Or how it all started for grubnards....
Recently I was moving some boxes around in my basement and as I was going through them I found some old books and games that I still have in my possession from 30 some odd years ago. Like many of you out there, my lifestyle of gaming goes way back to my early teenage years. I was born in 1970 and growing up in the mid to late 70's really didn't have much to offer us kids, in terms of gaming, other than established board games like Monopoly, Stratego, Battleship, and of course Hungry Hungry Hippos. In my pre-teens and early teens I was captivated by anything Sci-fi or Fantasy. My favorite books at the time was the Lord of the Rings, Conan the Barbarian, the Dune series, and of course Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Alien/Aliens rebooted the whole science fiction genre for a new generation. We used to visit a local book store in a nearby town that carried a huge selection of books, art supplies and gaming material. The book store was in a college town and that was probably the only reason they carried anything to do with gaming. Whenever I would visit the store I would spend some time looking over the novels but I always seemed to find my way wandering over to the gaming section and looking at all of the cool looking RPG game boxes, book covers, and miniatures.