Coming off lurker status so here's the "about me" information from my blog:

It all started in the early part of 1980. I was almost 8 years old and had just discovered fantasy books like The Hobbit, the Chronicles of Narnia, and The Prydain Chronicles. My uncle had a ton of sci-fi and fantasy books so I was always bugging him to borrow more books or watch something else from his movie collection. I still fondly remember watching Excalibur, Dune, and other similar movies with him growing up. Simply put, Uncle David was the cool uncle that every boy should have when they are growing up.

I had some friends at school - Jamie and Dan - that were interested in the same type of stuff. Dan told s about a game called Dungeons & Dragons that his older brothers introduced to him. This game sounded like something that would be perfect to satisfy our quest for more fantasy - better yet, we could make up our own stories about our own heroes. After I went over and played a session of D&D I immediately had to get my own set of the rules and tell my Uncle David about this game.

I happened to be selling GRIT newspaper subscriptions at the time and had enough reward points to redeem for a basic set; I did so and received the Moldvay Basic set a short time later. I also "informed" my Uncle David about this game only to find out that he had been playing for years already. In fact, he gave his Holmes Basic set to me at this time and would eventually give me all of his AD&D hardbacks a short time later. I *believe* that I started with the Holmes set first but it might have been the Moldvay set; either way, both are great introductions to D&D.

Once Jamie and I started playing D&D we found ourselves playing all of the time. I would spend the night at his house some weekends and then he would spend the night at mine on others. It did not take long for us to look for more options and crack open the AD&D hardbacks. At our young naive ages we assumed that more rules must mean more fun and more game so we "upgraded" to AD&D and stayed for years. (note: yes, I know that both games are great in their own right and no one needs MORE rules to have MORE fun - we were not yet 10 years old at the time.) It seemed like we were always coming up with house rules and new adventures to go on. AD&D would be our main game for quite some time. Of course, when the Mentzer version came out and then expanded the Basic rules up even higher we also started playing D&D again.

We would continue to play role-playing games all the way until we graduated high school in 1991. We would add players to the group and wound up with a total of six players. We played many other games over the years. I always seemed to want to play in the fantasy genre and would try just about anything in the genre. Some of them did not make a lasting impression but several caught the attention of the group. Two of my all time favorite games include Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game (1st edition) and Talislanta. (note: I pretty much skipped AD&D Second Edition all together because I felt they were trying to "de-Gygax" the game and be politically correct with some of the changes.)

After graduation many of our playing group left the area for various reasons. I was around for close to a year and then left for the Army and would stay in for 8 years. I did not play that much during those 8 years and it can pretty well be considered a gaming drought. I did try out Vampire: the Masquerade and discover Magic: the Gathering while I was at Fort Campbell, KY.

The first new products I bought in several years would be the 3E hardbacks and the Castles & Crusades systems. I was intrigued by the new rules, new company (Wizards of the Coast), the open gaming license, and the games it would spawn. I introduced my cousin Alex - son of the previously mentioned Uncle David - to the game and we started work on our campaign world, Toldara. The game world would move from 3E to 3.5E and eventually settle in the Pathfinder system. During this time I also discovered the OSR systems and became really interested in the OSR movement. I am a big fan and supporter of the movement; I even contributed a little bit by working on the Back to the Dungeon RPG system and I am currently writing an expansion to it.

I enjoy both old school and new school rpg systems so I was interested in 4E when it was released. I really feel they went out of their way to force an upgrade by drastically changing many aspects of 3E. There seemed to be a lot of shared terminology but the definition or application of many of them were altered to the point that the games were quite different from each other. Plus, the OGL was replaced with the GSL and WOTC lost more ground with me. (note: I have since amassed quite a collection of 4E material due to one of my co-workers being so dissatisfied with the system that he is selling it on the cheap; the price is "right" for sure!)

I am waiting on the release of 5E with great interest. I like what I have seen from the play test documents so far. The current fantasy games that have caught my attention include the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, Swords & Wizardry: Complete, and the Perilous Journeys game. DCC feels like opening up the old books back in 1980, Swords & Wizardry: Complete feels like the mish-mash of AD&D and Basic that we used to play, and Perilous Journeys captures the feel and quick play of early D&D in a simple to use percentile-based system.

In addition to that information: I have recently purchased Dragons at Dawn and I really like what I am reading. I would like to give the game a test run ASAP. I have also assembled some resources for Adventures in Fantasy such as character sheets and a reproduction of the included reference sheets. I am looking into making a game built in reaction to AiF much like Tunnels & Trolls was based on reaction to D&D. Who knows how soon or if this will happen? The more I learn about the Arnesonian gaming style, the more I am drawn to it. I don't fault anyone for enjoying any method or style but that is just where I am at in my gaming preferences.

Hello everybody! :)

Holy wall of text batman! :) Glad you made it here. I like your posts on DF, and, I think, other some places!

What exactly brought you here/to unlurk? IIRC, you were more into Talislanta, Ogre, and non-D&D stuff? :)

Thanks for the great welcome, Havard! I joined like 2 years ago but kind of focused on my blog around that time so I got kind of lazy on the forums. :lol:

I'm really digging the discussions here and I am trying hard not to necro. :P

That's it exactly! We can celebrate the contributions from BOTH Dave & Gary without showing disrespect to the other. You are absolutely correct about the interest in Dave's contributions that never made it into the mainstream. It's very interesting to see that with stuff like Dragons at Dawn and also Champions of ZED on the way. I think it's a cool time with all of this stuff available for the Arneson fan.

No worries. There will be plenty of ideas coming soon. Dragons at Dawn has really inspired me to get to work on the game I keep putting off for one reason or another. I have mentioned doing a game based on what I could not understand or what I felt was missing from Adventures in Fantasy; sort of the equivalent of Tunnels & Trolls to Dungeons & Dragons. I have finally started the serious work on note-taking and I am definitely going to be gleaning any insights on particular subjects from this forum and the appropriate sections of OD&D Discussion. Keep your eyes open for posts with my observations and asking for feedback. I imagine at some point I may gather material from others that show an interest in contributing. It won't be a clone game like Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, etc. but it will be a game that fixes problems, makes things clear, and is complete; like I said, this game will be to Adventures in Fantasy what T&T is to D&D so it should be an interesting process.

We're leaving in a few hours on a family vacation when the wife gets off work - hey, who needs sleep? :wink: - but I will definitely be back to posting in a few days.

Heydee Charlie!!

Ron waves!

I got tired of seeing so many links to this place and not being able to access the content, that I finally became a member. :wink: