Another Shot to the Head

[thebitterguy]

Occasionally, I want to have a copy of Unearthed Arcana. The original one, the first ed AD&D book.

No. That isn’t right.

I don’t want a copy. I want to be reading a copy.

I want to be standing in Leisure World in the Cataraqui Mall, a long dead store in a long dead chain (in a mall that needs way more parking) that sold a staggering variety of hobby products for a staggering variety of hobbies.

Leisure World took its mandate seriously. If you wanted knitting supplies, you could get them. Model kits? Yep. Next to the paint. Trains? Aisle three. Today it would probably be filled with scrapbooking supplies and quilting materials, although they probably carried those somewhere in the shop. I know that they were around long enough for me to get an Antiquities booster from them, but they fade from memory after that.

What I was concerned about, of course, were the RPG books. I got a decent amount of my older stuff from their shops. I’d get Top Secret SI books from them on occasion; I bought my copy of FREElancers from their Belleville branch once after I got my braces tightened. My orthodontist was Dr. Solomon, who received every year a Hanukah card from my dad. I believe he got the same one every year, since dad had a box of them in his office, but who really would notice?

I also shopped for a lot of Marvel Superheroes books from them, before I learned about Champions. I to this day think that Nightmares of Futures Past would be a kickass campaign.

But what I want is to be 16 again, standing in Leisure World, flipping through it and seeing the Cavalier and Barbarian and Thief Acrobat for the first time. I want to see all the gadgets. I really want to see the polearm chapter. I want to look at the Weapon Specialization rules again.

It's not that good a book, really. But occasionally I miss the time I saw it, and the person I was then.

Comments

[tenzil.livejournal.com]

Nightmares of Futures Past was a kick-ass campaign. I ran it all summer, right after my freshman year of college.

[thebitterguy]

Cool. Did you go all the way to the end?

[tenzil.livejournal.com]

We played through all four modules plus tons and tons of spontaneous other stuff. It was great, huge fun, one of the most memorable campaigns I ever ran.