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Who here was first introduced to D&D in the Pen and Paper days of the 70's and 80's?

immagikmanimmagikman Member Posts: 664
edited August 2012 in Archive (General Discussion)
Recent conversations have made me wonder. It seems many people who really loved BG don't really know the roots of the game, the Pen and Paper rules and the days of 4 or 8 of your friends staying up all weekend running a loosely structured AD&D game where innovative thinking and outside the box solutions would freely be integrated into events, where you start a serious adventure into the Tomb of horrors and ended up instead laughing for 4 hours straight as your characters interacted in the most bizarre ways...... I feel sorry for people who missed those days and who may not realize just what we computer geeks were trying to recreate on the computer when times changed and it wasnt so easy to get your friends together for that long on a regular basis.
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Comments

  • lDanielHolmlDanielHolm Member Posts: 225
    Pen and paper games are still going strong, even today. I was personally introduced to D&D in the middle of the '90s, around age 10-11, just before the original release of Baldur's Gate.
  • CuvCuv Member, Developer Posts: 2,535
    edited August 2012
    I remember playing the PnP Tomb of Horrors!!! Loved it. What was the one with the wrecked alien ship full of rust monsters? So long ago.

    I started playing in the mid 70's until around 1981:P Then got back into it when Baldur's Gate came along. Huge span of time there!
  • BjjorickBjjorick Member Posts: 1,208
    well, i wasn't first introduced to dnd pnp until around 2000 or 2001. In the 90's i was in high school and my friends got me in the WotC card game Magic: The Gathering. I loved coming up with unusual decks, but my sliver deck i still have and is my favorite of all time. But it didn't allow for alot of freedom and i hated that the games were so short. Eventually i found dnd and from my first game i loved it, using 2.5E rules. It's kinda sad that it took me so long to find it, but it was amazing (and a bit uncomfortable at first) that when i was presented with something, i wasn't given a list to choose from. I had to figure out what to do, and if i did it wrong, i could be hurt or die. If i did it right, well......there's alot of different degrees of 'right' in dnd. :)

    But honestly, it was dnd that first made me realize what critical thinking was and it has helped me in my life and in my career alot. Always at work i annoy others because i don't do what's expected, i find a solution that fixes the problem that typically isn't as obvious, but is better then anyone's expected outcome. Not sure why it annoys so many people, but lol, people are strange.
  • ShinShin Member Posts: 2,345
    Started out in the 80s playing with my brother and friends, and it was awesome. Though I think for us it was more sweating than laughing. It seemed so real then and we were so into it, each one of us living inside our characters. Had some very intense sessions.
  • SchneidendSchneidend Member Posts: 3,190
    90's kid here. Tabletop gaming is by no means dead. My group and I get together at least every other weekend for my 4E game.
  • immagikmanimmagikman Member Posts: 664
    It may not be dead but it sure isn't what it was :D not knocking it, just times have changed and that is what really drove a lot of the early programmers of CRPGs....trying to recreate the gathering of friends because it got pretty hard to keep it up as real life became more complex and demanding of our time. Party Based adventures are the children of Pen and Paper. I was introduced into D&D while in the Navy, I was in a highly selective intense secretive group of people who were very tight knit....we needed something to blow off steam and creativity and to forget about the weeks work..we would frequently Start gaming Friday night and Break up around 3am Monday morning to get a nap before the next days training classes...and a shower :) Ahh to be young again, now I get cranky if I don't get at least 6 hours sleep :D
  • CheesebellyCheesebelly Member Posts: 1,727
    I never played PnP before in my life. Baldur's Gate was the first experience I had with D&D in fact. Am hoping to rectify this soon with @Kitteh_On_A_Cloud though! :)
  • immagikmanimmagikman Member Posts: 664
    edited August 2012
    Cheesebelly said:

    I never played PnP before in my life. Baldur's Gate was the first experience I had with D&D in fact. Am hoping to rectify this soon with @Kitteh_On_A_Cloud though! :)

