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.
The flagship... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The flagship... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The flagship... (Score:5, Insightful)
But I do agree that doing stupid/bizarre things to blow away the DM's story line was always to most fun!
Re:The flagship... (Score:5, Funny)
Ooops... failed my "Burning Karma" saving throw...
Re:The flagship... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The flagship... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The flagship... (Score:5, Funny)
Unrounded D4s....One of my most painful memories is stepping on one of those buggers.
I guess you missed your Dex throw against the Caltrop of Mighty Hopping.
Re:The flagship... (Score:4, Funny)
I guess you missed your Dex throw against the Caltrop of Mighty Hopping.
Wait till you're hopping around on one foot and hit it again!
Re:The flagship... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The flagship... (Score:5, Funny)
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)
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: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.
phirst: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The flagship... (Score:4, Funny)
"Bit 'o Moander" was one of the most fearsome beasts EVAR!!
Re:The flagship... (Score:4, Insightful)
Especially since my first D&D adventure was pen and paper and my entire party got devistated by a group of drow and a twisted DM who liked to have the spell casters in the party get their tongues welded to the floors of their mouths and spikes placed in their arms. Definatly nothing like NWN.
One thing that seperates NWN from pen and paper D&D is you can not get Array out of Bounds errors on pen and paper D&D when creating an adventure like you can in the Aurora toolset when adding your own content or manipulating it.
Also you have the ability to use your imagination more and drink beer and hang out with cool friends unlike NWN unless your doing a LAN fest of it. Still it's not the same in any way, shape or form.
Re:The flagship... (Score:4, Funny)
Check the source code, and roll for initiative! (Score:5, Funny)
You enter a 10 x 10 array. You see a Null Pointer Exception guarding an Object of type Chest. What do you do?
What everyone else does (Score:5, Funny)
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, Funny)
A shower could probably deal to it, though.
Re:The flagship... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's the pre game gab in which the players talk about their characters in first person and about how each saved so and so or nearly died in a running knife fight/chase which took place on the roofs tops of some distant sea port.
during the game you have a stronger sense of comeradery when you can see your other party members accross the table than one gets from watching them on the computer screen.
Then there's the pizza/chinese/what -ever take out order during or after the game where the party notes are taken and everyone haggles over the exact wording of the gaming logs. Not every group does this but in the ones I have participated, keeping a running narrative which reads something like cross between a novel and journal is lots of fun. One group I was in, in which we played 'Champions' the game log was taken from player notes and turned in to news paper articles by the GM. It was a lot of fun to 'read' about your character in the paper; although, it could often be embarasing to read the bits where the hero had to get bailed out of trouble or lost the bad guy.
Computers are nice and computer games are fun but it's not the same as playing with the same group in the same room.
Re:The flagship... (Score:5, Funny)
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!
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?
Ugh (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Funny)
As a representative ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:As a representative ... (Score:5, Funny)
re: Ugh (Score:5, Interesting)
Check out the imdb listing here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314 [imdb.com]
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!
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
Congrats! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Congrats! (Score:5, Funny)
D&D is 30 and.... (Score:5, Funny)
3 Decades! (Score:5, Funny)
Yep (Score:5, Funny)
Yep you are a nerd.
Ask the girl out on a date! (Score:5, Funny)
'Is there any Mountain Dew? Can I have one?'
Re:Ask the girl out on a date! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry, the girl makes a saving throw against your 1st level charm spell
My ex-wife fell for my 1st level charm spell but it turns out she was Chaotic-Evil and when we split up she took all my GP.
I had a discussion... (Score:5, Funny)
My girlfriend immediately said, "oh my god, i'm dating a nerd."
Thank you D&D.
Don't you mean... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I had a discussion... (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't know they made talking RealDolls.
Max
Re:I had a discussion... (Score:4, Funny)
I'm not sure I would call that an upgrade...
m-
Re:I had a discussion... (Score:5, Funny)
My and my girlfriend both hate posts like that..
House rules? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they irritate you, change the rules. One of the things a good GM needs to do is to keep the game from becoming too cheezy. If they players are abusing the rules, nerf them! The 3rd Edition Harm spell is a perfect example of something that desperately needs it.
In my opinion, rules like flanking and attacks of opportunity add a whole lot more tactical depth to the combat without slowing it down much. It's certainly more fun than combat in old D&D.
