In response to a post on GeekDad, I posted the following reflection:

D&D changed my life, too, though it has had a more profound effect on me as an adult and father.

When I was a kid, I had the basic set, then the expert set, then the AD&D books. The fact that I had no one to play with didn’t keep me from spending lots of time making dungeons and characters.

I finally got to play D&D with some friends in college. We had great fun for a few weeks, and then we stopped.

Life happened; jobs, marriage, a child. Every couple of years — during a cleaning spree, usually — I would find some of my old books and leaf through them. Then back into the box of other child treasures they would go.

About three years ago, I saw the 3.5 basic set in Barnes & Noble and brought it home to my then eight-year-old. I ran a session for him and my good-sport wife, and he was hooked. That same evening, he decided to run a session for us, which he managed pretty well.

Since then, he’s committed most of the Players Handbook and DM’s Guide to memory, and we’ve played together in several different groups and in one-on-one games. I even ran a campaign for kids at the local library.

Now my son is eleven, and when he first read the 4th Edition announcement, he was upset. “Oh no! I bet they’ll get rid of the grapple rules. I love the grapple rules!”

I have also joined several adult gaming groups over the past couple years, and made a bunch of new friends. My wife is still a great sport, since discussion of D&D topics happens daily. And though she’s not a RPG fan, she loves card and board games.
Here’s to Dungeons & Dragons!

I’m still kind of in awe of how much D&D has meant to me and to us. I should also thank my parents, who got me that purple box set way back when.