Dungeons & Dragons – Stranger Things Style - Check out this Dungeons & Dragons character binder from 1981!


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After watching Stranger Things, I dug into the attic to see if I could find any of my old D&D characters – I found an entire binder of D&D goodies from 1981! Check out my characters when I was a 10-year-old kid!

http://rollforcombat.com/blog/dungeons-and-dragons-stranger-things-style/

Silver Crusade

Nice.


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Wow, what a flashback that was.


I used to use Trapper Keeper folders to safely store my Dragon Magazine copies, two per folder, slotted on my bookshelf between the boxed sets and the hardcovers.


That is some serious nostalgia overload there! I had everything on that page (including the Trapper Keepers and an Eastern Airlines boarding pass) except the monster cards.

Thank you for sharing. :)


So very very nostalgic right now....that was awesome, thanks for sharing those pics.

Gonna go and find my Black Box set and commune with the days of yore!


That...was...amazing! And an impossible save vs. nostalgia. If you were indeed 11 in 1981, Stonesnake, you and I are very close to the same age, and that was just perfect. Now I want to go dig out my own stuff; I know it's around here somewhere... :)

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Readerbreeder wrote:
That...was...amazing! And an impossible save vs. nostalgia. If you were indeed 11 in 1981, Stonesnake, you and I are very close to the same age, and that was just perfect. Now I want to go dig out my own stuff; I know it's around here somewhere... :)

Yep, I was 11 in 1981, 6th grade. I was even in the Dungeons & Dragons club in middle school!

I also have nearly every Dragon magazine as well in the attic, still love to flip through those. Can't believe those monster magazines were only $3 each! Even back then that was a steal!


Ahh, those were the days...


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You know, it's weird. I used to create my own characters for various pencil-and-paper RPGs and run them through adventures by myself, to learn the system. For instance, back in the 1980s, I created a party for the WEG Star Wars game and ran them though over a dozen adventures, before I ran a couple of "real" Star Wars campaigns (with real players). And I kept my PCs, and even the stats I wrote for the adventures for that solo campaign; I still have them. Also in the 1980s, I ran a LOOONG solo Star Frontiers campaign, but I ultimately failed to sell Star Frontiers to my players. But anyway, I still have those old Star Frontiers character sheets from my solo campaign. I think I even kept my PC sheets from Paranoia which I never played, solo or otherwise!

And yet - here comes the weird part - although I regarded Mayfair's DC Heroes (a.k.a. "MEGS") as my favorite RPG back in the 1980s, I didn't keep a single MEGS character or adventure writeup from before the turn of the century.

And the only version of D&D I DMed in the 1980s was BECMI. Later in the 1980s, when I sold all my D&D stuff, I threw out my character sheets, and all my other BECMI work. I guess I saw no reason to keep that stuff. And it's a shame. Earlier in the 1980s, back when I first got my greedy hands on the long-coveted Expert Set, I created some characters and ran a solo campaign, and continued it even when I was running "real" BECMI campaigns. And later, when I got my still-greedy hands on the Companion Set, I still continued with the same characters. So some of those characters, who started at 1st level, got as high as 18th level before I quit!

To me, that's quite an achievement, which I never came close to equaling. I mean... I later started a "real" 3.0 campaign at 1st level, and some of the characters in that campaign got as high as 12th level, but by that time, all the original characters had died and been replaced several times over. In fact, outside that BECMI campaign, I've never advanced any character beyond 15th level, nor statted out any character - even an NPC - with more than 15 class levels.

So when I say I advanced characters from 1st to 18th level, that seems incredible to me. It's like a piece of my history. Those PC sheets even included character portraits, which I've never drawn since the 1980s. Darn myself for throwing those away!


Dot!


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Graduated High School in 1981, not quite the same as being 11, but there are a few folders in the closet I want to go through now...


Because of this thread, I just HAVE gone through a few folders in the closet. Yes, I have my Paranoia characters, and yes, I have all the PC sheets and all my adventure stats (for NPCs, starships, etc) for all three of my Star Wars campaigns - the solo campaign and both real campaigns.


I laugh every time I look back at characters and GM stuff that I wrote when I was 11-15 as opposed to my work now as a large part of Flying Pincushion Games.

But...and this is the biggie, I still draw from some of my ideas my late preteen and early teen self created way back when even now at 37.

I miss Dragon mag....I should pour myself a glass of something alcoholic and tasty and read some of those old articles, wisdom of the ages those.


How did you have a Human Fighter Cleric? Was that a Human with 2 Classes? I saw on the sheet that he was level 4/4, so he couldn't use his first class yet.

When I played the Dungeons and Dragons Computer Games, my parties tended to have mostly humans with 2 classes. There was an Elven Fighter/Magic User/Thief, a Human Cleric who would become a Fighter, a Human Fighter who would become a Cleric, and 3 Fighters who would become Magic Users. I'd get them up to level 13 Fighter, then in Secret of the Silver Blades, I'd start them on their 2nd classes.


@Stonesnake I especially like the Box-and-Sticks "Barbarian Style" dungeon map.
:D

Question: What were the "Monster Cards" for? They aren't trading cards right? Nor for a pre-MTG type game I've never heard of?


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The monster cards were a supplement so a GM could show the players what the creature looked like WITHOUT having to dig through a Monster Manual to figure out what they looked like.

Unfortunately, my collection didn't make it during moves, but I have fond memories... usually when one of the rare local GMs used them against me, either when I was playing in the early '80s (before the gaming crackdown) or when I was in the Service.


Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

The monster cards were a supplement so a GM could show the players what the creature looked like WITHOUT having to dig through a Monster Manual to figure out what they looked like.

Unfortunately, my collection didn't make it during moves, but I have fond memories... usually when one of the rare local GMs used them against me, either when I was playing in the early '80s (before the gaming crackdown) or when I was in the Service.

Ahh, because the MM illustrations were B&W back in BCEMI/AD&D days?

I guess those could be useful then.

Thanks for the info.
:)


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You're welcome.


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This is very cool. I remember writing up s$%! like this, cataloguing what I had and what I wanted to play. I've still got the binders to show for it, too, as does my much more thorough brother!

Oh, and on the matter of "linking to slurs", bear in mind that "g*pped" is actually a derogatory term towards Roma people, regardless of how you may have meant it. It's an easy mistake to make, but an even easier one to avoid in the future, which is what's awesome about increasing our awareness of such matters! :)


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Good times!

1983 - bought the Red Box - and that was it for me ...
In less than three hours my son (age 26) will GM "Curse of the Crimson Throne" for us oldtimers.
Love this hobby:-)


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Stonesnake wrote:

After watching Stranger Things, I dug into the attic to see if I could find any of my old D&D characters – I found an entire binder of D&D goodies from 1981! Check out my characters when I was a 10-year-old kid!

http://rollforcombat.com/blog/dungeons-and-dragons-stranger-things-style/

this is awesome! the artwork is great, especially of wizardry. very, very cool.

Scarab Sages

Oy, that makes me feel old, and sad. I was 14 when the original game was released, but I didn't start playing D&D until around 1996. I moved last year and all my old binders got tossed due to water damage. :(

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