My birthday was last week and, contrary to what I expected, it proved an occasion to look back over my life and ponder a few things. I don’t mean this in a maudlin or self-critical way. For the most part, I’m fairly content with my current existence and reasonably comfortable with my creeping senescence. Rather, I found myself thinking about the fact that, forty-six years after first discovering Dungeons & Dragons, I’m still actively involved in the hobby of roleplaying, while so many of the people with whom I first discovered it are not.
I was 10 years-old at the Christmas holidays of 1979, when I first opened the D&D Basic Set edited by J. Eric Holmes. That was the beginning of my journey. Through the end of childhood and into my early teens, roleplaying games felt like a shared discovery, something my friends and I stumbled into together, almost like finding a secret passage beneath the ordinary world. We played obsessively – after school, on weekends, and during those seemingly endless summer vacations. At the time, it would have seemed absurd to imagine any of us ever not playing. RPGs were simply what we did, eclipsing nearly every other pastime.
That shared enthusiasm didn’t last. By my mid-teens, very few of the friends with whom I’d entered the hobby were still playing. Some drifted away gradually, their interests and circumstances changing. Others dropped it abruptly, as if a curtain had fallen on that chapter of their lives. In the years that followed, careers, families, and the usual responsibilities of adulthood pulled still more away. Yet I’ve always wondered whether those explanations were truly sufficient. Many hobbies survive the transition to adulthood. In my circle of childhood friends, though, roleplaying games mostly did not.
To be fair, I eventually made other friends who shared my passion for gaming, but they were almost all people I met through the hobby, not the ones I’d grown up with. That’s why I often wonder why I stuck with it when so many others did not. I don’t believe it’s because I was more dedicated or imaginative; some of my friends were far more talented referees and players. Nor do I think the hobby itself changed in some way that pushed them out. They’d already drifted away long before the edition wars, the OSR, or any of the other developments one might offer as convenient explanations for their departures.
If I’ve come to any conclusion at all, it’s that roleplaying games continued to scratch an itch nothing else quite could. They combined the pleasures of reading, worldbuilding, problem-solving, and camaraderie into a single, strangely durable form. Even during my late high school years, when I didn’t play as often as I’d have liked, I still found myself returning to rulebooks, adventures, and setting material, much as one might return to a favorite novel or album. RPGs became part of the architecture of my inner life.
I don’t begrudge my childhood friends for having “abandoned” the hobby. Their lives simply went in other directions, as lives often do. I wouldn’t be surprised if some still remember our campaigns with fondness, even if they haven’t rolled a die in decades. Others may barely remember the details, but I remember those early days with great affection. In a very real sense, they laid the groundwork for the life I lead today. Even so, it’s hard not to wonder why I stayed immersed in this hobby while they did not.
I suspect many long-time gamers have had similar experiences. We are the ones who stayed, often without entirely meaning to. Something in roleplaying games held our attention long after the initial spark that brought us in. Perhaps that’s why so many of us older players end up blogging, designing, or running campaigns well into middle age. We’re still trying to understand what this odd pastime means to us and why it continues to matter so much after all these years.
your youthfulness explains your energy
ReplyDeleteI discovered the Holmes set around 1980 when I was ten and I played, or tried to play, for several years. Then I dropped the hobby in my late teens but picked it up again in my late thirties, when I had teens of my own and wanted to connect with them. I'm now 55 and still read adventures, write them, read this blog, and play now and then with my kids. The game is a touch of magic in a mundane world.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I went to GaryCon i had a eureka moment. Like James I too have been playing RPGs since age 10. I was playing in a game at GaryCon when it struck me. For the first time in my life I was playing D&D with a tableful of DMs, everyone of which was as interested and engaged in the subject matter as I was. My gaming “career” flashed before my eyes. I was the organizer, instigator and forever DM. The president of my high school chess and games club (note:we didn’t play much chess). Of all my school buddies growing up only one still plays regularly. For most players I think RPGs are just another fun, social activity to participate in with friends. It was the first time I didn’t have to explain why I loved it. Everyone there already knew.
ReplyDeleteI’ve concluded it’s because no other hobby is as interesting.
