Welcome to Gothridge Manor

Welcome to Gothridge Manor. My place on the Web to talk about gaming old and new, good and bad and a whole lot of in between. I've been plundering dungeons and razing cities since the winter of '80.

I am placing the blame on my friend Dwayne for causing my 30 year fascination with orcs, liches, experience points and gold pieces. Dwayne brought home this ugly purple little booklet called B2 The Keep on the Borderlands. He didn't know how to play, but seemed really excited to give it a try. We raided the Yatzee game for dice (that's what we called them back then before we knew they were 6ds) and made up rules as we went along. I can't remember how we made characters, but I remember we used the Charisma attribute, rolled a d6 and that was how many followers we got.

On to the gameplay. Since we had nothing but B2 and a handful of six siders we decided that if a 1 was rolled that was a death. If a 6 was rolled that was a wound. Two wounds in one battle and you were dead. This is why all those followers were important. So for the next weeks we were happy throwing six siders. Experience points, what were they? Hit points, didn't need them. Miniatures were tiny candy bars. We had a blast. One night Dwayne would DM, the next night I would DM. Then the guy who he borrowed B2 from wanted it back. Crap.

We found two places in town that sold D&D stuff. The first place I went the guy behind the counter kicked me out of the store because I brought my book bag into the store and didn't leave it by the door. I didn't know. So the next place I went, I crept in and asked the lady if it was okay to come in. She said absolutely and showed me where all the gaming stuff was, which was limited to one shelf on the bottom at the back of the store. It was a hobby store and had a ton of airplane and train stuff. I'd never seen miniatures before. Lead figures with swords and bows, clerics with their arms raised and magic-users with staves taller than them. Oh, and the monsters were very cool even though I had no clue what most of them were. This instantly became my place. I bought my first set of D&D dice here and still have most of them to this day (except for my 12d which vanished in study hall one day).

I had money to buy one thing so I picked out the coolest looking module they had. I ran home to show Dwayne. He was excited also. He'd gone to the other store and had better luck than I did getting in. We showed each other our spoils of the day. Both of us had bought the same module S1 Tomb of Horrors. So for the next few months we took turns DMing the Tomb of Horrors. After that we made a pact to tell the other what they were going to buy.

So began my journey in gaming. Thanks for taking a look around. You're welcome to anything in the fridge, snacks are in the cupboard and the only rule is the last Coke is always mine.