I first discovered D&D through the computer game Baldur’s Gate. I found the game at a store for $15, and I had heard of it, but all I knew of it was that the titular location was the name of a chapter in an RA Salvatore book (blech... 11-year-old me had horrible taste in literature). It was only after buying the game and reading the instruction manual that I understood that the thing connecting the books I’d been reading and the game was D&D.

The reason I’d purchased Baldur’s Gate was because the box had promised you could make your own character—choose to be a fighter or a mage, good or evil, all sorts of things. The idea that there was a fantasy game with even more freedom to “roleplay” your character was too much—I got some friends into Baldur’s Gate, and once they were hooked on the idea, we bought the books. 3rd Edition was brand new, so we got that and spent the next three years playing constantly.

Then in high school all my friends got into Exalted and no one wanted to play D&D anymore. That was the Dark Age for me.