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Yep, Monday nights here. Our party is the Pumpkin Smashers and I'm a boozy bard. Last week we fought off a horde of manticores over some ham, got attacked by miscellaneous mimic cutlery and three of us ended the session blue, so that's the flavour of our campaigns :)

My D&D career goes wayyyyyyyy back. I started with the original white boxed set. The group I played with in the late 1970s when I was going to law school at Valparaiso Ujniversity in Indiana was always taking road trips to Lake Geneva and chatting with Gary Gygax, his son Ernie and the original TSR crew. At their hobby shop they offered an invisible stalker figure for 40 cents. They actually got people who payed that for an empty plastic bag containg the "figure". It was our group that designed and ran the AD&D open at Gencon in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In later years I became friends with the late Mark Harmon who was one of the module writers for Runequest. His wife Sue VanCamp was one of the original artists for a little game called Magic: The Gathering. Unfortunately, I no longer game. Back in the day I ran a family of halfings the oldest was Groucho Baggitt. When I was away on breaks from school the DM ran him. The tales of groups going into parts of a local dungeon or cavern complex and finding the smelly cigar stubs on the floor by an empty chest and legendary. And yes his brother Harpo was a magic user that used a horn to do his incantations...honk...honk...hoooonk...he also carried a seltzer bottle that held 5 hit die acid. The DM warned my the Harpo should avoid falling into pits....grin.

No, not officially or anything. But I do remember going to GenCon and seeing the TSR castle with the big red dragon up on top of it! That was cool. And seeing the art show with all the fantasy art.. I never knew anyone who actually plays D&D or AD&D. I did have the AD&D monster manual years ago which was cool.

This all sounds so cool! I always wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons, but I've got nobody to play it with unfortunately :/ My friends and family aren't that interested ;-)

I play Sunday afternoons with one group and Friday nights with two other groups. My characters are a goblin arcane trickster rogue, a dwarven cleric and an earth genasi warlock. The Sunday group is starting a Saltmarsh campaign tomorrow and I will be starting a new sea elf archer. The goblin is definitely my favorite character.

I also GM for Call of Cthulhu on alternating Wednesdays and occasional Saturdays.

Gary wrote: "My D&D career goes wayyyyyyyy back. I started with the original white boxed set. The group I played with in the late 1970s when I was going to law school at Valparaiso Ujniversity in Indiana was al..."

I first played in the late 1970s at college as well. After an almost 40 year hiatus I got dragged back into it and have been playing ever since. The funny thing about it is that, then and now, I played with college coeds. The only difference is that now they are my daughters.

Karin wrote: "This all sounds so cool! I always wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons, but I've got nobody to play it with unfortunately :/ My friends and family aren't that interested ;-)"

Now is the perfect time to get into it. Almost everyone is playing online using digital apps such as Roll20.

Scott wrote: "Sarah wrote: "No, not officially or anything. But I do remember going to GenCon and seeing the TSR castle with the big red dragon up on top of it! That was cool. And seeing the art show with all th..."

Me and my mother would attend it for a few years. I remember I saw the actor who plays Q on Next Generation. I remember walking around and looking at all of the shops and stuff. Lots of places gave out little free stuff too. And many people were wearing costumes!

We did try to play our own version of the game set on Krynn. Using the main characters from the DragonLance books. But I'm sure it was nothing like playing real D&D because we really didn't know what we were doing! 😅 Basically I would design a map on a grid paper and set up some task for them to go do and try to make booby traps and such.

After awhile GenCon left Milwaukee because our arena building was too small for their needs so they moved it to a larger city.

Thanks Scott and Tom! I didn't know you could play online *facepalm*. I will look into it! :-)

I've only ever played D&D Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, and The Legend of Drizzt which are role-playing games. I am always the wizard because he has the most far reaching attacks compared with the other heroes. If I had to pick my favorite wizard of the three games, it would be the one from The Legend of Drizzt.

I used to play D&D a lot but stopped about 20 years ago. I usually chose to play fighters or paladins too. I also played;
Tunnels and trolls, Marvel super heroes, MERPS, Elf-quest, Car wars and others that I've forgotten. I played Caramon when we did the full 15-module run of Dragonlance too.

Then most of my friends moved away and I became more inclined towards the solitude of reading and writing.

I started playing D&D at the end of 2019 and have played it regularly over the last year with my group. Most of us were new to it but our dungeon master has been playing it for a lot longer and so has one of our players.

