The Campaigns of Yore.

When we started playing D&D way back in 79, I remember the weekends we spent. We would gather around a kitchen table as Eddie White ran his brother and I in a dungeon. I played Zimbad, its amazing I still remember my first characters name, He was a Half Elf Fighter/Magic User. The dungeon was our game, it was a huge affair, oddly all its room’s conformed with the squares of the graph paper it was written on. We would push hard into the maze of rooms and corridors, occasionally we would reach a area that wasn’t designed yet and run into a wall of gray fog until it was designed ( then the fog would lift).
I remember these games being immensely fun, lasting for hours. Before hand we would travel up to the Arco station and buy Soda and chips to last us through our adventures. I remember having so much equipment that my inventory sheets far surpassed that of the vital Character data, Folding boots, Ladders, Countless feet of rope, for some reason we could carry it all.
As time went on, say the Mid 80’s, It was all about the published modules, I was at this time playing with a larger and different group of friends. We would descend into the wood paneled basement and utilize the train table as our gaming area. I seem to remember these games taking up entire weekends. These games were epic, we got to the point where we were maintaining Holds and had armies of hirelings.
A Game store opened in our area, The Days Of Knights and I began to play at there, That’s where we learned more about role-playing and less about gathering the most gold and items. It was there, in a room we jokingly referred to as a “ smelly, Fly Infested, Sauna” that we would play campaigns that would last years.
Ahh when I think of those grand Campaigns, what fun we had.