D&D Is 30 763
mainframemouse writes "For those who have not seen the Beeb article, Dungeons and Dragons is 30 years old.
After many years of role-playing is wonderful to see the mother of all RPG's given respect and mention in the national press. There's even a note about the false accusations of the 80's." And for the record - flanking & attacks of opportunity in 3/3.5 Edition still irritate me. Combine a familiar with Master Tactician and some rogue levels, and you're off to the races.
a coincidence (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember before the Dungeon Master's Guide, Player's Footbook and Monster Manual (which our DM forbade us to read), there was only a thick pamphlet-like book with a few monsters (giant rats, hobgoblin, gelatenous cube), and a sample 1/2 level. There sure were a lot of gelatenous cubes for level 1
Re:The flagship... (Score:1, Interesting)
I think we all owe a debt to D&D.... (Score:4, Interesting)
my frinds were dorks (Score:3, Interesting)
in boy scouts on a camping trip when I was 12 I got hooked on D&D, and I have never been able to play on a sustained period of time... now I am too old, and the people my age that play are so socially backwards that I think I would just laugh at them. oh well.
Some classic Christian D&D FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
Quote from the link: "The goal of the game [D&D] would be to see who could obtain the most erotic pleasure"
As my friend who sent me the link originally so accurately stated, "I don't know about you, but my D&D sessions were never like that."
Btw... D&D is 30... But what about its other attributes? What's its alignment? Strength, dexterity, intelligence, etc? Okay I'm a nerd.
Takes me back a bit (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember that "expose'" where they made D&D out to be some big satanic training session because (gasp!) there were demons and devils listed in the Field Folio. And then some shooter someplace had a DMG in his backpack or something like that...
Parents just ate that shit up. I think a lot of them couldn't understand why we just weren't spending our time watching TV like normal kids. We basically had to operate under the radar or risk losing a several of our players to easily paniced parents.
picking on D&D (Score:5, Interesting)
It bugged me at the time that for the amount of people playing the game, the incidence of suicide seemed lower than in the rest of the general public, but the press never seemed to report that.
Are there any girls there? (Score:1, Interesting)
Expensive books... (Score:2, Interesting)
At least my mother didn't think it was 'satanic' because I showed her the articles on www.trhickman.com debunking that myth.
Oh well, off to roll up another Grey Elf Wizard/Archmage...
Re:Question from an "outsider" (Score:3, Interesting)
Multiplayer Online (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course I ripped through all of the SSI games and the Baldur's Gate Series. Then came Neverwinter Nights. A beautiful game, but instead of controlling a party of people, it's just one character and a side-kick. This was a big mistake. However, the fact that one could assume the role of Dungeon Master made this game somewhat revolutionary.
But after playing multiplayer online a bit, I must say, that although I have found some new places to explore (people have spent some time on putting together some very cool levels), it still seems to come down to everyone being 40th level and killing each other. Maybe I'm just not playing in the right places?
Maybe I'm just missing the old days of getting together with pen paper and the dodecahedrons? I don't think so - who's got time for trying to orchestrate that?
And yes, I've tried Everquest and just couldn't seem to get into the flow of it. I couldn't see what the "big deal" was ...
Re:Some classic Christian D&D FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Real Role-playing (Score:3, Interesting)
Obligatory Link (Score:2, Interesting)
True Geeks.. (Score:5, Interesting)
AD&D lawyers have always been the best and worst to play with!
Re:The flagship... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously though, my son and his friends love it. With all the "eye candy" offered in the video game world, it's still amazing to see that kids use their imagination to create a fantasy world instead of viewing someone else's version of one.
Re:The flagship... (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew a guy once who literally lived in his yellow cab. He drove it to make money during the day, had a large portion of his trunk filled with piles of D&D stuff, and was constantly asking people "Want to game up?". For all practical purposes this was a homeless man who lived to get lost in his fantasies.
Don't get me wrong. I like D&D as much as the next geek but I don't see anyone taking Neverwinter Nights to the point of living in a cab on McDonalds food. Sure you've got your Evercrack players getting counciling and stuff but they're a pale shadow of the D&D lifers.
