I’d like to try again someday, but I’m afraid that the more advanced players would be mean!
Not sure if anyone here ever played the Gold Box games from SSR – Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, and Secret of the Silver Blades. They were AD&D games for the computer where you could create your character and eventually have an entire party to game with (before the internet), and could transfer your characters from one game to the next. Anyways, Minmaxing abounded in those games, and at the time (man I’m old) I couldn’t play Pool of Radiance because I couldn’t see anything on my monochrome monitor.. So I started out with CotAB. I created a party with a decent mix – 2 paladins, a cleric, a thief and a mage. When I played Curse of the Azure Bonds, just before the final battle I cast the usual spells – growth, haste etc., and saved the game just in case. My characters were lucky and stomped Tyranthraxus into the mud right away. When I transfered all the characters into Secret of the Silver Blades, all of their movement was double (thanks haste), and their strengths were sitting at 23 (thanks growth).. Silver Blades was the easiest game in the world with stats like that. There was some bug that gave them permanent scores above anything you could ever get naturally.. Running through that game with a Long Sword +3 Flametongue, and the +3 Longsword Frostbrand didn’t hurt either…
Great stuff!
- Pulling Chain Lightening from a conjured 8hd air Elemental
- Lightening bolts that rebound off of walls
- Fighting amongst our own party at higher levels
- Malmsteen’s “I Am a Viking” was the perfect opening song tot he evening soundtrack.
- Having to use another character sheet because the current one has too many eraser marks on it
- Salvaging meat and acid glands from Ankegs, not to mention the customary search for magic rings in the digestive tracts of each monster
- Rolling 00 on a slim chance at slaying an escaping druid shapechanged into a hummingbird.
- Treants do not make good firewood
finally
- LEVELING UP
“Not sure if anyone here ever played the Gold Box games from SSR – Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, and Secret of the Silver Blades. ”
- Those were excellent!
And then much later, along came Icewind Dale, IWD 2, and of course the 2 Baldur’s Gate games, perhaps the pinnacle of which was the characters interacting and fighting with you and other party members, the side quests, the romance quests – trying to woo Viconia the neutral evil Drow was such a blast.
The Neverwinter 1 & 2 games never appealed the same way as the Baldur or even IWD games. I just reloaded and played the original Icewind Dale earlier this year. Still holds up, despite the cruder graphics and the like. Way more fun than Neverwinter.
The Elder Scrolls series, Arena to Daggerfall to Morrowind and now Oblivion, are also fantastic, among the most fun and immersive games I’ve played… but its still not good ol’ fashioned D&D. Pity to see D&D usurped so throughly by those games.
I am so jealous of all you people. I’m 16 but I would love to have a bunch of mates who would play table top games with me… It just sounds so fun. I remember when I was little we were clearing out the house and I found an old D&D guide. Dad said that it was no fun if you got bogged down by the strategy guides, there were better D&D books you could get. We got rid of the guide and I sure wish I had it now so that i could try my luck. Come to think of it… if I could get everyone over at once for an organised game I might still get the chance… It’s just occured to me that if my Dad had an old guide then my Dad must have played. He’d be a good DM.
I’ll DM for you… but then I am old enough to be your father. :D
pen&paper FTW!
For those interested in the old books, you can find them easily on Amazon.com or other on-line book websites. For example, the Monster Manual shown at the top sells for as little as $3.50. http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Manual-Advanced-Dungeons-Dragons/dp/0935696008/ref=pd_sim_b_img_3
Of course, I still own the books I bought in 1979, plus all the books and modules in between. Great thread, I love the memories.
Some of my best friends today I met playing D&D. It is my gaming friends that I have been able to count on to help me move, when needed.
Judges Guild stuff–a very different flavor, very early-D&D. City State of the Invincible Overlord!
You people actually played D&D? Pretty much the most I did (though enjoyed a lot) was reading the manuals and creating characters. And cheating, truth be told.
Oh, we’d get together intending to play.. We’d start off goofing off, then eating pizza, then watching a few music videos.. We’d get ready, get our characters together, and before long it would degenerate to either random goofing off, drinking and goofing off, or smoking some pot and goofing off. Or some of each. It didn’t help that nobody, nobody really wanted to DM. Everybody had a character or 10 they’d rather get loot for.
The most successful session was me DMing a spoof module I got from Usenet. Wish I could find that again.. It had things like The Cape of Letterman (You take the B off your cape and turn the fox into a box…) and a room with a basketball in the center and two baskets at each end. The DM counted down from 10 and the players would scramble.. You pretend to roll dice to see if they make the baskets, but always get to 0 and … nothing happens. Had them SO confused I thought it was a failure, but in the end they said it was really great.
It started with Basic D&D where it was about what you could cook up with rope, a torch and an iron spike.
Then AD&D came along it changed to inventing crazy misuses of items to drive DM’s nuts.
Like using Daern’s Instant Fortress as a 10d10 hand grenade or serious abuses of the druid’s spell thornspray.
After that it was just every thespian roleplayer & midget-rules-lawyer for themselves.
Good times…
When blowhard Billy Badasses use Rings of Many Wishes to boost their stats instead of helping the quest move along, run into a red dragon and get seriously raped by the DM in the process. The Dm gives, the DM taketh away, with relish.
DM’s who let you roll 3d6 for stats and pick the best of two rolls.
Maniacal laughter from behind the DM’s screen as you hear dice rolling. You ask,”WTF, dude?” He goes,”Oh, nothing.”
Playing randomly generated dungeon crawls (no dice fudging, so if you encountered a werewolf at level 1, you’d better run like hell), with the whole party descending into a brawl because the barbarian was smashing all the loot… Our characters rarely made it past 4th level, but the party infighting was a blast!
Years later (3e), only 2 of us from that group still played together (the rest moved away), and we were so excited when it looked like the entire party was going to get wiped out, then totally disappointed when it didn’t happen…
“Rocks fall! Everyone dies! See, says right here.”
Thank you so much for the memories.
I remember Memorial Day and Labor Day Weekends starting play on Friday and ending Monday. :)
Our DM’s excitement when the DMG came out in hardcover.
Adjusting 2nd Edition back to 1st Edition.
Trying to draw maps on graph paper from the DM’s description and rarely getting it right.
Trolls go left. When those words come out of your mouth, hordes of trolls appear and attack. (I heard this went down to main campus — Purdue — with one of our group.)
Slews of materials shared via Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). TSR refusing anyone to share their materials on the Internet and the revolution against it.
And more recent memories:
Reading the v3 and v3.5 PHB and trying to figure out how everything worked *now*.
Joining a group of *experienced* gamers who’ve played since 3rd edition.
