While most people might think a post about the RPG world would begin with a definition about the hobby, they’re right. However, the beginning for me was not the beginning of the hobby. It was, in fact, about 15 years after role-playing games had been created. For me the beginning wasn’t really the beginning, and ever since I’ve working to understand not just where the hobby came from, but where it is currently, as well as where it is going.
In retrospect, I don’t fully recall how I found out about RPGs, but if my memory is at all accurate, the owner of my friendly local game shop (FLGS) struck up a conversation with me and suggested I check out a game called Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition. I had no idea what role-playing games were, but I was a fan of the old Dragonlance novels. Taking the next step into the actual game that spawned the stories I was reading was almost sort of inevitable. And truth be told, it was a great move. It completely changed my life. I showed it to my friends and we had a gaming group within a few hours. No joke. It all fell into place that quickly. Nerds of a feather stick together…, or something like that.
From then on, that was it. Our games were mostly just a rehash of the same scenarios, but we didn’t care. Everything was basically just seeking out a monster so that we could defeat it and take the treasure it was guarding. Wash, rinse, repeat. The people in the group all sort of drifted away from one another, but the game left a permanent mark on me. It was the tool kit I never knew I had always wanted, and once I got my hands on it, things changed. That was the beginning, and where I started. It was the point of origin that would empower my creative impulses, and set me on a path of creating fantastic worlds and people to inhabit them.
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