I am not sure how I could. Putting more role playing into our roll playing would have been good, but I don’t see that happening. We had to teach ourselves and learn from the experience of others.

I play with my brother Robert very seldom. I would play with him every week if I lived close enough. We still talk about the game and what is going on.

Robert, my brother, and our youngest brother, Kent, and some friends started a new campaign my first year of college. I got involved when I was home on breaks and the summer. That campaign started in 1983/84 is still going today, and I still have the same characters in that game. My main character had a situation that was on hold for 15 years until we played it out to learn if my character would be around/have an impact on the game in current time. Griswald is now basically a retired character. He is my favorite.

This is the campaign Robert came up with after “The Quest For The Dice of Destiny” halted and just stopped in mid adventure, mid situation. I still don’t know if Fasbold and Flaessan survived their encounter with a ghost.

“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.