When did you start playing RL?

[Le Noir Faineant]

Was it then the BB or I6 that made you RL-addicted for a life-time?

This I6 adventure was a blast, and we often discussed it afterward. But the BB was the final click to move this D&D carreer toward darkness ...

The I found the Kargatane site, but I was a lurker and netbook user for a time before actually posting in 1999 or 2000.

Hehehe, for me, all the contrary: I knew RL for a while, but it was I6 that actually persuaded me to give it a try - and of that *try*, it became an obsession...

Yep, since 1987. And it is mostly with the same bunch of friends: one player left and another joined (the son of one player). And we plan to play until we can roll dices, which is I hope a long time.

Their level? These PC were born in 1st ed, then converted to 2e when it came out. They were about 14th level when we switched to 3e. We are not power hungry so a slow increase in level was fine, minues the few undead drains. But at the end, they were quite powerful.

*Greets the fellow Hawker.* Just out of interest, where did you set I6? - On Oerth, as part of the Greyhawk setting, or did you place it in I6's Barovia?

[Joël of the FoS]

*Greets the fellow Hawker.* Just out of interest, where did you set I6? - On Oerth, as part of the Greyhawk setting, or did you place it in I6's Barovia?

Before 1987, we were not playing a campaign set in a world, except in Greyhawk as it was the only world available, but we were playing adventures without real links between them. It was the hack'n'slash era.

A DM bought an adventure, liked it, then gathered players, and started it. That was it.

So I6 was set somewhere.

Joël

[Le Noir Faineant]

*Greets the fellow Hawker.* Just out of interest, where did you set I6? - On Oerth, as part of the Greyhawk setting, or did you place it in I6's Barovia?

Before 1987, we were not playing a campaign set in a world, except in Greyhawk as it was the only world available, but we were playing adventures without real links between them. It was the hack'n'slash era.

A DM bought an adventure, liked it, then gathered players, and started it. That was it.

So I6 was set somewhere.

Joël

That's indeed very interesting. Thank you for giving me that insight.

I always wondered which had been the best place - working with the old boxed sets, to put Barovia in...

[Dominique]

I think RL was the first identifiable setting I ever played in. My brother picked up a Monster Manual when we were around ten or eleven because he liked reading about monsters, so for awhile we just had dungeon crawls based on what we thought the rules were (eventually getting a little help from people who actually played D&D . . .). Then he picked up Realm of Terror and Domains and Darklords, thought horror gaming sounded cool, and cobbled together a weird mutant homebrew Ravenloft based around our house rules. Eventually we graduated to honest-to-goodness Ravenloft. I don't think I've ever technically played any other D&D settings, believe it or not. (Other games, sure, but none of them were D&D . . .)

[Pamela]

I played The House on Gryphon Hill back in the late '80's but the DM transplanted it it to his own fantasy world. I really enjoyed the campaign.

Two years ago my husband started an online campaign (which is still ongoing). I learned enough to create a character but I've only really looked into the setting when I came across this forum back in the spring. So I'm still a newbie to it all.

[HuManBing]

I pretty much started off as a DM in 1991 for my middle school friends, on a homegrown world ("The Enixine"). When we got to high school, they fought against a powerful lich, so I saw Van Richten's Guide to the Lich and bought it.

That opened up a whole can of worms, I can tell you!

Halfway through high school, in 1994, I bought the black box, and that changed my life. When the PCs battled their way up to the final big boss in my Enixine world campaign, I set up a conjunction, bringing the PCs into Ravenloft.

We pretty much stayed there forever until the end of high school. During that time, the Grand Conjunction and the Requiem happened, and a very interesting subplot occurred where three avatars of the Enixine gods were trapped in Ravenloft, and the PCs had to hunt them down.

Good times...

[Boccaccio Barbarossa]

I pretty much started off as a DM in 1991 for my middle school friends, on a homegrown world ("The Enixine"). When we got to high school, they fought against a powerful lich, so I saw Van Richten's Guide to the Lich and bought it.

That opened up a whole can of worms, I can tell you!

Halfway through high school, in 1994, I bought the black box, and that changed my life. When the PCs battled their way up to the final big boss in my Enixine world campaign, I set up a conjunction, bringing the PCs into Ravenloft.

