I’m a gamer through and through. Board games, video games, card games, role playing games…you name it, I probably played it or tried to play it at some point. I love the competition, the creative and strategic thinking and the thrill of pitting your wits against your friends’. Role playing games (RPGs) are by far my favorite. RPGs are social games, usually requiring from 4-7 people to gather for several hours around a table and collaborate towards a single goal (generally). The bullshit, jokes, snacks and good times generally flow freely. Sometimes we spend as much time at the table just discussing the stuff of life as we do playing the game. There are a lot of misconceptions about gamers, and RPGs in general thanks to some bad press, some crazy people on the religious right and, in some cases, the people who actually play the game. I’d like to take you on a journey into my world of gaming and hopefully when we get to the other end a few of you might be inspired to pick up an RPG and give it a try.
I remember when I first started playing Dungeons and Dragons. It was upwards of 30 (holy cow, did I just type that?!) years ago. I still have one six sided die from the original D&D red box that I keep for good luck. It was made with a very cheap plastic and looks like it has been tossed into a garbage disposal and given a good grinding. The first time I ever played was in a tent in the backyard of a friend’s house. His older brother played the game and I think (this was a long time ago) his mom was forcing him to hang out with us, so he handed us a couple character sheets and we were off battling a dragon over a tar pit. I do remember I used a fireball to set the pit on fire to distract the dragon, other than that the night is a blur. I was hooked. I saved up my allowance, bought my first red box and devoured those rules like they were candy.
The bad press started in the early 1980’s, mainly thanks to that stupid Tom Hanks movie, for which I may never forgive him. Christians were up in arms over D&D because some of the books had poorly drawn boobies in them and sections on devils and demons. Suddenly people who played D&D were practicing witchcraft and satanic rituals. We reportedly gathered in circles and called out to evil spirits and rolled 13 sided dice. That last one really got me because I remember that jackass Falwell on his 700 Club one Halloween waving a monster manual around and railing against the game. Here was a man who had clearly never bothered to do more than look at the cover and a couple drawings and assume the worst. I can honestly say in my entire history of playing D&D I never once summoned a demon, drank blood or sacrificed a fellow player. (Although I have wanted to kill fellow players, it was definitely not for any satanic gain.)
I fell into and out of D&D in the early 80’s because finding fellow players was hard to do. It was like a secret society and all the members wanted to remain anonymous because they had to hide their books from their parents or be ridiculed for being nerds. Things got better around high school when I joined the chess and games club. Yes we were nerds, but we were the smartest nerds in school. It was here I was introduced to other RPGs like Paranoia, Gurps, Battletech, Robotech, Call of Cthulhu and more. I sampled them all, but D&D was still my first and primary game. We would pull all-nighters playing at a friend’s house and getting yelled at by his dad for making too much noise at 3 in the morning. We lived on Dr. Pepper and Pixie Stix and salami sandwiches (that was what his mom kept in the fridge for us to eat, lots of salami). His dad was actually pretty funny because he would get us up the next day after 3 or 4 hours of sleep and put us to work on some crazy chore like waterproofing the deck or pulling out some tree.
After high school it was play D&D and work. I lived in Florida, it was hot outside, and at least D&D gave me an excuse to stay in the air conditioning. Eventually our group drifted apart as people went to college or moved to other parts of the state and once again I found myself without anyone to play with. I picked up Magic: The Gathering during this time, and video games and got my first taste of MUDs (Multi User Dungeons), which were the precursors to today’s MMOs (Massive Multiplayer Online games). I actually met my wife playing a MUD. This was so similar to D&D that it took care of my fix for me and I stopped playing it for a while. Eventually I stopped playing the MUD because I found a new game, EverQuest. The store clerk told my wife when she picked up a copy of EQ for me something like “say hello to the back of his head for me” and he was right. I played the crap out of that game, and it was fun, but still I wanted to play D&D. Playing online with strangers just wasn’t as much fun as playing with a group of people at a table. We were living in a new state and I am terrible at meeting new people, so I stuck with EQ for the longest time, probably too long.
Eventually, in yet another state, I ventured into the local game store. I saw a group playing D&D and I just kind of sat there and watch them play for a while. Like I said, I am not good at meeting new people on my own, but eventually I was able to overcome this anxiety and I managed to weasel my way into that D&D group. The game had changed a lot since I last played, as D&D was now owned by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and it was 3.5 edition. (I had last played second edition but I had the 3rd edition books.) I was back and getting out of the house once a week to play. Demons and devils (taken out in the early 80’s to appease Christians) were back, we even played in an open public place — something unheard of when I was younger. I had to wonder what had happened during my EQ-induced coma from the outside world.
Now, I play in two separate groups, although we don’t always play D&D. Recently I played in a homebrew system that another guy I play with put together. Right now I run one D&D group and play Exalted in another group on weekends. Finding players and games is a lot easier than when I was younger, and there are entire websites devoted to my favorite hobby. D&D still has a bit of a reputation as a game played by nerds in their mom’s basement, which is no longer necessarily true (A statement rife with irony since I pretty much live in a basement and that’s where my Saturday group plays, but it’s a nice basement!). I hope to be rolling dice and making immature jokes even when I am a nursing home.
Next week: A sample of how a couple of the main systems work, and what you need to play.
Image: Will Merydith on Flickr.
