World of Dungeons

Or My First RPG! 

My copy of Dungeon World arrived on the mail today.

Which reminds me of...

World of Dungeons, my introduction to Role Playing Games

I still remember the first time I played World of Dungeons. It was my introduction to gaming. My friend’s belligerent cousin was my first Game Master.
Back in the day, before my friends and I got into gaming (that’s before we were introduced to World of Dungeons), we used to throw 24 hour long LAN Parties. For whatever reason, my friend’s 30 yr old cousin happen to have been present during one of them. It was our first year of college so we had all the time in the world; I have to idea why he was there. He spend most of the party drinking Medalla and making fun of us for playing computer games. The insults grew more and more frequent as the day went on. At some point someone asked what was it that he used to do for fun back in his back in the day.
I used to play World of Dungeons he said.
We didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. He finished his beer in one gulp and went to his car. He came back a couple of minutes later with a crummy looking pamphlet with the words World of Dungeons displayed on top next to a decades old cheese stain. He tried to explain that World of Dungeons was like board game without the board. We didn’t understand. He ran our very first RPG session to explain the concept.
I don’t remember much of that first game. I think I played a human fighter called Yton. (Who has had many incarnations across many multiverses, just like Moorcock's Eternal Champion.) I also have vague recollections of naked scimitar wielding witches wearing masks made out of goat heads and zombies. All in all it was a shitty session. We declined his offer to run more games for us. A couple of weeks later my buddy bought a copy of Rifts and we’ve been playing RPGs ever since. And, to quote Tom O'Bedlam from the Invisibles, "What a long strange dream it's been."