My First Dungeons and Dragons Blog

This post was originally published on my Windows Live blog. I am repeating it here for the sake of completeness.

Hi there to anyone who’s reading this. I don’t know how long this blog will last for, but I intend to make it a regular thing. I say intend, because I’ve had several attempts at setting up my own website, and then getting tired/bored/losing my confidence and then forgetting about my brilliant plans for producing the world’s best website for D&D until Geocities or whoever my host is has closed down my site due to lack of activity. :(

As a little bit about myself – I picked up D&D back around 1982 when I was 9 and saw other kids playing it at school. It looked cool – the Erol Otus covers of Castle Amber and the Palace of the Silver Princess inspired me in a way that very little had before. I still love the way it offers inspiration and escape for an hour or so, and I expect that I will carry on being fond of D&D, dabbling in it and flicking through the books, for a very long time.

I have carried on playing or reading about Dungeons and Dragons through various editions, including the Basic and Expert sets, 1st Edition AD&D, 2nd Edition AD&D and 3rd Edition D&D. My appetite for it has not often been met by opportunities to play, and for long stretches I have created worlds and other stuff without putting into game-play. Maybe this blog will be an opportunity for me to share some of the stuff I’ve created but not yet shared.

So far I have left 4th edition alone. This is not some angry protest against WotC. There is a little bit of knee-jerk conservatism (what? powers per day and per encounter? for both fighters AND wizards? Heresy!) but mostly there is the feeling that I’ve got enough on my bookshelf to keep me going for the rest of my life (mostly 3rd edition, but also some 2nd edition). I have spent a lot of money on the books I have, and I don’t need to spend more if the likelihood of using it in game play is slim.

More soon. John