2025-04-18 - Dungeons & Dragons & Rogues, Oh My! ================================================ Today i am writing about Dungeons & Dragons. D&D is open-ended enough to be different things for different people. It can be a tactical dungeon crawl where the objective is to kill monsters and take their stuff. It can be story telling and improv theater where you get to make-believe and escape from a mundane day-to-day world. In any case it is intended to be a creative, social experience, giving the participants a chance to exercise their imaginations, try out new ways of being, and have fun with their friends. In my not so humble opinion, those are important. The first computer game i played was Dungeon (AKA Zork), and it was influenced by D&D. This game was a solitaire exercise in exploration and puzzle solving. Dungeon, Zork, etc. (1978-1981) Later, when a "mini mall" opened in my neighborhood, one of the stalls was rented by people who handed out Chick tracts, including Dark Dungeons. Cheap entertainment for a broke kid. Dark Dungeons (1984) One of the local pawn shops sold shareware on 5-1/4" floppy disks. They charged $1 per disk. It was often a gamble. You read the title and a short descriptive sentence on the disk label and crossed your fingers that it would be worthwhile. I bought a floppy labeled Ring Wielder, which turned out to be a print-your-own RPG ruleset. I printed it on tractor-feed paper and tried to play it with my brother and sister. We didn't really grok it. Ring Wielder (1989) In high school, i discovered Rogue and played it a lot. After that came Hack, both from sneakernet. Then a group of us pitched in $1 each to order a copy of Moria from a mail-order catalog, and we shared it with each other. I spent hours playing Moria. Finally, a friend and i downloaded Larn & NetHack over a modem. Moria grew up to become Angband. I think of Angband and NetHack as emacs and vi: different yet the same, both having important contributions. Also, they can both be considered solitaire versions of D&D. In high school i had friends who played 2nd Edition AD&D. I even tried to join in during a group sleepover. They wanted to watch TV and didn't even begin creating characters until about 10 PM. I am an early bird, and suffice it to say, i fell asleep during the first hour of gameplay. They stayed up all night. I had a few more false starts creating characters but never really playing the game. All of my high school D&D friends were soundly in the "nerd" camp. Most of them liked books, programming, and Trek. None of them were into art, sports, or theater. Speaking of books and storytelling, i checked out every D&D themed book i could get my hands on in the school library, which includes many Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels. I remember Drizzt, Elminster, Raistlin, etc. TSR D&D Bibliography List of Dragonlance Novels List of Forgotten Realms Novels It wasn't until 2011 that i finally played a real game of D&D, this time using 5th Edition. It was my good fortune to play in a campaign led by an experienced GM and most of the other players were also experienced. I had a great time! During this time, D&D retro clones had become popular. This movement became known as OSR (Old-School Renaissance). I created a campaign and played Labyrinth Lord with my sister and a few friends. My setting was named Aldea. It featured classic Tolkien races in a basically steampunk setting. It was set on a world just coming out of a global ice age in an era of optimism and growth. D&D Retro Clones Old School Renaissance Labyrinth Lord (2007) These days if i am feeling nostalgic, i'll fire up my DOS PC and play a classic roguelike. Angband NetHack Angband (32-bit) NetHack (32-bit) tags: article,bencollver,fantasy Tags ==== article bencollver fantasy