This is a milestone month for me. We are expecting our third child to come any day now and I turn 40 this Saturday. I started gaming with the Moldvay Basic Set of Dungeons & Dragons, making this my 30th year of gaming as well!

Given the fact that I need to lighten my load a bit, and the fact that yesterday was April Fool’s Day, I thought I’d celebrate my Neo-Grognardness with a nostalgic look back at my 80s gaming era.

So without further ado, you know you were an 80s Gamer if…

– you played AD&D. D&D was for amateurs.

– regardless of system, you still call published adventures “modules.”

– you have fond memories of frying monsters with those cool laser weapons from the Barrier Peaks.

– you introduced the metric system to your fantasy world just to make coin conversions easier.

– the mention of FASERIP makes you smile.

– you had arguments over what stats you and your buddies should have before giving yourselves superpowers.

– you screamed at the television that “Acrobat” was not a proper AD&D class.

– at least one of your favorite PCs is written on loose leaf.

– one of your PCs died during character creation.

– you hate Tom Hanks.

– your group once wiped out an entire pantheon of gods just for the bragging rights and the treasure.

– you know the difference between a hireling and a henchman.

– you judge the quality of a post-apocalyptic RPG on how well it can emulate Thundarr the Barbarian.

– you own a d30 and still don’t know what to do with it.

– you wonder why all the new Middle-Earth stuff ignores the Court of Ardor.

– at least one of your PCs carried a three-bladed sword.

– you remember exactly where you were the first time you laid eyes upon Shadowrun.

– at least one of your PCs met a hilarious end due to an Arms Law/Claw Law critical hit.

– you were ticked off that someone tried to pass off a giant shuriken as a glaive (but you still made up stats for it).

– you bemoan all of the options the latest iterations of D&D offer for PCs and fondly remember when all you needed to make an AD&D character was four hardbacks, six or seven issues of Dragon Magazine, one issue of White Dwarf, a couple of rules nicked from D&D, and several house rules.

– you thought the cartoon was stupid and couldn’t wait for someone to make a serious D&D movie, which you now regret.

Thanks for reading! I hope you got a chuckle out of these and I promise to write a meatier article next time!