As far back as 1982, I used to play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons with actual people, sitting in a living room. It was fun. I currently play Warhammer with real live people in a room once a month. The social aspect of the game is something that I miss when playing on my PC. I have friends who are going to let me play World of Warcraft online for a while to see how I like it. Perhaps I will be able to regain the social aspect of the game while being online...Ah, progress!

At any rate, I read the sad news that Gary Gygax died yesterday.

http://wcco.com/watercooler/gygax.dungeons...s.2.669157.html

Several years ago, there were reports of students getting lost in sewers beneath college campuses because they were playing this fantasy roleplaying game. Some preachers have said from their pulpits that the game was used by the devil to lure Christian kids away from the faith.

Questions:

1. Do you or have you played Dungeons & Dragons or any of its spinoffs?

2. If so, would you like to share a little of your experiences with the game?

3. If you believe D&D to be a negative influence on religious or psychological grounds, why?

1. Do you or have you played Dungeons & Dragons or any of its spinoffs?

Yes, indeed. I used to have a lot of fun with many different role-playing games. (RPGs, to those of us in the know.) Gygax was certainly a pioneer in the field. Frankly, I never cared that much for D&D as an RPG system -- too complex, too much rolling of dice at the expense of storytelling. However, without it there would never have been simpler and more elegant systems.

Other RPGs I have enjoyed are Villains and Vigilantes (comic book superheroes), Toon (animated cartoons), Tunnels and Trolls (fantasy), and Call of Cthulhu (horror.) Heck, I even made up my own very simple system called SF, dealing with humans and aliens during the early stages of interstellar travel, because I wasn't satsified with any of the other science fiction RPGs of the time.

2. If so, would you like to share a little of your experiences with the game?

Well, I was fond of one character called Willa, a Druid priestess. She seemed to reflect my personality nicely.

3. If you believe D&D to be a negative influence on religious or psychological grounds, why?

Not at all. Oh, I suppose you could dig through old newspaper articles and find some story somewhere about somebody becoming obsessed with RPGs and winding up getting into trouble because of it. Such things happen whenever somebody takes a perfectly innocent interest to absurd lengths. In the overwhelming number of cases, RPGers are intelligent, witty, imaginative people who don't take the games anywhere near as seriously as non-RPGers might think. (My experience has been that there is always a lot of joking and laughing during RPG sessions.) Sure, we tend to be on the nerdy side; but isn't it better that we take part in social activities with other nerds than isolate ourselves?

Objections to RPGs almost always come from a tiny number of religious fundamentalists, who certainly do not represent the vast majority of persons of faith. I offer one example for the sake of a few laughs. (How come nobody ever offered to teach me real magic spells when I was playing RPGs?)

Dark Dungeons

(Any resemblance between the character of Ms. Frost and your humble narrator is strictly coincidental.)

1. Do you or have you played Dungeons & Dragons or any of its spinoffs?

Ive never played Dungeons & Dragons, RPG's are not my favorite genera but there are some titles I like. I do like video games however and I have played many, my favorite genera is 1st person shooters and strategy games like Command and Conquer. Most recently i've been getting into the guitar hero series.

3. If you believe D&D to be a negative influence on religious or psychological grounds, why?

Im a sceptic that games have any significant impact on people psychologically, apart from some who may be addicted to them to some extent. However the idea that games are somehow responsible for those who play them and commit violent acts, is not something I believe is true. In every case such as this that ive heard of, the person was already unstable and could have acted that way the first time he or she watched the movie (Psycho). People are responsible for their actions, just as with those who abuse guns, and go kill someone. It wasn't the guns fault, if someone wants to go crazy or kill someone they will find a way with or without guns and with or without violent games. Personally I don't think everyone should suffer because some people are stupid. I'm sure you would probably agree with that, you seem like a gamer.

