30 Years Of Dungeons And Dragons

vasqzr writes "CNN has a story about Dungeons and Dragons celebrating its 30th birthday. 'An estimated 25,000 fans in 1,200 stores celebrated the anniversary Saturday, said Charles Ryan, brand manager for role-playing games at Wizards of the Coast, a Renton, Washington, company that owns Dungeons & Dragons.'"

Comments

Although correlation != causation

[Anonymous Coward]

Countries with D&D have seen their birthrates decrease for the past 30 years.

Re:Although correlation != causation

[daniil]

Ahh, it saddens me to think of all the heroes that have fallen in countless D&D combats. The best warriors are routinely slaughtered, but for what purpose? What are they fihting and dying for? Gold? But what good has all this gold brought them? Had they stayed at home, they would have become good farmers or blacksmiths (or, who knows, perhaps even philosophers, searching for a better tomorrow), good husbands to their wives, good fathers to their sons and daughters. But alas, they are all gone. They have all died in this pointless war.

*wipes a tear from his face, grabs his bag'o'dice and notebook, and marches off into a distant realm*

Re:Although correlation != causation

[zrk]

But, so many of them were carrying around WMDs that unleashed havoc upon peaceful realms. You know they had to be eliminated.

WMD= Weapons of Magic Destruction.

Re:Although correlation != causation

[John Courtland]

You know, I've found the opposite to be true (although the joke is very well timed and very funny :) )

Most people I know that play D&D (not a great sample size, but I think I meet the requisite 34) are sexual maniacs. But then again, it may be countered by the prudes.

Re:Although correlation != causation

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Had they stayed at home, they would have become good farmers or blacksmiths (or, who knows, perhaps even philosophers, searching for a better tomorrow), good husbands to their wives, good fathers to their sons and daughters...

... at least until the Beast With No Name arose from Beyond the Black Void and ate the world, as prophesied. :)

Re:Although correlation != causation

[WarPresident]

Ahh, it saddens me to think of all the heroes that have fallen in countless D&D combats. The best warriors are routinely slaughtered, but for what purpose? What are they fihting and dying for?

Usually for pissing off the DM... Took the last powdered donut without asking? Your character's last words might be:

"What do you mean the feather fall wears off?"
"C'mon guys, it's just a pile of dragon bones... guys?"
"What's a tarrasque?"
"HOW many Kobolds?"

Re:Although correlation != causation

[I Be Hatin']

Most people I know that play D&D (not a great sample size, but I think I meet the requisite 34) are sexual maniacs.

Yeah, but are they actually getting any?

Re:Although correlation != causation

[tonywong]

I really don't understand... I've been a half-elf ranger/bard for 20+ years now with a charisma of 17 and I still can't get laid.

Cripes, some of these women won't even touch the d20. How do they expect me to approach them then?

Re:Although correlation != causation

[techno-vampire]

My favorite: "My regular GM says the spell works like that..."

Re:Although correlation != causation

[Drawkcab]

"Had they stayed at home, they would have become good farmers or blacksmiths (or, who knows, perhaps even philosophers, searching for a better tomorrow), good husbands to their wives, good fathers to their sons and daughters."

Nope, you can't be good at any of that without skill points from killing kobolds and giant bats. Of course I suppose a clever enough farmer might get the experience to be a great philosopher if they manage to find and exterminate an ant colony in their field.

Re:Although correlation != causation

[jasongm]

Congrats D&D! I remember playing the game back in the early 90's (2nd edition if i remember?), the setting was in the Forgotten Fealms saga. It was interesting, but it just got boring really fast, used pencils,paper & eraser to constantly wipe my Hit points & experience on & off. It got to the point where my characters paper was just smeared & had to use a brand new one. My brother & friends seemed to enjoy playing this game, but it was hard to visual what was going on... I prefered fantasy RPG's on my SNES & Eye of the Beholder series for the PC at the time over pen & paper classics. But still, congrats to D&D for lasting this long!

Re:Although correlation != causation

[Dirtside]

"What's a tarrasque?"

"I didn't know tarrasques traveled in packs!"

Re:Although correlation != causation

[killjoe]

My experience has been that women really like the game once they start palying it. The trick though is to emphasize the roleplaying aspect of it. In other words punish and reward the characters for good and bad acting. The best part of the game is acting anyway and what women doesn't want to try acting in a safe environment (i.e an audience of 5 rather then 500).

