Once, long ago..

It was around this time, some 35 years ago, that I first started playing AD&D, in the eighth grade. My first exposure to the game was about two or three years earlier when I saw an article in Time magazine, of all places, that talked about Gary Gygax and his creation. Dozens of miniatures were shown as part of the photo layout for the article, and I was immediately hooked, and was on the look out for anyone who played this game. As it happened, I was at recess one late autumn day and I saw a kid sitting by himself reading a book. The fact that someone was reading a book at recess was enough to draw my attention back then, and I proceeded to see what gives. We introduced ourselves and started chatting. He was looking at the Monster Manual, "one of the D&D books" as he stated. "These were the guys you had to kill so you could take their treasure" he went on to tell me. "How do you do that" I asked, to which he responded "I don't really know yet. I think you have to roll dice."  The recess bell rang and we  agreed to meet after school and he would continue to tell me how to play Dungeons and Dragons, or as he called it "D&D." Thus one of my oldest and closest friendships was born. The kid, whose name was Don, had been recently introduced to the game by his older brother and was still trying to figure it out. Eventually we did figure it out, and I rolled up my first character, a Ranger, whose name now escapes me. I had just begun to read LOTR, after just having read all of the Conan stories, and was obsessed with Barbarians and Rangers. Aragorn and Conan strode across many a page of my exercise books, slaying orcs and Picts, and even eliciting a "good drawing" comment form one of my teachers. Those were the days when a kid drawing a guy with a sword was just that. No inner meaning based upon some dark latent psychosis in the child was inferred. It was what it was, a kid doodling and drawing heroes, and dragons, and dinosaurs, and monsters. Nothing more.

The following year I established my campaign world, Ard, and we played religiously for about five years, at least once a week, sometimes more. The original characters went on many a quest and adventure, ultimately ending up in Tékumel where, as far as I know, they still are, having "gone native," and integrating into Tsolyáni society where they are in important positions, quietly pulling strings behind the scenes.  Ard was a mish-mash of cobbled motifs and other campaign settings put together as only a 13 year old could. If I had just finished reading something that I especially liked it went into Ard, regardless of whether or not it fit in. If I heard something that was being done in another campaign that I thought was interesting it would go in. Consistency was not a word that I was very well acquainted with back then. I look back on it now with a sense of nostalgia, and even an occasional cringe. The funny thing was that with all of its short-comings it quite literally provided years of entertainment for me and my group of players. In fact the title of this blog comes from the character's main base of operations in Ard, the infamous inn called the Ogre's Pit. Situated in the "downtown" of the city its claim to fame stemmed from two things: anything could be gotten there, and a large stuffed ogre could be found the centre of its common room, which coincidentally was located at the bottom of a steep flight of stairs.  Such was AD&D back then.

As with many players of my generation, the so-called Gen-Xers, we "grew up" and (in no particular order) went to university, got jobs, joined the army, started careers, got married, had kids, moved away to different countries, drifted apart and basically got on with our lives. Occasionally when one or two of us would meet up we would talk about the "old game" as it came to be called and say we should  play again one day. For the most part this didn't happen. Some of us tried to revive the old magic now and then but these games petered out after a session or two. For the most part D&D remained a fond memory of our adolescence  that had passed away like so many other things from our youth.  Thus it remained for many years.

Three years ago I started DMing on a regular basis, and for the first time actually playing  in a game. I have always DMed, and it has been a wonderful change of pace to play in a game for once. This blog will be an account of how I reconnected with D&D and what my current campaign is up to. Hopefully the postings will be regular, and people will find them interesting, or at the very least mildly amusing. Let's go then.

Russ Nicholson at his best.