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.
(Excerpt) Read more at boingboing.net ...
/johnny
40 years,time flies.
IT HAS TO CAUSE AT 40 ALL HOPE OF EVER LEAVING YOUR PARENTS BASEMENT IS GONE
“You want me to “play” a dwarf fighter named Frowndorf?”
Wasn’t this Bill Clinton’s line to lewinsky?
Many a long weekend, surrounded by pizza, cokes, and chips
Playing D&D
Wealth, status, power
Lots of 20 sided dice rolling
It can be a real,fun game when led by a DM who can tell a good story.
If not for D&D I wouldn’t know how to roll a 3-sided die.
-PJ
Spot on.
In junior high school we had to change the name of the game because it got banned by people who had no idea what it was about looking for a scapegoat / enjoying a power trip.
No, give me a third Reich, risk, battlegrounds...And I'm sure I'll be called a heretic, but I prefer to do it on the computer. It can be fun sometimes, but calculating modifiers and results wears you down and slows the game down -- let the 'puter handle all that stuff. Something is lost, but it makes it easier.
I've not punched out counters for a good many years, but I still have to shake my head at a D&D review that uses Clue, Risk, Monopoly, and Stratego as his referents. There are a lot of great games out there.
I remember that era well, we were constantly experimenting and designing new games of all types. There was an explosion of RPG. But the role-playing-game theme as a formal game probably originated in strategic war-gaming millennia prior, where players would take on the role of the strategic participants, eg generals commanding armies. There was plenty of role-playing going on in modern board games (eg Diplomacy, Monopoly), even networked computer gaming (e.g Empire '73, Netrek) predating D&D.
IF D&D wasn't invented, something else would have taken it's place.
Shocked the fool out of 'em that I knew what they doing, but they played my mod for the next 30 minutes. ;)
I was +2 for coolest uncle that weekend.
/johnny
Those people are on the Harry Potter thread right now.
I suspect that you would enjoy the webcomic “Darths & Droids.” The premise is that all the Star Wars movies were actually a series of RPG campaigns. Contains the universe’s only unironic use of the phrase “Jar Jar, you’re a genius!”
First strip: http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0001.html
I actually tried to take it up, but I found it not to my liking. This was also after it became identified as “nerdy”.
My late stepson was really into Magic the Gathering, which seems like an offshoot of D&D.
>> The lack of order in it annoys me, and it seems to rely a great deal on having a good “dungeon master.”
Yes it does. In my 35 years of playing rpgs, I’ve found that a good DM was easier to find back when people had been kids who used their imagination.
Most DMs today play it like it’s a miniatures game, and the 3rd and 4th edition reflect that lack of imagination by catering to the rules lawyers.
If not for D&D, I would not have got into a bladed weapons. Without knowing how to use a knife, one night in Columbus, OH probably would have ended with me mugged and killed.
Some here will diss D&D and those who played it. I hereby diss them for not knowing what they are talking about...
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