Re:The flagship... (Score:5, Interesting)
The second edition rules were a cludge...everyone knew that...but that's why I loved them. I loved how they worked. When the d20 system came into being..I felt it just lost something. Hard to track down. The second edition rules with their patched together charts...the rules that contradicted other rules etc...that was just part of the fun.
But the ultimate insult was when "Call of Cthulhu" when to a d20 system. Yes, you can still play with the old rules...which were better...than using the d20 system, but still. They should have just well enough alone. "Call of Cthulhu" was and still is my favorte PnP role playing game. Bar none.
But the AD&D games me and my friends would play around 1989ish were some of the best times I've had with a group of goof-balls joking around, drinking huge amounts of caffine drinks and pizza and generally just having a good time.
Re:The flagship... (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyway, I spent ages "re-rolling", its strangely addictive like playing a slot machine.
I know BG isnt exactly D&D at its finest (or most accurate!) but its the best CRPG i've played. I miss the old days sitting around with a few friends and playing on a perspex gridded board with the GM drawing the scenery etc.. somehow that seemed more real.
ah the nostalgia (Score:5, Interesting)
Did the characters ever managed to play Sex&Dungeons&Dragons or did I miss that issue entirely?
Holy cow, that's fantastic! (Score:3, Interesting)
Reprint of the Harry Potter satanism email [snopes.com] based on the article in the Onion. Gotta love (any seriously marvel at the midset of) anyone who can take this sort of thing seriously:
"I think it's absolute rubbish to protest children's books on the grounds that they are luring children to Satan," Rowling told a London Times reporter in a July 17 interview. "People should be praising them for that! These books guide children to an understanding that the weak, idiotic Son Of God is a living hoax who will be humiliated when the rain of fire comes ... while we, his faithful servants, laugh and cavort in victory."
Very interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
My favorite character was the Cleric, I'd usually be the guy turning the undead and healing everyone before they died. If I got powerful enough I could reserect the dead characters. I also liked the Anti-Healing spells like Cause Serious Wounds and Finger of Death. Never make fun of a Cleric because they are limited to blunt weapons.
Ah well, I liked making it to level 36 and then taking the next portal into the underworld and seeing if I could take on the Devil and his minions. Even The Devil fears my characters, and has a good reason to!
Favorite items to mix up chaos in the game:
Eye and Arm of Vecna.
Deck of many things.
Sword of Kaz.
Those four are just way over the top. We had a DM that used them all in one game!
We mostly play Traveller now, a Science Fiction game in the far future. But our GM/DM had us travel into the underworld and changed all of our high tech stuff into midle ages stuff, so it is D&D all over again.
Re:D&D is 30 and.... (Score:3, Interesting)
D&D was the shit, back during the hay-days of BBSing AD&D was played online soo much, what ever happened to that online play? Did FPS kill it? If anyone knows a good website/telnet host that still hosts AD&D games I'd love to hear about it!
POOL OF RADIANCE baby, yeah! (Score:3, Interesting)
Then, applying you hex editor and l33t h4x0r 5k1llz (although back then you didn't know it was called like that ;) to set all your stats to 25.
And then realizing that the size of monster parties for random encounters in the wild used your party's stats as a parameter... 300+ kobolds that, while they offered no real risk to your party of 25-all characters, ate a sizeable chunk of your afternoon wiping them out... total boredom :(
Re:Expensive books... (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember that with the trinity and some players, there's no need to add on anything else. Your GameCube example leaves out the fact that each GameCube game is $40-$50...and they won't last as long in terms of playability as a D&D game. Also remember that each GC player needs a controller ($10 each), and only four can play at a time.
No Girls Allowed (Score:5, Interesting)
In 7th grade, my next door neighbor declared openly that girls couldn't play. Unfortunately, my female friends weren't that interested. I made my sister play, but having never played myself, I was a rotten DM and kept killing her off.
I had all the books, though, because my Mom was Gary Gygax's divorce lawyer. (He, it seems, thought it was great for girls to play.)