Man, am I old! LOL
Magic Missile
Oriental Adventures
My first adventure in DarkSun. All the PC’s started as escapees from a slave caravan. In the middle of the desert, with nothing but loin cloth’s, armed with 2X4’s, a broken cross bow, and sharp rocks. We fought our way through the desert, battled beasts of all kinds, kicked butt and took names, beating things above our level the whole way. We finally made it to town and bought real weapons and armor… and got whipped by the first weak random encounter after that.
Actual incident in a later game. The mage casts Blink on himself , but gets knocked unconcious before he can escape. The unconcious mage proceeds to blink around the room nearly bleeding to death as the cleric couldn’t get to him fast enough to heal him before he blinked away.
Deck of many things: After the entire party and the adventure itself gets horribly waylayed by drasticly bad draws from a ‘deck of many things’ (lost levels and lost lives both) the last person gets a single Wish… and wishes the party never found the deck in the first place, thus creating the first ’save point’ in a game :)
Fantastic use of a wish!
10. Consuming a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, half a pizza, 2 bags of chips, and a gallon of Mountain Dew over the course of an evening and thinking nothing of it
9. The Maul of the Titans
8. Recurring NPCs (one of mine was Murray, proprietor of “Murray’s Discount Magic Emporium”)
7. Singing the music in “Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home”
6. NoGard
5. Using “The Arcanum” as a supplement (now THAT was a classic)
4. Making a loaded 100 sided die
3. Starting bar fights
2. The “Castle Greyhawk” module
1. Unabashed rulebending: Umber hulk barbarian PCs, creating races w/ innate magical abilities, importing characters from other games (Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, etc.) and not letting the rules get in the way of the fun
1: A natural 20 on a diplomacy roll when my lizard man character deliberately drew the attention of a passing black dragon so that he could pay his respects to an honored ancestor. (Gave her my gems and one of the party’s mules and groveled, while the party hid in the rocks and bushes. This totally threw the GMs, who’d just wanted her to be sighted from a distance. Did it totally for roleplaying’s sake, and if it hadn’t worked out I suspect my fellow players would have beaten me with folding chairs.)
2: Killing a storm giant mounted on a giant griffon with a pocket knife. (used a flight spell, and took out the saddle strap with a natural 20)
3: As DM, having an ogre die from a 20/20/kill from a rat swarm. Played it out as a rat biting the big guy’s toe, and having him fall off a catwalk as he grabbed his foot and hopped in pain.
4: Gelatinous cubes and 10X10 corridors.
5: WG6 Isle of the Ape
Love the lizard man story. Love role-players who role-play just for the sake of role-playing (unlike my stat-padding brother!).
We should run a game! :D
I have that edition of the monster manual.
Owl Bear. period.
I didn’t see it, I can’t believe no one posted it.
One word: gazebo
people who never played the 1st, or even 2nd editions don’t seem to understand the heart of the game. Playing a fighter with an awesome strength, and a few other stats, but practically nothing for intelligence can be a lot of fun for the player, and the whole party.
Finally getting some sweet EQ, only to get to 0 exp and waking up in a jail cell with nothing….
then busting the door off the jail cell, and getting 2 fighters wielding it as a weapon to bust our way out, the magician using a femur as a dagger…
Oh… and having to physically restrain the level 2 Paladin to stop him from charging the demi-god….
Oh… and I also forgot:
– Critical Hit Table…
waking up in a jail cell is pretty awesome
Wow, what memories.
having a Hell of a DM who went all out on preperations.
The all niters.
My wife found a couple of my pewter figurines recently, they are around 22 years old, and one of them was my Mage ( i saved for 2 weeks to buy it) with the staff still intact!
She looked at me like I had lost my mind when I got so excited.
Gentlemen please.
Who can forget?
Slovenly trull
Brazen strumpet
Cheap trollop
Typical streetwalker
Saucy tart
Wanton wench
Expensive doxy
Haughty courtesan
Aged madam
Sly pimp
Rich panderer
And a bronze zee who can name the guy on the horse on the next page!
Having a PC atack a guard because he hit on the PC’s girlfriend (mind you both chars were played by the same guy). This led to the jailing of the PC and his execution the following day, while the rest fof the pary watched and laughed at him for being dumb enough to attack a city guard.
The Succubus illustration.
OMG! people,do you realize how many dead websites there are out there yet this topic on this site has gotten as of this post 143 comments, and very passionate comments, in just one week?
Somebody, please! figure out a place and a way that we can all meet and hopefully PLAY this game. I think D&D is the best RPG ever and it should be possible to play it without changing the format or the rules to accommodate the on-line mass game craze..maybe a password-type entry, with a designated DM and a limited # of PC’s in a game..I can’t do it, but somebody out there with the money and the bandwidth might be able to..I would subscribe!!!
D&D isn’t the best RPG ever… but it pretty much started it all. Respect where respect is due!
Ahh Ravenloft and House on the Hill. I remember those well. Playing a Dwarf with a 18 99 Str, with a Dex of 10 and a CON of 19. (after of course my halfing was fleeing back out the main entrance… just to be killed by the gargoyles. (getting in was the easy part).
Then entering the Krypt for the first time.
Then there were always the H series. Blood Stone mines, Thone of bloodstone… Fighting Orcus anyone?
What a nice random find. My top 5
5. Having to use random “Blue Bolts” from the heavens on characters that have clearly gotten too big for their britches.
4. The endless laughter as the Dwarven character in our party outfitted entirely in gear to thwart off poison rolling a 1 on four seperate occassions when he only needed a 2 to save save vs. poison.
3. In the later stages of our campagin I had one of characters be “adopted” by Baba Yaga and taken to her hut. He loved it until I turned her into the doting mother who would not allow him to leave the hut without an infinite series of questions and then only letting him go if he wore some rather “gay” looking magical armor that numerous funny side effects like always making his share of monetary treasure mysteriously disappear into his “college fund”.
2. My friend’s Gnome Thief (he called him a finder of lost goods) who he named Indiana Gnomes armed with a whip and outfitted in a cute little miniture version of the Harrison Ford gear.
1. Again, later in our campaigning days, having Asmodeus , who the characters had pissed off early in their careers, planting “listenin devices” on the characters so that he always knew what was going on and creating an endless amount of paranoia within the party as to which one of them was a spy.
Yeah I know I may sound like a mean DM but much of this was necessary beccause we were one of those adventuring groups that were very lacadaisical when it came to the rules and thus the characters were very powerful so they had to be put in there place. It came to a point where store bought adventures had to be drastically altered to even allow for the characters have the chance of being defeated. GOOD TIMES!!!!