ReplyDeleteI am one of those who gave it up. I was the first among my friends to discover role-playing games. I was the first dungeon master, the person who introduced all the neighbors to the rules and settings of the game. That happened when I was 12 and lasted until I was 16 years old. My life wasn't just about role-playing games. I loved playing football, writing and girls. This latter interest invaded my life very deeply. You know the story well, I think!
ReplyDeleteSo from the age of 17 to 20, my suggestions for gaming sessions became increasingly rare. After all, those around me were also going through a change. Even those who still played weekly were discovering Vampire: The Masquerade and Call of Cthulhu. In short, D&D was becoming a memory. Then I lived abroad for a while and started working seriously. The guys from my old group who were still playing were the ones who hadn't graduated yet. Those of us who had started adult life had put RPGs behind us. Every now and then, out of nostalgia, we would organise a one-off Christmas game, but I hardly ever enjoyed it. The atmosphere at the table was no longer the same. The reason is that RPGs need time to engage people, especially adults. You have to build a story, shared memories. So I stopped completely for 12 years. I didn't roll a dice again until I was 35. In 2013, an old friend asked me to referee a session for TSR's 40th anniversary. I told him I didn't enjoy the game anymore, but I did it out of friendship. To my surprise, I had a great time. The reason? I guess the paradigm had changed. First of all, 50% of the players at the table were girls and 70% were new to RPGs. There were only a couple of veterans. This meant that through the eyes of the novices, we rediscovered the sense of discovery and wonder. A bit like when you watch Disney classics with your children and grandchildren. We built a new story at an adult pace, playing every two or three weeks. In addition, and this was the real stroke of genius, we started a blog where we took turns translating the session we had just played into narrative form. This brought a new depth to the party's adventures: on the one hand, we could reflect on the characters, and on the other, we could share different points of view. The summary of the session was sometimes more eagerly awaited than the game itself. We enjoyed rereading our adventures with different eyes.
So I started playing again, and at almost 50 years old, I am still an active dungeon master. There are years when I only play a couple of times (for example, during COVID, online gaming is not for me), and others when I am more active. With maturity, the game has become more intense, and the blog has also recorded our personal stories, which have changed our characters over time. Since we don't act at the table, we live the lives of our alter egos.
The miracle is that, with a few exceptions, almost all of my old friends are now back at the table, and we are a group of almost 10 people. So don't lose hope, the miracle of returning to the old days can still happen. It worked for me.
I do think that the corporate moves and creative decisions of TSR of 1983-84 had at least a minor corrosive effect that compounded from there. I believe at least some of the departures from the game entirely were due entirely to a series of small in-game episodes, like the horribly anticlimactic first encounter with the mythical Tenser, when the DM dutifully recites:
ReplyDelete"The chamber glows azure, and as Tenser gazes intently at your party, long, thin arcs of blue-violet electricity sizzle down from the domed vault above and play about his throne. He asks: "Do you each solemnly accept this perilous charge?
His words echo from the walls, and reverberate in your head. Of course, adventurers of your level and status can not refuse such a challenge! As one, you give assent, and your quest is onl"
Tiny but meaningful crimes like this simply were not committed in published adventures prior to 1982. TSR unwittingly attempted to divorce the players who had fallen in love with real D&D.
Now, the game had always had mixed parties: some who played because they liked action games, whether video, board, sports or rpgs; some who played for the loot and laughter; some who played because they liked their friends; and then the true acolytes - creative competitive collaborators who understood the world through Fantastic Pulp-o-Vision(tm).
It is also important to remember that D&D was a fad, as well. So in any given 10-person group that started playing circa 1981, 5 were there because of the spectacle from the shiny new bandwagon. They were never going to last. 2 were action players, with any number of replacement options competing for their time and headspace (video games, sports, partying/sex). Of the three remainders, there is certainly one who will be driven off by some sort of Tenseresque letdown railroad. Maybe another has gotten wrapped up in Hickmania - too broad and brittle and foundation to build a hobby life upon. The interests diverge.
Only one remains naturally, one who remains a devotee of "real" D&D and even has the awareness to want to pursue every possible true passageway that can be delved beneath the Two Towers of Genevapolis.