Re:House rules? (Score:3, Informative)
I've also concocted very entertaining critical and fumbles rules for melee, missile, and spell scenarios. Far more fun than "Oh, you get double damage" or "the spell just fizzles" over and over.
Re:House rules? (Score:5, Funny)
Not only is it fun to retaliate on abusive players, it's also fun to get back at players who use annoying, stupid and or nonsensical rules. Or, players who are generally idiots.
Ingham: I summon a mindflayer and order it to use psionics against the enemy.DM: A red dragon eats you.
Adellon: I cast "Hold Person" on Illandria and grope her breast!
Illandria: HEY!
DM: A red dragon rapes you.
Illandria: What? My attack missed!?
DM: Yes.
Illandria: You just said that because I'm a girl!
DM: A female red dragon kicks your ass.
Suffice to say, dragon rock as plot elements.
Logic, Logic -- Who's Got the Logic? (Score:3, Funny)
Even for those who have *not* seen the Beeb article, Dungeons and Dragons is 30 years old. My state of having seen the article or not has nothing to do with the content of the article.
Sorry to nitpick, but dammit -- illogical writing leads to fuzzy thinking, which results in irrational behavior. And God knows we could use more rational behavior.
-kgj
Re:Logic, Logic -- Who's Got the Logic? (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, being a native speaker of English, I presume that you already have a very good intuitive sense of pragmatics, and are just conflating the rigid semantics of computers (which have no pragmatics) with the much more expressive power of human languages.
Another common example: "There's some food in the fridge if you're hungry." Of course, there's also food in the fridge if you're not hungry, but that's not the point.
Re:Logic, Logic -- Who's Got the Logic? (Score:5, Funny)
Karma Whore (Score:5, Funny)
Who cares about the obsessive hairsplitting? The important thing is the successful karma whoring.
-kgj
I think we all owe a debt to D&D.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, D&D (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Re:Some classic Christian D&D FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Some classic Christian D&D FUD (Score:5, Funny)
I've seen theologists write PhD thesis'
Holy CRAP you need to get out more.
Re:Some classic Christian D&D FUD (Score:4, Funny)
No, thats the Internet.
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.
Military Potential of D&D (Score:5, Funny)
- from the article [bbc.co.uk]
Nuclear submarines? D&D groups?
My God
-kgj
Re:Military Potential of D&D (Score:5, Funny)
I can't imagine they had much else to do while at a naval base in Wisconsin.
_____________
It was just a joke, please don't hurt me.
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.
Re:Takes me back a bit (Score:4, Funny)
Hehehe - I am reminded now of this [darkholmekeep.net] little comic strip. It's outrageous, in more ways than one.
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.
Mother of all RPGs? (Score:4, Funny)
Well quite, but I must say I prefer throwing high explosive devices than slinging D&D books at monsters in Quake, it's more efficient...
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:Multiplayer Online (Score:5, Insightful)
My best roleplaying sessions, bar none, have been while playing the Amber Diceless RPG. No dice, four stats, just a few powers to deal with, and a point system so every character (which is based on the same number of points) is more or less equal. Even the powers are balanced; In order to be attuned to the logrus (and it to you) you have to be a shape shifter. Hence the Logrus powers which are arguably more powerful than those of the Pattern are balanced by there being a prerequisite. (And people with the pattern can generally see right through shapeshifters if they're paying attention, so good roleplaying can be rewarded by a good GM.)
Ultimately, the game comes down to the storyteller, GM, DM, or whatever they're named in your game of choice. It can only be as good as they are creative. The next thing is the players; are they serious about the game? I don't mean you can't make jokes, but the idea is to roleplay right?
Put another way, the "secret" is to form a group which shares your goals. You sound like you want to roleplay - you need a group of roleplayers. Most computer gamers don't want to roleplay, they want to kill shit. When I play a pen and paper RPG, then the world is open, it can be anything. When I play a computer RPG, this is not true, so I resign myself to killing stuff.
what i find interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)
ed
True Geeks.. (Score:5, Interesting)
AD&D lawyers have always been the best and worst to play with!
ah the nostalgia (Score:5, Interesting)
Did the characters ever managed to play Sex&Dungeons&Dragons or did I miss that issue entirely?