Even MORE memories: My best friend (who was our DM) had an NPC character appropriately “Dwight Miller”. Whenever we were too stupid to figure something out in-game, or were off on a side quest that had absolutely nothing to do with the adventure, he would send a friendly reminder our way – in the form of a flaming sword that fell from the heavens with a message attached to it. After many a PC was killed by these flaming swords (and we started to figure things out on our own), he changed things up a little by sending flaming anvils from the heavens with the messages attached.
I remember on incident in particular. While trying to cross the River Styx, the boat keeper (a Charon demon) held out his open palm to us. I decided to get off the boat (not knowing what he wanted – DUH!!), and carried on with my quest. He kept following me – all along with his palm outstretched as if wanting something (double duh!!). I tried fighting him off, but he kept coming. I tried running away, but he STILL kept coming. Then a flaming anvil falls out of the sky (luckily I made my dodge roll!!), and lands in front of me with the message, “Pay him you idiot!!”
I proceed to pay him, and he immediately leaves like nothing happened.
Classic gaming hilarity right there folks…
Dungeon Majesty was awsome, in a weird sort of late-night-tv way. Gawd, haven’t thought about that show for a while, cool that they have a web site.
Does anyone remember the side effects in the list tat went with the DM guide of artifacts? I remember only 2:
Body odour noticable within 10 feet
and item changes characters sex.
I just started playing D+D last week actually… and I must say it’s a TON of fun. :)
Since I don’t have ENOUGH experience I’ll give you some of my avorite moments from my first D+D session:
1) My DM letting me re-roll a stat of two by saying she “never saw it”.
2) In-game, the DM rolling three successive 20’s for the tastiness of teh food we were eating… and then her rolling low numbers when it really mattered to us.
3) The NPC of the fighter’s guild leaving teh room to obtain goat’s milk… and hearing a strained bleating from outside. (he was picking the goat up and wringing it out over a bucket… much to the dismay of the timid mage who had asked for the milk in the first place)
4) Playing a character that has almost the opposite of my natural personality
5) My DM’s squeals as I showed her a picture I drew of my character and the backstory that went along with it.
6) When Our DM descirbed an NPC as “built like a refridgerator” and I promptly asked “So he holds a lot of food?”
7) Heaing castinets play every time Serio would announce his name orhave a thought (castinets courtest of bottlecaps played by random members of the group)
8) Serio’s trip to the local brothel… and having the only patron there being a very rough female dwarf.
9) having the dwarf brought up over a series of times as Serio’s mind was being read.
10) A member of our party getting stuck with a number… and having that number rolled to determine who was gonna be stuck with a dragon spirit in their head.
11) Our DM describing buildings as “well-made” and her boyfriend laughing as I promptly drew a comic of a well building a house.
I can’t wait for more hilarity to ensue. ;)
LOOKING FOR DM for San Francisco meetup group. We have 24 members but no one wants to/has time to DM. We can play at my house 1/2 block from N stop. We’d love to play twice a month on some sunday or weekday night. email me schemeartist@gmail.com with a time you’d like to talk. I’m usually available.
I’d be happy to, but with these caveats: the game system will not be D&D but stripped-down version of rolemaster, heavily modified (to my own design). And you’ll have to pay for my travel expenses (I live in the UK). :D
great stuff happens great questions are asked and i miss the old stuff sometimes…
magic missile always hits ….
first level mage can and usually does have less hit points than a broken chair
using the term double ought
finally kowing now after many years of playing why my pound of dice had a 16 sided die in it(the whole d10 plus d6 thing)
dm needs a drink….5 people stand up and pull out a dollar and fight over who can get to the soda machine first…crap it won’t take my dollar now im gonna die and you won’t even though i got here first bu#hole
whats the elf’s charisma? is she hot?
what does charisma mean?(pronounced char eye smuh)
dude do you have my character or do i because if you dont have me then i gotta havea new me cause i can’t find me i hope you have me cause that new sword rocks and that sucks if i lost it now!
ok i get the half elf thing now but whats a fling i cant find it in the monster manual(reffering to hafling)
the wizards name is elminster? thats a silly name try to attack him with my short sword what happens…ok dude well you die!
people that dont get it ….don’t all dice have six sides?
20 gp holy crap that ogre was rich compared to now only 20 gold what a ripoff
and the thing i miss most…… the adventures had dungeons and once in a while ….dragons imagine that…whats the name of this game again?
Nilbogs !!! (fiend folio) Player: I cast fireball on the group of goblins (really nilbogs), DM: The goblins seem to grow larger and appear unharmed (gaining 6d6 hitpoints each), roll for init.
1% chance that uttering the name of a divine being will result in the personal intervention of that deity (deities & demigods). Asmodeus anyone?
Starting a character from level 1, using the actual stat rolls you got the first time.
Said character’s first found item that he/she can use.
Funny you should mention head of vecna and dread gazebo…
The greatest of all things
2nd edition Ranger
3.5 edition DuskBlade
XD
I’m a closeted gamer.
I have been for several years now.
It started in college. On the evening when I brought a girl to my room and sitting there was my Players Handbook. She looked down and said, “Dungeons and Dragons? You play that?” I was face to face with a hard decision. Either betray my favorite hobby or be a social outcast and pariah like Drizz’t Do’urden. I took the coward’s route and blamed the book being there on my roommate. It was clear for me then (as it is now) that if I was to get bootie (not booty) that night (and every night since then) i would have to take my love of DnD underground like a bunch of drow and treasure. And there I have remained.
But I do miss the game.
It was how every Saturday morning and afternoons should be spent. Around a table with friends, caffeine and the most unhealthy of foods.
That said, here are my ten AWESOME things that I love(d) about this game:
10. Terrible Trouble at Tragidore
9. Mages with hourglass eyes
8. Anti-Paladins (I call BS on anyone that says they cant exist!)
7. Unholy avengers in the hands of an Anti-Paladin
6. The original Barbarian Class (as found in Unearth Arcana)
5. 18:00 Strength
4. Your character scoring with that HOT Grey Elf babe in the tavern.
3. The look on your friends face when you loot his now deceased character for all the cool magic items he has but didn’t want to share.
2. Bracers of Defense
1. Drow Rangers
Aw man, the cowards way out! You ought to be ashamed. I have always been open anent my predilection for RPGs. Its all how you explain them. You have to overcome those initial misconceptions and seduce the young lady with you scintillating imagination honed through years of gaming. I’ve actually used roleplaying as a wooing technique. I think I may be a 5th level PUA. :D
My gnome fighter/thief and a pymgy barbarian tipping over the lamp the lizard men worshipped in front of the lizard men after the party finished looting the temple and the party barely escaping into the river only to discover none of us could swim so we had to empty wine skins and blow them up to use as life jackets.
