My gaming past, present, and future

In case people actually start reading this blog, I figured it would be a good idea to give some exposition on my gaming history and why I started blogging.

I was first introduced to D&D in 1992 or so by one of my best friends. He would bring his AD&D 2nd edition Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monstrous Compendium, and a variety of the Complete Book of ... to school. He would even let me borrow them and I would read them cover to cover multiple times over breakfast and after school. We would often design characters, but we never actually played the game until 1996 or so, and that only lasted a session or two. I'm not sure why we never got a game off the ground, but I nonetheless knew the rules like the back of my hand.

I was reintroduced to Dungeon and Dragons in 2007-8, when I found a copy of Baldur's Gate for $5 on the used games rack at a video game store. It immediately brought back a flood of memories. I started reading quite a bit about the variety of editions online from original to 3rd edition and found that the OSR met my gaming needs much better than the current games.

I started playing in play-by-post games at ODD74 and Goblinoid Games forums and had a blast, until real life stepped in to put a stop to it. I also found a local tabletop group playing 4e, and I joined them for a few months. While the group was great and the DM had experience with all editions, so the sessions were likely not typical 4e sessions, the game was way too fiddly for my tastes.

Which brings me to now. My son is 3 years old and I'm dying to get him into gaming. I recently purchased the Pathfinder Beginner Box because of the great reviews that many have given it and because I wanted to have the minis that came with it to show to my son. He immediately loved it. I kiddified the game of course - we just picked a mini each to play (he loves the dwarf fighter with the warhammer) and we walked through the dungeon with me asking him questions on what he'd like to do. He often wanted to 'beat up the goblins' and sometimes even 'run away'. He often asks if we can play the 'venture' game. So I think I'm well on my way to getting him hooked.

With this blog, I hope to put down my thoughts on the various rules from the various editions, and the houserules I plan on using and campaign ideas I come up with for once I can actually start real gaming with my son.