I first played role-playing games in early November, 1979 when my cousin killed my first-level magic-user with a carrion crawler. Already thrilled with making maps of imaginary places, I took to the DMing aspects of the game right away. A month-and-a-half later, I was given the AD&D books and the basic box for Christmas. I started refereeing on January 1st, 1980 for my cousins and haven't looked back, since.