Greetings, Programs.
So, the next part of D&D and Me is going to cover the glorious introduction I had to AD&D 2e in high school. 2e was our go-to, along with BECMI, for those years- though we played too many different games to count during those four years. I still have a deep and abiding love for it, it's got a permanent place on my shelves despite the rotation of books to and from "archive." But I haven't gotten around to writing it yet. Why?
That's a good question. Right now, I have zero game campaigns that I'm deeply involved in. My games at Royal Dragoon Guards meetings have had trouble due to rotating groups of people in attendance (Ed got all the super reliable players!) and I watch the kids on Fridays now so my wife can go play FFG Star Wars. Weeknights are a flurry of pick up kids, make dinner, do homework, do reading, so there's no room there to game. Adulthood has caught up with me in a really frustrating way. I hear this from so many other gamers in my age group. It's a thing, and I really would that it wasn't. Gaming is my stress release, my happy place, and I could use it. Work is changing, finances are less than steady, we just lost our beloved calico Zoe... life.
So, I'm still here. I'm in the middle of cleaning up and re-organizing my game room, The One-Eyed Ogre. It's an interesting exercise. Take books that were in the archive to storage. Transfer the ones from the floor boxes in the alcove to the archive. Transfer books that haven't been referenced or used since the last update in 2016 to the floor boxes. Add or re-arrange books on the shelves by utility- D&D and all my OSR stuff, Battletech, Shadowrun, Star Wars, R. Talsorian- pretty much always on accessible shelves. All my White Wolf save a choice few 1e Vampire books- storage. Earthdawn to archive, sadly. Gangbusters to shelves, since it's been requested for this year. Shuffle, shuffle.
I'm doing something new, too. I've put in two standing shelves to organize tools, board games, and go-boxes. I've put Battletech, Renegade Legion, B/X D&D and a couple other games into milk crates or Princeton files so they can be quickly pulled from the shelf to take to a game or demo, and just as quickly returned. This is a lesson learned from years of reshelving after events. Plus, I'm replacing vintage books with reprints (Thanks, Lulu!) so that my 30+ to 40+ year old books are no longer leaving the relative safety of The Ogre. The popular "black cover" print folks are doing on LuLu of B/X (after legally buying the PDFs, of course) is tucked into a Princeton file with B1, B2, B4 and a couple of other modules plus the amazing B/X GM Screen from New Big Dragon Games. Ready-to go, ready to play.
I've just gotten copies of TSR Marvel Revised Basic, so that go-kit is coming together. I'll be building go kits for other games we do - Shadowrun, Star Wars, Battletech/MechWarrior, that sort of thing. I love teaching gaming, and at Central Texas Teen Comic Con in February, I'll be lecturing on RPGs to parents and students of Round Rock ISD.
So, this is where I've been. I'm going to keep blogging when I can, and write the 2e post (or break it up into multiple posts) for D&D and Me, once I defeat the enemies of Time, Anxiety and Depression. Thanks for sticking around and reading out there in cyberspace.
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