I don't remember much about my first games growing up when I was introduced to D&D. The settings were always dungeons or crypts, and as the magic user, I was probably going to die. I still loved it. Magic missile was the coolest thing I had ever heard of.
As I grew older, my tastes broadened, but my awareness of setting didn't. It was always some crypt, some dungeon, some thing in someplace that we had to defeat. I started writing my own games, my own settings, and suddenly my world of Innsbruck came alive. I ran the memory out on my Commodore 64 trying to program in a virtual GM to lead me on adventures.
For years, it was a dark age of gaming for me. I had never seen a D&D book in a store. I only knew a few friends that had the books and they wouldn't let me borrow them. I wrote my own, recruited my nieces and nephews to play, and wrote computer programs so I could play.
Then one day my friend introduced me to Baldur's Gate. The 2 CD set was incomplete, just and introduction, but still amazing. Soon I found the follow-ons and Baldur's Gate 2 and Neverwinter Nights and II. It was a decade long adventures in the Forgotten Realms. By the end, I knew every city, every magistrate, every nook and cranny of those digital realms. I had met Elminster, I had been put under a gaes by Halaster and I had saved the world a half a dozen times. I learned the Realms.
The beauty of the Realms was that it was a place full of stories, in every setting, in every way imaginable, all intertwined the way the real world is. You could walk down any given street and know that wonder and amazement was just there, waiting for you to take a peek.
I tried other things in college and thereafter -- Shadowrun, GURPS, RIFTs. It felt like cheating. It never grew again like that world before it.
In my second age of gaming, when my daughters became old enough, I taught them 3.5 and we explored the Realms once more. Elminster made his appearance, Waterdeep was under attack, things were afoot in Chult. It's been more than a decade since I rekindled that second spark into a full fledge addiction, having place dozens of Forgotten Realms resources on my shelves. I still admire the Realms more than any other setting. It's depth is unmatched, but at the center of it, still beats the heart of a storyteller and his bands of characters.
As I grew older, my tastes broadened, but my awareness of setting didn't. It was always some crypt, some dungeon, some thing in someplace that we had to defeat. I started writing my own games, my own settings, and suddenly my world of Innsbruck came alive. I ran the memory out on my Commodore 64 trying to program in a virtual GM to lead me on adventures.
For years, it was a dark age of gaming for me. I had never seen a D&D book in a store. I only knew a few friends that had the books and they wouldn't let me borrow them. I wrote my own, recruited my nieces and nephews to play, and wrote computer programs so I could play.
Then one day my friend introduced me to Baldur's Gate. The 2 CD set was incomplete, just and introduction, but still amazing. Soon I found the follow-ons and Baldur's Gate 2 and Neverwinter Nights and II. It was a decade long adventures in the Forgotten Realms. By the end, I knew every city, every magistrate, every nook and cranny of those digital realms. I had met Elminster, I had been put under a gaes by Halaster and I had saved the world a half a dozen times. I learned the Realms.
The beauty of the Realms was that it was a place full of stories, in every setting, in every way imaginable, all intertwined the way the real world is. You could walk down any given street and know that wonder and amazement was just there, waiting for you to take a peek.
I tried other things in college and thereafter -- Shadowrun, GURPS, RIFTs. It felt like cheating. It never grew again like that world before it.
In my second age of gaming, when my daughters became old enough, I taught them 3.5 and we explored the Realms once more. Elminster made his appearance, Waterdeep was under attack, things were afoot in Chult. It's been more than a decade since I rekindled that second spark into a full fledge addiction, having place dozens of Forgotten Realms resources on my shelves. I still admire the Realms more than any other setting. It's depth is unmatched, but at the center of it, still beats the heart of a storyteller and his bands of characters.
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