Questions:

1. Do you or have you played Dungeons & Dragons or any of its spinoffs?
I played, and still have, the original D&D (3 small books). I also played subsequent editions (AD&D 1st & 2nd Editions), but stopped playing about 15 years ago. I do miss the social aspect, and have zero interest in playing online RPGs. I've also played Traveller (the foundational Science Fiction RPG), Runequest, Champions, Boot Hill, and a scattering of other RPGs "back in the day."

2. If so, would you like to share a little of your experiences with the game?
I promoted two gaming conventions, attended one GenCon and probably 2-3 dozen gaming conventions on the West coast. I started playing in 1977, having already been playing wargames before RPGs came along, and had a lot of fun, met a lot of interesting people, many of whom are still friends. During the GenCon convention, I was staying in the little town of Sturtevant, Wisconsin, and created a Kielbasa and rice dice that I named "Sturtevant." At one of the last conventions I attended, a team composed half of compadres from my own group and some random pickups went all the way through the World Championship AD&D Tournament and won. The DM's were boggled by some of the off the wall things we did.

3. If you believe D&D to be a negative influence on religious or psychological grounds, why?
It can be. I'm not going to comment on the religious aspects, except to say that after only a few years of playing, I determined that in my campaign, there would be no evil player characters. None, zero, zilch. It is role playing, and carries with it the same potential for affecting a persons character AND spirit as role playing utilized in the psychological field. It is a conscious choice to play an evil character, to give free rein to those impulses within oneself, and that is not a choice that I felt I could, in good conscience, facilitate. This, incidentally, is true of any of the RPG's, whether or not they possess a formal alignment system a la D&D. The converse is also true. The RPGs can be places where the better natures can be exercised. That is what I strove for, challenging my players.

One of my favorite memories is "101 Uses for a Dead Ranger" One use is checking for traps. Send the ranger in first... The Ranger is also good for finding ambushes. Open the door while the Ranger stands in it, backlit with the party's lanterns.

RIP Gary Gygax.

Have I?! Ever since playing Baldurs gate (what a game!), and then encouraging my High school friends to pick up some dice and try the tabletop game, I've been hooked!

Unfortunately, at UCSC, the D&D culture is still in a developing phase. Games haven't lasted long, and its difficult getting enough interested people together.

I'm eagerly awaiting 4.0 E, which comes out this June, so I can reunite with my old buddies and test the new version.

Well, there was the time I convinced my NG ranger ally to slaughter a tower full of holy, Sheela worshiping halflings...

On second thought, no, theres nothing I want to share

Not a big fan of religion, but my Christian friend played it and has yet to summon Satan.

If you enjoy laughing, be sure to check this comic out
Edit: Victoria Silverwolf beat me to it

People say D&D tends to isolate players from society. That never made any sense to me, you need other people in order to play.

I did check the CHICK Publication link. I have to agree with Victoria Silverwolf that I never learned "real spells" while playing AD&D. (Any Pagans/Wiccans I know consider any sort of magic that does something to someone without their permission is evil and that they therefore did not do it. Also, the karmic law that whatever is sent out into the ether returns to a person at least threefold has served as a deterrent to that kind of practice. Of course, it is not the purpose of CHICK Publications to portray non-Christians in a good light at any time.) Actually, I find the tract pathetic and libelous, and I am a Christian.

My username on this forum is based on Elspeth, a paladin I have played on numerous Baldur's Gate games: Balder's Gate, Shadows of Amn, and Throne of Bhaal. Like Bikerdad, I do believe that when a person plays a character of a certain alignment, it is actually a facet of your personality, and it could blunt a person's more altruistic tendencies when constantly playing a character of evil alignment.

Besides, I like to be a "good guy" (gal).

As a younger player, I used to have problems with ankhegs. Our DM would commend any player who came up with a novel way to kill monsters in a session. My character suggested that as we saw the ground disturbed by the arrival of an ankheg, we could stand over the mound and thrust our swords and staffs into the mound. The ankheg was killed handily. Of course, had the dice rolls been bad...

