“Conan The Barbarian” with Arnold Swarzenegger because that movie came out at a time when we were playing D&D all the time in high school.

I know the Rankin & Bass cartoon of “The Hobbit” and Ralph Bakshi’s “Return of the King” also had an influence.

“The Vikings” with Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis and any other movie from the 50’s and 60’s on TV at the time.

As I write this, “Excalibur” comes to mind. We laughed at the scene of what a king does in full armor, but the armor and the fighting was cool.

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” was good for the wacky side of things.

I am sure there were others, but I don’t recall them at the moment.

I recall a song that a friend came across, perhaps an early Dragon. “You Bash The Balrog, While I Climb The Tree.” Four of us, two brothers each from two families sang it. We recorded it on a cassette tape. I’m not sure if it was a handheld tape recorder or a higher end system.

I think we just made up our own tune. I still remember all the words, once I get going.

Also, “We must away ‘ere break of day” from “The Hobbit”. The tune we came up with was close to what is in the recent Peter Jackson movie.

My ex would not go near an RPG, she does not get it. She considers D&D to be evil. Oddly enough, she bought “Magic The Gathering” cards for our sons.

I have known very few female gamers. There were none in my high school and in college they were girlfriends of other players.

It would be awesome to meet a woman who does not think you are odd to be playing D&D.

The hobby shop in Independence Center in Independence, MO. It had trains of various gauges, plastic model kits, and games. We bugged our parents all the time to drive there so we could see if they had anything new. Hoping we had the cash to get the items we desired. I think it went out of business in the late 80’s, that would have been when I was in college. But I’m not sure it stayed in business that long.

One guy two years behind me in high school said that he planned to start a game store and he did and is still in business. Some people from the same group still play with him.

Yesterday when discussing the first D&D product I ever bought, the blue-box set, I mentioned that I still have the dice that came with it.

Their utility is limited.  The d4 is the only one I still use. The d20 is nearly a sphere from all the edges chipping off over the first couple years of play. The d6, d8, and d12 have also had a lot of chipping and aren’t good at a roll. The d4 does not really roll, so I still use it.

These were the ones that the numbers were not colored. We drew the numbers with the crayon provided, but it did not work well. I remember a couple of years ago reading on other old school blogs that you were supposed to run the crayon over the numbers like a cheese grater to get them filled in. I never understood that from what I read. Since I don’t have that box anymore, I can’t re-read it to see if it had it or not. That would have been a lot better. I think we ended up using a red felt-tip pen with a fine point. It still managed to fade easily, so new dice were soon purchased.

See this picture to really understand. At the moment I can only find the d4. The d6 is orange, the d8 is green, the d12 is blue and the d20 is white.

[EDIT] Now I am not so sure if the dice came in the box or what. I located the rest of my old and worn dice and I have two sets. I do not recall if one set came with the blue box and I bought a second set so my brother, Robert, and I would each have a set, or if I bought two sets, etc. It is hard to tell from the pictures just how rounded the d20s are.

I also found the second dice a bought, two all-whited d20s and two all-white d10s for d100 rolls. The d10s and d20s are badly rounded. I quit using them as soon as I got some clear dice with sharp edges. I don’t recall exactly where I got my current dice.

I don’t recall the first character that died. I think we had so many characters trying to be successful and have someone survive that we weren’t too attached to them.

My favorite character Griswald did a lot of solo adventuring and had not played with the other players for a while. One player, Daryl, had a character Gwale with a +1 handaxe, and was known as Gwale of the Axe. He helped Griswald. They encountered some orcs and Gwale died. I don’t recall if Griswald witnessed it or learned of it. Unfortunately, Gwale was eaten, but Griswald went to the orc lair fireballed it and retrieved the axe.

Another character played by Daryl, James Forrester, a human magic user, who is now the highest level character in the game, 18th level due to an ioun stone. The first arch-mage in a game where magic is not overly common and a 5th level magic user is very tough, and the people view a 1st level magic user as a great wizard. He was helping Griswald fight some orcs, long story. James died helping Griswald, but he was raised.

Griswald was later helping James on a hit and run on a high level evil wizard. We disguised ourselves, applied protective magic, teleported in and started blasting and fighting. We took out all his bodyguards, etc. but the evil wizard managed to kill Griswald. That was quite a shock, but I took it well as I was sure he would be raised. Thankfully, he made his system shock survival roll and reduced his constitution by one.

Later on an adventure that had all the players in the game involved and their high level characters went on an adventure together. I don’t recall the circumstances, but Griswald was killed. Daryl had not told any of the other players that Griswald had died in the raid on the evil wizard, so everyone was shocked as Griswald had this reputation of being the player who had gone the longest without dying, and to their knowledge still had not died. It was funny to see the look on their faces when I revealed in an out-of-character moment that that was not the first time he died.

I think it was inspired by an article in Dragon Magazine, but the rule in Robert’s game is that you get 1,000 experience points for being raised from the dead as a consolation for the loss of all the experience from the adventure.

This led to a saying among the players in the game when we were faced with a very difficult and dangerous task for our next endeavor, “You only get 1,0o0 experience points for being raised.”