We've been playing through the Curse of Strahd campaign in which I've been a half-elf wizard, who I've loved playing as. Next week we're starting another campaign which has strong influence from 'Mythic Odysseys of Theros' and includes the Greek myth theme but it's being heavily homebrewed by our dungeon master. In that campaign I'm playing as a satyr bard, which I'm really looking forward to!

I’ve never played

I played short campaigns a handful of times. If I had unlimited free time, I would totally play. I spend a lot of my free time playing Fallout 76.

Scott wrote: "Kellie wrote: "I’ve never played"

you should give it a try. It's a blast!!!"

It sounds like it is.

Scott wrote: "Do you play Dungeons and Dragons? If yes, then what character do you play?"

Yes, I generally play once a week with a group of friends. Myself and another player take turns as Dungeon Master, which is what I'm doing now. My current player character is an Elf fighter.

Scott wrote: "Simon wrote: "Scott wrote: "Do you play Dungeons and Dragons? If yes, then what character do you play?"

Yes, I generally play once a week with a group of friends. Myself and another player take tu..."

Good stuff! I think it's tougher playing a generally more righteous character.

I played during the mid-seventies and eighties. Basically the 2nd edition. And I'm so bad, I say that meaning we played with lead figures, and pencil and graph paper. We would pass secretive notes to the DM if we were doing something nasty to someone else in the group. (which happened) So I basically stopped playing in the eighties.

I'm writing a song for my bard character to perform in my online (Discord & Roll20) campaign. I also have a campaign with my coworkers where I'm a cleric. I'm pretty new to playing regularly & love it! I remember the "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" books & pewter figures (I think they were pewter) in my teens (late 80's), but didn't have a group to play with.

Books, lead figures, pencil and graph paper. That's how I played AD&D, but it was also mid to late 70's and a good part of the 80's.

Ian (RebelGeek) wrote: "I'm writing a song for my bard character to perform in my online (Discord & Roll20) campaign. I also have a campaign with my coworkers where I'm a cleric. I'm pretty new to playing regularly & love..."

The late 80s probably lead.

Finally got around to watching the Dungeon and Dragons movie and I enjoyed it. Not a great movie, but then no one is going to make an Oscar-worthy movie on D and D. just not something that is going to happen, and certainly better than many other entries in this category.

I always thought if they could create the game to work with a super complex solitaire version, you'd have it made.

There could be some truth to that.

I'm actually perplexed by the wild price fluctuations on the different scenario modules, were some super unpopular at the time, or just too expensive, or reprinted once if the sales weren't there?

I thought that everything would be plentiful and available, but it sounds like 'here today, gone tomorrow'.

And what was the critical mass to getting D&D popular was it the Lord of the Rings, or other Fantasy movies, or just that people talked about on television and said you can fight monsters in a dungeon or be a wizard?

Stranger Things helped add popularity to D&D in more recent years.

I'd pay money to see a museum of all the different kinds of multisided dice though....

interesting though that they reinvent the game to try different ideas out, oh lets make it more like a video game, oh oh, lets not for this version....

but last i heard that have a good girl demographic going...

i think it was 5% back around 1981

Liquidlasagna wrote: "I'm actually perplexed by the wild price fluctuations on the different scenario modules, were some super unpopular at the time, or just too expensive, or reprinted once if the sales weren't there?
..."

The popularity increased when they moved away from a war-playing game, which is what it started out as, to a fantasy role-playing game. It also was put forward at the various war game conventions and the shift was much like the first time magic cards were introduced at conventions. Some of the modules were quite popular and some were...well meh. Some of them were favorites of mine but didn't make the cut going forward and some were very popular but one-offs in a sense. Also, some of them don't translate well from the old rules to the new ones.

how uneven were the modules?
I'm just shocked at the weird pricings for modules, some are almost free and others hundreds occassionally, and i'm not sure if ratings or rarity matches any logic!

Everyone i knew who played it seemed to like the second edition and only a minority i think hopped to the newest versions

Liquidlasagna wrote: "how uneven were the modules?
I'm just shocked at the weird pricings for modules, some are almost free and others hundreds occassionally, and i'm not sure if ratings or rarity matches any logic!

Ev..."