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)?
here, have this -1 cursed post... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
A great movie for D&D players... (Score:5, Informative)
support your local indie RPG author (Score:5, Informative)
And while you're their, a shout out please for Lumpley, an old friend of mine, and the author of kill puppies for satan: an unfunny roleplaying game [rpg.net]. (I'd link directly to his site, but I doubt it could take the slashdotting. Still, I must advise folks to look him up. And send him money.)
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
Remember when D&D was BAD? (Score:5, Funny)
My father (by chance a paranoid hypocondriac) read or heard one such article. This is when I was 18, and not living with him, which of course made him even MORE worried. He tried to sit me down and discourage me from my Evil Ways, and said that he read an article where someone said that people who play D&D can't tell fantasy from reality.
I told him that that's nonsense, and if I ever see the person who wrote that article I'd cast a fireball at them.
So he tried to get me into counselling.
Oh, did I mention my dad has NO sense of humour?
Bah! (Score:4, Funny)
REAL geeks also play Third Reich, w/o even having to look at the rules. ;)
Your familiar has been slain! (Score:5, Informative)
First, I don't know what "Master Tactician" is; you are probably referring to "Expert Tactician" which allows you to make an additional attack whenever someone is denied their dex bonus to AC. Since a Rogue also adds sneak attack damage to any attack when the opponent is denied their dex bonus to their AC this is a good combination.
However flanking does not deny the opponents dex bonus to their AC, so the familiar flanking example you used would not work to give you an extra sneak attack as you suggest. Additionally if your familiar is killed there are harsh penalties. You must make Fortitude save DC 15 or lose 200xp per master level (save for half). You also cannot get another familiar for a year unless you raise dead. Since you will be progressing as a Rogue and not a Wizard or a Sorcerer, your familiar will not increase along with you. By level 6 opponents will simply squash your familiar like a bug, costing you 6750gp each time for a scroll of raise dead.
AC: Armor Class, how hard you are to hit in combat.
Dex Bonus: Dexterity is a measure of how nimble a person is, the bonus from this score adds to your AC.
XP: Experience Points, a measure used to determine the level of your character.
DC: Difficulty Class, in order to succeed you must roll a twenty sided dice (d20) and add your relevant bonus and get a result equal or higher.
GP: Gold Pieces.
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.
D&D spawns STDs! No! Really! (Score:5, Informative)
My blog post earlier today, which links to the same Beeb article, was entitled "30 years of playing games with giant herpes viruses"
Re:D&D spawns STDs! No! Really! (Score:5, Funny)
m-
thanks, Richard Garfield (Score:4, Interesting)
A family affair (Score:5, Interesting)
But man was she a harsh dungeon master.
1st Ed (AD&D) (Score:5, Insightful)
The "rules" are guidelines like stabilisers on a kid's bike: once you get the hang of role playing you can take them off. In that sense there never was any need for second and thrid edition, although TSR generated that need by producing more and more "Modules for Dummies" that encouraged lazy play by DM's and players alike.
TWW
Top 35 Similarities between RPG'ing and pron (Score:5, Funny)
2. Both are frequently enjoyed in dark basements
3. The size of your collection is obscene
4. It's not a good idea to talk about either on a first date
5. Both revolve around fantasy and obtaining the unobtainable
6. The artwork depicts images impossible in the real world
7. When purchasing either in a store, you always ask for a bag
8. It may be fun to make your own at home, but rarely turns out as good as the professionally produced stuff
9. If you saw a woman buying either, you'd probably want to ask her out
10. Extra excitement can be added with the use of props and / or costumes
11. Low quality versions of both can be found for free on the Internet
12. Countless Usenet groups are dedicated to both
13. In either case, a gang of heavily-muscled men in leather with whips spells trouble
14. Everyone uses a silly, made-up name
15. It is not uncommon for participants to assume the opposite gender
16. Both are frowned upon by the conservative right
17. You usually take interest in both around age 13
18. New purchases are usually looked at once, then put on the shelf
19. The best and worst examples of each was produced in the '70s
20. The German versions of each are the most bizarre
21. Both are plagued with bad dialogue
22. You usually spend a lot more time enjoying each alone than with a group of friends
23. Everyone's called in to work sick at least once to stay home and enjoy one or the other
24. Both make excellent bathroom reading
25. There's always a big finish when you get to fire your gun
26. Hollywood's attempts to mainstream both have been largely unsuccessful
27. The hero's prized possession is his big, black gun
28. Plots are often present only to serve the action scenes
29. The story can be set anywhere from spaceships to dungeons
30. While the person directing the action is usually blamed for a bad experience, it's usually the fault of poor writing
31. Characters can have either high APPEARANCE or STAMINA, but rarely both
32. You can tell the climax is imminent when the characters start screaming
33. Candles and music enhance the mood
34. You can meet your favorite B-list stars at the annual convention
35. One word: Dwarves
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.