Spiking rooms shut and eating the party member who didnt make itand creatures we killed so we could heal up and continue adventuring.
MIND FLAYERS
Mr . E.Gary Gygax (creator of this great game and pretty much rpgs) rolled a natural 20 to decide to go with his god after death yesterday, he d ied 3/4/08 in his home at age 69….He was running games weekly in his home until january of this year…….This makes me sad and i have cried some too…..I wnder if thier will be a public fueneral ???? Goodnight forever Mr. Gygax Rest in Peace
A sad loss indeed. Worthy of a black armband to honour a man who has been extremely influential on my life.
A moments silence out of respect please gentlemen….
Yeah this brings back memories.
In no particular order
-Deck of Many Things
-One character (anit-paladin) seducing a woman on three different occasions that was really a shape changed Ogre Magi (definitely became a running gag).
-A bard and halfling thief that double crossed the party by stealing the idol they had recovered. (and the party never wondering why they did not want to come to get the reward from the king). Ended up with the bard being hunted down and severely punished.
-Having a group of players ‘zen walk’ through a complex mapped 4 level dungeon right to the end boss with all resources and fully healed–and I was damn sure they had never seen the module before (It was Mordenkain (sp?) Adventure.
-Keep on the Borderlands—took that keep over so many times.
-Slave series of modules–yep waking up in a cell and beating things to death with femur ftw.
-Having a whole party (except for my dwarf warrior) die in a an Inn to a super magical strain of herpes.
Tarrasque! The mighty, unkillable Tarrasque.
My first and favorite character called “Animal” who HATED druids!
A low level druid NPC cast a “Hold Animal” spell when I was in the vicinity, and the DM ruled it worked on me, not the intended target! (No he wasn’t stupid about the rules, he was just having fun…). From then on, every campaign I was in, every Druid spell with an “animal” in the name personally worked on me.
I remember being picked up by the scruff of the neck by some invisible force and dragged several hundred yards to be dumped at the feet of a very surprised Druid – he had cast a “Summon Animal” spell, and there I was! He even dragged me OUT OF THE BAR!
Boy was that character paranoid, he thought Druids had developed an entire line of spells just to flummox him.
Ahh! The role-playing opportunities! I started my own organization called the ASPCA – the Associated Societal Persons for Protection from Cruelty to Animal! Had little magnetic membership badges (stick to metallic armor) for party members and everything!
From then on, whenever a Druid appeared, I immediately charged and attacked – no reaction roll allowed. Dm never killed me when that happened, though, we just had too much fun roleplaying it, but I remember always having less that 10 hit points when the #*#* druid died.
Some years later, the character retired and ended up marrying a Druid (with an 18 CHA). She cast an altogether different “Hold Animal” spell entirely…
LONG LIVE ANIMAL!
I miss those days…. You really think you’d get that from WOW?
I play wow… have an 80th lvl mage, and some other characters, a couple in the 70s… and I must say I do enjoy the game. But it is heavily flawed and doesn’t even come close to the best pen&paper moments. Not even close! :D
The critical fumble table and the time a friend managed to cut off his own head. The laughter went on for about 20 minutes.
I started playing D&D in 1980. Fell into Gamma World (the original) , and Top Secret.
The old school Bard in the back of the Player’s Handbook was kick butt. If you could survive making it through the fighter and thief levels required, you picked up Druid skills (spells included) plus got charm bonuses and kept all your old skills.
I always felt that when the PH2 came out, the Bard had been neutered in the name of toning down a powerful character class.
Best experience…when my best friend was DM for an adventure where my character encountered the Drow for the first time…not knowing what a Drow was. That had a huge impact on me.
R.A. Salvatore rocks!!!
This all brings back thoughts of good times….I found all my old stuff to include a class that I had created
The Anti-Ranger, it was pretty cool…like it says it is the total opposite of the ranger……
I loved playing 1/2 orcs and the deck of many things. I had a friend who created a deck with 2 or 3 decks of cards ….it was unreal………….. to bad i had to grow up or I’d still be in the basement rolloin my life away
GRUUMISH LIVES
Playing DnD, getting drunk, and ordering a pizza with Bugbear meat.
the very terror of the Rust Monster right after you finally got your platemail and magic two-handed sword.
DMs that haphazardly put giant monsters in 20×20 rooms without thinking it through.
Keep on the Borderlands
wrongfully thinking translucent dice were great and ruled over the opaque plastic ones.
Strength scores with the slash numbers like 18/43 and trying to get gauntlets of ogre power and a girdle of storm giant strength so you would have a strength of 25/00.
the utter ridiculousness of the Comliness stat to see how good looking your character was instead of just using charisma
charisma and comeliness are different….
Yeah, giant monsters in 20×20 rooms…….. We’ve had worse. Two ogres, somehow crammed into a room that’s about 5×5, feet that is.
1- The City State of the Invincible Overlord: though Mark Green already mentioned it in comment, I must restate- The City State of the Invincible Overlord was the home base for almost 2 years of wacky campaigning. Was awesome.
2- Star Wars. Yes, I don’t know how many others incorporated star wars into D&D homegrown-style, but I did it while in 7th grade…using, of all things, a pylon, a la Land of the Lost, to bring party to Star Wars universe.
3- Demogorgon, Bahamut, Indra, Asmodeus, Primus, Fraz Urb Luu (or however its spelled)…and any other number of super beings from the Monster Manual and Deities and Demigods.
4- Power Word Kill, Finger of Death, Creeping Doom, Wish, TIme Stop, Bigby’s Crushing Hand..and all other mega spells.
5- Wow, I can go on and on and on.
Paul
Quick note to Boris:
Storm giant strength was 24.
Titan strength was 25! :)
Happy gaming/reminiscing.
Paul
The bag of holding would be something that will stick in my mind forever… being able to cary as much as you want just seems like such a cool thing to be able to do. oh yeah, that and an invisibility spell of course …
D&D is the best rpg that is not on a computer or any thing like that
Thanks for bringing up many memories!