Re:Although correlation != causation

[caseydk]

Isn't that what you say to Narl in Baldur's Gate?

Re:Although correlation != causation

[Believe]

For those like me who are not as well versed in D&D lore, Tarrasques are described here.

Re:Although correlation != causation

[fucksl4shd0t]

Didn't it ever occur to you to just grab a few d10s and use those for your hit points? That way you're only erasing and rewriting your hit points once a game, at the end when it's time to go.

Or, for those of us who suffered Frequent Death Syndrome, I could just use a d12 to track my hit points.

Re:Although correlation != causation

[SoTuA]

ROTFLMAO!

While reading the Monster Manual, I wondered what the fuck was the tarrasque there for. Some DM on a holy mission of killing his decade-old party of level 60/60/60/60 fighter/cleric/mage/thieves?

30 years!

[geeveees]

THIRTY years of Dungeons&Dragons!

It's a ...

/me rolls 1d6

...HAPPY birthday!

Re:30 years!

[munehiro]

1d20. Or is your happy birthday like a short sword hit ? :P

Re:30 years!

[mog007]

I get the sinking feeling that most posts will amount to people rolling dice for a response to the article. It reminds me of the first Anthology of Interest on Futurama where Gary Gygax made a guest shot and Al Gore got irritated at his constant dice rolling.

30 Years?

[Pan T. Hose]

Wow. I am very -- *rolls dice* -- surprised that it's already so long.

Re:30 Years?

[Chocolate Teapot]

Yep. Doesn't seem a day more than 50 years, does it?

Re:30 Years?

[Fred_A]

Is this some kind of comment on my age ?

For those that didn't already know

[Pingular]

Dungeons and dragons

Re:For those that didn't already know

[Anonymous Coward]

Number of geeks in the world who don't know about D&D or Google: four, apparently, going by the number of people who modded you up for that overwhelmingly redundant post. Such is Slashdot...

Re:For those that didn't already know

[ThJ]

He posts links to Wikipedia all the time. So what? It didn't even occur to me that Wikipedia would have an article about it. I have never played D&D (never had access to it, and I have too few friends) so that Wikipedia article actually looks interesting. Kudos to this poster. I'd mod him up too. I love Wikipedia.

Thanks...

[MrFluffyPants26]

..for telling me a day late.

Re:Thanks...

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know either, but completely coincidentally I was playing my first Saturday-night D&D session since 1986 yesterday!

Says something about the bell-curve my life has taken I guess...

Re:Thanks...

[pommiekiwifruit]

You're annoyed? Heck, I just found out that today it is the culinery olympics in germany... why oh why can't the news agencies tell us these important things *before* they happen, eh? I could have booked off some holiday time...

Re:Thanks...

[xanderwilson]

I was considering going to the local 30th anniversary game yesterday, having not played since 2nd ed. AD&D a few years ago. But when I heard they were running two "D&D" games (no "Advanced") I figured no big deal if I didn't go, since Dungeons and Dragons is a different game from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Now I'm learning that they took the "Advanced" from the title and now the third (or 3.5 edition) of AD&D is simply called "D&D" (and they discontinued the regular D&D?) now and I probably would have been right at home, or at least only 1.5 versions away from being current.

I know it's for simplification reasons, but boy is it confusing for a guy who's only been out of it a few years. I even had an article published in Dragon in '01, so I don't feel that I should be a newbie.

Alex.

Re:Thanks...

[Anonymous Coward]

They did tell us

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/1 0/ 1824227&tid=209

Re:Thanks...

[Alan Shutko]

Actually, D&D, AD&D, and D&D3e have about the same amount in common, rules-wise. D&D3e is closer to AD&D in feel, but there are still a number of changes.

However, they're all close enough that you'd probably have felt at home no matter what. The adventures run were fairly introductory, designed to be playable with people without much experience in the game.

Re:Thanks...

[rkanodia]

Indeed, the games were a slightly stripped-down version of 3rd edition, and the character sheets they provided literally told you what you needed to roll for pretty much everything. That is to say, it didn't just list all the various modifiers, it had entries like "Shortbow: Attack Roll d20+3, Damage 1d6-1", with a little note saying something like "The attack roll succeeds if you score higher than the opponent's armor class. The Dungeon Master will tell you if you hit or not."