    I think if you find a good DM you will wish you had known about it long ago :) (DM's would make or break the game but sometimes really good people in the group can make up for it some of the best times were had when we completely left the DM's plans in the dust and adlibed the whole night)

  • SchneidendSchneidend Member Posts: 3,190
    I'd say it's still alive and strong, it's just that D&D is no longer top dog, and more narrativist games like Fate are taking the forefront. There's actually an indie d20 game that's basically a more narrativist version of D&D, it's called 13th Age. Still pretty deep in beta, though.
  • decabadecaba Member Posts: 9
    1980s when I was a teen. Had the manuals, a few modules, and a bunch of like minded friends who were in to it, too. Good times...
  • SchneidendSchneidend Member Posts: 3,190
    Cheesebelly said:

    I never played PnP before in my life. Baldur's Gate was the first experience I had with D&D in fact. Am hoping to rectify this soon with @Kitteh_On_A_Cloud though! :)

    Whatchya playin' over there, guys?

  • NWN_babaYagaNWN_babaYaga Member Posts: 732
    I remember it at around early 90´s and tried out MERS at that time too.
  • immagikmanimmagikman Member Posts: 664
    In our day, we had AD&D, GURPS, Champions, Gamma World, and some Old Western thing I never bothered with and a Space Adventure RPG that for the life of me I cannot remember the name of.
  • Jedi_GnomeJedi_Gnome Member Posts: 92
    edited August 2012
    First played PnP D&D back in 1980. And yes I played through (actually DM) Keep of the Borderlands and Tomb of Horrors.
  • AlejandroAlejandro Member Posts: 201
    First time playing PnP D&D was actually not long ago, maybe like 2 months. I´m still currently playing 3.5 ed with that group.

    First and only Character so far:

    Glaco HeavenDrop
    Gnome
    Lvl 3 Cleric
    Neutral Good
  • oldsch00loldsch00l Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 192
    I came to the p&p rpg mid-90's and began with Call of Chtulu in fact. Later tried d&d and played for many years, like every two weeks for the whole sunday afternoon. I played a little of 1st ed, lots of 2nd and some 3rd, never played 4th. These last years, like @Schneidend said, we tend to play more narrative games where dice rolling is rare (sometimes non existant). 2 of my friend are longtime DM and they like to adapt rules/worlds/etc to the scripts they write.

    We're older, have kids and all but every year we gather with the same group of five to play during a long week-end in the summer. But it's been years since we played d&d. For example this year we played Maléfice which is a french indie rpg set in the 19th century involving normal beings confronted with sorcery, ghosts or other paranormal stuff. Played like more than 20 hours and rolled the dice less than 10 times !

    And like @immagikman, we still have lots of laughs through our role playing or decision making :-)
  • elvee68elvee68 Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 35
    I started back in the 80's. I still have my first Players Handbook and original characters. They all went on to get extensive play on BG 1 and 2, IWD 1 and 2 and both Neverwinter Nights!!!
  • immagikmanimmagikman Member Posts: 664
    The Pen and Paper games we had used dice but its not like that was all that we did, it was a part of the game not the Dominant thing about the game, we had quite a lot of narative, like I said sometimes we never even got to the "dungeon" the DM had planned for us....though I guess the DM did a bit more rolling of dice than we did.
  • DaelricDaelric Member Posts: 266
    I was always the geek who well.. never really hung out with other geeks, so I never played the pnp d&d :(
  • immagikmanimmagikman Member Posts: 664
    KryptBeowulf said:

    I was always the geek who well.. never really hung out with other geeks, so I never played the pnp d&d :(

    Never too late to start ;)


  • cmorgancmorgan Member Posts: 707
    Greyhawk, baby. And a funny little pamphlet called "Blackmoor".

    Eventually Top Secret, Traveller, and the first D&D. Even a short bout of the ST roleplaying ruleset in college.