Random Comments (Score:4, Insightful)
All that said I'm working on a new role playing system that will do two things. First make it more flexible and fun to play, and second to make it easy so that once learned you don't need to keep referencing the books over and over. I'm always looking for suggestions including things people have liked or dislike about a game.
Signed a disgruntled DM/GM
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.
D&D has been gone for a 2 decades (Score:4, Informative)
The whole mess is tied up in court over ownership between Gary Gygax, David Cook, some original investors in what used to be TSR, who filed a law suit following the sale to WoTC, and Hasbro INC, the newest 'owners'. Hasbro brought in BIG LAWYERS and claimed ownership over EVERYTHING involving D&D, even stuff which was taken from public domain, or history texts. Much of the legal battle involved the Bioware engine and the rights over use of names and such in electronic publishing. The 'NEW' Pools of Radiance game and publishing house did not help to clear matters at all. Spell names and character names in the background that were allowed for use to Gary, or David but never allowed for transfer, Many things involving games used at CONS that were NEVER licensed for commercial use, or things from the old dragon/dungeon mags that were adopted into the game or offered for non-commerical use to GM's were co-opted by WotC or Hasrbo. In some cases the true owners were even legally threatened by either company, and they did not even know the source of the material they were claiming.
I have been playing since the blue book days and have numerous modules and other minor components published under TSR's aegis, or used at cons or tournaments, and yes I have run many GENCON games as well as RPGA tournaments , that were then 'adopted', used, modified, and then my name was eventually removed totally, while they continue to use the items and spells bearing the characters' name I own and created. It is frustrating and somewhat insulting but I never expected make a profit, I did it for the 'love' of the game. I had an EQ char's last name changed following a report by 'someone', when I am in fact the legal owner. I've had ZERO luck getting the name back as Sony Online Entertainment claims OWNERSHIP of everything that passes a chat screen in EQ.
Sadly the 3rd ed system is aimed at the video game crowd and rather silly in many places, we speculate jokingly that the authors were obviously playing Diablo2 during the development period of the new system. Our long time gaming group, the Saturday Knights, playing continuously for 20 years now, has adopted the GURPS system and we continue in the same game world we've been playing in for almost the entire time.
BTW we are always looking for good roleplayers, we are listed on Steve Jackson's find a game/player service or can be reached at the above email, make sure to put a RPG reference in the title or it will likely get de-spam'd. We are located in California, East of SF, meet at least once every 2 weeks for 8+hours sessions, require mature gamers but age is not the primary factor, and have a family environment to play in. Our group consists of several married couples as well as some younger singles. We've tried remote play but have not found any medium which can yet support the needed presence to really make ROLE-PLAYING possible, and We DEMAND roleplaying over stat-playing. A good guideline to our game style is the Char's disadvantages DEFINE them, and EVERY action has long term consequences in game. Uncle Figgie's guide to power gamers is recommended reading, and you should 'KNOW' what type of player you are
It Sure Sucks Having a RealLife (tm) (Score:5, Insightful)
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:E. Gary Gygax (Score:4, Informative)
Re:E. Gary Gygax (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Question from an "outsider" (Score:4, Informative)
The poster above is correct: Tolkein did not invent any of the fantasy elements he included in his works, he just set them down on paper so eloquently to tell a story (and create a language) that he might get credit for them nowadays (especially with the movies being so popular). They were all mythological devices long before Tolkein used them in his novels.
For instance: try reading Beowulf.
Re:Borrowed very, very heavily (Score:5, Funny)
And sometimes, D&D gives back:
~wavylines~
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?"
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.
Re:Iron rations and other strange items (Score:4, Insightful)
5 Torches (Long Burning)
100' Climbing Rope
30 Days (Freeze Dried/Iron, pick one) Rations
1 Flask of water
1 Flask of oil
1 Tinderbox
10 Flints
10 Sheepskins
etc.
Ah, Now I have to go home and start a game...
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