Time reveals the initiates, the acolytes, and the ascended masters. The Game calls its own.
I think that TSR did not understand how powerful the game's fragmented artificial world history was to some players. Even if you started playing in 1980, the imaginary realm (whether Greyhawk, Blackmoor or most likely your local homebrewed locale) in which you played seemed to have a nearly eternal history that came before you joined, and it was just based on fragmentary mentions. Bigby, Mordenkainen, Tenser, Leomund and their occasional appearance for a spell's name, magical artifacts with weird backstories, setting-warping modules like Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (or even other games like Metamorphosis Alpha): all these little scraps scattered throughout various rules and modules and supplements, sparked the imagination of some players. We had a shared, but distinctly individualized, imaginary cosmic setting. It was not unlike the initial impact that "A long time ago, in a galaxy far away..." had long before any prequels, interviews with Lucas or Disney(tm) could drain the hook of all its vitality and then begin wearing it like a skinsuit.
DeleteThere's a fine line when creating playable pseudo history, and you've got to hew close to it for it to be effective. TSR crossed over it at some point, and that's probably the thing I lament the loss of the most, because it is also the one that appears to have been most resistant to resurrection in the OSR. Or maybe I just miss "my" mysterious Bigby, and can never get him back.
Nicely written, and very spot on.
Delete
Delete“Fantastic Pulp-o-Vision(tm)” .. again, a brilliant turn of phrase, Daniel.
And to your point: "Even if you started playing in 1980, the imaginary realm (whether Greyhawk, Blackmoor or most likely your local homebrewed locale) in which you played seemed to have a nearly eternal history that came before you joined, and it was just based on fragmentary mentions." ..
In 2018, when we friends decided to take up D&D together again, the fellow who accepted DM responsibilities made two interesting decisions: (a) he set the new campaign (with new PCs and ruleset) in the same game world as we played/created during the 1970/1980s; but, (b) rather than continue exactly where we left off, the same 40 years has elapsed in the game world, as in our ordinary lives. We’ve learnt that, during that period (by DM fiat), some of our characters (still youthful in our memories) died of old age or adventurousness, others (of a more magical nature) mysteriously vanished, and my best friend’s half-elf prince, who tried so hard to fight against his social-class, has acceded to the full rank that was his aristocratic birth-right. So, we (and our new PCs) now occupy the same structural relationship with our previous in-game-alter-egos as our childhood selves did to the likes of Leomund, et al. That 'eternal history', which our current PCs take as an immutable given, is the one we fashioned from the crazy serendipity of our youth .. when we were merely playing at a world, before going off to seriously game reality.
Thank You for the continuing cunning insights, analysis, and humour, Daniel .. as well as the occasion to restore both memories of the past and resolve for today.
This is the Way.
Matthew.
Yeah, we quit AD&D years before we stopped gaming entirely, so it wasn't TSR's fault in our case.
DeleteIn addition to interest in girls, the other factor was just the lack of free time during college and afterwards when we entered the workforce. Trying to align those ever-shrinking windows into a regular group meetup proved impossible. It's a common story.
In junior high and high school we had nothing but free time to devote to endless gaming. I assume that once I'm retired, I can go back to gaming for hours a day every day. Won't be long now! :)
...matthew, our campaign group reconvened under a similar premise: most of our original game material long-lost, we embraced the new system but picked-up the same campaign world four decades later, playing a mixture of aged legacy characters, next-generation successors, and wholly new characters finding their way through the wake our previous adventurers left a generation earlier...
