Well, it would have been grand if people didn’t think my friends and I were devil-worshipers, but it was the early 1980s, so that wasn’t very likely. It would also have been great to have a gaming club in elementary school (prohibited because of the aforementioned Satantic influences) but again … it was Dungeons & Dragons in the 1980s.
Thankfully, I did luck out with having someone to teach me the game (as part of a multi-week enrichment class) but that was a pretty unique experience that I only got to do because my dad was one of the teachers in the larger program.
Ultimately though, I wouldn’t have changed anything. That experience made us who we are today, and it shaped my gaming group’s own approach when it came time to introduce role-playing games to our own kids. They got what we would have wanted – a welcoming, non-judgemental experience that introduced them to the game and taught them how to play,
- This post is part of the RPG a Day 2022 event. Catch up on Nuketown’s posts via the post category and learn more about the event at its community page on Facebook.
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The renamed fiends of Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition: Baatezu (Demons) and Tanar’ri (Devils). Taken from the Outer Planes compendium for 2nd Edition. Credit: Ken Newquist