How I Was Introduced To Dungeons & Dragons

I have spoken on this topic before, but I want to approach things a little differently this time. I was a 16 year old high school freshman (having been held back in both the first and eighth grades.) I was scrawny and immature, and despite being the target of some fairly constant ridicule, I wasn't introverted. I was quite the opposite to a probably obnoxious degree. All this to say, I fit right in, at least on an emotional development level with the 14 & 15 year old children who were my classmates.

Mr. Lock, my science teacher invited me to participate in an after school science club. This really excited me. At home, I spent a lot of time "hiding" in my room, either drawing or reading comic books. It was a habit that I developed from living with an abusive, alcoholic step-father, a man that my mother left just under 2 years before. It was a habit that I would continue to embrace for many years to come. I mention this because it shapes the lens through which I viewed the world.

I read comic books and had a very "comic book" view of right and wrong. I loved stories of the fantastic, and fantasy, and science fiction. I loved Star Trek and I still do, and because of this, I was "interested" in science (sadly the connection between science and math eluded me.) I paid attention in science class and I tried and succeeded in doing well. So, I was invited into the "Science Club."

This as it turned out was really code for, "playing D&D after school." Mr. Lock was a young teacher fresh out of college on his first teaching job at a tiny high school in the middle of nowhere. He grew up in the Chicago area and was terribly homesick. He had played D&D in college and was just looking for some way to live in the small town of Coulterville without going crazy. 

I was super excited about this whole thing. I had heard about D&D because of a full page ad in my comic books. That meant that whatever this was, it was going to be cool. And it was. Sadly, or perhaps fortuitously, the Science Club only had 3 meetings before the school shut it down. Playing D&D in school was not acceptable. (It was 1981, playing D&D was not acceptable, full stop.) 

I said, "fortuitously" above because we had a taste of this new game, and we wouldn't be stopped. We just moved from the school to our homes. This was great for me, because I was suddenly being invited over to another kid's house. For the first time in my life, I had friends. Mr. Lock DM'd for us at our parents homes at first, but was admonished for his inappropriate relationship with his students. He stopped playing D&D with us, and at the end of the school year, he quit and returned home to Chicago. I never saw or heard from him again. 

My friends from this period who stuck around were the few whose parents were cool enough not to make them quit D&D. My mom was one of these. She was thrilled that I had friends and encouraged our past time. The friends that stuck around were, Sam, Peyton, Mike and Jon. With me, that made five of us, but Mike was a senior and left that summer. 

It was the fall of 1981 when the Science Club started. It was the summer of 1982 when Mike left, but me, Peyton, Jon and Sam played D&D almost evey day that whole summer ... every day, in the sweltering heat in Peyton's garage which had a table made of 2 saw horses and a huge piece of plywood that formed a table big enough to facilitate our group. 

My Sophomore year, things got a bit more complicated for me. Mr. Lock was gone, and I got this weird idea in my head that because I had friends now, I would somehow become more welcomed in school. Sam was the only student in my class and he was the smartest kid in school. I on the other hand had never excelled in school and was relegated to the most remedial of classes. We never saw each other. School hadn't changed, but I had. My expectations had changed. What I wanted had changed, and I was never going to get it. 

I began cutting classes. I would leave home as though I was going to school, but I wouldn't go. I would wander through a nearby woods, or go hide in Peyton's garage alone. Anything but school. When I did go to school, I didn't engage. I failed all of my classes. I didn't care. I wasn't extroverted anymore. My D&D summer was over and it felt like the end of the only joy that I could remember having in my life. 

The friends that I made that summer are very dear to me. But, as I sit here feeling introspective and nostalgic, I think of my friend Jon who passed away last year. I think about how elated I was to see Sam at the funeral. Reunited after all these years, only to discover that Sam had grown into the worst kind of misogynistic, self entitled, white privileged prick. The conversation was so poisonous that Julie and I left the funeral reception early. 