In high school, a few of us were invited to join the gang playing, but the group was too large and unruly, so extremely little RPing actually got done. The (male) leader of the group blamed the girls and told us we couldn't come back.
And then a few years ago, when the last big D&D update came out, I thought I was FINALLY going to get to have a full bore D&D adventure.
Unfortunately, the relationship and social circle exploded fairly dramatically, and I was *not* invited to continue the game. That was the only time it actually felt fair to me, but I was still disappointed. And I've still never ACTUALLY played a game beyond creating a char and playing for an hour or so that day.
Ah well. On the up side, I'm married and have a great life.
Liza
Re:The flagship... (Score:3, Interesting)
re: Ugh (Score:5, Interesting)
Check out the imdb listing here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314 [imdb.com]
Re:Some classic Christian D&D FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
I once played AD&D 2nd Ed. with group of gamers that included a catholic priest. That pretty much erased such irrational notions from my mother's head at the time. And, may I go on record as saying, he played the best damn drunkern dwarven cleric I have ever seen.
Potential wise-cracks aside, he had great story-telling talent to go along with his role-playing. That group is the first to really show me what kind of good role-playing can happen when you have good, pro-story, non-powergaming, players.
It's something that any computer RPG has yet to capture.
My Favorite Character (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This will really date me.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:D&D is 30 and.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The flagship... (Score:3, Interesting)
They just didn't have the heart of Ultima or Bard's Tale. Or the storylines. But the better RPGs were themselves tributes to D&D, they just made the transition from pen and paper much more skillfully.
Re:The flagship... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:True Geeks.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Two fleets begin on opposing sides of the map, carefully maneuver to meet near the center... two guys argue for forty-five minutes, then one fleet sails on.
And that's with the Commander's Edition.
Re:Ugh (Score:4, Interesting)
Because it's obvious that it's caused by their experiences with D&D and TV and "Movies with Violence(tm)" and "Movies with Sex (shhhh)" and... and it's certainly not a chemical imbalance or indifferent parents or being beaten by your 2nd grade teacher within an inch of your life every day after school which has any influence over anyone who looks as the world and thinks "this is a pretty fucked up place" and then maybe actually does something about it (albeit destructively, rather than constructively).
Nooo.. it's the fantasy world which screws people up; the real one ain't got nothing to do with it.
Look ! Over there!
Damn. Now I feel old. (Score:4, Interesting)
Later, when I got an Espon MX-80 printer with the graphics update kit, I was able to create "fonts" (with characters as wide as they wanted to be, so long as they were 8 dots tall) to make the character sheets look better. The last iteration drew little 8-dot-tall swords and skulls horizontally across the top of the page.
Ah yes, those were the days.
Re:The flagship... (Score:4, Interesting)
My first was on my Micro-ColorComputer3 and it filled my 4K memory and I bought a 16K RAM expansion and filled it too! I had to load the program from a casette player. My program even let you type in stuff like 8d8+3 (for monster HP rolls) and had some treasure allocation tables in it. I rewrote several versions of it on the Apple ][ series and the Atari ST using GFA Basic. The Atari one was menu driven and had multiple methods for rolling up character stats (including the Unearthed Arcana "by race" way) and would verify class/race combinations that required a 7 dimensional array!
thanks, Richard Garfield (Score:4, Interesting)
A family affair (Score:5, Interesting)
But man was she a harsh dungeon master.
Re:The flagship... (Score:2, Interesting)
HAH!
I wrote a friggen module on my CoCo, (TRS-80 Color Computer).
Who's the geek?
A great game, but sometimes dangerous. (Score:2, Interesting)
Sadly, it seemed, not everyone could handle the game. One obsessive player seemed to lose his grip on reality. He began to claim that he was haunted by "ghosts". He created pages and pages of "equations" which he believed would defeat them. One evening his roommates stole his equations and burned them. The poor kid had to be hospitalized (the psyche ward, presumeably).
Another student, who lived and breathed D&D, barely graduated because of his obsession with the game. He gradually became unable to cope with life outside of the game. After graduating, he was sent to a squadron. A couple of months later he wrote back to one of his former roommates. The letter was difficult to follow, but it appeared that he had a nervous breakdown one day on the flight line, which put an entire helicopter crew in peril. He was headed for a medical discharge.