DeleteGreat post, and great comments so far. I started playing AD&D in 1977, and I'm still playing today (Pathfinder, but it's "D&D" to me). I've lost touch with nearly all the childhood friends I played D&D with, but the one I still know hasn't played since high school, though he has fond memories of our games. My older brother stopped playing for decades, but in the last few years started playing 5th Edition with some friends, and also introducing his wife and daughter to the hobby. As for me, I joined the Navy after high school, and didn't play for a year or two, just because I didn't know anyone else who was interested and there were so many other things to do. But then some shipmates decided they wanted to learn how to play, and knowing that I used to play, they asked me to teach them. That rekindled my interest, and when I was discharged and started college a couple years later, I found a few other freshmen and started a group that lasted until I got my BA and started law school. I tried to keep playing in law school, without much success (none of my fellow students had the interest or time), and once again I might have dropped out of the hobby for good -- but after law school, I accepted a one-year clerkship in a very remote town where I didn't know a soul. Out of loneliness, I checked out the one game store in town, where I met and soon befriended the owner. 3rd Edition had just been released, and I started spending every Saturday in the store, playing with other customers who soon became my social circle in that town -- we'd play all day, then hit the bars at night. When my clerkship ended, I sadly left that place and returned home to start the job that would become my career for the next 22 years. After a few months getting settled into my new routine, though, I was ready to find another D&D group, and did so the same way I had the last time, through a local game store. I've been playing continuously since then, and while people have come and gone, I've been playing with one of the same guys for over 20 years now, and another for at least 10.
ReplyDeleteMy best guess as to why I've managed to keep playing more or less continuously for almost 50 years now is that I'm (1) lucky and (2) stubborn. The demands of adult life make it incredibly difficult to set aside time for play, and D&D requires not only that *you* set aside that time, but several other people do so as well. It's almost inevitable that at some point, any one of those players will have to prioritize real life over the game -- and if they aren't determined to return to the hobby as soon as they're able, they may never do so. As other commenters have said, some people just aren't as interested in the hobby as others, and I think I've just been selfish enough (in a good way) to insist on setting aside time to do what I enjoy, and lucky enough to be *able* to be selfish like that, whereas many of my friends have not been.
...in my own case and i suspect a lot of our generation, the struggle to survive the captalist grind superseded any luxury of personal leisure; working sixty to seventy hour weeks barely leaves sufficent time to turn it around and start over again at five o'clock monday morning...
ReplyDelete...what changed, of course, was the pandemic: working from home suddenly freed-up sixteen hours otherwise spent commuting each week, so for the first time since we were fourteen years old we came up for air with the prospect of personal leisure...in my own case, an old friend looked me up in the spring of 2020, then a flurry of linkedin messages and about two weeks later we'd reconvened our original elementary-school party and ran a full campaign continuing where we'd left off fourty years prior, until return-to-office mandates hit a couple years ago...
...look up your old campaign-mates; their interest may surprise you...
..."the capitalist grind..." - better than the socialist or communist grind, which places you firmly in the muck, boot on your neck, enforced "equality".
DeleteAgreed. Anyone who speaks of "captalist grind" has no idea what they're talking about. Talk to someone who lived through those communist or socialist "utopias", and then you'll know how wrong you are.
DeleteHe's talking about working 60-70 hours a week to stand still. In Scandinavia (more socialist than US) people work less hours per week on average and are happier.
Deleteusatoday.com/story/graphics/2025/07/02/united-states-world-happiness-rankings-2025/84385092007/#:~:text=Since%202012%2C%20the%20mood%20in%20the%20United,round%20out%20the%20top%20five%20happiest%20countries.
I was going to have a real snappy comment, but no, I don't want to detract from the discussion anymore. I'll quote the late, great Don Rickles:
Delete"That's nice. Have a cookie."
It's rather amazing how your experience nearly echoes my own.
ReplyDeleteI started in '81, when a friend brought a copy of Moldvay B/X to school. I think there were like four or five of us who were playing at one point. Like many kids who played, we mixed AD&D and B/X without any thought, and we had a blast. I begged my parents to get the game, and I got the Basic and Expert sets from my folks for Xmas. Grandparents got me the MM, PHB, and DMG for Xmas too.
Then two major influences happened that would make me into the gamer I am today. One was going to the hobby store that would be my "Fortress of Solitude" for nearly the next ten years: Star Realm. When I went there, it was like a whole new world opened up to me. Not only RPGs, but they had comics, sci-fi and fantasy books, models, wargames. They had it all. The owners Bill and Sandy made everyone feel like part of the family. As long as you abided by the rules, you can do whatever you wanted. We always made sure we cleaned up after ourselves, and looked out for each other. Even though Star Realm is no more, the legacy lives on in Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/286853048004/
Honestly, it was a dream of mine for years to open a store just like Star Realm.