We pretty much stayed there forever until the end of high school. During that time, the Grand Conjunction and the Requiem happened, and a very interesting subplot occurred where three avatars of the Enixine gods were trapped in Ravenloft, and the PCs had to hunt them down.

Good times...

i started about the same time, actually... I remember my best friend saying he had the colloest game we just HAD to try... so I told him I didn't want to play a vampire in his stupid game. lol!

Once I understood the concept, that I could go around and KILL vampires, welll... we were in business and have been ever since!

[taintedsoul]

I started with the black box edition, and I was still in highschool. I had no idea what I was doing at first, but is was lots of fun. I dont think any product before or since has been able to compare with how great that was. At laeast not to my mind. When I had first started playing it was with The Realms, but after getting the Black Box, there was no turning back...

[Boccaccio Barbarossa]

I started with the black box edition, and I was still in highschool. I had no idea what I was doing at first, but is was lots of fun. I dont think any product before or since has been able to compare with how great that was. At laeast not to my mind. When I had first started playing it was with The Realms, but after getting the Black Box, there was no turning back...

You know what it is? It's discovering all the secrets that first time. You only get that feeling once and after that, well, you get the pleasure of making the linkls and connctions when you read the products but not the first "The darklord is_________!" Some days, I would love to have the Ravenloft section of my mind wiped, leaving my current gaming sensibilities, but none of the Ravenloft knowledge.

Ignorance was bliss, I guess.

[Isabella]

I only started gaming a few years ago, but before then (in middle school or so) I would steal my brother's gaming books and read them all the time. I loved the Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft settings. I would sit up late at night devouring every new book I found, delving into their mysteries and secrets. I loved the tragic figures of Ravenloft; I still sneak Children of the Night away from my brother to read Jezrah Wagner's entry on occasion. That, along with the video game Quest for Glory 4 (the game that epitomized Gothic Horror for me), is what got me stuck on Ravenloft.

Unfortunately, my first and only Ravenloft game was a complete disasterpiece that dragged on for over a year before I finally managed to quit it. Sometimes things just don't live up to expectations.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I played D&D from age 8 to around 15 or so without ever playing in any of the campaign settings. We just made up our own. Then a friend bought the black box and tried desperately to get us to play. We mocked him mercilessly. "Frankenstein and Dracula meet D&D? Lame!" One of my friends said the name sounded like a breakfast cereal to him. "Try new Ravenloft with lots of fiber and 15 vitamins and minerals!" he would say, and we'd all laugh. But that one friend kept trying to tell us how cool it was. One day I was at the mall and my mother agreed to get me a D&D book of my choice. Unfortunately (or in retrospect, fortunately) the only one they had at the bookstore was the Black Box, so rather than get nothing, I asked for that one.

Read it and got hooked immediately. Haven't looked back since.

[Fido]

I learned about roleplaying with Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.
I started reading stuff about roleplaying on the internet and after a year or so, when I already knew quite a bit about the concept, I bought me the DnD Adventure game. Half a year later, I bought the PHB and got hooked on DnD, dragging all of my friends down with me. (I was the one that started it all. Now they're all hooked )

I started looking for a setting of my own after being a unsatisfied player in some FRCS campaigns and after not deeming myself capable of creating my own setting. So.. I asked around in the gamesshop, and the owner there was a real Ravenloft fanboy, so he got me addicted. I guess that was máybe two years ago, probably less.

I'm 18 now, and I think I was like 15 when I bought the PHB. I immediately started DMing, having no player experience at all. I never stopped doing it, and now I'm the group's regular DM.
Friends of mine also DM stuff, but I don't nearly enjoy it as much. (Could be because they're all FRCS geeks. Pff!)

[Johann Foxgrove]

What are you speaking about? Isn't Ravenloft the Lord of Barovia castle?

[Johann Foxgrove]

OK, now, seriously... First of all, I started playing videogames. I found the D&D game, Tower of Doom, and later, Shadow over Mystara. After highschool, some friends played all of the evening. Later, a friend told me of the rol playing game, and started to play. That was, Mmm, seven years ago. Another gamer friend had the black box, and we were was introduced into the mists. That was just five years ago, and I just have three years as Ravenloft DM. The point is: I started with a videogame. I liked the concept, and later, moved on to the "real" game.