While I would not go so far as to blame D&D for these boys problems, there seemed to be something there that triggered a predisposition to some sort of madness.
After I left the school, I nevered played again. I've still got all my stuff though, including some twenty-sided di.
Re:The flagship... (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember going to the gaming clubs? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ah, memories indeed... I remember I first got into D&D in 5th grade (late 1970s) after school, then later progressed to later night sessions at friends' houses in junior high, and finally to wargaming clubs in high school.
D&D itself wasn't played much in the clubs, or at least not in my club -- most of the folks there disdained it for one reason or another. There was a lot of other fun stuff going on there, though... WWII combat sims, Family Business, and of course the Steve Jackson games, which are great. I especially liked Ogre and Illuminati (I'd still be playing Illuminati today, except I'm having trouble finding players). Remember getting the Orbital Mind Control Lasers and beaming the Semiconscious Liberation Army so they'd be Peaceful?
There was also one other game that I'd love to find, but I can't remember the name of it. It was a wargame set in medieval Britain between the Elves and the Trolls. The guy I used to play it with told me that the company went out of business sometime in the 1970s, but I still harbor hope that someday I might be able to find an old copy of it on eBay. I've tried Google searches to find out the name of the game, but no luck so far.
It's hard to believe D&D is thirty years old, jeez... kind of serves to remind me that I'm getting old, too.
D&D gave me a way out (Score:5, Interesting)
It also led me to gaming conventions, where I made lifelong friends who later got me jobs, helped me out of tough times, etc... And yeah, sure, I might have gotten the same thing out of being a Rotary Club member, but I didn't have the grades, and besides, they never give you a +5 dancing vorpal blade to fight that 15d8 monster ... at least, anymore.
I met Gary Gyagax at Imaginecon 2000, and despite all the stuff said about him over the years, I found him personable and approachable.
I still have all my D&D stuff. It's worth over $3000 in cover price, but I think in actual current value, maybe $600 (and only because I have some first edition stuff, like the "Deities and Demigods" with Melnebonie and Cthulhu mythos in it). I can't bear to part with it because I feel I owe it so much, it's like an old friend ... in several boxes ... in a closet.
Man, I felt like Dahmer there, for a second.
I started gaming when churches actually allowed it in their function rooms, along with the civil war gamers and chess players. Then in the 1980s, they connected the game to some poor sucker who got lost in university tunnels or something, then it got this Satanic cult label, and then it was fun to play it because you were an outsider! Woo hoo!
I stopped gaming when I got married. I just didn't need it anymore. I now had a steady job, social life, and the game was just too time-consuming. I have run a game or two here and there for old times sake (mainly to show my teen son what it was like). Recently, I was with my son's school group at a Science Olympiad, and a girl there had a bunch of the 3rd Edition rules. I thumbed through them, and thought, "Jesus, this is even more complicated than the Slackware manual! How EVER did I memorize all those rules and terms?" She was just impressed I knew 90% of the monsters.
Re:The flagship... (Score:3, Interesting)
Incidentally, I did something similar to what you and your cousin did, aways back in 1991. I wrote a spreadsheet and forms to access it in dbase4. Essentially, I learned how to write SQL to play D&D, at the ripe age of 13. Two years later I accidentally learned LISP to program a "room" in a MUSH.
Oh, and I'd learned BASIC accidentally too...because that was the language you used to manipulate sprites in the Logo II Animals add on pack (IIRC).
OK... (Score:2, Interesting)
I did once create a small campaign world for the original Gamma World rules; but tanked it when the 2nd edition came out with it's GREAT world. I also played Top Secret SI and Marvel Super Heroes (and I still think their "feat" system is about the coolest thing I've seen). My favorite RPG of all time, however, is TMNT. I had a mutated possim that I played like Nick Fury (he liked to read comics). TMNT was just dang fun and always seemed to move faster than D&D to me.
Just wanted everyone to know that not all "Jesus Freaks" are idiots living in shells.
