I was one of the original Dungeons & Dragons players (in fact I seem to recall one of the very *first* D&D games actually took place in our own "Rumpus Room" back in the early 70's) My older brothers were into wargaming with miniatures in a game called "Chainmail" and sometimes he would let me join in as he also had to "babysit" yours truly! :)  I was very young at that time (about nine or ten I think- maybe a bit older) but DO remember Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and a quiet guy by the name of Don Kaye (who later passed away my brother told me) who sometimes came around.  A bit more trivia for ya - the very very FIRST Hobbit in D&D was named "Toby" and (he would later be called a 'halfling' due to a copyright conflict between TSR and Tolkien Enterprises) and a 'thief' of course as character classes now go I think. I saw his old yellowed graph paper character sheet relatively recently and will have it scanned and uploaded if/when I find it and if anyone is interested.

I just remembered this.   My brother told me that the reason D&D can no longer use the word "Hobbit" is because they attempted to sue a company called "Chaosium" for using stuff from their Monster Manual and games et al and somehow "Tolkien Enterprises" got involved and said NO ONE can use that name or something like that.

Sorry for any incongruities as this is from vague memory...


  Consequently I guess I have always been and always will be mostly a "role player" type player but am pretty diverse otherwise.