Another time we encountered nagas that were guarding temple treasure. Puns are an important part of gaming with a group. We laughed ourselves to tears once talking about where would a naga hide (naugahide)?

Personally, I have never encountered any RPGer who wanted to play evil characters. At most, somebody might want to play the sort of rogue who might pick your pocket but back you up in a fight. My experience has been that a player whose character is always selfish and who cannot be trusted by other characters is going to wind up dead pretty quickly.

I think we're witnessing a D&D generational gap...

My old group never seemed interested in delving into the subtle, nuanced personality traits of our in game characters. Instead, we liked gaining levels. A close second was killing monsters and taking all their stuff. Perhaps this reflects the video-gamized nature of my generation, but we had fun nevertheless. In any case, alignment and role-playing never became a significant part of the game.

That being said, my favorite alignment has always been Lawful Evil. Neutral is too ambiguous; and Good is so obnoxious. Evil is dynamic, interesting, spontaneous and mysterious. Theres something sexy about doing what you feel like instead of whats right, and this is particularly true if your also lawful and know you can get away with it. Lawful good upholds the law, which is little more exciting than filing a tax return or renewing your license. LE, on the other hand, has figured out the only thing cooler than breaking the rules is bending them to your will. If my old Wizard entered into the modern world, he would claim 179 expensing on "business assets," relocate his company to the Caymen island and fund shady scientists to disprove global warming, all while threatening unions by shipping jobs overseas. Now thats sexy.

But theres more! Strictly good characters, to be frank, seem to promote brain-dead role playing. We've seen all the tired arch-types: the strictly good natured paladin, the tough-talkin brute with a heart of gold, the mysterious stranger with a forbidden past, and, of course, the "Legolas" (Lol, drow with 2 scimitars). Theres no internal conflict in a good character; no struggle to identify morals, no "what to do" moments (unless the choices are between good and really good) , and rarely does good argue amongst itself. Campaign plots always seems to be some variation of the care bears coming together to save fuzzington village, singing and spreading joy wherever they go. Contrast that with the personality of an unpredictable, scheming mastermind, desperate to achieve his own ends while trying to preserve an image of purity.

Theres a reason why Iago was given the most lines out of any Shakespeare play, or why Dantes inferno is a page turner. Its fun to be bad.

Anyway, my message to all you evil haters is... lighten up! Whats wrong, afraid you might like it? You should embrace the dark-side at least once in your RPG adventures. Pretty soon, you'll be arguing that the minimum wage actually hurts workers, or that minorities should embrace capitalsim because the free market actually reduces discrimination (suckers).

...wait, take back that last part.

I see what you're saying, and as long as everybody understands that RPG is just a very complex version of "Let's Pretend," that's fine. I might add that purely evil characters are just as much of a cliche as purely good ones, and that it's the more complicated characters that are the most fun to play. I was never one to go for super-powerful characters; give me somebody who's got some serious weaknesses to overcome.

As far as alignment goes, I always thought that was kind of artificial anyway. I would tend to go for Neutral Good, but it's really the actions of your characters which determine what kind of personality she has.

You bring up a good point; what are the various goals of RPG? Some like to gather up goodies and kill monsters; some like to participate in shared storytelling; some like the mood and settings of a particular genre.

Farewell Gary Gygax. :'(

1. Do you or have you played Dungeons & Dragons or any of its spinoffs?

Yes.

2. If so, would you like to share a little of your experiences with the game?

I started off playing Basic D&D back in 1983 (when I was 13) and gradually prgressed to other games as time went by. I never played AD&D however because it was both too difficult for my lazy brain to chew through and too 'American' with its strange monsters. I always prefered mythological and folk lore monsters to the floating eye balls and cubes of slime that I came across in the D&D universe.

As with most people, it was the social aspect of role playing that I enjoyed the most. My brothers and a friend once played one game continuously for three years simply because it was a laugh (and we were young). I don't miss the D&D rule system and I still play role playing and skirmish war games about once a week.

