RPGaDay Compilation part 1

I would make this larger, but the next bigger size totally messes with
the sidebar.  Click to embiggen.

In the game blogging world, this is a bit of a thing.  I like the occasional project like this, but I do not think it is worth the trouble of 31 days of blogs. In order to participate, but not drag it out to a daily exercise, I am going to use posts to cover several entries at a time.  I am already a few days behind, so I guess I should get started!

1) First RPG Played.

I know how excited I was to see this on my birthday.  I
suspect my grandmother had a very different reaction.

 August 24, 1980.  Red box Dungeons and Dragons.  Given to me my my mother on my 12th birthday.  "Played" my first game that day.  It was a bit of a disaster, but of the best variety.  The kind where you can tell something amazing is there, you just do not quite understand what is happening at the time.  I have been trying to wrangle that amazing thing for 30+ years now.

2) First RPG Game Mastered.
I opened the box, drew my first dungeon on the blank map in the book and ran my first game the same afternoon.  My first two players were my seven year old sister and my seventy year old very Baptist grandmother.  They rolled up first level characters and ran into the THREE Medusas I had populated the first room with.  It went about as well as that sounds.

3) First RPG Purchased.
The basic set was good for several months.  At Christmas time, my aunt got me a second copy of the basic set for Christmas which I promptly took and exchanged for an Expert Set.  I was only dimly aware that there was such a thing as Advanced Dungeons and Dragons for a LONG time.  When a guy at my middle school showed up one day with a copy of the Player's Manual, I knew I had to get one.  When he offered to sell me his (well actually his brother's which might be why he was so willing to sell it) for $10,  I jumped at the chance.  That sucker retailed for $15.  In early 1980s money!

4) Most Recent RPG Purchase
I bought a couple of .pdf name generators on DrivethruRPG last week. Those do not really represent much about anything in my current hobby life other than the readily accessible way that online purchases can separate me from my money.  So rather devoting any time to thinking about them, let us look at my last physical purchase.  I just got a copy of Pirates of the Spanish Main RPG through an eBay auction last week.  This is fortuitous because my newly reconstituted mid week game group is going to be starting a Pirate game after Gen Con.  Spanish Main uses the Savage Worlds rules, a favorite of mine.  Our game will be real world bases, though, so we will have to strip out all the references to ghost ships etc.  What remains looks like a good foundation for what I hope to run.