I don't remember who in our group discovered Dungeons & Dragons but the game itself was pretty new. (Note: Published in 1974 by TSR) One of my friends brought the D&D Players Handbook to one of our Saturday game nights and we were hooked. A game that was totally dependent upon your own imagination? By Monday evening I had already purchased my own Players Handbook and started memorizing the rules of play. (And there were a lot of rules of play . . . )
I do want to insert a quick note about this game and the reputation it quickly generated in Christian circles. I understand, especially now as a mature adult and parent about how some would be wary of the supernatural aspect of this game. My own personal experience was that as someone who had devoted weeks of his life to reading the Lord of the Rings books, this game seemed like Tolkien's world had come to life. I think that with all things context is important and this game never steered anyone in our group to lose touch with the reality of our own world. To us it was a game, just like King Arthur was just a story and we knew the difference. (Getting off my personal soapbox now . . . )
D&D quickly became our game of choice because each game was unpredictable and our imaginations exerted a great deal of influence over much of the outcomes. If you came to Game Night in ill-temper there was a pretty good chance that your character was going to do something stupid and possibly endanger everyone in the party. We learned to play the characters, not the other way around. And we learned the importance of teamwork, because no one could survive on their own.
As we moved into our college years we started to migrate toward Avalon Hill war games. Diplomacy (which deserves it's own blog post), Gettysburg, Panzer Leader, Kingmaker and more. These games became the new proving ground for our constantly changing world perspective. I started to really appreciate history because of these games, in a way I had never understood in the classroom. I know longer have the time (or inclination) to play those massive war games but I still miss the fellowship that occurred around those tables.
