I don’t recall exactly when I first read about Dungeons and Dragons, but I distinctly remember my first experience with the game. It was the summer of 1985 and I was ten years old. I was spending the week at bible camp – and this was not a liberal bible camp. I couldn’t say what we were off to do, but I found myself walking alone, a few steps behind a pair of boys my age.
They were discussing Dungeons and Dragons!
For shame! I thought. Didn’t they realize this was a game straight from the fiery pit of hell? To my pre-pubescent mind this was a sin of epic proportions. These boys certainly were pawns of Satan himself! I left camp not long after, proud of myself for being pious enough to realize that D&D was an evil game and one I would certainly give a wide berth.
Fast forward just a few short years. I’m thirteen now and the circumstances of my life have changed. I no longer live with my father but have moved to my mother’s home. I have new friends, not the friends I’ll meet in a few more years, the ones that to this day I still hang out with, still play (don’t tell anyone!) D&D with.
One of these boys, I don’t recall his name, has a book for a game. He wants to try it out. The book is Unearthed Arcana, written by Gary Gygax. It is an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons expansion book. I don’t know what an expansion book is, heck, I barely know what AD&D is, but I’m excited to give it a try.
We make up characters, somewhere along the way it occurs to our thirteen-year-old brains that this book doesn’t exactly have all the rules. Truth be told, it doesn’t have most of the rules. This doesn’t stop us, we just make up anything missing and start a game.
Who could possibly know that this book would have such an impact on my life?
Today I am 38 years old. I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons for twenty-five years. More than half of my life. For at least the last fifteen years I have played every week. Almost every one of my friends is someone I have known for more than twenty years and someone I met at the gaming table. My coworkers think I’m weird, my old religious buddies think I’m hell-bound, my wife thinks I’m silly and, if I’m lucky, my son will think I’m awesome (he’s not quite two yet so he doesn’t realize yet that he loves playing D&D).
I start this blog today not just to talk about D&D. I’m certain there will be a lot of D&D in the upcoming posts, but that’s just the beginning. A friend of mine and I have decided to take a chance – roll the dice – and start up a new company. We’re going to make the next generation of gaming apps, the ones that everyone will be talking about in just a few short years.
I know, that’s a big claim, but I’m pretty sure we’ll roll a 20, heck, I’m the DM, I’ll just call it a 20 and see what happens…
– Lucas