Today I play EVE online which is supposed to be a role playing game, but frankly there is little to no role playing at all. Its more like a virtual nerd-orgy, a gathering of geeks to see who can out play all the others. I see very few people actually role playing and a helluva lot of 'rules lawyers'.

By comparison (and allow me to blow my own trumpet) I enjoy my real world role playing games far more.

3. If you believe D&D to be a negative influence on religious or psychological grounds, why?

I never understood why people took so much offence at role playing. I think maybe its because it was perceived to be anti social in some way, a closed circle.

It might be generational. However, since I have been playing Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights (I & II) on my PC, I have been more interested in gaining levels and getting stuff.


It may be fun to be bad, but usually the bad guys come to a bad end, and nobody really likes treacherous people.


And my message to you, BecomingHuman, is keep trying! (Sorry--Couldn't help it with your username and this topic ) Meantime, you have a great sense of humor.



Are you kidding? Sometimes there are tough calls to make, especially in Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn, for a lawfully good character. Try it sometime. In comparison, playing an evil character often means just taking the easy way out.

Actually, I'm also addicted to the "atta girls" that my character gets when her reputation is enhanced after doing an unselfish thing. ("Atta girls" are a little harder to come by sometimes in real time.) With high charisma and a reputation of 20, encounters with strangers (good ones or neutral ones, that is) tend to go much more favorably. So there are payoffs to being lawful good, or awful good, depending on how you look at it.

It's sad that Gary Gygax didn't make his saving roll against death.

I played. Bought the game pre dice, I cut out chits and put them in Dixiecups. Tried to play recently with friends but there are waaaay too many rules now.

And VS I played several Lawful/Evil characters successfully.

I played Dungeons and Dragons when I was in highschool in the late 80s. It's interesting to me that the females on this site took an interest in this game, and now take an interest in debating as well. When I played, I was the only female player in a fairly large group....just as AD is mostly male. I wonder if there is some physiological explanation for that?

The technical psychological lingo is:

You're a geek

I started playing AD&D on the school bus to and from school. It was about a 45 minute ride with little else to do, so...

The guy who was the DM liked to give away treasure. Soon we were rolling in flaming swords and other out of this world goodies. I particularly liked this one campaign where we went into the Nine Hells to face Asmodeus...

After I got out of the busing situation, I ran a few campaigns in my neighborhood. It was fun planning everything out.

Subsequent games we played fairly heavily were Villains and Vigilantes (that one was good where you took your actual self and created a superhero...), Traveler, and some GURPs. This also branched out into tabletop type games like BattleTech (where you have a giant robot) and Car Wars (design your own vehicle for some butt kicking fun...).

I spent a good deal of coin in those days on the various books, modules and other accessories.

Besides computer RPGs, I have not played an RPG in years.

I think Rocket Propelled Grenades are an extremely cost-effective weapon. Properly shot, they can disable the treads on an M1A1 tank or punch a hole through light armor. Of course, RPGs are not state of the art, but they are very ease to use and their use requires little training--just the thing for insurgents and guerilla warfare.

Tunnels and Trolls was my first before I played D&D.
I played until AD&D and then lost interest. I enjoyed painting the figures more than playing. It started losing its fun when people began organizing field books on how the team should react to certain situations and getting too wound up about the rule book minutiae.
Haven't played in years and year. Never play video games either.
Still like books better and activities that require hands on.

1. Do you or have you played Dungeons & Dragons or any of its spinoffs?

As a child I used to play D & D. After the card craze came and everyone played Magic the Gathering the group disbanded. For a while I used to paint minitures and got quite good at it. This was before Warhammer figures caught on here. I wouldn't mind getting back into the painting again, but the older I get the less personal time I seem to have.

2. If so, would you like to share a little of your experiences with the game?

I liked the fact that people could get together. To this day I cannot online game because to me it represents the distingration of the true gaming unit. Sure you can congregate with alot of RPG'ers but to me it lacks substance. I need to roll the dice!

