Posted by
Catmman on Wednesday, March 05, 2008 12:51:52 PM
Yes, I played Dungeons & Dragons.
There.
I said it.
What's funny is how D&D has taken on such a geeky conotation in today's culture. People joke about it. Comedians write songs about it. It is genereally impugned as something which kept young adolescent boys from experiencing the joys of dating and other stuff young adolescent boys did 25 years ago. No mention is ever given that MANY adolescent boys played D&D 25 years ago and fail to include it on said list of stuff we did... (Side note: I don't buy the whole dating angle either. Maybe it's just me. I only ever dated three girls growing up. I only ever kissed two girls growing up and one of them was my high school sweetheart whom I've now been married to for 21 years - SO THERE!!)
Even my kids got in on making fun of dear old dad. "You played D&D?", they ask. "YES. And it was fun.", I reply. "Your a dork dad." Then I utter the coup de grace' and say, "How much time did you spend on the computer playing Oblivion (a computer RPG) last weekend?"
Crickets.
Oh, and let's not forget the wife. I played D&D before I started dating her when we were in high school. But I did dally in it on occasion after we were married. "I just don't understand how a grown man can sit around rolling dice and looking at a piece of paper imagining they are fighting monsters." My most recent retort when this issue flairs up in the house (woman just don't understand men) is "Just what did you learn on Oprah/Dr. Phil/Ellen/Etc. today dear?" or, "Don't forget to DVR the latest Lifetime Movie of the Week, dear."
Crickets.
Like I said, I played D&D. I wasn't a hardcore player by any means. I can actually count on two hands the number of times I ever actually engaged in real 'campaigns' in my entire life. I was more into the peripherals - making characters, reading the 'literature' (manuals, modules, etc.), making maps on graph paper for no good reason. All that stuff. It was fun.
It was another activity I engaged in in a time before my first car and the freedom that entails for a teenager. It was a time before the internet, though not a time before home game systems (Atari 2600 baby!) or home computers (a good childhood friend of mine had an Apple IIE). I was a consumate book reader (still am). Fantasy and sci-fi novels being my favorite. I cannot count how many times I read and re-read TLOTR trilogy as a teen (or an adult). D&D touched that imaginative spark in my mind. It was a world of almost pure imagination (there's the Willy Wonka reference. This post has everything!)
You could play with pre-made game modules or your Dungeon Master could make up entire scenarios for you and your compatriots to participate in. Other than the special dice needed for the game, usually you had a pad of paper, you homemade character sheets and something to write with. Everything else was a product of your mind. Imagining the monsters you were facing, the environements you were in, putting yourself into the situations you were given and solving the problem to get out of a trap or get the treasure or complete the quest. That was one of the most enjoyable aspects of it for me. It allowed for a creative outlet. It stimulated creative thinking, problem solving. It was (besides little league football) my earliest experience in group dynamics. It also helped me learn how to read people. As a poker player reads his opponents, I learned to read the Dungeon Master and my fellow players. I learned to "read peoples eyes" as it were. Was the Dungeon Master lying? Could I trust my players in certain situations? A skill which has helped me immensely throughout my life and in my military and law enforcement careers BTW.
I enjoyed my experience with D&D. I never fell for the hype about it being "a tool of the Devil." I am (and was even then) more confident in my faith in God than those who blamed D&D for all matter of juvenile problems. The railing against D&D was probably one of the earliest examples (beside the evil "rock music") of nanny statism. D&D was blamed for everything. Yes, there were incidents where D&D was cited as a contributing factor but they were so overblown and hyped by an alarmist media that they exagerrated the problem while ignoring the greater symptoms. A teen who kills themself has more issues in their life than how often they may have played D&D. This is just common sense. Yet the hype and alarmism continued.
My own mother and I even had our first (and biggest) falling out over that very fact. As I stated, I didn't actually play D&D on a regular basis, but I did spend time dealing with peripheral issue of the game as explained above. At this time in the early 80's, my mom confused her Christian faith with fanaticism and thought D&D WAS a "tool of the devil". She had been told as much in church. I came home from school one day to find all my D&D material (not much) and some posters of scatily clad females (the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders) missing from my room. My mother had 'confiscated' all of my stuff, and had taken it to the church where they had a grand old bonfire scheduled for the Wednesday evening service. They were going to burn D&D stuff, albums, tapes, all manner of "evil". Now my mom (amongst others) apparently didn't see the irony and hypocrisy involved in what they were doing. You see, it was "for the children." They fell for the hype. This incident also was my biggest revelation into the "TV preacher" phenomena of the period. Jimmy Swaggart. Benny Hinn. My parents watched all those crooks. And that incident with taking my stuff was the time in my life all kids reach where they break with their parents.
So in a weird kind of way, D&D also allowed me to grow up a little and face some larger life issues - faith, God, religion, and my relationship with my parents.
But D&D was and is just a game. A good game I think which I enjoyed immensely when I was a teen (and even a couple of times when I first came in the military and was deployed to Germany and Panama early in my career). There were and are worse things kids could do with their time. Even now when I make the occasional journey to one of the local comic book stores, you can see kids (and many a grownup?) still playing similar RPG's or even D&D. They aren't out making mischief. They aren't getting teenage girls pregnant. They aren't otherwise making themselves a burden on society. They are rolling the 4, 6, 8 or 12 sided dice and having fun.
UPDATE (1449 CST): Follow this link to find out what kind of D&D character you could be. Answer the survey questions honestly. It takes 15-20 minutes, but it figures up your profile characteristcs and everything.
It's pretty neat. And fun too.