I played an Advanced D&D game for my Commodore 64 back then and ran into a room full of Beholders and had my whole group get destroyed before I could manage to exit.
The D&D name is still out there as the flagship of what’s called the “d20” system, I think it’s Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast that publish it now. Gygax hasn’t been involved with D&D for a long time, since I think the days of the Advanced D&D Second Edition in the ‘80s. In a way, that’s good; the newer gaming systems are much easier to learn and use and much more streamlined. Original D&D and AD&D just kept having stuff grafted on—I think Gygax never met a weird, arcane percentile-dice table that he didn’t want to include in a rulebook somewhere.
Yes, I’m a loser, started playing in 1978 when I was 12. Somewhere buried at home are my original first edition AD&D books from Christmas 1979, as well as a fairly rare first edition first printing “Deities and Demigods” sourcebook that got pulled off the shelves because of copyright infringement against the estate of the guy that wrote the Grey Mouser books.
Between trading card games and online RPGs, dice-and-paper RPGs are pretty much gone. But ah, the geeky memories of all-nighters, me being the DM and running my friends through Hall of the Fire Giant King. Thanks, Gary.
}:-)4
“I played an Advanced D&D game for my Commodore 64 back then and ran into a room full of Beholders and had my whole group get destroyed before I could manage to exit.”
If memory serves the game was “Curse of the Azure Bonds”, the second of the Pool of Radiance series of AD&D “Gold Box” games (the 4 game series consisting of Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades and Pools of Darkness).
Don't you just hate it when that happens?