As a kid and teenager in the 80’s and 90’s, my brother and friends used to play dungeons and dragons (Mostly adnd 2e, and my forever dm brothers homebrew rules). I got back into it again as an adult a good 35 years later, and everything sure has changed.

I originally got introduced to this kind of world when my cousin got Heroes Quest for Christmas. I remember how we would huddle around that board all that Christmas day. It kind of evolved into D&D rules, good old attributes Roll Style, 3d6 for each stat, no rerolls, and you’d better play what you get. We had this one friend who would always roll his character at home, and for some odd reason his main stat and constitution would always be 18.

I remember when I got my hands on the monstrous manual. Reading the pages, glossing over the pictures, it was magical. I used to walk to school imagining scenarios with lawful good silver dragons, and whatever campaign setting my brother had cooked up. He’d make up stories walking to school during the freezing cold winter, how the glimmers on the ice pavement were actually armies of hobgoblins, and being the naive kids we were the best wizard of the party was named Merlin and the thief was called Bilbo. This was a time before the internet, before mass media, we had three channels on our TV and to us it was pretty much all we knew.

It was impossible to talk to others about this world. We’d play through the evenings exactly like the kids in Stranger Things, huddled over a table in the basement, in an autocamper at night, sometimes only in candlelight because we didn’t want our parents to know how long we were up for. We’d draw our own maps, repurpose painted Warhammer figurines, and our campaign setting built its own lore and cast of characters through the years. Occasionally normal people would come in, ask “Who’s winning?”, to the point that it became an in-joke to us explaining how it was not a game you could win.

Like most others around the table I was an awkward kid. I couldn’t relate to the kids at school, I was bullied because I was a nerd, so I sure as hell couldn’t talk to anyone about it. It felt like we were actually the only people in the world who had this interest. I think this is one of the defining differences between DND now, and back in the day. You truly felt like you were completely alone, that no one knew about it, and no one really understood. 5 years ago I got an autism diagnosis, I’ve been able to mask my autism really well. I think DND taught me that. The ability to roleplay, have a sandbox for different ways of expressing myself, having a friend group where obsessing over arcane rules and trying out different personalities for fun was encouraged and loved.

Today I’ve become a part of a DND group in my city. It’s fittingly still in a basement. The people are largely the same, tolerant, welcoming, nerdy, and passionate. But the younger ones don’t really hide it like we used to. The fact that I can go online, and find millions of posts and videos is still a bit surreal. The rules have changed, there are more classes, more settings, but the people are by and large the same. Same wonderful oddballs I used to roll dice with in the basement, as I listened to the DM’s descriptions while fiddling with the wax in our burning candles. It feels like coming home.