Mike passed away a few years ago from heart failure. Peyton and I are the only ones left. (Sorry, but I'm writing Sam off.) I am friends with Peyton on Facebook and we played D&D twice over video, but that didn't work out. I don't know why I feel this need to hold on to that past the way that I do, but it's a thing, and I still hope that Peyton and I will be able to reconnect more substantially in the future. 

Writing about RPGs is another way that I connect to that past. It's another reason that this blog exists. I still play D&D. Since that summer, D&D or other RPGs are how I have connected to the world. Whether it was running Champions at a comic book store in Tulsa or running a D&D campaign at a game club in Muskegon, this hobby has given me the means to connect to my world.

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Insecurity

Insecurity is an interesting thing. I think it's part of our ingrained biological survival instinct. Anything that makes us feel that we aren't good enough, or that "things" aren't good enough: unhappiness, imposter syndrome, these make us question ourselves and our place in the world. Isn't that put there, do you suppose, to make us want to change it? 

Why would we have such terrible baggage if we didn't need it? But if it's there because we need it, then it must be part of the mechanisms that help us to evolve and change. Not being happy with ourselves or sure of ourselves, may be part of a thing meant to motivate us to make changes, to spur forward evolution. Sadly, I think these mechanisms have broken down over time and for many they do more harm than good.

I was reading "There and Hack Again" again last night, (I really like this RPG.) and I was considering submitting my review to RPG.net. To that end, I read my review and realized how unprofessional it was. I talk about not liking D&D and place T&HA within that context. I spend a paragraph talking about how I think the game's name might keep it from appealing to what should be its target audience. Only about half of what I wrote is actually about the game. I will need to rewrite the review if I want to submit it to RPG.net. That is something I am considering, but it set my mind down a rather negative road. 

I'm not really a writer. I have made this vow to post something here on my blog every day in the hope that this may help me to hone my skills as a writer. Insecurity is that thing that has me asking "Is this a waste of time?" 

Does this mean I should be doing something different? Is this insecurity, an impetus to shift my course in a new more positive direction, or is it destructive, as I theorize above, an impulse that may have originally been something meant to help our species evolve but now mainly serves as something harmful?

I dropped out of highschool and obtained a GED. I tried attending community college and dropped out there too. I have a complicated relationship with public education. I have cerebral palsy. This affliction is restricted almost exclusively to my lower extremities. I have undergone a handful of surgical procedures to correct the worst of the effects so that I can walk. 

I am thankful that I can walk, but I do walk a bit "funny." This is something that others who see me notice. Less mature people, without proper filters tended to notice this loudly. In public schools it's these same loud people who get the most recognition. 

Herd mentality, our need to gather in groups and behave together is another one of those survival instincts that we are all born with. It's needed for the survival of our species. In my experience it meant that children who should have been my peers, fell in line behind that loudest voice to become my bullies. 

I hated school. I didn't try to do well academically. Why should I have? School was my enemy. My refusal to engage academically, also put me on the wrong side of many of my teachers. This in turn got me in trouble at home. At the worst of times "home" was an alcoholic step-father who could never be said to have been in a sympathetic mood.

I hated school, and I hated home. I only went to school because I had to. It's what was expected of me. It's where my free lunch was. If I wanted to eat before dinner, I needed to go to school. So, I went. Which ultimately proved to be a good thing. One teacher, my science teacher in my freshman year of high school, saw something others didn't. (Paul Lock, if you are still out there somewhere, thank you.) Mr. Lock invited me to join an after school science club. It changed the course of my life. I'll talk about that more tomorrow. 

Today, I explain my relationship to school to justify my lack of education. That's where the insecurity comes from. I'm sitting here writing as though I know what I'm doing. But, it's all just a disorganized uneducated stream of consciousness babble. That's what my insecurity tells me. Is that a self preservation instinct telling me to pivot, to find a pursuit that is better suited to my skill set? 