Re:The flagship... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, there was plenty of wargaming before D&D. There were also plenty of alternatives that many preferred. The first was probably Tunnels and Trolls (TnT) which had been in development at the same time Gygax and gang were playing around with Chainmail, although it wound up hitting the stores just after D&D. Where D&D had a very serious aura, TnT was infected with a quirky sense of humour. TnT character creation, combat and the like resolved much faster, and was at least as realistic despite that (and later was expanded in Flying Buffalo titles like MSPE to become far more realistic, without losing it's initial advantage in playability.) A number of great systems came out within a few years of the first two. For those into the sort of detailed, meticulous world-settings of great writers like Tolkien, it's worth trying to find a copy of 'Empire of the Petal Throne.' The gaming system was nothing particularly great, but the setting was absolutely incredible. Runequest was another great, the first 'skills based' RPG with again a combat system that beat D&D both for realism and playability simultaneously. Runequest (or rather the Basic Roleplaying System abstracted from Runequest which also became the core of Call of Chtulu, Stormbringer, and several other games from the same publisher) almost evolved into a true Generic system , but Chaosium never quite took that step, leaving the opportunity for former GW stalwart Steve Jackson to produce GURPS. Runequest was pretty much killed off by Avalon Hill later on, but it was a great system.
There are several more early systems I remember very fondly but can't quite remember the names of. One was published as a fairly large hardcover book, and took a very historical medieval view, with a wonderful magic system which was quite open ended without being nebulous... with distinctions such as between witches and hedgewizards versus high and cabalistic magicians... to cast a spell on someone you had to first make a link, often aided by a snip of the targets hair or a toenail or the like. Another was set in an almost Indian themed world, with guards who wore elephantine masks, one had a magic system based on magical 'nodes' I think they were called, tied to 5 elements, harvestable in particular ways and without which a magic using character was pretty helpless. I still remember my poor little L1 necromancer skulking around to kill folks housecats so he could harvest low-grade death nodes from them to power his spells. Anyone remember the names?
Re:The flagship... (Score:3, Interesting)
Same thing with Star Wars. The original d6 Star Wars system from West End Games was beautiful in its simplicity. The d20 system that replaced it when TSR took over the license is poor in comparison. Go to just about any gaming convention and you will see that the amount of Star Wars games being played with West End rules far outnumbers the amount of games being played with the d20 rules.
I do think that the d20 AD&D rules are better than the original AD&D rules and far better than the 2nd Edition AD&D rules. However, this does not hold true for all game systems. Sometimes a game system just works and shouldn't be replaced, no matter how new and interesting the replacing system is.
Foglio's site, Gazebo Boy (Score:4, Interesting)
I, too greatly enjoyed WN. I was wondering if other slashdotters might help me with the origin of one of my favorite bits. It's quite OT, but if you feel up to it, please read on...
There was the WN that detailed superhero RPGs, poking fun at the various super powers, inlcuding worthless ones. One panel had the caption "Gazebo Boy finds his singular power of metamophisis useless against the evil Termite!" and a sketch of a gazebo with human eyes looking on in terror as it is ripped apart by a 15 foot tall termite. For years I had always assumed that Gazebo Boy came straight out of the fevered depths of Foglio's imagination. I came across some references on the net recently, though, that make me wonder if it was a running joke in the comic community that Foglio simply picked up.
So, does anyone know the origin of the Gazebo Boy joke? Failing that, does anyone know the origin of Gazebo Boy himself (I presume there was a laboratory accident or radioactive wood boring beetle involved somehow)?
My Short History With D&D (Score:2, Interesting)
By far, my favorite incarnation is D&D3. Sure, some of that is because I only had 7 years' experience with Thac0, but still, from an early age I was taught to recognize and value a system that is at once both intuitive and complex, easy but not simplistic, and through that, I am able to love the d20 system of D&D3. Is it perfect? No. But whether I attack a goblin with a sword, avoid being burned in a fireball, or try and bluff my way past a evil wizard's guard, I roll a d20, add my ability modifier (since all stats are now equal--yes, even charisma), and add my class bonus/ranks/whatever that I've built up into it. Higher is better. I'm trying to beat a certain number: 10 is easy, 15 is average, 20 is a little difficult, 25 is challenging.