I haven’t played in over 10 years, but our group decided to get together in remembrande of E. Gary Gygax passing. Most of us are traveling 4.5 hrs by car and another guy is flying in to spend a weekend playing like kids again under 1st edition rules plus some house rules if we can remember them (from Unearthed Arcana). We will most likely spend the time reminiscing on the past adventures we shared and telling all our secerts of the game. We had some great adventures together for 15 or so years “real time” to recall. But, as always if things get boring we just get into a fight with each other… It all started on the first adventure of the campaign when things were rather disappointing after the return to the town and someone in their frustration picked a fight with a city guard, so I took a swing at them to end up being the sole survivor of the adventure – I was after all a Half-Orc assassin looking out for my own health. We had nights with the deck of many things, wands of wonder that petrified a red dragon – a most notable landmark in future excursions, dragon taming contests, and a tournament of 100 warriors just to name a few of the more meaningful events. We had a powerful group terrorizing the landscape called “the dark score”, and a classic struggle between good and evil manifested in a face off between ego driven lords from each side. There was a temple of the gods called Ur where characters could go and leave valuable gems, jewelry and gold for powerful magic items, but each visit released demons from their imprisonment. In Ur there were thrones of magical powers – the throne of knowledge – the thrones of doing and undoing – greed took hold of characters in that place, and sitting on the thrones allowed for otherwise unfathomable power and information, but there was a considerable risk with demons running around. You quickly found out who your friends were when you were trapeed on a throne for a turn with a demon bearing downon you! I will never forget the lessons learned from my imaginary experiences…
@Jim L
Emirikol the Chaotic right??
Bronze Zee?
Hi,
Did you guys know that you can download a free version of the Basic D&D rules called Labyrinth Lord ( go to goblinoidgames.com ) – the same site has a version of Gamma World called Mutant Future, which is compatible with the D&D rules, so you can have mutants and wizards in the same game.
There’s also a free version of the 1st edition AD&D rules called OSRIC.
I've only just started playing DND. I had no idea it's been around as long as it has. I really enjoyed The Tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo and The Head of Vecna that my DM related to me and my group.
I miss clever combinations of spells to evoke awesome results.
The best one I ever saw went sort of like this, involving a magic user and a cleric, backed up by a fighter. A bunch of bugbears were holed up in a cave, waiting for us, and the odds were not good so..
Disintegrate, creating a big hole in front of the cave
Stoneform, creating sharp stalagmites in the hole
Wall of Wood across the cave entrance
Disintegrate on the Wall of Wood, turning it into a pile of sawdust
Mage casts Fireball on the pile of sawdust, while cleric simultaneously casts Create Air opposite the pile, so the air pressure would blow the smoke into the cave..
Bugbears were smoked out, fell into the hole, and died atop the stalagmites. Unfortunately getting past our own makeshift deathtrap took some work, as we were out of useful spells, but we had all the time in the world at that point.. ;)
This is a great example of inventive, formidable roleplaying. Good job! Bonus xp for you! :D
Ive Been playing D and D for 5 years and i love it, but i think 1st edition is the true version, and its a helluva lot more fun than the others. And if any of you folloiw the Arthurian module, my characters Tel-Sereg, GET IN
I am playing 3.5 but I've had tons of fun! I am DM. Some af my favorite things are as follows:
1 Having one of the popular kids call me a doofus for playing but still tries it out and ends up playing for a good ten months.
2 Having our party cleric of St Cuthbert get a 20 on a diplomacy check and convert a Gnoll, who is I think, Nuetral Evil, to Lawful Good, just to have his companion kill him on the spot .
3 Having the same cleric walk in to an evil wizards tower and yel “Honey I'm Home” just to have a gargantuan frog fall from the cieling and eat him :D!
4 Having our knight kill the major NPC bad guy I was going to use for six months because he kicked a beggar (not fun).
5 This one was when someone else was DM. Our main fighter had become tied to a painting. Whenever he got hit, the painting got mauled instead. Then our guy felt a painful stinging on his ear so I go and slash up the painting thinking that it was effecting him. Turns out a moth was nibbling on the painting right where the ear was…
Best things?
Shooting a wooden spike from a crossbow with a dwarven sharpshooter trough the heart of a vampire in “night of the vampire” on round 1.
As a DM putting a cockatrix in front of 10th level characters, “what a sweet ugly chicken… AAAAAGH…”
a 6th level priest-monk with all 5 WP's on martial arts VS powerplay barbarian of 6th level… no chance!
Drow with “the ring of Lolth”
Cursed, intelligent items…
NOT FUN: A kender who says “oepsie”
when i was little having my dad fight pokemon as monsters and using the damage and hp on the cards
fighting juju zombies and in the same round everyone in the party fumble and then roll a 20 and do massive amounts of damage to each other
getting a belt of hill giant str w/ a str bow
having the party knocking the dwarf out just to give him a bath
being an unfair DM
fighting kobolds and being extremely cautious when u had no clue what anything was
having no cleric but yet somehow living
bluffing your way into an ogre fort who then kick your ass
getting reduced to below 0 hits every encounter or so and yet living becuz the monk w/ the rod that allows her to fly has about 60 ptns of healing
And getting yelled at for charging the monsters with out a plan
my fav would have to be playing a druid. constructs use to kick my ass every time till i got real creative and high enough level dr 50 is apparently useless against a reverse gravity spell while out side. A druid flying as an eagle above an enemy wildshape rhino 20d6 instant damage. city guards are lifting you up into jail carriage wildshape rhino and run like hell. I sware to god its like astrix and oblix all over again.
-Bags of Holding
-Fighters that are afraid of weapons
-Paladins
-Clerics
-Genisis, the spell that is a non-core spell brought out when a person wants practically a bag of holding all to themselves but do not have the funds to make or buy one.
1) 1 attack per level vs. monsters with less than 1 hit die
+ haste spell
+ two-handed character
= hundreds of dead goblins per turn!
2) critical hit tables (the gorier the better)
3) gauntlets of ogre power
4) bracers of defense
5) rocks with light spell cast on them
6) getting to the fireball level
7) wish spells
8) finally killing the lich and wondering how we could continue when most of us were dead
Oh where to start? I’m a newer gamer, but I’ve been playing with what I have now have learned is considered a “Killer DM”, however I wouldn’t want it any other way. Been playing for about the last five years, highest level I’ve had was a 7th level cleric who got killed trying to rescue a party member from Hell. We still play by AD&D rules, and scoff at the idea of being past level 10, let alone 70! And we realized just the other day how big of nerds we were- yet we were composed of a captain of the football team, the valedictorian, a captain of the wrestling team, and several track members. Needless to say, not very many people know we huddle in a basement around a table once a month rolling dice.
Best moments
1) First time I played, I was a mage. Little did i know that i wouldnt get to cast 3rd level spells till I was 5th level(WTF?). And I wasnt gonna get to fifth level that night.
2) Getting my arm bitten off by a fire beetle. Henceforth always avoiding any beetle encounters.
3) “AXE OF…..(Rolls a one) FREAKING DANGIT!”
