Welcome, Rune!!

Hector.

Thanks guys.  I wish it was the ONLY stuff I had collected.  There's also the musclecar books and magazines, model cars, comic books, videogame and pinball stuff, etc.  I really need to become a minimalist.  At least that's what my girlfriend says.

EDIT: I was looking thru the "library"section and found reference to the "AD&D Coloring Album", an oversized coloring book with some very nicely done illustrations; but there were no pictures/photos posted.  This is one of the D&D items from way back when that I have tucked away somewhere, would anyone like to see photos of it if I can find it?  Or are they already posted somewhere and I just missed 'em?

My name is Alex, I'm 39, and I only just started collecting about two years ago, but my love of D&D goes back to elementary school when I heard a segment on the radio about it's growing popularity and the fear in the religious community about it. We were not religious, so I had no idea what that hubbub was about, and I didn't really care, but I was instantaneously intrigued by just the name. The concept that there was a game out there about dungeons and dragons took my imaginations by surprise, as up until then I had only played games like Sorry, Monopoly, Chess, etc. Shortly thereafter, the AD&D books began to appear at the local Gemco (like a Walmart or Kmart) and I would pour through them while my parents did the grocery shopping. I particularly loved the Monster Manual, and I would spend most of my time trying to decipher what all the abbreviations and stats meant, puzzling about what a saving throw was, and not being able to figure out for the life of me how everything I was reading worked out into a "game" you could play. I saved up for weeks and bought the Monster Manual anyway.

Eventually I figured it out, picked up the Basic and Expert boxed sets, as well as all the AD&D books, a subscription to Dragon, lots of dice, 20 or so of the choose your own adventure D&D books, a few dozen lead figures, and after a few years, sometime in jr high school, even a new group of friends who all played RPG's. We played Palladium, TMNT, GURPS, Cyberpunk, Paranoia, Runequest, Role Master, Tune, Marvel, DC Heroes, White Wolf, and I'm sure others as well as other variations that I can't recall right now. But we always returned to D&D, the foundational RPG for all of us, in some form. If I had the time to run or be part of a campaign with my old friends today, I'd pick D&D, specifically the 1st edition rules covered in those first AD&D books I'm now collecting.

Anyway, so about two years ago I went to a geek themed party that one of my coworkers was throwing. We work in the video game industry, so most of the house was devoted to party games like Rock Band, but he also had several stand up multiplayer arcade games, and a room set aside for anyone who felt like playing some D&D. I honestly had not sat down and looked at a D&D book for probably over two decades (I had lent most of mine to a friend in late high school, who moved away, fell in with a bad crowd, and sold them for drugs) but as I read through the familiar pages that night I remembered how much I loved them, and just how big an impact they had on my life (I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be making video games today if I had not discovered D&D). Right there on the spot accepted the quest to rebuild my original collection, and build it better than before.

So I found this site while on that quest. My goal is to collect all the original D&D and AD&D sets, books and modules that I had, as well as a few that I didn't (but always wanted, or that were the foundations for ones I especially loved, for instance I loved Against the Giants, and I'd like to have the original modules that went into the combine version I had), all in very good or better condition, and with as many as possible in first edition form. I'm not in a hurry, after all it's already been over 20 years since my original collection disappeared, but I am very determined, so I will complete this quest... no matter how much my wife makes fun of me!

Hopefully, I'll get to know some of you along the way

Welcome Alexander!

Say goodbye to the contents of your wallet!

A lot of the old school D&D and RPG designers like Erol Otus, Jeff Dee, Paul/Jennel Jaquays, Dennis Sustare, and Sandy Petersen went on to work in the video game industry.

Mike B.

mbassoc2003 wrote:... your free time, that annual holiday, your meals out, your wife...
Or was that just me?    

Nope, not just you, lol..

Welcome Alexander, hope you can find what you are looking for and enjoy the forums

Aleaxander wrote:Anyway, so about two years ago I went to a geek themed party that one of my coworkers was throwing. We work in the video game industry

What do you do specifically (programmer?)?  Some of the old school luminaries like Paul Jaquays and Dennis Sustare, who started out working in the RPG part of the gaming industry eventually found themselves working in the video game side of things.  And from what I've read most of the people that designed some of the great adventure/early RPG style computer games mention D&D as one of their influences.  Not really a surprise but still interesting IMO.

Curious if you collect video games as well?  I'm one of those sick people with both tabletop and video game collecting diseases.  Mostly older consoles (Atari 2600 through Playstation) but I also spend a bit of time with the GameCube and Wii.  Unfortunately I dont have the money or space to indulge in arcade cabinets.

Anywho...welcome to the forum and enjoy your stay.

By the way, is it Aleaxander because Alexander was already taken or did you use that particular spelling in homage to the Aleax from the Fiend Folio?  Am I the only one that caught the spelling?

ashmire13 wrote:
Never been able to find that, myself...  

Funny. That's what my wife said before she left.  

Thanks for the warm all! My wife and I are actually minimalists, so we just don't collect things. In fact, even though we are avid readers, we've slowly been getting rid of all of our books as we slowly replace them with electronic versions (all the reading we do now is electronic). I still have a few books that I haven't been able to replace (like my Japanese text books), were gifts, or are illustrated and just easier to use in book form (photography books for example), but eventually (probably the next time we move) they will all go away. So first edition D&D books and sets are my only collection.

But yes, it is a slippery slope. I initially thought I would just buy used versions of everything, and not care about quality so much, but I've already replaced some of those versions with better ones (for instance I had a first printing of Deities and Demigods (with the Cthulhu and Melnibonean mythos - awesome!) but when I saw a nicer version from Gary Gygax's collection, I had to have it.

So yes, I have the bug

But it's my only collection, I love it, and I think I've even convinced my wife that with savings returns being so low, and the stock market the way it is, I might as well invest a little this way

In terms of video games, I don't collect them as that would open a pandora's box of clutter that we couldn't handle. If I limit myself to one copy of each D&D first edition item I want, the space my collection fills will be fairly minimal. Good games never stop getting made, so that would mean an almost limitless collection... and in that direction lies madness! I've held the line by only keeping one copy of each of my games, so I suppose technically I have a fairly small collection, but I don't think anyone would fault me for keeping those.

I'm a console video game producer, and have been for roughly 15 years. The games I'm most proud of are Psi-Ops, Stranglehold, TMNT, and the game I'm currently work on, the reboot of Tomb Raider. We have a pretty cool trailer you can google if you're interested.

When I first started in the video game industry, almost everyone had played pen and paper RPG's, but that's not the case anymore. Lots of the young developers have only ever played games on computers, and the stuff I'm collecting is from before their time. There's only a couple people in the office that share any sense of my thrill when I have a new find shipped to work, everyone else just shakes their head that despite my cool and tough exterior, I'm just a big super geek at heart

Welcome DD.Collector!

DD.Collector wrote:I recently started playing 4th edition with several of my old 1st edition friends

Noooooooo!!!!  

DD.Collector wrote:PS-Can someone give me advice on the best way to properly preserve the magazines?  The store recommended acid free plastic or mylar bags, upright in heavy duty white cardboard boxes that are roughly the size of a magazine and about 65 mags deep or so.  Would some type of water tight plastic container be better?

There are several lengthy threads about this topic already which should answer most of these questions/issues.

Module & Magazine Storage Materials

Best Storage Methods