It was just over 10 years ago (Memorial Day weekend 2006, to be exact) that I was first introduced to Descent: Journeys in the Dark. Chvátil’s fantasy games Prophecy and Mage Knight, in addition to the puzzle-y charms of Legends of Andor and the creepy ambience and Euro-tinged gameplay of the Space Hulk -influenced Claustrophobia. In the last decade, the same “wish I could level up a character” impulse has led to my complete & total enjoyment of Return of the Heroes (and it’s expansion, Under the Shadow of the Dragon )… and, to a lesser extent, my sort-of enjoyment of Klaus Teuber’s Candamir: The First Settlers (which is a weird cross between The Settlers of Catan & an RPG.) More recently, I’ve had a blast diving into V. ( Dungeonquest, OTOH, is still here… and gets played every 3-4 months or so.) Every once in a while, I get a hankering to play them, but not enough to give up the pile of other games that they financed. Most of those are gone now… Warlock, Space Hulk & Talisman (3rd) all sold at hopped-up E-bay prices to enlarge my oddball collection of games. (Weirdly enough, I never actually played Heroquest and/or Advanced Heroquest. In the early 90’s, I bought the entire 3rd edition Talisman set… and we spent many happy hours chasing around the board, attempting to defeat the monsters & avoid getting turned into a toad. Thanks to the generosity of Keith “I Used To Be A Neutral Good Monk In Mark’s D&D Game” Monaghan, I have the game back in my collection. Another favorite was Dungeonquest, which I foolishly sold (along with both expansions) back in the mid-90’s. Then there was Warlock of Firetop Mountain … and even Space Hulk, which always had a bit of a dungeon crawl meets Aliens feel to the game. For a while, we played Talisman (2nd edition) on a regular basis. īut I continued to enjoy fantasy games… Particularly those that captured some of the flavor of D&D. I kept playing Traveller (a sci-fi RPG – that’s “role playing game” for those you playing along at home) and a little bit of SPI’s Dragonquest, but you could stick a fork in my time with Dungeons & Dragons. Then, sometime in the spring of 1981, I stopped playing D&D. (I’m still cheesed off that TSR didn’t publish T2 – The Temple of Elemental Evil – until years after I’d stopped playing D&D.) I vividly remember spending my hard-earned allowance money on the first Monster Manual, Player’s Handbook, and Dungeon Master’s Guide… and using the information in those books to dream up even more diabolical adventures. Our crew never got into miniatures – I think because of economics rather than my current excuse, “the fear of painting.” Similar reasons kept us from playing too many of the “official” modules – the primary ones I remember are The Village of Hommlet (T1) and the Giant trilogy. The author at age 16, celebrating his birthday with a Dungeons & Dragons cake.Yes, that’s a dinosaur – his mother could not find a dragon.
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