4)Finding a bag of holding.
5)Killing our first dragon.
6)Killing our first beholder-alas got hit with a disintegrate eye and lost all my items.
7) My friend throws a spear down a hallway. It gets stuck in mid air. “I go retrieve my spear.” Pauses. We look at him. “I DO WHAT?!” We then spend the next ten minutes getting him out of the gelatinous cube.
8) Rolling up 1st levels.
9) Fighting a wraith with no magical weapons. AKA, running from a wraith.
10) Energy drinks, Mt. Dew, Chex Mix, and cookies from the last meeting.
11) Coming home as my mom goes to work.
8-8-8 zowie jackpot!
Ohh man I remember this old game from my youth. All I got now are a few TSR modules and dice, post its, dry erase magnetic board, flash cards, etc, etc. That’s about as much I can remember, (oh yea pizza and beer) I’ve played this game back in the old days when it first came out.
No particular order: (referencing 1st edition, here)
1) Multi-class characters — Why settle for just one class?
2) Clerics — what priests from fiction ever had all the cool spells that an AD&D cleric gets?
3) Unearthed Arcana — Sure, it disrupted game balance, but it also made it a lot more fun to play demi-human characters!
4) Fiend Folio — Coolest and most different monsters (amongst some real duds, of course) of any creature compendium.
5) The DMG — Gygax at his absolute, rambling best
6) The lich — scarriest monster ever!
7) Deities & Demigods — Original release with the Melnibonean and Cthulu mythoi — great inspiration on many levels, my introduction to Michael Moorcock and some totally hot illustrations of goddesses (Hecate most especially! Rowr!)
8) Dragon Magazine — Wonderful articles and inspiration — most especially Giants in the Earth and all the great NPC classes (most of which we played as characters)
9) Psionics — Made a great character even more awesome. Sure, yes, we cheated and just pretended that we rolled them!
10) Dave Hargrave’s Arduin — One of the best and most inspiring sets of D&D supplement books ever!
11) Storytelling — why would anyone ever watch TV again when you could take part in your own co-created story?
12) Friends — Several of my friends from that period are amongst the best and dearest friends I will ever have in this life.
I am 18 a new generation D&D platr ive played for 4 years its definetly been the most creative years of my life, i play with a group that only plays once a week for a couple hours, and it gets canceled quite often i wish i could find another group to play with. Any sugestions where to find one? Anyway D&D is great memories
Ps. Never played World of Warcraft ahhaa
Pps. best thing about D&D “accidently” hiting a group member with a fireball
I’m 48 yrs old. Been playing D&D for nearly 30 yrs with my brother (the DM) and a few other friends and family members. During that time, we sometimes didn’t play for a year. (DM out of state) Recently we found a way to play via. the internet by using (Fantasy Grounds and Skype). 2 of us live in chicago and others live in Indianapolis. We play about 2 times a month now. I’ll probably keep playing until I die. It’s a good escape from reality on the weekends.
Newbie here. 15 going on 16, just played for the first time yesterday on a 3.5 campaign and loved it. I have to ask the people here who’ve been playing since forever- Why, when this was an option, did anybody ever /need/ to invent video games? I don’t care how high definition the 360 is, if I can’t defeat a horde of Orcs using diplomacy and a good dice roll, then it’s not a truly immersive experience. Looking forward to many campaigns ahead.
1. Writing my own ‘Vecna’ adventures instead of the rather lame ‘Vecna Lives’.
2. Players who have truly original names for their characters instead of just taking names from Lord of the Rings.
3. 1st ed. AD&D (after 2nd Ed. it just died (no resurrection possible)).
4. Tomb of Horrors – has anybody ever played this to the end without losing 90 -100% of the characters.
5. Having a few j’s and making up an adventure on the fly.
6. Putting these silly religious nuts in their place about who is really corrupting the youth and trying to indoctrinate them.
7. Playing the Dragonlance adventures without the ‘obscure death’ rule.
8. Playing the Dragonlance adventures without using the ‘recommended’ pre-rolled characters (Tanis Half-witted elven, Raistlin (how did he survive with 8 hit points), Goldmoon and Riverwind (definitly American Indians/’Native Americans’ – as a side note, nobody refers to we few Celts that are left as ‘Native British’), Tasslehobbit Burntfingers, In-Like-Flint Fireforge, Bright StormBlade and Comonman).
9. Basic/Expert Module X4 ‘The Master of the Desert Nomads’ actually has a powerful item in it that can only be described as the magical equivalent of a TARDIS (the House of Zebulon), store loads of gear in it and teleport the whole building anywhere you like.
10. Basic/Companion Module CM6 ‘Where Chaos Reigns’. The adventures must travel through time and defeat the Borg.
To Jim L
Emirikol the Chaotic.
I was fascinated by this picture and thought ‘now that is a mean mage’.
1. getting caught pickpocketing in a local tavern and ending up in a brawl. 2.flying carpets 3.percentiles 4.the dude who always played a chaotic neutral fighter 5.passing notes to the DM and watching the paranoid glances fly among the group 6. 1st level magic users attacking with daggers 7.the fiend folio 8.letting our younger sister play because we needed a cleric(she did pretty good being 8 yrs old at the time. 9.bending bars and lifting gates 10. the 10′ fucking pole!! WHY did we always carry one of those?
I’ve had a few great D&D memories… although I’ve played far more of Alternity, which is another TSR RPG.
I remember going through an island to find some crystals for a gate, and being trapped by these monsters with tentacles… My multi-classed wizard Wiz Boomsticky was awesome.
I remember a particular adventure a couple years back with a writer from Bioware where we had to steal this arch-mage’s Staff of Truth that he was using to single out “evildoers”. Played a monk/druid who was awesome in a ton of ways. Not only did we steal it, but we made the replacement rod single HIM out. Muahaha.
I’m just waiting, anticipating the reaction when my players encounter the Kroath… soldiers made from bodies of the dead. One of my player’s character has a phobia of zombies… hehe.
This brings back memories, though, of looking over those old books, makign characters, hanging with players… those were the days. And still are.
If you still play older D&D-style RPGs, I publish a magazine that has lots of new adventures, classes, campaigns, etc. for them. You can check it out at
http://stores.lulu.com/FightOn
This has been a really fun thread to read, still going more than a year after it started. Keep sharing the love!
42, football, basketball, track coach and teacher for 18 years and still spending at least one weekend a year with 6 other guys all over the country playing D & D.
Best think about D & D. There are no rules, only guidelines.
Still miss my first character, Spit, from 1978.
