I still own every single piece of anything I ever bought or created for role-playing games except the three 2nd Edition AD&D Core Rule Books. Not everything is in good condition, but most of it is.
I have binders and binders full of creations going all the way back to the beginning, which for me was the mid 80's, starting with the 1983 Red Box (technically my brother's at that time, later acquired by me in a trade as he moved beyond D&D to other games) followed almost immediately and concurrently with other BECMI sets (again, his originally) and AD&D hardcovers. My first was the Player's Handbook. For Christmas, 1985 (I believe), I got Unearthed Arcana and the Marvel Super Heroes Box Set (yellow box) and the rest is history...
My brother owned the Dungeon Master's Guide, this one:
I would eventually acquire it from him, but until that happened, I copied page after page after page for my own records, Spell Costs, Poisons, Traits, To-Hit Tables, Saving Throws, Treasure Tables, Magic Items...
But, way before any of that, when it was just the Red Box in our possession and perhaps a module or two, I had a strong desire to create my own stuff, and so behold, the first dungeon I ever made...
Two of the three levels...
This introduction...HA! And that cursive writing...I've literally almost forgotten how to write in cursive.
Of course I made another...
Maps already getting better...
I made many more, but eventually we got lazy and started creating quick, randomly rolled, one-page dungeons...
This one's something of a gauntlet...
And how many of you remember these Adventure Log Sheets...?
How about some cut-and-paste character sheets...
The pose on the sheets below, do you know where it came from?
That's it for memory lane.
Looking back is nice, but nostalgia can be a trap. The older you get, the less you have to look forward to and the more you have to look back on. You can, and almost certainly will, get lost in the fog of yesterday.
Do not neglect the present.
These relics are always a lot of fun. You have to start somewhere, so they are often plain or dodgy, but every now and then they make you go "wow, I would still be proud of [i]that![/i]"
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I was a lot less methodical. A lot of the adventures we played were improvisations, or extrapolated from a map and minimal stats/notes, and only exist as figments of memories. There are only a few which are in a proper room key format; I just lacked the patience to methodically write things down.
Luckily, for history's sake, the one thing I was, is methodical. And even through several years-long gaps of non-gaming, I still revered the hobby enough to preserve it. It does help too, that these collections have never left the room in which they were created.
DeleteAwesome!
ReplyDeleteThank You!
DeleteVery cool to still have all that! Man, that's almost 40 years of gaming :) I wish I still had the notes for my first campaign. Five years of weekly gaming, but I barely wrote stuff down because with playing every Friday, I did nothing but thinking about the next game anyway. A couple of notes here and there, nothing of it pinned down to last ... Yours is the way to go. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome! I was involved in a few improvised campaigns, even dice-less ones where nothing was recorded by anyone. These were never my favorite as they went to the extreme free-form side of the hobby decades before I even knew that to be a thing. Thankfully, that style of gaming didn't stick with me.
DeleteThis is great. Don't lose these records of so many adventures! When we were young I never wrote anything down, and usually figured out my adventures the night before game day. I would not recommend this approach!!
ReplyDeleteThey are safe my friend!
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