For the first half of middle school the only recreational reading material I enjoyed was comic books. I couldn’t be bothered with my reading assignments or the books on the summer reading lists but, boy oh boy, did I tear through every manual, guide, handbook and module that Dungeons & Dragons published.

For a couple of magical years it seemed like all the world was rolling twenty-sided dice and playing D&D. We’d play before school, during our lunch break, after school and on weekend sleepovers. Although I was obsessed with memorizing the information listed on the stats, charts and tables, it was the imaginative element of the game that I enjoyed most. Consequently, I often played the role of dungeon master.

In 1982, false controversy began to grow around the game when a college student went missing who happened to be a D&D gamer. This incident was sensationalized in the film Mazes & Monsters (starring a young Tom Hanks). By 1983 my friends had moved onto other pastimes (i.e., chasing girls). I shelved my copy of D&D for the time being but its lasting effect on me was profound.

I craved stories that reminded me of D&D. I read books like The Lord of the Rings, Conan the Barbarian and classical myths. I watched movies of the era as well, such as Legend, Ladyhawke and The Neverending Story. A whole genre—a whole fantasy world—had been revealed to me, thanks to Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s creation, and I would never be the same.