That is pretty much the same as the modules for other gaming systems. The people making the game early on were gamers and so some of it was that they liked it, but when it came time to play the module it was less than what was expected. A great example would be the Series for fighting the Demon Queen. It was a total of 7 modules, in two sets of three and a single module to cap it all off. The first three were giant modules and mostly these were pretty good, I seem to recall the Frost Giant one being the best of the three. Then there were the three underdark modules, which had the worst of the bunch, The Shrine of the Koa-toa, which was fighting some kind of fish folk that I don't even remember showing up in the Moster Manual. And the last one was the Queen of the Demonweb Pits where you get a chance to fight Lloth and her minions. Since most parties couldn't get past the city where Drizzt is from it seemed a waste of time to buy it due to the lack of use.

There is also the one-shot Tomb of Horrors. It is an amazing module but it is fully trap-driven. Once the players make it through once, they have it figured and it will never be a real challenge again.

So I would look at any reviews you can find on a given module before you buy it.

yeah i remember seeing the interesting amount of reviews for all the modules....

But i still don't understand the prices of the used modules. Is that just hype with people not selling what they have

or are the things seriously rare?

What i recall is that there was always like 15% of well loved games, and then like 20% of duds, and the rest in the middle

Sorta like Star Trek episodes, some just rant about the top 15% and scream about the bottom 20% lol

Liquidlasagna wrote: "yeah i remember seeing the interesting amount of reviews for all the modules....

But i still don't understand the prices of the used modules. Is that just hype with people not selling what they ha..."

I would say it was both. Some of them wouldn't sell and some would be desired and unable to be found, the first would lower the price and the second would jack it up.

There is a rule system I love to use to adjust the original edition DandD called Chivalry and Sorcery. This is very rare and people want extraordinary amounts for the original rule book. I have one that the binding has come loose but I have all the pages and was offered over 100 dollars for it twenty years ago. I am holding out until I scan the pages to get it as a soft copy. It is very difficult to play, mostly a game for math nerds, but taking parts of it and using it with Dungeons makes them both more interesting.

I remember seeing in the hobby stories the odd egyptology one for like $20 with a black cloth strip on the spine, and no one could figure out the rules and then it went to like $400, like the old players turned into collectors with every mutation so anything uncommon got rare...

I thought things were uncommon, only because there was so much of them out there and not everyone bought everything

it was a lot of choosy people
"oh i heard that one is no fun, oh its dumb" etc lol

I had an allergy to fantasy gaming (and RPG) and eye most games unable to be played solitaire have a flaw in the play system....

but i'm fascinated with the early flood of modules and the whole cult of it...

though the Lovecraft game Cult of Chthulu seems very well done... and how people tried to make spy games work, like the whole Bond Roleplaying games that no one talks about now

Chivalry and Sorcery, that was one of those complicated ones that i think people studied and never played...

Liquidlasagna wrote: "I remember seeing in the hobby stories the odd egyptology one for like $20 with a black cloth strip on the spine, and no one could figure out the rules and then it went to like $400, like the old p..."

C+S was a math lovers' dream game. It was very complicated and immensely difficult to play. Less role-playing and more mathematics, but it had a lot of ideas that could be used to make other fantasy role-playing games more interesting.

Such as multiple types of mages, a different way to cast spells, a better stat mix, and probably best of all for a player interested in being a mage, experience points for using magic, not just killing things.

i heard similar things with some alternative combat rule set and it was incredible cumbersome to deal with multiperson battles like some siege and they streamlined the system to be manageable for complex battles

did you ever see any console games that came the closest to your ideal of D&D with all those RPG games?

though i tend to think of them as two separate worlds... Wasn't it something like Ultima on the commodore 64 like one of the first ones to throw away the rule books for experts?

Liquidlasagna wrote: "i heard similar things with some alternative combat rule set and it was incredible cumbersome to deal with multiperson battles like some siege and they streamlined the system to be manageable for c..."

No. I find the phrase RPG for most Video Games to be a misnomer, and I don't do multiplayer online games because they are a money suck. So there might be something but I haven't found one.

i've never understood why people don't find one version of D&D and never change, but i think i saw some stats like 25%-30% of players were staying with the 2ed AD&D

Liquidlasagna wrote: "i've never understood why people don't find one version of D&D and never change, but i think i saw some stats like 25%-30% of players were staying with the 2ed AD&D"

That could be true. Although there is no such thing as a perfect rules system, so adding or changing a few things, 'House Rules', was the norm when I played.

What are we supposed to do here?