First Memories of Dungeons and Dragons

In middle school I got my first taste of 'real' Dungeons and Dragons. My younger brother and I had played our own made-up roleplaying games for several years, mostly cobbling rules together from gaming adventure novels and our own creativity. We had a notebook full of characters, and, not knowing any better, we played them all at the same time. A veritable army of fantasy warriors, marching out to do glorious battle with the weird and often silly foes of our childhood imaginations.

But when I joined the Dungeons and Dragons club, I was introduced to a whole new world of rules, settings, and dice. Oh, the dice. Those wonderful, colourful polyhedral dice that are one of the hallmarks of roleplaying games. I had never seen anything like them, being used, as most non-gamers are, to the cubic six-sided dice, usually marked with pips rather than numerals, that come with family board games. Now I saw pyramidal dice, dice with eight, ten, twenty sides! I maintain my love for those wonderful hunks of plastic to this day. I sometimes feel I ought to wear a button with this phrase inscribed on it when I go into gaming stores: "If you are a kind person, you will not sell me another set of dice." Save vs. Addiction at -4. That reminds me: I need another container to keep my dice in.

I was the only girl in the club, and it was noticed. That I had never played the game was also noticed, but I was given a character to use by one of the other players. I remember that sheet: a piece of notebook paper, written on in bold, colourful markers: a triple-class character whose specific details are lost to me now. The boys were perhaps not eager to have a girl in their midst, but nor did they shun me. I hovered at the edge of the group, involved in the game but not truly accepted. I absorbed what I could like a sponge. A few years later I received a Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set during a trip to the mall that got me separated from my parents - a harrowing experience that nonetheless netted me a spectacular treasure. Orienteering? Not a skill I had that day. That set fed my brother's and my gaming habit for years to come.

I remember the figurines, the little pewter men and beasts that represented the heroes and villains. There was so much potential, so much imagination unleashed by those little grey people. Here was not simply a shaped lump of metal, here was Candace, brave priestess, ready to do battle with the minions of evil in staggeringly stark monochrome! I later began purchasing my own figures and painting them to give them more life, but those first days were magical, even if the figures were unpainted.

I only remember being in Dungeons and Dragons club one year. I think it was not offered thereafter, but I played during Games club, which focused on board and card games. Let's face it: there are only so many games of rummy a person can take before needing to break out the polyhedrals and do battle with evil! Or boredom!