1979/1980 - Played Adventure! on the Atari 2600 for the first time. I couldn't understand how much awesome could fit into such a small rectangular cartridge. The dragons looked like giant hollow ducks, but they still scared the hell out of me.
1982 - Played my first D&D game and died within the first 3 minutes. What happened in the game: My character went against his god's wishes and was supernaturally crushed to death by the betrayed deity. What happened in real life: The DM thought, "How can I send the little 9 year-old pest home quickly?" However, those 3 minutes changed my life.
1983 - New wave, Quiet Riot, and weird short films dominated episodes of Night Flight as I sat in front of the TV drawing pages after pages of maps. Usually, one dungeon room would fill one page. I went through a lot of paper.
1983 - Dragon's Lair appeared at my local arcade. It proceeded to eat my quarters, two at a time. It was twice as expensive as my go-to games (Pac-Man, Food Fight, Popeye, Elevator Action), but playing and guiding an animated cartoon was pure gold to a 10 year-old.
1983 - The Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. Saturday mornings became a weekly D&D holiday for me.
1984 - I bought my first issue of Marvel's Conan the Barbarian. This lone, random purchase brought me into comic collecting. I asked my dad what his favorite comic was. He told me and within a month, my back issue of Howard the Duck arrived via mail order.
1984 - Bought the Marvel Superheroes rpg. I had so much fun with this game, I nearly stopped playing D&D in favor of roleplaying Spider-Man. Plus, they turned Secret Wars into a freaking MODULE!
1985 - By this time, I was playing AD&D two to three times a week at a minimum. We house ruled so much that we may as well have re-written the rulebooks.
1985-1988 - Played through many of the classic D&D adventures. Saltmarsh, Tomb of Horrors, Beyond the Crystal Cave, Slave Lords, and the first Ravenloft just to name a few. By the way - in Ravenloft, our DM's jaw dropped (as well as a few tears) after Strahd was killed with one hit from a Mace of Disruption. Ha!
1989 - Bought all the 2nd Edition stuff. In my game, I kept what I liked from 1e in my games. Loved that the new edition was backward compatible.
1991 - My gaming began dropping off. However, I was able to DM a party through the entire Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. Incredible experience, that was.
1992 - Moved from my home town to Lawrence, KS. Not to go to college, but to join a metal band. Occasionally played 1e with a small group of friends.
1993 - Stopped playing RPGs. Stopped collecting comic books. Devoted my time to music and eating Pizza Shuttle pizza.
2000 - 3e came out. This revitalized my interest in D&D. Bought the core books and noticed how completely different it was from my favorite game. I still gave it a fair shake.
2001 - My wife and I joined a 3e group. Played four sessions. The group was full of rules lawyers and combat took FOR-freaking-EVER. After the fourth session, I put my books away. The experience even made me lose interest in any RPG playing whatsoever. I hung it up.
2005 - Graduated from college and got a nice graphic design job working with a bunch of comic book/sci-fi movie geeks.
2006 - Started collecting comics again.
2008, Summer - Spoke to my Brazilian brother-in-law about the old D&D cartoon. Apparently, the show was a big hit in Brazil. He thought the game was based on the cartoon (!!). We talked for hours about D&D and my interest started shifting toward getting a game together.
2008, Summer - I didn't want to relive my gaming experience with 3e, so I researched "old school rpgs" online. After separating the computer rpgs with the tabletop rpgs, I came across the retro-clones - and they were FREE.
2008, Late Summer - I gathered a bunch of RPG newbies from my job and played David Bezio's Lost Daughter adventure using the Labyrinth Lord rules. We quickly decided to schedule another game.
2008, Fall - I took notice of the DIY publishing movement within the old-school community. I wrote The Courtyard of Gerald Red for my group's second adventure.
2008, October - Created Prime Requisite Games and published Gerald Red as my first Labyrinth Lord module.
The rest is history. Let's hope there is a future. ;)
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is it too late to ask where I can find a copy of the Lost Daughter?!?
ReplyDeleteFor the life of me, I can't find it anywhere online. Shoot me an email at primerequisitegames (at) gmail dot com, and if I can locate it (posted somewhere or if David still has it up on one of his sites), I'll let you know.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I must add that Lost Daughter is a cool little adventure with a nice hook and it's perfect if you like to expand and home brew your modules.