So you'd be against this:

1. Do you or have you played Dungeons & Dragons or any of its spinoffs?

Used to play with a group of friends when I was in college.

2. If so, would you like to share a little of your experiences with the game?

We had a blast playing. It was just a fun thing to do while we were together. We were in Engineering school, so it was good to let our creative sides out to play a bit ). One of the group went once to a local gaming club we'd heard about, and played with them one night. We asked him how it was, and he was like 'Woah! Those people are like, waaaaay too into it.' They'd all come in costume, etc. None of us ever joined them again...we're weren't THAT into it. Just a fun game to play, ya know.

3. If you believe D&D to be a negative influence on religious or psychological grounds, why?

I always thought this aspect was waaaay overblown. Again, it was just a game. Anyone that was negatively influenced by it was probably a little off to begin with. I don't see how SciFi games are any worse than SciFi books or SciFi movies...just that with the game you got to use you imagine a little more. Like PE and others here, I enjoyed the social aspects, which I think were definitely positive influences.

Yep, I played D&D 2e and loved playing chaotic evil or chaotic neutral chars running around the Forgotten Realms. Good chars always come across as boring to me. Sorry PE, but I can't stand paladins.

In my experience though, gamers doing the evil skit exaggerate their ebilness and it's a wonder they're not whacked by an angry mob or chaotic good character sooner. Elf rogues have always been my favorite class but elves in 3e are little more than long-lived humans with pointy ears, while drow (thanks RAS) have gone from ugly to beautiful, deadly creatures.

I've wanted to play Planescape because of it's mature gaming approach (ideology, warring factions and political expediency v. run of the mill material plane heroism/balance of power) but never got around to it. I mean damn, how can you not like a campaign where demons and divas alike fall in and out of favor with the powers they serve? Gray areas. Gotta love 'em.

Mostly I play MMORPGs. EQ, DAoC, EQ2, WoW, Vanguard and LoTRO. If I could afford a PS3 I'd buy one just so I could play an assassin and stab random people in a crowd.

/salute Gygax

Whose side are you on, Lesly? how about getting with the program? Why don't you join EVE? Jump on the team and come on in for the big win?

I started playing D&D at age 12 and even remember my first characters name...
It's funny I wasn't too creative then and thought the guy who made the game was pretty cool so I called him Gygax.

I still find myself playing role-playing games but have moved away from pen and paper and onto the screen.. Like Lesly, I have played Everquest, Everquest 2, Dark age of Camelot, World of Warcraft and many others as well.

Oh and Moif I loved EVE.. But I kept falling asleep because the tranquility of traveling was just too soothing

Anyone see that Conan on-line is coming... It's supposed to be an MA+ game.. Finally something for the adults.


RIP Gary Gygax

What can I say Moif? I'm stuck with a medieval mentality.

Do you or have you played Dungeons & Dragons or any of its spinoffs?

Nope. I have never played that game. But I have always been curious about it. I picture a bunch of geeky guys sitting in some basement in the wee hours of the night.

I do know of a woman who got so addicted to an on-line version of the game that she stopped cleaning her house and barely looked after her children. She was obsessed.

I prefer good old-fashioned card games: Pinncochle, Rummy, Wist, Hearts, Poker.

I like playing euchre, too. Curmudgeon and I get together with another couple from time to time. It's a good way to socialize.

But euchre is always the same. It takes technique but no imagination to play euchre skillfully. I like the world of medieval fantasy, especially since it is anachronistic enough that females can play any role that males can. There's something about swinging a sword and killing monsters and finding treasure that I find fun.

It's fun to generate a character with traits unlike your own. Perhaps it is a form of compensation, but it is very satisfying to be strong, charismatic, competent, and brave.

I'm glad that Gary Gygax created this gaming genre. I join those who wish that he had made his "saving throw" and stayed with us a while longer.