Also a new generation gamer here. Only played 3.5, but I stilll love it
Few of my favorite things
DM: “Dawn breaks the following morning…”
Me: “Can I make a repair check?”
Getting thrown 60 ft towards an attacking runehound and taking max falling damage, then critting the thing after attempting to attack the beguiler in our party because I was hungry
The rogue throwing a beer bottle at a commoner in a bar and accidentally killing him outright
Playing an npc impersonating a pc and wiping out the entire party from within
“You want to give your character how many flaws??”
Illithid Mindflayer!
I had a Elf Fighter/Magic User/Thief – about 9th Level in each – that was a powerful character!
Sword of Sharpness
Deck of Many Things
Temple of Elemantal Evil
Rolling crap dice all the time……………..
Failing Saving Throws
Getting your first magic item! ^_^
That has been a highlight that I will never forget.
New player, but the adventure last weekend: party made of characters abducted along with our villages to “contain a plague.” We were rescued and put into a giant magical mechanical boxcar that then broke and crashed in the middle of a desert. My monk grabbed a broken magically-hardened metal rod for use as a staff and went hunting. The other pcs followed, but did not bring anything with them. the broken rod is now refered to as the Spear of Destiny. One tool/weapon for the party and the monk jealously guards it from everyone else.
* Ahhh, the days of being a Chaotic Neutral fighter. Save the dragon, kill the princess.
* Loot, kill, pillage, burn. Others preferred I did not set fire. Something about being in a dungeon made it a bad idea.
* Elves rule. I had a grey elf that was cleric/fighter/magic-user. He sooo rocked. Let me bless you with my battle axe…oops, flesh wound, sorry, I have a spell for that, don’t move.
So much fun to read this and see so many people that had the same experiences (above and on the table) that I did. Started playing in my early thirties (with a DM that was around twelve) and still try to get in a game at sixty. Will be raising a glass of wine in toast to Dungeon Master Gygax when next I play…… (who’s got the Cheetos…..?)
I added a dungeon complex to my world in honour of him, called Gygax Depths. :D
Did anyone else have a “Pervert’s Corner” at the table ?
For some of our gamers who had ‘other adventures’ in mind……
Only a corner?
deck of many things
Pen & Paper role-playing games still provide some of the most memorable episodes of entertainment in my life. Along with the best books I’ve read, the best films / TV I’ve watched and the best music / art…
The D&D ‘film’ mentioned above in comment 111 is ‘Summoner Geek’s an early example of machinima. Definitely worth checking out.
“I cast magic missile!” :D
- Carbuncles. Hopelessly trying to dig the gem from their verminy heads!
I loved playing assassins! Gathering as much poison as I could and dumping in down the town well. :D
…Saying “euh! Dex check!” when anyone fumbles anything in real life. :D
Because I just can’t quite role-playing.
On arguments with players:
I recall a time fairly recently when I prepared a contemporary ‘Cthuloid’ game for my friends. Cthuloid because they all know Cthulhu mythos too well, so I wanted to capture the feeling, with the players having no actual prior knowledge of the beasts and lore etc.
I described a non-euclidian device made by a professor NPC which the players were investigating. Later they attempted to use the device which they saw in operation earlier in the game. When the results were not what they expected one player had the gall to say to me: “I don’t think it would work like that.”
To whit my reply was a casual: “That’s fascinating, but whose f**king game is this?”
A supposed quite from the late, great E. Gary Gygax:
“A good DM rolls dice just for the sound of it”.
Not sure if its true (as in attributed to Mr Gygax) but its pretty true when it comes to good DMing. My rule is “know when to ignore the dice”. As a DM one is more a story-teller and interpreter of the action… than the blind arbiter of chance.
Hates:
DMs who pause and say: “Are you sure you want to do that?”
Hates:
Players who use real life knowledge of the game or the players to influence their characters’ decisions in a game.
One such example in a fairly recent game involved players trying to decide which NPC they would side with and why. One player said: “Its clear that [the DM] wants us to befriend X. But I know how he thinks, its clearly misdirection, he’s tricking us. We should go with Y.”
I can’t tell you how much XP he lost for saying something so supremely out-of-character. Grrrr.
Hates:
My brother stat-padding all the phreakin’ time! Hmmm, if I use this sword rather than the axe, I gain 2 points of strength but lose 1 point of constitution. Aaargh!
Loves:
Make everything up. Make the game up, make the rules up, make the characters up, the classes, the races, the magic items. Make it all up!
Best random thread I have found in a very long time.
Favs:
1. Rolling your first character without understanding the concept of stat points (my first DM watched me roll an 18/00 for strength with incredulity. I had to ask if that was good).
2. Finding that character sheet after rolling him up 26 years ago (half-elf cleric fighter 15/15).
3. Marathon gaming sessions when school was out, and having parents who didn’t mind seeing the same kids around the kitchen table for up to 72 hrs a stretch.
4. From the time I started playing, lasting almost 14 straight years, never being without a DM. Even when assigned to Germany (twice).
5. The friends I have made along the way, some of whom I can no longer find, who helped me grow into the person I am today.
Not so favs:
1. Spending two hours coming up with a great (to me) character, then getting my *** handed to me 30 minutes later (DM Voice: you are at -30 HP, begin re-rolling a new character).
2. Deck of Many Things: VOID.
3. Cursed dice. You all know what I mean. (Not another 1, are you kidding?!).
4. Me: What is down there? DM: Uuhhm, you don’t want to go down there. Me: I begin to crawl in the hole. DM: (who didn’t plan for this) Roll for initiative at a -10 penalty.
5. Not having a DM for over 10 years.
Love it!
Just started playing again (using AD&D 2E) after about 10 years.
Favourites from the past include:
- double 20 on a crit hit table on the main bad guy at the end of a campaign (also flummoxed me once as DM – one of my players did this to a ‘named character’ in Dark Sun)
- my stoner mates and I playing a 1E/2E homebrew by candlelight with the smell of wax in the air and the atmosphere in the room as we fought Asmodeus’ minions and having one of our party eventually go over to the darkside to fight against us as well (his name – Excretor of Boulders)
- my first ever character, a psionicist, finally reaching level 9 and getting some followers only to be snuffed out very soon after
- my chaotic neutral elven thief (Sylvan Daglor) who was a pyro, and would always get the party into bar fights and then sneak off to set the inn alight while everyone was fighting around him (made for some awesome battles – the party lined up against everyone else in the bar while flames and smoke filled the room) – he was also a tumbler, so he would always try to do things like backflip off a table while firing an arrow at an opponent, and generally pulling off at least the backflip
- my old 2E bard who was a ‘blade’ (kit) – he would always put on these amazing weapon displays before a battle in order to increase the party’s morale, only to be knocked unconscious within the first round
- adventuring in the 9 hells (hardcore sh*t – when one of our groups had all reached about 15th level we decided to tromp into hell and take on whatever we could find – quite disastrous really (and no-one came back)
- playing through the night until the sun was high in the sky the next day and beginnning to hallucinate the scenes the DM was describing (in a watching from a distance type way, not a “I’m an elf wielding a sword for real” kind of way)
- one of my group getting together with a human female city guard captain and using a candle as a sex toy with her (he then kept it in his backpack and use it as bait for a group of orcs who were tracking us by sent) That was one weird game. Phil – if you’re reading this – get in touch.
