It was1984. We were in eighth grade. Most of my friends and I had turned fourteen, a couple were still thirteen. We were all geeks. You know, brains that didn't look like the 'good looking' kids. I had plenty of dorky friends, but not all of them played D&D. My closest friends all did.
There were five of us. Sometimes Brad made six, but he didn't always play with us much at that time. He used to, but now he had chores and things to do with his family a lot. So usually it was Dan, Steve, Mark, Paul, and me on weekends, playing D&D from Friday night to Sunday night. We'd take breaks for Saturday Night Live and Doctor Who and a few other programs, and for food or sleep.
Paul's house was the usual place we played all weekend. He had a big basement with a room that had some furniture and things that made it a nice place to play. His older brother had fixed that basement room up like that, but he'd gone to college a couple years before, and hardly ever came home anymore. Even when he did, he was barely at the house, and he didn't care that we had took over his old party room. So now it was Paul's, and the only partying it saw was weekend D&D parties. Paul's folks were really lenient. He was never in trouble at school or anything, got great grades, and did chores, so they weren't helicopter parents or anything. They left us alone all weekend, except to make sure we ate something.
One of us would sleep in the old recliner, two of us on the big old couch, and one of us would go sleep on the floor in Paul's room with him. Some blankets on his bedroom floor was way better than the basement floor. We rotated places so that it was fair. We also rotated who was the dungeon master. Steve was the best one by far.
Man, we'd play all day and all night all weekend long. It was great!
That weekend, Dan had stuff to do with his family, so he wasn't going to be able to play. We had begged Brad to play, so we would have four adventurers. He liked to play, it was just that his parents were stricter than most of ours. So we thought. He said he had to do chores and things with his family quite often, and only played with us that weekend after we begged him.
It was a lot of fun, as usual. Steve was DM, which meant it was a very tricky and challenging and rewarding campaign. Tons of fun.
We'd played all Friday night, of course, and had a really good time. But we were getting punch-drunk and silly, and so tired, so we called a break when we found a place to secure our party for a rest period, did all the things you do for a rest period, and put the game on hold.
We sat around, talking about the game, like you do, until we began to pass out.
It was my turn to sleep on the couch, which was almost as good as the recliner. Steve, as the DM, got the recliner. Paul went up to his room with Mark. They were sort of best buds, so usually Mark went up to Paul's room with him.
I still don't know to this day whether Paul and Mark were getting up to stuff in his room. Looking back at how often Mark talked us into sleeping on the couch, or trading his turn on the recliner, so he could sleep in Paul's room with him, I really do think they were up to stuff.