Not to be, well, me... but Gary Gygax hardly created this genre. RPGs and war type games have been around since Chess. The Dungeons and Dragons idea was around long before Dungeons and Dragons came to be a pamphlet. This does not lessen Gary Gygax's impact on the imaginations of countless geeks (among whom I am proudly a long standing member) but Gary is merely one of many in the pantheon of this phenomenon.

But, would you have taken up role playing had it not been for Gygax? Maybe he didn't give birth to the genre, but I think its fair to say he was present at the birth.

Actually BA, Gygax and Arneson did create the RPG genre. Conflict Simulations, aka wargames, both paper/map based as well as miniatures based, have been around for a long time, how long depends on how abstract you're willing to consider, but the elements that make up RPGs, while all existed before, were never combined in any meaningful fashion before those first books were published.

"Merely one"? That's like saying Mark Twain is "merely one of many in the pantheon of time travel fiction, oh, and he was something of a humourist as well."

Twain really isn't a good example here. Saying Gygax invented RPGs would be closer to saying Twain invented writing. There were Assasin, Spy, War and other RPG type games around for a long time, decades, before D&D. And listen, I am a huge D&D/Gygax fan but he didn't invet the Role Playing Game. Christ, cowboys and indians is a role playing game with rules.

With dice? And an experience point system? And level system?

I played a lot of "War" growing up but I never became a level 10 Sniper.

I can't believe I haven't seen GURPS or Over the Edge mentioned yet. Not even Carwars? Man I feel so alone. Ars Magica was my favourite because the classes allowed players to move between groups of characters with ease. Was a well set up system before White Wolf bought it out from Wizards of the Coast and before the Wizards went over to the card games.

Twain is a fantastic example. He essentially created the time travel genre (if you can find any meaningful time travel books before Connecticut Yankee, let's hear about em), but never get's credit for it. H.G. Wells gets the credit. As for Assassin, Spy, War, and Cowboys and Indians being RPGs, no, they aren't. They are live role playing, which is a different beast. Related, yes, just like the Society for Creative Anachronisms is related, as are the paper based games of the era from Avalon Hill, Simulations Publications, Game Designers Workshop, Task Force Games, Steve Jackson Games, etc, and yes, Cowboys and Indians. What he did is the same thing as Caesar Cardini did, combine existing elements into a brand new form that took advantage of the strengths of the elements and minimized their weaknesses. Nobody claims that Gygax (and Arneson) created FRPGs out of whole cloth, heck, IIRC, the forward of the original three books references the evolution from Chainmail, which was a miniatures game.

Cowboy's and Indians lacks structure. Assassin, Spy, etc lack story arc and character. Board games and miniatures have too much structure, are closed ended. The SCA is specifically limited by the real world. It may be the "Middle Ages as they should have been", but there's still no dragons! (And fighting is a lot more work than rolling dice!)

Getting off the subject here a bit (this is casual conversation) but, as a sci-fi geek, I feel compelled to point out that the first version of the immortal tale by H. G. Wells, published under the title "The Chronic Argonauts," appeared in 1888; one year prior to Twain's classic work. That's splitting hairs, I admit. Clearly it was "steam engine time" for time travel fiction.

I might also point out that lesser known works of time travel fiction existed before these two giants in the field. There is Samuel Madden's "Memoirs of the Twentieth Century" (1733), Edward P. Mitchell's "The Clock That Went Backward" (1881), and Enrique Gaspar y Rimbau's "El Anacronopete" ("He Who Flies Against Time," 1887), which actually features a time machine rather than purely supernatural time travel.

(Thanks, wikipedia!)

However, all these works, along with Twain's, use the gimmick of time travel for the purpose of fantasy and satire. It took Wells to make the concept truly science fictional.

None of which is meant to take anything away from the great contributions made to literature by Twain, nor the great contributions made to gaming made by Gygax.

I saw this motivational poster spoof and was reminded of PE:

http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/9221/paladins2xf7.jpg