Mazes and Monsters and My First d12

The very first RPG I ever played was self designed. I believe my childhood friend Rikki created a one page dungeon - I don't remember dice - and it was more like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, with a single player (me) and a single game master (Rikki). I'm not sure where Rikki had gotten the idea. Both Rikki and I were huge fans of J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit and later The Lord of The Rings). Wherever it had come from, I was hooked in like five minutes. I can still remember him describing the eerie tunnels, the magic ring that my character found and multiple sets of special keys that unlocked different doors and chests in this made up world.

In addition to this event... I clearly remember, in the sixth grade, watching the 1982 made for TV movie "Mazes and Monsters", starring Tom Hanks. I believe the movie was intended to discourage people from getting involved in this hobby. It painted fantasy role playing as something immature that could lead to schizophrenia. As many mainstream media items often do with young people, its message had the exact opposite affect on me. I fell in love with the idea of these story telling games. The scenes with the players all sitting around the table, with the game master sitting behind his screen were etched in my mind. This new world of interactive gaming allowed you to experience these wonderful worlds in your mind and amongst friends.

There was no looking back. That summer both Rikki and I began writing and drawing furiously. We both worked on a campaign world the involved the fictional realm of "Drummonmore" (if I can remember how we spelled it). Then Rikki and I got separated - parents moved to different parts of the city. But, I managed to introduce a number of new friends in my new neighborhood to my new found passion. I had single twelve sided die that I had bought at the local comic shop. I remember thinking that it looked just like the special dice that they used in the movie. I crafted all the rules around this single die. We ended up playing EVERY day, for hours, in a friends garage down the street. His mother found it odd. One of my friends at the time was a kid named George.

One day George showed up with the official D&D red box. I drolled. Here was the real thing, and there were four other special dice! The rest is history.