- drinking a lot of scotch and bourbon with mates that I will always call mates, but some of whom I may never see again
So many good times that I reminisce about once in a while.
I’ll definitely never play 3E/3.5E/4E – some kid above said that his character has an AC of 58 or something ridiculous like that – since when do ACs go that high (and not into negatives anyway?) and 70th and 80th level characters are a load of rubbish (unless you’re Ed Greenwood, or someone else who has been playing that long).
Actual awesomeness:
- The Machine (I think that’s what it was called – the huge machine that just went from one side of a continent to another laying everything in it’s way to waste, and then plane-shifting when it went into the ocean)
- Hammer of Thunderbolts (15th Level Fighter/Mage had one – rocked out hard with it)
- Ring of regeneration
- 2 shots per round with a bow
Geez – I rambled on a bit there – it just all came back…
Good times.
- Realizing the limitations of playing within alignment but then having fun with it.
- A bag of summoning, or whatever it’s called. I remember getting my hands on one of those and being able to call up random animals to serve as personal meat shields in combat.
- Good people and creative juices flowing.
- Offshoots of the original game, such as the ‘eye of the beholder’ pc games and quasi-rpg games like ‘quest for glory’, etc. Gary Gygax really put a lot of things in motion with D&D. Thanks, big guy!
Peace
BONUS squared X’s 1000 gp.
you know what im talking about….dont you
New player, but here…
- Playing with a DM who is a very creative storyteller (my husband!)
- Being an elf and all the things that come with it– infravision, having NPCs freak out when they see me, meeting other elves for the first time since my character left her home months before
- trying my best to act and occasionally getting bonuses for it
- when my friend accidentally killed some rangers and assembled new bodies for them, made of various plant matter
- accidentally doing something stupid and being saved by pure chance
- the fact that, within reason (and if you choose to adhere to it, alignment), one can do anything.
- natural twenties
- creativity, logic, chance
I just looked up the Eric and the Dread Gazeebo story, if you haven’t yet, please do-I am still wheezing from laughing.
-The first game. Mine was Chrismas 1981. I played with my cousin and brother on my grandma’s persian rug. He just got the Fiend Folio and a box of Grenadier minatures as gifts.
-Good players. The kind that are forgiving when you are winging an adventure at 1 am and your voice is hoarse .
-Death Knights
-Intelligent Swords. You finally found the +5 Sword of sharpness and it doesn’t like you.
-”Fun house”-style random dungeons. Sure, they don’t make sense, but the unknown is what makes the game fun.
This was a great read…thanks for all those great stories and memories, nostalgia’s a funny thing, huh?
Those crazy Psionics rules and insisting upon rolling for them with every character you made…and never getting them without cheating.
Grey Ooze
All the 1st Ed Artwork…
The smell of the brand new rule books.
Bree Yark!
Non-Weapon Proficiencies.
The guy who always tried to “Disbelieve” everything.
When Half Elf Rangers really were something.
When every passage was 10′ x 10′.
Pit traps!
“Percentile” super strength. 18/00!
Anyone remember Ramble and Fern?
Being constantly pick-pocketed by the party’s Thief.
Comeliness!
The 1st Ed. DMG…has to be the greatest work ever.
Stepping on a misslaid D4 with barefeet….
@Ken Oberlin I had the SSR “Treasures of the Savage Frontier” which I played on my 286 with the whopping 40MB! hard drive.
@Ted..I was that guy who was always the Wood Elf! (until the Cavalier came along…)
@George Ruiz ..what about Boot Hill?
-Ok..that’s enough outta me of I’ll be here for another hour…
There are a few best things I remember. The 1st is when I was 10 years old, my dad brought home AD&D and MADE me play cuz it would be good for my vocabulary and math skills.
2. I had my 1st sex with someone else at my 1st convention cuz none of our group was old enough to drive so my DM’s sister drove us to kent state university for a 2 day convention… I was 15 she was 17. (the worst thing happened at the convention also, I busted 2 of my “gaming buddies” shoplifting from a table display. so after I punched him in the face and ratted them out I had to take a greyhound home)
3. when my cousin got kicked out of his house I let him stay with me for about a month. We played every day from when both of were awake until one of us fell asleep (sometimes that happened right in the middle of a game session. We’d exchange being dm every other day. And we winged everything making up crap as we played. It got a little flaky at the end, neither one of us could think of anymore names fer an npc so we just decided to name all the npc’s “Olaf The…. Barkeep, The Tanner, the mongrel” or Olaffsa The Barmaid, The seamstress, The fugly. and towards the end of our gaming session when we’ve been up fer like 30 hours, we’d stop playing grab a bunch of dice and roll them and count how many had the natual highest then the other person would keep rolling until they beat it.
To bad I haven’t played it in like 3 or 4 years. unless you call that abomination D&D 4e, Dungeons and dragons, I played it fer a month, but its way to much like world of warcrack for me.
Ok I’m done
Just stumbled on this website, and must say you people really brought a smile to my day! Oh, the memories… :)
Best things about D&D (1e and 2e only, I do not count the subsequent abominations), in no particular order:
- Low-level wizard with Shocking Grasp spell, and an armored orc
- Low-level games in general
- Monster Summoning spells which DM interprets as “summon NEAREST suitable monster”. Sometimes a party member.
- “Dungeon Crawl” modules. Which do not make sense, but are much more fun than modules which do!
- Motivating a half-ogre party member: “If you do not break this door, YOU WILL NEVER EAT AGAIN!” When DM stopped laughing, he rolled some dice and told the half-ogre player: “You just ripped the door off its hinges.”
- Haze of drinking, gaming, and sex at conventions. Not to mention grading my students’ exams (I was a teaching assistant at the time) during the same.
- Aboleth, particularly version from Dragon #131
- Slaadi — and chaotic neutral characters who worship slaadi!
- House rule: “Every time you make DM laugh, you get 100 experience points!”
- Vault of the Drow
There was more, but these should be enough!