In case you didn’t know, the venerable-yet-shows-no-sign-of-slowing-down RPG Dungeons & Dragons turned 40 over the weekend. No, I wasn’t in line to grab it when it first came out. Although I was, in fact, alive.
I did, however, start to play the game at a very young age, right before the first set of “Advanced” D&D books arrived. The game was great fun and allowed my friends and I to have lots of adventures. Sure, we didn’t have any “Next-Gen” graphics or “Force Feedback” controllers, but that was okay. Those things hadn’t even been invented yet and we wouldn’t have needed them even if they had been around.
What we did have (in addition to pen, paper and some cool rulebooks) was one of the most important things a kid (or anyone, really) can have: Imagination. With imagination you can see, do and experience amazing things.
Without imagination we wouldn’t have all of the things we take for granted: cars, planes, iPhones, the computer I’m writing this post on right now or D&D. Imagination is the key.
For me, and a lot of people I grew up with, D&D was one of the hands turning that key. That and a bag of many-sided dice.
Happy 40th D&D. Thanks for all the adventures.