The Strangest Game

I was about seven when I crept down the stairs that morning, tiptoeing across the living room and pausing before the doorway to the dining room. The voices of my two older brothers and their friends drew me like the smell of fresh baked cookies. I wanted to join them, but I was much younger than they and if I revealed my presence I'd surely be ordered away. They were clearly having fun, older kid fun, and I wanted to be an older kid too.

But what were they doing?

From the context of the conversation I could glean that they were playing a game. Monopoly? Pay Day? Sorry? When I felt that my approach hadn't been detected, I leaned my head to peer around the door frame, and with one eye I spied the boys seated around the dining room table. And they were playing a game. But there was no game board. Instead, in front of each boy sat sheets of paper, the oddest dice I'd ever seen and a large stack of hardcover books.

Teenage boys who complained about homework playing a game that required stacks of books.

And thus my fascination with Gary Gygax's most famous co-creation began.