I started playing tabletop roleplaying games (TRPGs) in 1981, when my family gave me the newly revised Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (also known as the Moldvay edition, after that version’s editor). I was surprised by the gift – I’d asked for the older (and simpler) Dungeon! board game, but my family didn’t know the difference.

Regardless, D&D impressed me, and my middle-school friends. We played as often as we could – which wasn’t nearly as often as we’d have liked – and persuaded our families to buy us more D&D material, as well as other TRPGs. Since we didn’t have the opportunity to game together regularly, our years of play experience consisted primarily of single sessions, often using published adventures. No campaigns for us; no long-term attachment to gradually developed characters. We approached the games as tactical puzzles first, and genre emulation second.

I suffered some frustrations. Many rule…