Origins is a series of posts in which I reflect upon my earliest gaming memories as well as the events that shaped my tastes and understanding of games. The rest of the series can be found here.

My first proper encounter with RPGs came a number of years later. I became friends with a kid from another class who happened to live around the corner from me. This kid had the same computer as I did and also swapped games, but his real love was art and French comics. Before we became friends, this kid had been chummy with another kid in my class who played AD&D with his older brother. Like all gamers at the time, this second kid was a natural missionary and he had spent some time trying to lure my friend into a game only for their friendship to collapse before the point of fruition. At the time, I remember not thinking all that much of the second kid but I was impressed by some of the artwork my friend had created based upon the game books that the second kid had shown him. One day, I found myself sat on a coach next to the second kid and I asked him about the game books. There then followed quite a lengthy discussion in which I would ask ‘…And can you do X in this game of yours?’ The answer was always yes.

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