    But my best-remembered start was Swords and Spells. Tabletop miniature war-games, where your carefully screened cavalry charge could be foiled by a simple combination of Web, Entangle, and an illusionary chasm. That's where I learned the tactical RPG mantra; if it is wearing a robe and waving it's hands, kill it first.
  • TheCoffeeGodTheCoffeeGod Member Posts: 618
    Between getting my beautiful car blown to smithereens in very short fast and furious Car Wars games and throwing my only weapon (a dagger), at a huge sand scorpion before immediately getting ripped to shreds in my very first D&D, I don't think I could ever forget those years.


  • Metal_HurlantMetal_Hurlant Member Posts: 324
    First PnP session was playing a Halfling Thief in the Temple of Elemental Evil in 1990 with a group of friends. Throughout that year, I think our DM had three miniatures all up which we didn't use. They were more for atmosphere with the miniatures in front of the DM screen. Good times.
  • immagikmanimmagikman Member Posts: 664
    cmorgan said:

    Greyhawk, baby. And a funny little pamphlet called "Blackmoor".

    Eventually Top Secret, Traveller, and the first D&D. Even a short bout of the ST roleplaying ruleset in college.

    But my best-remembered start was Swords and Spells. Tabletop miniature war-games, where your carefully screened cavalry charge could be foiled by a simple combination of Web, Entangle, and an illusionary chasm. That's where I learned the tactical RPG mantra; if it is wearing a robe and waving it's hands, kill it first.

    Traveler that is the Space game I couldn't remember :D We tried some Top Secret too but I remember only two game sessions of that. Greyhawk was all we had before they developed Faerun and the Realms....

    Blackmoore wasnt that David Hargraves' Arduin Series of 4 Books...I have them on a shelf somewhere...we incorporated lots of spells and magic items from Arduin into our AD&D....actually truth be told we mixed and matched quite a lot tuff from Arduin, Gamma World, and any other Fantasy Setting we got our hands on, and we made a lot of our own stuff up too. Serving in isolated duty stations some times far from civilization with little contact with the rest of the world...we got pretty creative :D
  • perceiveperceive Member Posts: 3
    I started with Dragonlance in the late 80's. Completely different world back then. Different sort of fun entirely than the current multi-player online world as well, for me at least.
  • jmanreisjmanreis Member Posts: 39
    Cuv said:

    I remember playing the PnP Tomb of Horrors!!! Loved it. What was the one with the wrecked alien ship full of rust monsters? So long ago.

    Expedition to the Barrier Peaks?

  • jmanreisjmanreis Member Posts: 39
    immagikman said:

    In our day, we had AD&D, GURPS, Champions, Gamma World, and some Old Western thing I never bothered with and a Space Adventure RPG that for the life of me I cannot remember the name of.

    Boot Hill and Star Frontiers
  • jmanreisjmanreis Member Posts: 39
    cmorgan said:

    Greyhawk, baby. And a funny little pamphlet called "Blackmoor".

    Eventually Top Secret, Traveller, and the first D&D. Even a short bout of the ST roleplaying ruleset in college.

    But my best-remembered start was Swords and Spells. Tabletop miniature war-games, where your carefully screened cavalry charge could be foiled by a simple combination of Web, Entangle, and an illusionary chasm. That's where I learned the tactical RPG mantra; if it is wearing a robe and waving it's hands, kill it first.

    Top Secret was the best. I found that Jagged Alliance was farily close to recreating it on the PC.
  • Kitteh_On_A_CloudKitteh_On_A_Cloud Member Posts: 1,629
    Schneidend said:

    Cheesebelly said:

    I never played PnP before in my life. Baldur's Gate was the first experience I had with D&D in fact. Am hoping to rectify this soon with @Kitteh_On_A_Cloud though! :)

    Whatchya playin' over there, guys?

    @Schneidend: We don't really know yet. I'm still thinking of a possible interesting story line. I'm in the same boat as @Cheesebelly. I have read the 3rd and 4th edition D&D books and am really interested in the lore described in those books. I have little experience playing a real RP game, though. I'm sure it's going to be fun. :)
  • CheesebellyCheesebelly Member Posts: 1,727
    @Kitteh_On_A_Cloud : we are basically the biggest noobs in history! XD
    Might as well name my character Noober!
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