Hello, old friends...

Another trip back home to Glasgow to see family and keep an eye on my mum who's currently in hospital.

Usually I try and find something historical to post about, but I suspect this trip is just going to involve trips back and forward to the hospital so that's going to be unlikely.

I was also up in June and ventured into the loft in my mum's house.  This was my family home from about the age of 2 and there is all sorts of junk/family heirlooms up there (anyone in the market for a Spanish donkey circa 1972??).  In amongst old family photos and lots of tat I did come across some genuine buried treasure which I'd believed were long gone.

Back around 1978 I spotted an advert in a now defunct British Scifi magazine called Ad Astra for some new-fangled company called Games Workshop (I wonder what happened to them?)...

I don't know if I'd heard of roleplaying games already or if this just caught my attention but I bought the D&D boxed set.  It was a truly life-changing moment... I still remember the game arriving in the post and my amazement at a box containing so little and yet full of so many possibilities.  This is the 'Holmes' edition of D&D and covers characters up to 3rd level.  It leads neatly into AD&D which was the path I merrily trotted down over the next few years.

The boxed set came with the rule book, a set of dice (which I still have) and an introductory scenario... B1: In Search of the Unknown which is a proper dungeoncrawl.  The box is sadly long gone.   And finally in the pile was the 'Giants...' set of scenarios which i think I acquired on family holiday to the USA.

In these days where RPGs are a commonplace game its hard to remember how game-changing something like D&D and the other early games were... I remember the confused look on my friends faces when I tried to explain the concept to them.  Eventually D&D, along with other games like Gamma World,  led me to my local wargames club (the Glasgow & District Wargames Society) and a whole new world of toy soldiers and wargames.  So this book is the starting point that set me off on a hobby that has lasted 45 years and introduced me to lots of good friends... I must admit I had a real emotional reaction to finding it again.  

I also found my set of Superworld which we played quite a bit an Uni.  Not a bad game as I remember