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PolyCon XXIII Pre-register for PolyCon XXIII for $25: (18 and over only Minors must use minor form) 
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An Example of Peer Pressure at its Worst
by Jefrey Watts Do you remember the first time you played an RPG? I do. It was back in elementary school and I had been invited over to a friends house to play something called D&D. Little did I know what would happen to me or how that day would change my life. Had I known that over a dozen years later I would be called a gamer and would be the president of an organization that ran a yearly gaming convention, I would have run screaming from the idea. But I didn't, and here I am. I only played once, but I distinctly remember the experience. There was a neat little board with grooves in it that the GM placed pieces of wood in to make the walls of a dungeon we were in. There were little miniatures that we moved around, and for the first time in my life, I saw dice with more (and less) than 6 sides. I ran from the first fight we had. When the GM showed me part of the dungeon that only my character saw, I saw the other players turn away from the board and thought I was supposed to do the same. And THAC0? What the heck was that? The group I was with never met again for some reason, although I heard by rumor they continued playing without me (no surprise). But that one experience changed me. The next few years I was designing my own games. They consisted of nothing more than a grid map with some rooms drawn on them, some random monsters and potions, and a few keys scattered about. I proudly called my game 'Monsters, Keys, and Potions' and got one friend to play. It consisted of little more than my friend saying 'north' or some other direction, I checking my map and telling him what was in that square, and then repeating the process. I think I actually made 7 maps, each with a piece of colored paper as a cover proudly displaying the name of the game, my name in big bold letters, and which number map this was. I'm sure in my room somewhere back home I have at least one map remaining. I still create games in my spare time, but I like to think I've gotten a little better than my 'Monsters, Keys, and Potions' days. Now I'm working on a game set on a Merry-Go-Round which will hopefully be ready for playtesting at PolyCon as well as RoboRally: Malfunction, a game which takes WotC's robot destruction game and adds wild malfunctions which changes what certain things do. Sometimes I think back on that first day I ever laid my hands on a d20. Brings back... interesting memories. If only I had known...
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