Amy reacted to the Love Potion in Sheldon's BEDROOM!
Posted on 02/02/2014 1:28:33 PM PST by Timber Rattler
Dungeons & Dragons, that ground-breaking role-playing game, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.
Specifically, the game's big "4-0" comes this month. It was in January of 1974 when the game's co-creator, Gary Gygax, officially announced in a newsletter that "the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association has now released its set of fantasy campaign rules (Dungeons and Dragons)." In that announcement, Gygax invited folks to drop by his Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, home some Sunday afternoon to experience Dungeons & Dragons themselves.
But lo, those four decades ago, when D&D first debuted, no one knew what to make of it. D&D was intended to be a new twist on traditional war games. New, because "role-playing" games as a category did not exist. Newcomers found D&D to be weird and complex and confusing and trippy. You want me to "play" a dwarf fighter named Frowndorf? You want me to tell you how my hobbit thief is going to kill the gang of orcs? These dice have how many sides? WTF?
But to those who were intrigued, the “Huh?"s of doubt quickly turned to “Hey, this is fun.” No one guessed Dungeons & Dragons would be revolutionary.
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Yeah, we made our own fun back in those days, and played 1st and then 2nd Edition. I found that D&D was both stimulating and educational, and learned everything I know about Tolkien, the Arthurian Legend, and Norse mythology from all those Saturday nights we spent with pencil and paper.
>>Yeah, we made our own fun back in those days, and played 1st and then 2nd Edition.
Same here. I’ve tried 3rd and 4th Ed, but they suck. I haven’t play much in the last 15 years, but I try to play a 2nd ed game once a year or so when I can gather up enough middle-aged gamers.
“In before people that don’t know anything about it denounce it as evil.... maybe.”
You bet it is evil, just ask anyone in the mental health profession during those years. :o) It was crazy that rational adults went nuts if teenagers were playing that game.
I had a counselor at a state agency which I won’t name, send me a young man who she thought was deranged - he played that bad Dungeons & Dragons game and sometimes he dressed in Renaissance clothes (you know, kings, queens, knights, etc.). I was supposed to psychologically test this young man and find out why he was “mentally ill” and then counsel him to make him well.
He was the most fun patient I ever had because nothing was wrong with him. Yes, he played that game, so what? Texas has a “Texas Renaissance Festival” (kings, queens, knights, etc.). This young man was one of those who helped run this festival. He wasn’t crazy, he was promoting that festival when he wore those clothes. I wrote the report and sent it to the counselor so he was now officially sane.
The festival time was upon us and he invited me and my husband to go and he would show us around. We went and had a good time.
The festival is huge now. Here is their website and directions how to get there. You come to my town first and go from there to the festival if you live anywhere near Houston and south of there or north up 45, come to my town. Directions are on their website.
Rest easy, you are not nuts to go to the festival dressed as a knight or queen and you’re not nuts if you play the “evil” game Dungeons and Dragons.
Gygax was involved in hex grid wargames and miniatures wargames before he came up with D&D.
I’m an old AH and SPI wargamer myself. Still have a closet shelf full of that stuff for some reason - Panzerblitz, Napoleon at Waterloo, etc.
Was never into this. I tended to gravitate more towards the military strategy Avalon Hill games.
And some of the guys tended to be real d*cks with the “rules”.
I never played it. We had all night hearts and spades instead of studying for finals.
I still remember as a young zoomie, being called in and told my security clearance was being pulled while “some kind of Weird D+D Cult” I formerly belonged to was investigated.
The old Avalon Hill games.....they were neat. now kids play computer games. Shame.
Pretty fun way to learn probabilities.
The only reason I know so much about medieval weapons of all kinds is probably from role playing games. You got several types of swords, each for a specific purpose (knives, daggers, dirks, short swords, long swords, broad swords, sabers, scimitars, half-handed, two-handed, great swords), axes, quarter staffs, spears, halberds, pole-axes, bows, crossbows, slings, blow guns, throwing stars, hammers, clubs, maces of varying sorts, whips, flails, morning stars, and of course all the hybrid variations.
Yep the creator of the game Richard Garfield, made it as a game that could easily be played during "down time" at gaming conventions BUT could be carried in your pocket.
Gaming conventions at the time were basically RPG gamers and of course the majority of those were D&D players.
D&D players were the first large group of converts to Magic.
I played with a group of friends and we started off as noobs with a really good dungeon master.
Later, one of the players became the new Dungeon Master. He also did well. Over time we evolved into having each Player sheet in plastic so we could make changes with the wipe of a paper towel, and a hex grid to use during ‘encounters’.
The thing I took away from this game was that in order to be successful, the members of your ‘group’ had to work together.
Amy reacted to the Love Potion in Sheldon's BEDROOM!
Still have all my stuff in several totes in the garage...
I got into painting game figures and the table top war gaming aspect...
Also played the hell out of “Starfleet battles”....
Good times...
This post makes me feel (rolls D100)... nostalgic.
Magic was an attempt to institute a deck of cards into the RPG Community.
My oldest daughter gave one of her brothers - the OCD one and that’s not the weirdest thing about him - some “Magic: The Gathering” cards a few years ago. Now three of the little boys have heaps of them. Sometimes they actually play the game somewhat “as written,” but more often, they just lay the cards out and make up things about them.
I wish they’d go outside and run around more, but at least nerdiness-with-cards doesn’t result in a lot of dirty laundry.
Played 2E back in the day and even did some DM work. Played other RPGs like Shadowrun too.
But my heart still lies with my old AH games — Diplomacy, Panzer Leader and my favorite of all, Advanced Squad Leader.
I've known people who spend their weekends fooling around with little white balls. They have these weird looking bludgeons that they use to whack the balls with, and then they chase the balls around the landscape. Some seem to have fun, others tend to indulge in temper tantrums after whacking the ball.
Real strange bunch. You should look into them.
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