The second impact was going to my first convention. It was called Contretemps being held at the Holiday Inn over the weekend. I believe it was 'May or June of '83. THIS is where my mind was totally blown. There's a whole larger community of gamers? I couldn't believe it!
I remember going Friday afternoon, being dropped off by parents to the con, with my carry bag of all of my gaming stuff, and a few bucks in my wallet. They said to call by 10 to be picked up. When I called I BEGGED them if I could stay. They were like "who are you going to be with. Where are you sleeping?"
How it worked out was crazy. Mom drove to meet my friends, one of which was John, who was at least ten years older than me. John talked to my mom and assured her I'd be safe...and mom said "OK". After that, the floodgates opened and there was no turning back. That con made a huge impact. Heck, that weekend was crazy.
-entering an AD&D tournament and WINNING a prize! (Dragonriders of Pern board game)
-falling asleep in the 24 hour video room and waking up to my friends John and Lonnie signing along with the George of the Jungle theme on the screen.
-going to the convention lounge and being served "specialty drinks": the Purple Pterodactyl and...the Pangalactic Gargle Blaster!
I was twelve.
Even after joining the Navy, moving all over the country, married, kids, and now a grandchild, going to Star Realm and local game conventions made me into the gamer I am today.
I'm lucky and grateful I had an environment that embraced the geek in me in those formative years.
I will maintain until the day they bury me in the ashen earth beneath a blackened oak tree that there is nothing like this game.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing like the distant rising smoke.
There is nothing like the merchant caravan that never returned.
There is nothing like the screams of a hag deep in the swamp.
There is nothing like entering an entirely abandoned village.
There is nothing like your first Drow. Or the yawning forbidden cave, grave to so many errant fools, and dark purple shimmer deep inside.
None who ventured within ever returned.
You can bring in the girls with cruddy renditions of Landslide or More than a Feeling or Black Dog or Sweet Home Alabama on your guitar, or wind your stupid Corvette up to 162 miles an hour on the Dulles Toll Road until the dotted lines blur into one insane streak of white. You can be awarded a $1,675 watch for writing about tragedy in Rwanda. You can procur one of the last boxes of Royal Jamaican cigars before they convert the plantation to coffee.
You can see your girlfriend Amy do something to her cousin Tiffany that would be completely utterly illegal if Amy wasn't adopted.
Those are just things. D&D is not a thing. It is a spirit. It never truly leaves you. It is the Rising Smoke, and the ones who venture towards it.
Great topic and a very well written, thoughtful post about it!
ReplyDeleteI stopped playing RPGs almost entirely by my senior year of high school, as had substantially all of my high school friends. Why? For me personally, the oldest reason: got a girlfriend.
Then I went to college a year later. During my college years (and even as a young working professional after that), I never totally gave up going periodically to local comic book and game shops that were within walking/subway distance. I bought things here or there. So I never totally left the hobby as a 'consumer,' I suppose. Then the internet facilitated this status tremendously for decades thereafter. But as an active player, 1987 was more-or-less the end.
I've had a helluva ride with AD&D too. It all started in 1980 and the giants or maybe it was the slavers but any way I was hooked. My DM was a nerd, probably autistic but hell, so am I, it just added to the game. Those games were so immersive, we lived the adventure, except when we died which unfortunately was quite often.
ReplyDeleteThe game moved on and so did I, becoming a DM and running my own game. Ravenloft and some classics were played. And then I joined the navy. I never thought there'd be the interest in RPG but lo and behold before you know it I was DMing in the middle of the gulf war.
Time passed and so did second edition, I joined in again for third and had fun, I introduced over a dozen new players but it felt flat. Fourth came along and I played along, I enjoyed the dice rolls and sitting around a table... Bit did I really enjoy the game. Then came fifth! The great reboot.
Was it really that good? Did it recapture what was lost?
I'm sorry. I'm 58. There will never be a game that compares to the games I played in the first three years of my gaming experience. It was sublime. It captured my imagination in a way that can only be compared to the way your brain rewires itself after the first time you have (pretty good) sex.
If I could recapture that and bottle it, I'd be the richest man alive