I just thought I would share a story with you about a D&D game gone wrong.
My first gaming group consisted of me, my brother and two other friends. This group is not the core group that would later be dubbed the Foaming Flagons, but it was my first.
I started my gaming with the purchase of one of every type of gaming die,(Assorted colors.) and the Keep on the Borderlands module.
I had no idea what the hell I was doing.
I was only about nine at the time so you gotta forgive me.
About a week later, my mom, my grandma, my grandpa and my brother went to a Rinks store in New Philadelphia, Ohio where I purchased the first Basic D&D red box. (The Mentzer set.)
I nearly puked with excitement. I was that kind of a kid.
My hands shook as I ripped the cellophane off the box and tried reading bits of text as we passed under street lamps along the highway.
I devoured that Player's Book in about 30 minutes.
Of course I purchased the Expert set and eventually got into the AD&D stuff when I hit Junior High.
I always took pretty decent care of my stuff.
I kept all my D&D stuff in pretty good shape.
(You know this is really funny because after all these years, I have been told I can break an anvil with a rubber mallet.)
But my brother is a walking disaster.
We were gaming in our room with a couple of buddies. I think my brother might have been in the 8th grade and I was in 6th.
Back in those days, he could steal snuff (AKA Dip AKA Chew) or at least get some older people to buy it for him. (We lived in a rather rural area but I never picked up the habit myself.)
Like many people with that particularly disgusting habit, my brother had a large mason jar which he used as a spitoon.
Do you see where this is going?
I was DMing this particular day and my brother jumped to his feet to go to the bathroom. My precious books were spread out on our bedroom floor. As he stood up, he bumped his foot against a mason jar that was three quarters full of tobacco spit, spilling the tarry, foul liquid all over my beloved tomes.
I don't believe and no one can convince me otherwise that the D&D game has ever caused, directly or indirectly the death of any person.
Except for almost once in this occasion.
My brother still lives of course and eventually he took up smoking, but I will never forget the horror and disgust of that day.
At least he was good enough to clean it up himself.
Anti-Human
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6 comments:
Gods ... I was eating breakfast when I read that ...
Just one technicality in this post I'd like to pick a nit about. As old friend who knows you fairly well, you were about 9 years old in 1977-78. There's no way you had the Mentzer set.
http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/basic.html
You must have bought the Moldvay set - the same set I had originally wanted ...with the Erol Otus art on the cover. I never got around to buying D&D until years later, and by then, it was the Mentzer edition with the Larry Elmore cover.
I remember how fascinated you were with the layout and art in the book ... commenting that it was a bit different than your old set ... and I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't the set I really wanted so badly.
It worked out anyways, and I loved the game nonetheless ... especially since we jumped pretty much straight into AD&D there after ... even though I would return to those basic roots after school ...
Gods ... I love this!
Ever the helpful sage;
JM.
I seem to recall, years after this incident, a certain feline that place your tomes in peril and was chastised quite harshly.
The 11th commandment:
"Mess not with game books."
JM
Myabe it was when I was ten.
Hell! I don't remember!
Now that you have me thinking though, I might have had the Erol Otus pinkish box....(I think it was pinkish.)
But I swear my first box was the Red Box!
Hell! I don't remember.
Damn you for creating doubt in my mind!
I didn't kill any cat over my tomes! That would have seemed odd.
Anti-Human
I didn't say the feline was killed, I said chastised harshly, YOU Sir. are the one who have attached mortality to the feline punishment.
At this point firecrackers and lawnmowers spring to mind for some reason ...
:D
JM.
What I DO clearly remember was that my brother's spitoon spilled all over my Expert books and my MMI.
I think it caught Les Hickman's character sheets and a couple of dice too.
It had the odor of hot, boiled, dirty ass and feet.
I could be sick just thinking about it.
A.H.
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