I started playing Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) almost immediately upon arrival joining my local Boy Scout troop. As I rolled for character abilities, some of us ended up fighters, and others became oddly useful clerics. As I made my inventive “Urza” character, one entire section was skipped: age.

As the ensuring years passed, I thought very little of how age would impact roleplaying. Playing the game changes little; you basically just hack, slash, and visit bars. Things that do change in the player is how to alter playing as the character ages, often lowering strength for gained wisdom, and playing as a twenty-, thirty-, and forty-year-old player character. Does the roleplaying change or does the player lose sight of the role? Random encounters aren’t so random, and the thrill of meeting a dragon are about as exciting as taking yet another child to Chucky Cheese. Do you keep a voice of your character for twenty years? Do I still bring Mountain Dew even if I know a friend has diabetes? Can I even find boxes of Chicken in a Biskit anymore?

Age changed everything for me and has created my sense of nostalgia. I’m no Firemind, so foresight is a boon when it happens. I have yet to look at age and how it affects Magic, and this is as good a time as any.

Five years is a bit too long, and it reminds me of the gulags. Sorry, I was a history major as an undergraduate. Four years is a perfectly condensed period of time. It represents high school, college, and the two cycles until you’re thirty. So much changes between four years during the vast majority of our demographic here at GatheringMagic. I’d love it if I had more retirees read and play Magic, but we haven’t cracked that nut yet. We will as the game and players age out . . . or in.

Early Beginnings, Age 7

• When I joined Cub Scouts, I had no idea Magic was even a game. It was released, and the closest store that sold Magic was ninety-nine miles away. For a child, it might have just as well been Egypt.

• At this point in my life, we have moved back from Germany and Austria and finally settled in a rural village in central Minnesota—Lake Wobegon if you’re a Garrison Keillor fan.
• I had finally beaten my brother in Tecmo Super Bowl with the Colts. This was a major stepping point. It was my victory over “that guy” at Friday Night Magic. I never grew up with FNM, but I hear it’s similar to this point since my brother was double my age. I still cheer for the Colts because of it.
• He used to claim that he let me win. Looking back, little kids are stupidly superior in any video game requiring intense repetitive motion like the patented zig-zag. Perhaps he allowed a win because cancer went into remission. He now no longer remembers us playing it all.

• Parents should read lengthy epics to their children. I hope Beowulf isn’t on the list, but I remember The Hobbit being read to me because at this time in my life, I started reading CS Lewis’s tales of wardrobes. It consumed my free time along with Grimm and obscure stories from the Black Forest my father knew from his German thesis work. I knew most of the Monster Manual without even knowing it existed.

The Window, Age 11

• This age means really three things: Boy Scouts, Magic, and D&D. They all came at the same time.
• Everything came at the same time hitting puberty. All the things come with no trickle, no acclimation, a living end parable of life.
• The Urza D&D character was made after being hooked on Magic. Turns out the Arena book is actually pretty decent for a preteen.
• I learned to play Magic from Jay Hinnenkamp. He had a white weenie deck, and I simply couldn’t understand why counterspells couldn’t stop his deck and any green ramp strategy didn’t ever work. Armageddon was indeed a card. Eventually, a few Force Spikes and Killer Bees, of all things, beat him out. I beat my other brother with a white weenie deck, copying Jay’s conceptual basis. More on this later—it involves Magic art.

Go Gophers

Magic at Age 15

• I’d been playing for a few years casually, and I was right in my period that was to become nostalgic: the Weatherlight Saga—so, money. When you’re on a campout or hike, Magic is an incredible way to pass the time during heavy rains in a tent. It’s small enough to be portable but substantial enough to hold your attention. I became quite serious in the Boy Scouts, earning my Eagle this year, and deck-tweaking took a backseat to merit badge hunting.
• Magic was losing its grip on me.
• I was going on my third year on a varsity sports team. Shortly after school got out, I received my license, and cards, along with piles of The Duelist, were put into a closet next to stuffed animals, Star Wars toys from the 80s, and LEGOs. Everything changed.
• Magic was on my decline, and I knew it. A highball cocktail of sports, girls, and government does that to you.
• Ninth grade is one of those times when you remember you were there but you did a pile of stuff and nothing was really that important, but it felt important at the time. Oh, how teenage hormones make things significant.

Reintroduction, Magic at Age 19

Flashing forward rapidly, we see how Magic changes when anyone enters college. Due to the game having long-term value, you often have to choose among three things: You keep your cards at your parents’ house, you sell them in mass amounts, or you bring them along with your Nintendo 64, into your dorm room. Video game console rapid obsolescence forces change. Magic forces you to choose. I only didn’t have to because after searching in vain, I realized I sold everything.

