It all started back in the mid 70’s for me. I read the Hobbit, then the Lord of the Rings books. I had heard about D&D somewhere along the line, then I found the D&D Basic set the Blue Box Holmes edition at a local pharmacy shop. It was like $10 or $12 at the time, so I bought it. I got it home and opened the box to find a bag of strange new multi-colored dice, a thin rulebook, and the adventure module “In Search of the Unknown.
It didn’t seem like there was much in the box at the time, but the dice were so cool almost magical to me. I did not know there were such things beyond a standard six sided dice. (I can only imagine how different my experience would have been if I got one of the later versions with the cardboard chits, instead of actual dice.) This wasn’t some kids game this was like a real adult game to me. Reading through the rulebook, the equipment list was the next thing to jump out at me, a ten foot pole? Iron spikes? 50 foot rope? My imagination went crazy thinking of all the things I could do with those while exploring a dungeon. Then all the cool weapons and armor listed, I was hooked.
I thought I knew the rules well enough to run my first game, I talked my dad and my brother into playing our very first game. (my Dad had read the Lord of the Rings the same time I did, so he was interested in trying this too, bless his heart). I just used the sample dungeon in the rulebook, and that game was an absolute, complete disaster. I had no clue what I was doing, I could see the boredom on both my Dad and my brother’s faces. So we quit that game.
I wasn’t giving up though, I re-read the rules and the sample of actual game play and something clicked enough to help me figure it out. (We didn’t have the internet yet, so I was on my own). The next game was with my brother and my little brother we played the sample dungeon again, and though it was a bit of a slog, we grasped the core ideas and it was really a great time. We kept playing all the way through high school, got the AD&D books as soon as they came out and just bolted on whatever rules we liked. We were lucky to live in a college town, the campus bookstore had a pretty good selection of D&D books, dice, I even bought my first few blisters of metal miniatures there.
All that said, I don’t know how it would have went if I did not get the boxed set with real dice. They were actually poor dice, the corners got beat up over time pretty bad, but they were my favorite set. Years later I managed to find a mint set of them on Ebay still in the plastic bag for like $30 at the time, before D&D turned into a cool thing. But I can’t really use them as they would get ruined too. I recently found Threshold Dice Works. This is a one man operation, he manufactures dice sets as a side gig. He produces Holmes Retro Sets, BECMI Retro sets, plus modern sets, chonks, etc. Here is his webstore. His dice are very well made, I got two sets of the Holmes retro dice, they even come with a pink d20 which is nice. He restocks his store as quick as he can, and announces when restocks will be available so you need to pay attention to get sets you want before they sell out.
The sets aren’t exactly cheap, a Holmes Retro Set is $50 and the BECMI Retro sets are $40. But at least I can actually use these in a game. The Holmes d20’s are numbered just like the originals, 0-9 twice, so I will have to paint 0-9 on each dice in a different color to make it work as a d20, or just roll the pink d20 as 10’s odd number add ten to the white d20 roll or some such thing. Like I said before, these are the original dice that sucked me into D&D, and now I have two replica sets that I can actually use in games. (Disclaimer: I have not been paid or received any free dice from Threshold Dice Works, I just wanted to let people know about the great dice sets this guy makes.)
Stonewerks 
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