This is a system where if you say "I wanna disarm my opponent" the DM doesn't have to either fudge the rules on the spot or look things up for ten minutes. It's a simple mechanic adapted from attacking a person--you try to at least touch them (as per the ease of touching a weapon to a weapon), and then you make opposing dexterity checks. If you spent a Feat on disarming, you're better at it than most.
Want to run a monster as a character? Since Savage Species and 3.5, it's easier than it ever was in 2nd edition. I remember DMing a game when a PC wanted to play a Minotaur, and no matter what I adjusted, he was far, far too powerful for the group. In the ease of 3rd edition's streamlining, things are made so that the strength is balanced out, just like all the classes.
Which is probably the most important thing. Thieves/Rogues no longer advance twice as fast as almost everyone else. Humans are worthwile as characters. Playing 3 classes at once is not as min-maxing useful as it once was compared to focusing one's efforts in one class. Dwarves can be (and are quite good) wizards, and Halflings will do well as more than just Rogues. Things are made equal.
Sometimes I look back at 2nd edition, and wonder how I ever played such a system filled with such a lack of mentally aerodynamic rules, rules which forced the mass exodus to other systems from the mid 80s to late 90s. I feel sorry, actually, for those who learn to play 3rd edition without knowing 2nd or 1st--not that they're missing out on a better system, but because they don't know exactly why 3rd is so spectacular, why it is so mind-blowingly magnificent.
They don't know the years some of us spend in the trenches of 2nd edition, waiting for something better to come along, not knowing that something ever would.
Re:Ask the girl out on a date! (Score:3, Interesting)
If I had a electrum piece for every player who thought it was hilarious to play a violent anti-social nitwit, I'd be able to afford that Cloak of Eagle's Splendor for my Monk/Sorceror. Are RPGs just a way of working off the player's desire to be the alpha dog?
Good ol' D&D. If it only would be that way.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Yet what amazes me to date is that people still consider (A)D&D or DSA a good RPG system. No geek would use CPM over Linux or MacOS X today, but you meet a dime a dozen who say AD&D is a good RPG. Just a few weeks ago I met a guy who said the new AD&D got better because the Ranger is better now. I just stood in bedazzlement and couldn't say anything.
D&D is nice to remember, but it's nonetheless the classic CEH - Characterclasses, Experiencelevels, Hitpoints - pain. All three of which don't exist here or in any fantasy world and actually get in the way of any good RPG system. Hitpoints maybe not so much - but the other two definitely. Nearly every RPG that came out since around about 1990 takes that into account. Yet them (A)D&D zealots still act as if they are cream of the RPG scene. They probably are in the shops because they spent the most money on books. And it _is_ no sweat to spend 5000$ to 6000$ on (A)D&D books.
People calling (A)D&D as good a RPG as Torg, Harnmaster or Runequest, or Shadowrun as good a RPG as Torg, SLA or Gurps sound to me like the guy who fancies WinNT over Solaris as a Network OS. I have a hard time taking them for granted.
Just had to be said.....
Re:Very interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Your PCs remind me of a song from the early 90s...
"Ring Their Bells", or "The Munchkin's Carol"
--by the Sea Wasp
(to the tune of Jingle Bells)
"Slashing through the Orcs
With a good two-handed blade
Over corpses we go
And through the gore we wade
Mace on helmet rings
Making bodies fly
What fun to sing our SLAYING song
And watch these suckers die!
Chorus:
Oh, ring their bells with swords and spells
Don't let 'em get away!
We're brave and bold for fame and gold
We'll make a lot today!
Oh, ring their bells with swords and spells
Don't let 'em get away!
We'll hack and slash and blast and trash
And blow these dudes away!
Crashing through the door
Into the dragon's nose
Our mage whips out a Cone of Cold
And out its fire goes!
Elven bowstrings sing
Making balrogs fall
And our thief finds a secret door
Into the treasure hall!
(Chorus)
Then appears the Lich
With his demon guard
Our wizard yawns and wishes
We'd run into something HARD...
