Orthodox D&D - a curious find
Recently, I went to visit a new acquaintance. We had met through mutual friends and got along immediately because of our shared interest in German Idealism. During dinner at my friend's place (his partner is an excellent cook!) I casually mentioned that I spend a lot of time playing RPGs.
I couldn't have anticipated his reaction. My friend jumped out of his seat and yelled, “You have to talk with Heinrich! He adores Dungeons & Dragons, and he has been playing it for a long time!” My friend dragged me in front of his downstairs neighbor's door and started knocking.
I didn't think much of it at the time, but I did feel bad when Heinrich opened, and I saw that my friend's neighbor was an 80-year-old man. Heinrich just smiled at us and invited us in. He told me that he lived in Wisconsin during the 1970s and 80s. This was where he first encountered the game Dungeons & Dragons. He even met Gary Gygax once, but they didn't get along for reasons Heinrich did not want to elaborate. Anyway, it was late already, and I didn't want to keep him from sleeping, and my friend's partner was waiting upstairs, so we chatted a bit about how fun D&D was. Before he let us leave, Heinrich did insist on showing me his most prized possession.
Heinrich pulled out a white box from his shelf. It contained the original three little brown booklets, probably printed sometime after 1976. Heinrich wasn't too sure either, and it was late. I didn't want to be annoying and didn't ask to take any pictures. There was, however, a folded piece of paper in the box that even Heinrich was surprised about. It looked like the first page of a manifesto written on a typewriter. Heinrich said he didn't remember where it was from. In his thick Swabian dialect, he asked me if I wanted to have it. I was flustered and didn't know what to say, so I accepted. We did discuss meeting again and perhaps even playing a game together.
Then we left and went back to our dinner. The lasagna had gone cold, and there was some tension between my friend and his partner. I was still a bit bewildered by my encounter with Heinrich.
I still plan to get in touch with Heinrich and maybe visit him to talk more about playing D&D in the early days. Unfortunately, my friend and I got into a very ugly fight two days later. For the foreseeable future, I won't return to his house. My friend never did give me Heinrich's phone number.
The piece of paper I had received from Heinrich still sits on my desk. It's a curious thing.
Here is a scan:
