Why I love Dungeons & Dragons and TTRPGs!

I first experienced Dungeons & Dragons (TM) in the early 80's as a wide-eyed younger brother tagging along with my brother and the cool kids. Older kids were always cooler, even if they were geeks.

My brother played a dwarf in the 1983 Frank Mentzer Red Box Basic set starting adventure. The players started in the Golden Dragon in, and went exploring to the ruined castle Mistamere trying to find a renegade wizard. His dwarf didn't last long - it was paralysed by a Carrion Crawler in the first fight and then killed by a Kobold's arrow in the castles courtyard. He only had 4 hit points, so one good arrow was all that was needed. The rest of the party survived a few giant rats, zombies, but eventually fell to a giant crab spider.

From that moment the game lit a spark within my imagination that has been unequalled.

After that session my brother got us a well used second hand copy of Dungeons & Dragons (TM) Basic Rulebook Edited by Tom Moldvay. I was disappointed it wasn't the same new read box, and we couldn't continue that epic adventure he had started.

But over the weeks that followed I scoured those pages - the black and white art was like kerosine on the kindling fantasy fiction flame. Now nearly forty years on I still look at the art and am inspired to dream about far away worlds and playing characters that live and die fighting orcs, trolls, and dragons.

I have often asked "what is it about Dungeons & Dragons (TM) and other Tabletop Roleplaying that make these games so engaging?" Sometimes I have tried to answer it, but no with real determination, and not with any idea of discussing with others.

Even with a sci-fi world of mobile computers at our fingertips where we can do Dick Tracy style wrist watch video calls with other's on the opposite side of the planet in real time, nothing has come close to the immersive experience of one's own imagination.

So it is with great delight that I am starting my blog (finally). This is nothing serious, I have no expectations, but like all good campaigns it starts with a call to adventure!

So please come along with me as I explore my love of role playing games. It will included navel gazing hand waving posts that amount to nothing but opinion of sorts, contradicted by my other posts, and be a blend of Old School Renaissance (OSR), 5th Edition (5e), other system, reviews, and maybe some design thoughts of my own.

Welcome to Fantasy-Frontiers.

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