He begins to cast
His 19th level spell
That damn Lich throws a Gate at us
And drops us all in Hell!
(Chorus)
We appear in Hell
In front of Satan's Throne
Our cleric waves us out the door
And takes him on alone!
Satan's legions don't
Want to let us go
Our Techno pulls a bazooka out
And NUKES 'em 'til they GLOW!
Oh, ring their bells with prayers and spells
Don't let 'em get away!
We're brave and bold and CRAZED, we're told
To think we'll live the day!
Oh, ring their bells with swords and shells
Don't let 'em get away!
We'll hack and slash and blast and trash
And blow these dudes away!
Yes, we'll hack and slash and blast and trash
And drag our loot away!!"
Ah, and Traveller - the game was a bit slow, as written, but my favorite traveller game was a big hack of the system where our PCs were actually genetically bred and trained, and also highly skilled (2-3 times the skills of ordinary traveller characters). Our first mission was to assassinate the emperor and start the collapse of the empire... then it was running and hiding. Thankfully, our combat suits had hidden our appearances, so ditching the ship and stealing another helped a lot, but any time the GM wanted to herd us somewhere, along came bounty hunters...
Re: Borrowed very, very heavily (Score:4, Interesting)
One girl saying, "Look at this circular-metal-band my fiancee gave me!" Another guy going, "How do you get circular-metal-band around the collar out?" and then lastly, someone screaming, "Hey, the phone is circular-metal-banding, anyone want to get that?"
No correlation. (Score:4, Interesting)
(You can only really do that when you are reasonably well assured of meeting and bedding a new girl any night you decide to hit whatever scene you hit.)
D&D is this generation's Poker Night. The harsh reality is that only good looking guys with well-built bodies get a regular stream of the kind of girls all teen-aged boys sweat over. Everybody else starves. Oooh, boo hoo. Life is sooo unfair.
For everybody else, (and we're talking 95% of the male population), there's D&D and if you're lucky, a good girl friend now and again.
-FL
Sexist Mumblings (Score:4, Interesting)
If I let myself be a sexist bastard I would say it is because most women tend to role-play in real life a lot more than men; by controlling people's perceptions of them with acting. So most women don't really see the point of setting aside time to put on an act.
Despite that this seems to work well in practice it sure undermines many of my romantic ideals.
Cheers.
Re:The flagship... (Score:2, Interesting)
The other, more complex set of rules I remember playing was Chivarly and Sorcery. Setting and background were the main virtues of C&S.
Fun times!
Re:The flagship... (Score:4, Interesting)
2nd edition feels better for the same reason Linux feels better to those who love it - ease of use is secondary in importance to the feeling of mastering something complex - even if that complexity is un-necessary.
Re:Your familiar has been slain! (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't believe you can be flanked by someone who is not threatening you.
So it's not a valid tactic anyway, no matter what odd feat the editor is claiming.
Everyone needs to play a default SRD/PHB just once to get a grasp of the basic rules before going outside that box into the wilds of d20.
koewn
D&D Adventure Camp (Score:5, Interesting)
I got into D&D as a sidebar to military wargamming, starting with Risk and moving onto several Avalon Hill games (Third Reich, Blitzkrieg, 1776 (I got massacred by my brother at this one), & Squad Leader).
When I went to the hobby shop to see what other cool games they had, I saw a box for the original Basic Edition of D&D, together with the 1st Edition Monster Manual. The DM Guide was released just a little after that, and trying to get polyhedrial dice was almost impossible. We actually used the old chit system at first to generate our characters becuase we couldn't find any polyhedrial dice at all. When I finally got some dice, the d20 was badly misshapen in manufacturing, and gave some really wild results when used (I wish I still had it now).
The best fun I had was a week at Boy Scout Camp [twinvalleybsa.org] where we also turned it into a week-long D&D marathon. The logistical planning for this was something that could only be done by a bunch of hard-core D&D players that were also boy scouts. The D&D manuals were smuggled in with the camp kitchen supplies, talked our parents into a week's worth of munchies & pop (with some extra money on the side for buying stuff that wouldn't keep in the cooler for more than a couple of days), and took off to camp looking like a group of real trustworthy, loyal, helpful (etc.) boy scouts our parents thought we were. We also hid miniatures, dice, DM screens, map graphs, and pens & paper (that was more out in the open.. . but in retrospect our parents should have realized that we took too MUCH paper and too MANY pencils with us).
