Welcome to #RPGaDAY2022! Now in its ninth year, #RPGaDAY was originally created by RPG author and games designer David Chapman (Conspiracy X, Doctor Who, etc) as a bit of fun and to get people talking about tabletop roleplaying games. August was chosen, I believe, to coincide with tabletop roleplaying’s gaming mecca that is Gen Con – which usually takes place in the States (Inidanapolis these days) every August.

#RPGaDAY is open to everyone so if you want to join in just check out the prompts below to inspire a blog, vlog, or social media post to celebrate everything great about our hobby with the tag #RPGaDAY2022

Day 3 : When were you first introduced to RPGs?

It was August 1984. I had just moved in the States to live with my aunt and cousins. They lived in a very remote part of Washington State, halfway between Seattle and Vancouver in Canada. Our house backed on to forests and mountains, and you could just about see another house down the track towards the main road. There were probably another dozen houses along the stretch of main road that backed on to a lake. The nearest ‘town’ wasn’t much bigger and was a 20-30 minute walk which had a general store (it sold comics and chocolate bars which was my main draw to it) and a swimming pool – which are the only two things I remember of it.

To get to school I had to catch a school bus at about 6am which would then wind itself through forest and mountain passes, picking up other kids en route, to the soundtrack of 80’s AOR, before dropping us off at school about 8.30am. It was remote, but a wonderful place to live.

On the first day I was there I went out shooting (only a bb gun), on the second day I played Dungeons & Dragons for the first time with two of my cousins (who were a year and four years older than me).

I’d already been reading/playing the Fighting Fantasy Adventure gamebooks by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson so playing D&D felt very familiar. Instead of being given options at the end of each paragraph of the adventure game book, you got to do and try anything you wanted. In a Fighting Fantasy book you might have been given the option to a) Fight the Goblin Guard or b) Try to sneak past the Goblin Guard. In D&D they were no longer the only choices – You want to chat to the Goblin Guard? Go for it! You want to turn around and run away from the Goblin Guard? Sure thing (you coward).

I was hooked.

I think a week later I played Top Secret (another RPG published by D&D’s publisher TSR but as opposed to fantasy Top Secret was a modern day espionage/spy game – so you could be James Bond as opposed to an Elven Wizard!).