Twenty Years of Twenty-Sided Dice
Today was a rather strange anniversary. 20 years ago today was Labor Day, 1987, when I got pulled into a particularly bizarre social circle, joined together by a mutual hobby of Dungeons & Dragons. The thing is - while the exact membership has changed over the years, this same group is still gaming together, twenty years later.

That group was mixed-gender, and we didn't just play D&D together. While we moved in other social circles, for many of us the gaming group was "the gang." We were always hanging around together, going to movies, dances, parties, and whatever. Some members dated each other. Folks moved away, graduated, or got married and disappeared, and new people would join the group. At one point we'd dwindled down to about four active players, and now we're up to about a dozen (and a couple more people have asked if we had any slots open... it's crazy). Several of us have kids that are old enough to play.

And the game keeps going...

Seven of us in the current group started playing together as college students (there's something like 15 of us, though some don't play as actively as others). And we're still much more than just a gaming group. We're all best friends. We're still always getting together for parties, camping, and other events. Some of us are hitting Spamalot tomorrow night together... it's like the geek mothership has come back as high culture. The excuse to get together weekly for a few hours of playing "let's pretend" with dice and rules is what keeps us close.

And hey, while its not responsible for my wife and I meeting each other, it was a topic of mutual interest that kept us talking with each other the night we met - and corresponding afterwards until we both ended up at the same college... and in that very gaming group together.

It's a happy thing.

So here's a public hats-off to Dave Arneson and E. Gary Gygax for warping my life in such a pleasant way. It's been an awesome couple of decades.


(Vaguely) related dabblings with a Wand of Fireballs...
* Spring And... D&D?
* PvP in PnP D&D
* Original Dungeons & Dragons Trivia
* Adult Dungeons & Dragons
.

Labels: retro, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:56 PM (Permalink)