We are fastly approaching the mid point of this thing. The time is flying by. I think this years focus definitely so far seems so much more personal. I must catch up on some of the other content creators and see what they are doing.
Let’s see what todays soul searching question is.
“Why did you start RPGing?”
I think it’s been established my teenage years were the 80’s and the UK home computer boom. Living in a fenland market town.
Over in the states they had the whole satanic panic stuff going on. Which never really was a thing over here. So we weren’t really aware of it.
What I was aware of was the “moral majority” in the US and their campaign against heavy metal. After all I was into KISS and other metal groups, reading the then monthly Kerrang! and driving my parents and neighbours crazy with loud rock. So this sort of thing got reported in Kerrang!
In the UK we didn’t escape the moral crusade of others. Here we had Mary Whitehouse and her campaign to censor tv and video. We had the whole video nasty thing. Plus a wanna be Mary Whitehouse called Victoria Gillick who was trying to impose her catholic beliefs on the country and control girls bodies. Fun fact about Victoria Gillick she lives in Wisbech. So we often saw her round town. I went to college with one of her daughters. Plus a few years ago her husband was a UKIP town councillor.
The nearest I got to hearing about the religious fundamentalist campaign against D&D was seeing the Tom Hanks movie Monsters and Mazes (rented and watched on video).
There is a certain picture being painted over these types of posts. I certainly think comparisons could be made between Wisbech and say a mid west American town. It was (and still is) Hicksville.
It certainly feels looking back that it was in its own little bubble. Although it still has the whole “are you local?” thing going on.
I’ve already said previously the home computer boom expanded my world.
Despite owning a copy of the Basic D&D Starter set. I hadn’t actually played it. None of my friends were interested.
I think I could be best described at the time as D&D or RPG curious!
Playing an RPG seemed the natural progression from adventure and RPGs on the home computer.
They were something I wanted to try. I thought I would enjoy them. Although to be truthful, I wasn’t entirely sure what they were, and how you played them.
I think I’d owned the Starter set for a couple of years before going off to Brighton Polytechnic.
I joined the role playing society at Brighton Poly so I could try an RPG for the reasons mentioned above.
Maybe in a future post we will get to explore the Brighton years in more depth. Until then catch you in the next post!