June 1981 is when I really plunged into Dungeons & Dragons, or as the world has come to know it…D&D.
There was a prologue to my 40-yeard-old hobby. After Xmas Break 1980-81, there was a new kid in my seventh-grade class. His name was Dan Blankenburger and his family had just moved to Springfield. Dan’s father working for the IRS was a faster conversation killer than my old man’s position with the (IL) Department of Mental Health. When Mrs. Schultz had Dan introduce himself, he mentioned that he played D&D with his two older brothers. Being a Sci-Fi Geek, we became fast friends. We would’ve been without D&D since I was very skilled at helping out the “new kid” for it was my part-time career; you all know I went pro in high school!
I must’ve tormented poor Dan in wanting to play so much. His older brothers usually ran the game and when he came over to hang at my house, he was more interested in the “luxuries” I had: HBO, snacks and only one annoying sibling. Dan came from a stereotypical Catholic family, he was the exact middle child of five so getting control of the TV, parental attention when not in trouble, dining out and junk food were rare.
School let out and I think Dan’s family immediately moved to the other side of town but it didn’t matter, a family emergency took precedent.
Aunt Helen, a relative we loved very much, passed in her sleep. Helen was my Grandma’s aunt and someone we saw fairly often. When the funeral was over, Mom thought it was smart to have me stay with Grandma in Bloomington-Normal for a couple weeks as Grandpa ducked out for some farming matters. Not exactly sure how Mom thought a selfish 12-year-old could help his grandmother overcome her grief. My younger brother would’ve been a wiser choice, he was more sensitive to people’s feelings.
Time dragged at her house. There were no kids my age in her neighborhood. Nothing nearby on foot to check out like an arcade or movie theater. The days were filled with hours of TV, eating and playing Monopoly by myself because I hated Boggle, it felt like school and Grandma cheated, always claiming Latin words counted. We also visited Grandma’s other little-old-lady friends which meant I was stuck watching TV some more while they gossiped.
One Saturday night, we went to what passed for a mall in Bloomington. I took the opportunity to kill some time in its KayBee toy store since it lacked an arcade. There on the game shelf was the Basic D&D set. I immediately bugged Grandma for the $13. She willingly gave it to me and I will always be grateful for her generosity; maybe Grandma knew it would keep me quiet longer and she could enjoy her naps.
I couldn’t wait to open it up. I stayed up late reading the rulebook to learn all the things Dan didn’t disclose when we played. I was rolling dice to start making new characters. I wrote all the crap down on any blank paper I could find in the house. My parents were less than thrilled the night Grandma told them about this on the phone.
When I got back to Springfield, I ran numerous games with my friends in the neighborhood. We constantly just kept playing the introductory adventure the set came with all Summer, The Keep on the Borderlands. It’s not very well-written, it plays more like a game of Doom or all those LEGO smash-up-and-loot games but this was our surrogate for video games in 1981. I wrote something of my own for my friends to storm through since the Keep didn’t have a titular dragon to confront. I think I was inspired by the movie Dragonslayer which came out that same Summer.
Getting me more D&D crap became easy birthday and Christmas gifts for the next couple years. Rule books, the fragile lead-based miniatures and dice. In the Fall of 1983, my parents confiscated my D&D stuff while letting me keep the other games I had (Star Frontiers, Traveller). Their excuse wasn’t the usual Jesus bullshit from the infamous Satanic Panic plaguing the Eighties. It was about making friends (which I managed to have in yet another new high school) and having other interests, aka, their interests which were incredibly boring.
In the long run it didn’t matter. I carried on with other role-playing games as D&D is truly the gateway drug to others covering different genres than Fantasy. Champions for comic-book superheroes, Call of Cthulhu for Horror, Traveller for “hard” Sci-Fi, Top Secret for Spy-Fi and eventually, well-known licensed products began to appear: Marvel Superheroes, DC Superheroes, Star Trek, Star Wars and James Bond. I even played D&D with others in high school and college, disobeying my asshole parents. By 1988, they were bugging me about other crap and my playing a D&D-like game called RoleMaster was the least of their nagging.
Within a year of graduating from Marquette, this unusual hobby landed me a job with the game company most famous for publishing Traveller, GDW. For many gamers, it was a dream come true. Instead, it quickly became a nightmare. Regardless of what a company produces, work is work, deadlines loom and the people in charge might have impressive imaginations but it doesn’t translate to good business skills. GDW will always be an amazing 15 months of my life and a middle finger to my family (including my brother) who said nothing good would ever come of D&D. I disagree entirely. My typesetting skills improved enormously and I continue to maintain them. D&D help me stay in publishing jobs for a couple more years. My publishing work honed my Mac skills. My Mac skills led me to Austin and the livelihood I have today.
And all during those 40 years, I’ve continued to play D&D off and on, officially rejoining the fold in 1993 when I received a free-lance opportunity to work on a published adventure for TSR, D&D’s publisher until 1997. 2000’s Third Edition injected some newfound excitement worldwide and I got caught up in it. Made new friends through it. Rebuilt my collection which is easier thanks to the Internet via PDFs bringing back long out of print materials. The current Fifth Edition from Hasbro/WOTC is pretty impressive too. Its simplicity is nice yet I’ve diverged a little from D&D by siding with its stubborn, red-headed cousin PathFinder First Edition; it’s derived from Third Edition if anybody cares.
Those 40 years have been an adventure in itself. “Cooler” people think I’ve wasted my life alongside my immediate family. To each their own. For me, D&D has been an experience encompassing friendships, rivalries, conventions, funny stories, tragedy, opportunities, personal growth and evolution. On the last element, it has been pretty amazing to see D&D go from an obscure hobby played primarily by socially awkward males to a mainstream activity encompassing a more diverse audience. No longer is it the lazy punchline on SNL. Show business has embraced D&D through Stranger Things, Rick & Morty, Community, Big Bang Theory (ugh), Adventure Time, stand-up comedy and in many ways, the colossal success of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. It also was a cornerstone of the modern electronic technology we have today; not just video games or online worlds. Millions of programmers cut their teeth writing applications to randomly generate characters or encounters. The Internet was partially “built” by D&D players communicating across vast distances, sharing ideas and opinions.
On to the next 40 years should I live as long as my maternal grandparents!
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