Life is good. I have a beautiful wife, and a daughter who just got home from college for the summer. I just got my haircut. I should feel great. I shouldn't be feeling insecure. Still, despite these feelings, I am still compelled to write, maybe that's the survival instinct pushing me forward to evolve.

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 13 (72-71)

#72 Lost Cities: The Board Game

In Lost Cities: The Board Game, players are moving little adventurer pawns up different tracks towards differently colored ruins (Lost Cities). This is done by playing cards of different colors from your hand. 

Each time you play a card of a given color, you move toward the ruin of the same color. The trick is that you must play cards down in order. The first card that you play may be a high card or a low card. If you play a very high card first, then you will want to play a slightly lower card on top of that, ideally the very next card in the numerical order. If you play a very low card first, then you will need to play a higher card on top of that. Once you establish that the colored stack of cards you are playing on is being played in an ascending or a descending order, then you must follow that rule for the rest of the game round. 

When you can't play a card, you may discard in order to draw new cards, but discards are placed face-up and are available to your opponents. You will want to take care not to give an opponent the exact card that they need. 

There are 5 paths to 5 ruins, and each player has 5 adventurer pawns. The paths start out with negative points. So, take care that once you begin a journey, you are able to go far. The further along a path you can lead a pawn, the more points you get eventually turning those negative points into positive ones. 

Each player's set of adventuring pawns is made up of four junior pawns and one expedition leader pawn that is much bigger than the others. This pawn scores double the points (positive or negative.) So, you really want them to do well. Finally a long the path are additional scoring bonuses and other incentives that will make certain paths more appealing than others. These tokens are distributed randomly at the beginning of every round. The game is played over three rounds and the player with the most points at the end of the third round is the winner.

I really enjoy Lost Cities: The Board Game. I really get into the Indiana Jones / Allan Quatermain style pulp adventure theme, and the card play is engaging. In fact, I like Lost Cities: The Board Game so much that it's my 72nd favorite game of all time.

#71 Azul

In Azul players take turns drafting tiles from off the top of little coasters to place them on their player board. The coasters are arranged in a circle and four tiles are pulled randomly from a bag and placed on each one. In the center of this circle a single special tile is placed. This tile is the first player token, but it's also worth -1 point. 

On their turn a player takes all the tiles of a matching color from one of the coasters and then any remaining tiles get moved into the center. A player can also draft from the center as tiles accumulate there, taking all tiles of a single color and leaving the rest. The first player who does this, must also take the -1 token, but they will get to draft first in the next round.

On your player board you must fill a row with tiles of a single color. Once you commit a specific color to a row, you can't put any other color in that row until you finish building the row. Rows aren't built until the end of the round and each requires a different number of tiles to be placed within it in order for it to be built. The top row only needs 1 tile to be built but the bottom row needs 5. 

At the end of the round, if you can't build a row, the tiles that you have committed to that row stay as you go into the next round. If you ever can't add a tile to a row, it is placed at the bottom of your player board and counts as negative points at the end of the round. It is even a strategy to leave a large number of tiles of a color that you know your opponent can't place so that they will be forced to take those tiles at the end, racking up a large number of negative points.

Azul is an abstract puzzle type game. The tiles are chonky, colorful bakelite and they feel good in your hands. Azul is my 71st favorite game of all time.

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 12 (74-73)

#74 DorfRomantik: The Duel

Julie and I have had a wonderful time playing DorfRomantik. We played it a lot when we first got it, and it is probably my number one favorite game of last year. We have also had a great deal of fun playing DorfRomantik The Duel, which is a two-player only competitive version of DorfRomantik. 

Spoilers - DorfRomantik (the original cooperative game) appears much higher on my list and I will go more into the game play there. The Duel version sees players placing identical tiles in a personal tableau simultaneously as one player acts as "the caller" announcing which tile to place. This is very much Karuba style (another game much higher on my list.) 

I need to play the cooperative version of this game and the competitive version back to back. I feel like we don't need them both. I have placed the original much higher, because I think that it's the one that I like more, but I can't be sure. Until I am sure, DorfRomantik The Duel is my 74th favorite game of all time.

