Thoughtful Thursday #1

My first experience with RPGs was hearing about a D&D group in my middle school (I was in sixth grade). John Smedley (@j_smedley) was running a D&D game. I tried to get in,  but it was full. I tried to play a freeform RPG but it broke down when the player decided they had an invulnerable umbrella.

My mom got me Basic D&D. She is so cool, she got it for me twice. The first time she got the version that didn't have dice (it had chits you could punch out). The second version had cheap plastic dice that needed crayons! I did some solo play and then went to work designing my own Sci fi RPG. My game wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either.

Parts of D&D was amazing (I could play a wizard!). But vast swaths of the game made no sense to me. In fact, if you didn't play D&D in a very specific way, game balance had no meaning. All of my designs since have been shaped by these and other memorable gaming experiences. I strive to capture what was fun and avoid what was not fun.