Our Scoutmaster (actually an assistant who could get the time off from work) was this young guy that looking back now was just totally snowballed by us boy scouts. I was about 16 at the time, and he placed a lot of trust in me as a junior leader. I did what I could, but this adventure took a life of its own that this poor assistant SM couldn't keep under control.
After about 5 P.M. we would finish up our camping chores every evening and start playing D&D. In addition to the munchies, we brought along 4 gallons of Camp Fuel for the Coleman lanterns we placed under the tarp and played well into the night with the group of about 10 scouts in our troop. My younger brother was the D.M. for this whole affair, but there were several experienced and hard-core players, as well as a few totally new initiates into playing D&D (the kids who were really there to attend Scout Camp for real).
During the day some of these new initiates would get a chance to read the rule books and get them explained as we were building fires, cooking breakfast or supper, and doing the other camp stuff (like swimming, firing shotguns, making crafts, etc.)
For this experience, we decided to try out the Gary Gygax module series (Giants & Drow stuff) that we bought (because it was from the grand master... we bought everything from him at the time) but we always seem to put it off doing other stuff when we were normally playing D&D. I didn't realy how awful they were until after we really started to play them, and I knew just what Monty Haul Dungeons really came from.
The sad part was the aftermath to this whole event. Needless to say our parents were absolutely pissed at us (my dad was the regular Scoutmaster and was unable to attend camp due to some other things that came up in his personal life). Some of the scouts in our troop also failed to complete any merit badges while at camp, and the D&D game was directly blamed for it. (I think we did make up an "unofficial" D&D merit badge for the event, however.) One set of parents totally forbade their kids from ever playing D&D again (the born-again Pat Robertson follower type), which was quite sad. My parents were more of the attitude that neither I nor my brother should "corrupt" the minds of the innocent, but they would rather that we pour our energies into D&D rather than dating or drugs or cars. In that respect D&D was a rather cheap hobby by comparison.
Re:Takes me back a bit (Score:3, Interesting)
Demons and devils are mentioned in your typical Christian church a lot more than they're mentioned in the Bible.
Re:The flagship... (Score:2, Interesting)
Can't stress that enough. D&D up to and including D20 v3.5 has just lousy, miserable rules. Actually they shouldn't even be called rules, they should be called "exceptions".
That's why I play RuneQuest and BRP-games (Call of Cthulhu, Ringworld, Elfquest, Nephilim, Stormbringer and Elric).
--
Speaking of Fringe Gamers (Score:1, Interesting)
As an adult gamer, I've found schedules with other mature adults to be very hard to co-ordinate for some serious D&D games. Does anybody else out there have the same problem?
Nonsense (Score:2, Interesting)
> Hasbro brought in BIG LAWYERS and claimed ownership over EVERYTHING involving D&D, even
> stuff which was taken from public domain, or history texts.
For anyone who's actually followed the evolution of D&D over the last 10 years, this is so wrong as to be funny. *WotC* has never been this litigious or over-reaching in its claims, although *TSR* _was_ almost that bad for a while. In the late 90's, TSR had an arguably draconian policy on people making derivative works (their own D&D materials), to the extent that many online D&D ftp sites shut down under legal threat. WotC, on the other hand, has not only been very friendly to fan-created works, but has made (virtually) all of the rules _downloadable_!
Similarly, TSR was claiming many terms or ideas as their own that were not - I remember searching out the etymology of "drow" to rebut a TSR claim that drow were obviously their creation and property - but WotC has been pretty reasonable with that (just Beholders and a couple of oddball things like those).
Finally, there's no need to take my word for this - there's _abundant_ evidence of this attitude of TSR's saved in Usenet archives from the time, which anyone who doubts me is heartily encouraged to check out (groups.google.com, rec.games.frp.dnd).
not that bad.. (Score:3, Interesting)