| Boo...

This is how I found out...

My Boss: Huh. I guess the inventor of Dungeons & Dragons died.
Me: Whoa?! Gary Gygax dies?!
My Boss: Uhh... Yeah that's what the article says.

Damn. The first thing to pop in my head: "It's a... *the sound of rolling dice* Pleasure to meet you!"

My first memories of the D&D fantasy world begin with Dungeon. I owned the game as a pretty young kid. 1st or 2nd grade and I didn't know how to play it for a while. Regardless, the cards were awesome and the dungeon full of adventure, heroism and mystery. I would pour over the game relentlessly and create my own fantasy stories before I knew how to play. Once I did know how to play I would play by myself for hours.

My first true D&D books, bought at the old B Dalton, were the purple cover basic set and wayyyyy beyond my comprehension skills in 2nd grade. I think Megan Steven's brother had a hand in this and Dungeon for that matter. He was a good bit older and into D&D. He had all these minis and a wooden labyrinth he had built that drew me right in.

O rugs helped introduced me to the real deal in 3rd grade. We went over some weird older kid's house only once, but that was more than enough. He had all these well worn character sheets with fantastic high level characters and he ran a little mini adventure for us. I was so in over my head. He didn't really explain the whole concept of an RPG and at first I was lost, but very quickly enchanted.

The sad thing is, that I really didn't get any consistent D&D experience until I was a Sophomore in High School. O rugs and I had interest but no one to game with that had working knowledge. Rich deliberately isolated us from the convention group for a long time, but eventually busted in during High School. Purely by accident O rugs and I came over while Elzar was over. From there it was all a natural series of progressive steps immersing into the realm as a whole. Unfortunately, by then the group had played the hell out of D&D and was moving on to other systems. By far the longest single campaign I played in was the El Segundo era.

I still very much miss D&D. It has the feel of that comfortable old chair in your favorite cozy room occasionally remembered from the salad days of childhood.

D>M>