Tonight, I watched the film "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story", and it reminded me about how in the 70s people in the United States were basically more creative than today because they took lots of drugs. The 70s were probably the best time to be into fantasy and fantasy RPGs. That's when they wrote those Theives' World stories, and also when Tolkein became popular, and naturally when D&D became popular. And when you compare the hardcore "save vs. death ray or die" pwnage in 1970s D&D modules to the modules they turn out nowadays, you realize that RPGing was probably better back then. And probably involved more drugs.

Is anyone posting here on DSF old enough to have played D&D or other RPGs back in the 70s? If so, was it as excruciatingly awesome as I imagine? Does anyone have any 1970s era stories to share?

I started playing back in the mid-seventies, just after the first Basic D&D set came out. I remember marathon sessions being the norm, measured not in hours, but in days. Monte Haul had nothing on some of our games.

And since when are drugs not involved?

I was also playing in the 70's, although I don't recall nearly as much as I should.

Add me to the list.

played in late 70s and no drugs involved but later say in the 80s it wasnt uncommon for players to step out now and then for some weed.

Didn't start gaming until the mid- to late-80's, though I have had the chance to read some of that 70's era material. Truthfully... I don't really feel like I missed much.

Also, my gaming experience has been generally drug free. I can't say the same for everyone I played with (especially my Magic and Jyhad/VtES buddies) however...

-paws

I started in 1981 with the Red Box D&D set, and thinking back it was pretty good. I did all my own dungeons, and that was all we did, dungeons. I bought maybe 1 or 2 modules in 5 years.

Back about '78 my buddy handed me a boxed set of D&D he got for Christmas, and told me to learn it so I could teach it to the rest of the gang.

In the beginning, we'd play two sessions a week. Keeping the game and reality separate was a little difficult at times. We all rotated being DM and tried to be fair, as any transgression of power promised retribution later. Didn't always work.

We actually stayed away from intoxicants during play. PCs tended to live longer that way.

In one of my wife's adventures, my 18/00 strength fighter ( Trund hit -- Trund kill!) exited the cave with one hit point, saw the town and safety down below, and died as a rock dislodged by the tremors we caused fell and killed him. No resurrection at that low level. I eventually forgave her. (Hmmmm....we're not together anymore.)

Peter

I started with D&D as a Freshman in High School, way back in 76, back when the basic and expert set were sold together in ziplock like baggies and the dice were these indescribably execrable pieces of the cheapest blue-oid plastic-oid that they could cobble together. I actually had a d8 break in to multiple pieces by simply stepping on it... on a carpeted floor no less.

Isshia

But, the main question really was, how were they.

To be honest, with the exception that the ones today seem too soft...they sucked for the main part. Really, remember Pong anyone. Compare that as a game to today's and you have a comparison that works the RPGs as well. They weren't the 4th edition D&D where you can do almost anything to a person and they just get up and walk away from it if it doesn't kill them straight out... but damn, other than that they were completely, utterly and in all other ways LAME ... at best. With the exception of Traveller. That wasn't too bad.

Then there was the second generation of games, starting in the later 70's and early 80's, games like Chivalry and Sorcery, Bushido and Space Opera (Yep, I was definitely a FGU fan). Before THEY became lighter version of themselves, they were awesome and even the later versions were good and solid...but they were too cerebral for most peoples tastes. Ah well, memories.


Isshia

Pong is still pretty addictive.

I personally feel like the RPGs today are too streamlined, and tend to not be cereberal enough.

Oh, I think I may have some old dice, though I don't know if they're considered mud dice or not. Basically, I got a pretty well worn D&D blue cover rule book from a garage sale back when I was in 4th grade and it came with some dice, including one where the numbers weren't colored in. But I am not sure if they're technically mud dice.

But what is cool is that I've actually carried them around almost every day with me for years. I keep them in my LL Bean back pack, and I used it almost every day in college, grad school, and even in the Peace Corps in Micronesia while slogging through rain forest. I guess those dice have now been all around the world and are actually slightly grimy.

I played my first game of D&D in 1981. Drugs didn't show up until 84 after I returned from a short tour in the U.S. Navy. Can't say the dope helped my creativity much. I had a party go up against the X-Men in a AD&D game which I have never been allowed to live down. A box of wine and some hallucinogenics really slowed the game down. at least that's how i seemed to me.

I think it was back by the end of the 70's that I first started playing AD$D. It was a side-project of some of us from science class (the science teacher was our DM) & we learned a lot. It's what got me into RPGs.

Ah, those were innocent times. Long before Planescape, SpellJammer & all the other mega-campaigns.

Some of those weren't so bad though. I still don't think TSR and it's descendants in the D&D game ever even equaled what they did with the first published setting...World of Greyhawk. Not the later incarnations of the same campaign, even with all the wonderful work done by the Living Greyhawk fans, not with any of the other settings in any genre that TSR (et al) produced, including Spelljammer, Forgotten Realms and Mystara or the things like Eberron. I was blown away when I saw how much had been done, a full (and bloody huge) continent with everything from migrationary movements to weather patterns to vulcanism taken into account. And for a supplement published in 1980 I think it has stood the ultimate test of time as I still use it when a hankering to play D&D comes over me.


Isshia

Did any of you sport afros/perms or polyester shirts with wide lapels when you were rolling the dice in your moms' wood paneled basements?

Please say "yes".

Sorry, I was a rebel. I moved out of my parents house when I was 13 so I missed the wood paneling sessions. I did have a modified fro for a while though and sometimes wore a leisure suit when I got to where we were gaming (after work, the suit was for work people ) so maybe I got close. Never would have made it as a geek though. I'm way too big and was a jock.

Isshia

Yes.

Wheeeee! My day has been made.