I came across these lurking in my Basic Dungeons & Dragons folder: three player characters from my first-ever D&D experience.
It was only a few days after Christmas, 1981, when I, my friend Brian Z., and my nephew John sat down to attempt our first D&D game (Moldvay Basic). John and I had already made our characters (two each) by the time Brian showed up. (Perhaps if we had rolled them up in front of Brian, our would-be DM, my main character, Moordow, would not have ended up quite so buff. /wink)
Unfortunately, I do not have John's characters, Cedric the Cleric and Armon the Annoying (m-u). (Armon's "annoying" label was added after the fact - after he had repeatedly proved himself to be a totally useless party member.) I do, however, have my second character and the two characters Brian ran in the game (as DM's in our games regularly did back in the day):
(I always envied Brian his cool and exceptionally neat handwriting; it made mine look like chicken scratch.)
. . . . .
It was only a few days after Christmas, 1981, when I, my friend Brian Z., and my nephew John sat down to attempt our first D&D game (Moldvay Basic). John and I had already made our characters (two each) by the time Brian showed up. (Perhaps if we had rolled them up in front of Brian, our would-be DM, my main character, Moordow, would not have ended up quite so buff. /wink)
Unfortunately, I do not have John's characters, Cedric the Cleric and Armon the Annoying (m-u). (Armon's "annoying" label was added after the fact - after he had repeatedly proved himself to be a totally useless party member.) I do, however, have my second character and the two characters Brian ran in the game (as DM's in our games regularly did back in the day):
(I always envied Brian his cool and exceptionally neat handwriting; it made mine look like chicken scratch.). . . . .
Wow. I have so little paperwork from those earliest days. Still have some later 80's stuff though.
ReplyDeleteMy very first character, Arcturus Grimm, was "muscled" in much the same way. But another player suggested I cheat. So...18/60 Str...16 Dex...18 Con...
Although I have seen much better from people who swore they didn't cheat. Yeah, right. I've had 8 players so far in my campaign, and no PC has rolled an 18 for a stat yet.
But that buff ranger character went on to be a major NPC in my games for 30 years, and popped up in my current campaign.
I have plenty of stuff going back to my own childhood, but characters sheets from my first game? No (probably because I killed off all the players).
ReplyDeleteI DO have the map from that 1st fateful session (couldn't quite get through all of B1 "out o the box" and so made my own adventure to try the rules).