Dorms were warm—absurdly so.

FNM was an impossible task starting college, and after having a freshman year filled with absurdities, shenanigans, and visceral memories, I moved in with my brother, and a card shop was a short walk from his house. A beacon presented itself, and I sleeved up to relearn how to draft. I’m lucky I came in before The Mending and I understood the old guard of near-deity-level planeswalkers.

Magic at Age 23

• I had one remaining year of eligibility in college athletics. I was already studying for my Master’s Degree, and I was in the deep end. Magic was the one of the few very real releases from the stress.
• I started reading Magic content online again. I remember thinking, very vividly, “Where the hell is the art and story?” More on this in a future article.
• I began to draft again to build up my collection. I figured I should meet some folks while I did so. I met a lot of engineers, of all things, playing Magic. Minneapolis and Saint Paul has a groundswell of engineers from Medtronic and our medical device industry. The pacemaker was made in Minneapolis, and a ton of companies are still around.
• From these short evenings, some of us decided to meet up after, go to a few Grands Prix events, and meet up for ultimate Frisbee.
• This was a great time. I learned to balance everything, and I was integrating back into life.
• I came very close to working at Wizards. Creative was changing, and people were being hired or interned. Having graduate school to finish, I didn’t make the leap and move to Seattle. P.S. A pro tip: If you want to work there, you have to move there first. It isn’t really an option. Integrating into local playgroups is really the first interview—seriously.
• Recession hit.

Flash-Forward to Present Day

I’ve gained quite a bit of stability, despite the myriad of first-world problems of choosing board commitments, volunteering, mentoring scheduling problems, and having a dachshund munch a Magic card or two.

Magic at Age 27

• I am buying a lot of paintings, and I fully comply by the sofa test. I actually buy very few Magic original artworks, but when I do, I attack and need to have them. I have a short list, and all items have been sofa test pre-screened.
• I prefer to be a community builder of Magic, and leaving Magic isn’t something I’ll do again.
• I was also married, bought a house, lost a job, regained a job, and started writing for GM again. It’s been a busy year.
• There’s time left in the year, too. Spectrum Live 2 is, well, tomorrow . . .

The Next Steps, as Imagined

Magic at Age 31

• Life has settled into a groove. Friends have come and gone for work. Children are now everywhere in my life from friends to family. My dachshund is quite old, but he’s still doing well.
• Magic is approaching its twenty-fifth anniversary, and I am curating a major art exhibition on it, and Alpha originals will be present. It will not be small, and it will probably be at a larger art museum. Shows like this take years to make it onto a museum’s major calendar and even longer to legitimize the need to an art viewing public. I think we’re close, and the anniversary will be a perfect capstone on the area of illustrated artworks.
• I will have a deck for all the Eternal formats: Modern, Legacy, and Vintage. Frankly, I’m nearly there now; I just haven’t focused on it yet. By this time, I’ll have tweaked them enough to be happy about them.
• My brother will have moved back from a work stint in a foreign country. His son will now be eleven. I will teach him collectible card games, giving him choices and providing him access to Magic. Bruce’s articles will be bookmarked, and I will be rereading them often.
• I will start buying my niece all the geeky things Magic creates. She might not have the interest in Magic, but she will not only know about it, it will be something she can do with her uncle. At the very least, she needs to learn the fairy tales my father taught me.
• 

  Magic at Age 35

  • I will probably be shelving my Magic at this age. I might have children. Should—if all puzzle pieces align. I’m sure the #mtgdads hash tag will be voluminous by now, if Twitter even still exists. Though, if MySpace can stick around, anything is possible.
  • I will be placing certain Magic cards in my safety deposit box, like my father’s coins before me and my brother’s baseball cards.
  • Magic will placed in my will. It will probably be art, maybe Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited stuff. The kids need something to pass on, and I can’t keep all the art.

  Magic at Age 39

  • I’m just . . . not sure.

  Magic at Age 43+

  • Keine Ahnung

   

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  I have a hard time even conceptualizing how this game transcends age, just as I was unable to understand why my D&D character would even change in the thirty years of game time from then until today. You think Johnny, Spike, and Timmy encompass the players with Vorthos and Melvin to help out? Having a grandfather learn the game to connect to his grandson doesn’t really fit into that. I do suppose if he were an alumnus Vorthos, I’m sure I’d be happy to fill the role.

  If you have insight into how you’ve aged with Magic, give me a shout in the comments below. Most notably, let’s hear at what age did you a hundred percent know that you were hooked to MTG and would carry it with you throughout life?