For some unknown reason, I woke up this morning thinking about the crowning glory of my preteen D&D playing: a three level, every-square-on-four-sheets-of-graph-paper-filled monster of a dungeon (with a mountaintop for out-of-doors encounters thrown in to boot). Dungeon ecology didn't matter; unicorns and dragons lived within yards of each other. Heck, basic principles of physics (such as the amount of wall necessary to prevent catastrophic cave ins) didn't matter. There were several hundred encounters, a totally implausible shop in the middle of the whole thing. Totally over the top.

My players made it to the second encounter, which was a kobold ambush using a darkness spell and a defended ledge. No one was killed, but they expended so many resources that they decided to leave. We never got around to going back, and, soon after, I moved into more "continuous story line" style play, so the massive dungeon went the way of Puff the Magic Dragon. It may still be in the bottom of some drawer in my parents' house, for all that I know.

I imagine that many of you have similar experiences. So what totally silly D&D things did you do before you became all grown up and sophisticated?

The guys I gamed with back when I first started gaming - it was 1979, we were 13 - made up a campaign world that consisted of enough pages of graph paper to literally cover the floor of one of their garages.

Quote from: willpaxSo what totally silly D&D things did you do before you became all grown up and sophisticated?

I bought the Spelljammer boxed set...  and thought it was really cool.

 :imsorry:

:duh:

When I was 12 I bought the Deities and Demigods froms the Sear catalogue.  When it came in we made up characters and fought all of the gods.:heh:

I plead the fifth...

more seriously, I was 15, and playing AD&D 1st ed, and gave all my PCs a place in the campaign I was co DM of... not a particularly lowly one... and I made op other members of their family, some of them humongously powerful and depraved (like most several of my human and half ork characters were the kids of of a lvl 22 priest of the death god with a demonic streak in his blood, and his wife, a Melnibonéan Assassin 12, priestess of Arioch 16, wizard 21 ...

the worst is that now that I'm thinking about creating a new campaign, I'm also thinking of updating everybody to 3rd ed standards (which will be funny with the psionic ones... I once calculated that, to use the Psi HB to give my lvl12 wizard the same power he had, I'd have to tack 18 levels of psion on him) and use them as NPCs.

Ran a campaign where the climax was decided ahead of time to be a all out
blood bath amongst the characters.  So everyone spent the entire campaign hoarding power for use against the others in the final duel.  Several almost TPK's as no one wanted to show there true strength or use up anything they might want for the final battle.  Blood bath ended in bad feelings of course.

Numbered all the empty rooms in Undermountain and designed content for them.

Fought the Dieties from Dieties and Demigods with great success.

Ran characters in campaigns while I was the DM.

Played a character in 2nd Edition campaign that was secretly about 8 levels higher than everyone elses.  Had the DM's blessing, but it still ruined things.

Played in games where the Storyteller couldn't run a combat

Played in games where the storyteller tried to date several of the players

We used to "Run through the Monster Manual" with our super high-level 1e characters.

Start at the first monster on the first page and fight it.  Then move on to the next monster alphabetically, and so on.  No potions or scrolls or other consumables, but you can recover your HP and spells after finishing a letter.

We never made it to the end of "D".

Quote from: AkuninWe used to "Run through the Monster Manual" with our super high-level 1e characters.

Start at the first monster on the first page and fight it.  Then move on to the next monster alphabetically, and so on.  No potions or scrolls or other consumables, but you can recover your HP and spells after finishing a letter.

We never made it to the end of "D".

Had a problem with the back to back to back dragon fights did you?

My first DM  (I was 13 it was 1980) didn't allow us to name our characters, he thought such flights of imagination were silly. I found another group within a couple of months, and jumped ship. My old DM was really pissed when I told him the reason I switched was because I was tired of being "the dwarf thief".

Quote from: Xavier LangHad a problem with the back to back to back dragon fights did you?

Don't forget the demons and devils.


I remember one guy suicided his character because he put on a girdle of gender change and couldn't take the idea of playing a girl (we were 13).  I tried to explain that his stats were identical but he didn't care.

We often did modules rather than full campaigns.  Someone would buy an adventure, and would run through it whoever wanted to go, grabbing whichever characters we had that were the right level.  Due to scheduling, we often ran with a DM and 3 players with 2 characters each.  

A DM would often run multiple groups or someone would play through it and then borrow it to run others.  The weird thing is that, due to characters going through at different times, on later adventures, it was common for a group to have multiple copies of unique supercool items.

Quote from: NicephorusI remember one guy suicided his character because he put on a girdle of gender change and couldn't take the idea of playing a girl (we were 13).  I tried to explain that his stats were identical but he didn't care.

.

Hah! I did the same thing at 20, and truthfully it would still ruin the game for me. I've played a female character or two over the years; it holds no intrest for me- but then again neither does playing a non-human, for the most part. Guess it comes down to how much escape one wants in their escapism.

So, did anyone get past "D" in the "run through the Monster Manual" adventure? I know I didn't.

Got out of control with a Deck of Many Things and reshaped several campaigns.  Also tended to have our older characters become gods, so the newer clerics could worship them.

Quote from: CyclotronI bought the Spelljammer boxed set...  and thought it was really cool.

 :imsorry:

:duh:

Silence. Spelljammer is *STILL* really cool.

Quote from: ThjalfiSilence. Spelljammer is *STILL* really cool.

Yeah, I remember the time we were playing Giths and replayed "Mutiny on the Bounty" against our illithid captain

Plus our warhammer 40 000 fan friends told me it's really cool to replay their space battles in 100% fantasy style.