#73 Unmatched Adventures: Tales to Amaze

While DorfRomantik The Duel was the competitive version of the cooperative game, Unmatched Adventures Tales to Amaze is the cooperative version of the competitive game. (I didn't plan to have both of these in the same post, just coincidence.) Tales to Amaze is yet another game that I pushed down the list because Julie and I have only played it once. I do remember really liking it, and I am anxious to get this one back to the table.

In the competitive game, which is just called Unmatched, players battle head to head. It's a skirmish battle game with dozens of characters to choose from, like characters from literature (Sherlock Holmes) or even comic books (Spiderman.) I like it … okay. It's not in my top 100. I don't care for skirmish battle games, but I really like the "idea" of Unmatched, and the gameplay is excellent. The gameplay is card based and characters have a unique deck and all feel different and cool.

Tales to Amaze makes this skirmish battle game cooperative. This changes the feel of the game for me exponentially. I love this game. Now Julie and I can work together as any of the cool characters in the Unmatched library (that we own) against the threat of the Mothman or Alien Invaders. The game layers in a very pulp adventure feel which I think is perfect for mixing and matching all these characters from different settings.

Although it is officially considered an "expansion" to Unmatched, Tales to Amaze is its own stand alone game. If you have never tried Unmatched, I highly recommend this one. It comes with four new original characters and rules to play both the cooperative and competitive versions of the game. It is absolutely the best Unmatched set there is. 

As a side note, I have tried a few other games where expansions have tried to change the game from competitive to cooperative (Hero Realms & Dice Throne specifically) and these were huge misses for me. They added an unreasonable amount of complexity to the game that I just didn't want. Tales to Amaze (and also DorfRomantik The Duel) makes the change seamlessly without adding undue complexity. 

Tales to Amaze is accessible and playable, and for people who already know how to play the competitive version, they can be playing in minutes. All of this makes Unmatched Adventures Tales to Amaze my 73rd favorite game of all time.

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 11 (76-75)

#76 Cosmoctopus

Cosmoctopus is one of those games that was much higher on my list, but that I manually moved lower because Julie and I have only played this once. In Cosmoctopus players are playing cards from their hands and collecting cards from a central market all in the interest of gaining the favor of their cosmic deity the great Cosmoctopus. This favor is represented by these purple tentacle pawns. The first player to collect 8 tentacle pawns is the winner. 

Resources to buy cards are obtained through a worker movement board in the center of the table. This board is made up of a 4 by 4 grid of cards each showing some different benefits, key among these are gaining the resources to pay for cards, and the actions to buy the cards. Some cards have immediate benefits, while others create ongoing effects and stay in front of you to form a bit of an engine. 

Cosmoctopus doesn't do anything new, but it is a solid and entertaining entry in the worker placement, resource management, engine building genre of board games with a wacky theme that has tentacles. This makes Cosmoctopus my 76th favorite game of all time.

#75 Welcome To … Your Perfect Home

In Welcome To … Your Perfect Home cards are flipped representing numbers and actions. Each turn all players choose a number and action from the cards flipped and mark these on their personal score sheets. This is a roll-and-write variant known as a flip-and-write because instead of rolling dice and recording the results, you flip cards from a deck (or decks) instead.

Players all act at the same time. On your score sheet, you have these rows of streets and on each street are houses. Your goal is to give these houses each a number, but like any other street, the houses must be in ascending order. The actions on the cards make some houses more valuable or enable you to manipulate the numbers. There is also one area that you can mark if you just can't place a number.

At the end of the game, the player who has built their neighborhood the best (earns the most points) wins the game. Welcome To … Your Perfect Home is an easy game to grasp, but actually has quite a bit going on. It's a really engaging type of roll-and-write game. It is challenging multiplayer solitaire, and because everyone is playing at the same time, it can handle any number of players. Welcome To … Your Perfect Home is my 75th favorite game of all time.

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