Re:Thanks...

[Alan Shutko]

Yep, the intro module was a section of the one in the new D&D basic game (which I picked up, being a sucker for anything which purports to teach D&D to newbies... one of these days, _one_ of the three or four basic sets I have around will catch my wife's interest).

I think that was a good thing... we had a few new players at our game who seemed to enjoy themselves and will probably go further in the hobby.

Thanks...

[while(true)]

...for making me feel old, you insensitive clod!

Just kidding, happy big 30 D&D! :)

Nice, Sort Of

[mfh]

D&D is such a great game. I would like to thank Ed Greenwood for his wonderful contributions to the game in the form of the Forgotten Realms. Truly inspirational work this stuff is, or at least was. But sadly TSR has gone downhill since being eaten by the WoSC group, who used to just make a bunch of playing cards. Before you all pipe in and tell me to shut the hell up (because 3rd gen r00lz), I'll have you know that any time a module presents NINE 10th level fighters together as a battle, like in the Ravenloft adventures in and around Bluetspur, you have to ask if the depth of the game has been replaced by the stats that go with it. The answer has to be that the game has indeed shifted from a game of detailed and rich storytelling, such as with Ed Greenwood's additions, to a game of character advancement by hacking and slashing monsters, and people.

I'm sorry but TSR jumped the shark with Ravenloft, not to mention Spell Jamming.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[NeoSkandranon]

To me Forgotten Realms IS D&D just about...I started D&D with the FR setting (improvising, just using maps, not the acutal FR campaign setting) and I really love it..there's so much back-material that a DM can incorporate and so many places and whatnot. Some people may call me unoriginal for not wanting to create my own worlds, but frankly I don't think that a campaign suffers much from having a ready body of terrain and culture to take from...

Either way, down one for Ed Greenwood (and pray his books come out in paperback faster!)

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Moby Cock]

I have to agree. I used to play AD&D years ago until a friend of mine wanted to switch over to play the Star Wars RPG. It was fun change for a short while until the characters became all powerful (read: super stong Jedis). That game, like your comment, really focused on getting better skills and then killing more stormtroopers. Its fun for a little bit but gets old.

I remeber playing AD&D and the reward at the end of a weekend of adventuring was a sword. And it took another weekend to find the magician that told me it did. Good times.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Junior J. Junior III]

Ravenloft and Spelljammer were 2nd edition. And yes, it was getting lame at that point. Ahem, relatively speaking.

But 3rd edition was a great revision. The core rules are wonderfully streamlined, yet complex. The system has its flaws and faults still, but melee in 3e was the most managable system of any edition since Basic D&D.

D&D always runs into a problem where in order to keep selling books they have to publish more and more titles, and after a while the well runs dry and they just don't playtest or quality control like they should. But if you stick to the core books and your own house rules, it's a great game.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[JonnyCalcutta]

To be fair WotC were a small games publisher like any other (Talislanta and some other stuff) until they were approached by Richard Garfield (could be the wrong name, its been a while) with a certain collectable card game. I'm not sure anyone involved at that point was 100% responsible for the runaway success of their own product since it wasn't really initially meant to be a 'collectable' game. And since they've spent a good many years now owned by Hasbro, the widget maker of the board game world, is it any surprise that all originality, fun and charm has been sucked out of it all?

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[SJasperson]

TSR jumped the shark not long after the release of Chainmail (which I still own the original spiral-bound rule book for), you young whippersnapper.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Bootsy Collins]

I can understand (and agree with) this argument if all one does is use the pre-prepared campaigns and adventures put out by WotC. But if you're designing your own campaign, I don't see how this need be true. I can't tell you you're wrong, since I haven't run a game or played under D&D3 rules (since I'm not playing or running games at all these days). But you don't have to use the campaigns that WotC puts out.

Put another way, what is it about D&D3 (as opposed to AD&D2 or AD&D1 or original D&D -- don't know much about D&D2 myself) that prevents a creative referee from desigining an interesting campaign, containing involving stories, and presenting them in an engaging fashion?

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[skroz]

you have to ask if the depth of the game has been replaced by the stats that go with it. The answer has to be that the game has indeed shifted from a game of detailed and rich storytelling, such as with Ed Greenwood's additions, to a game of character advancement by hacking and slashing monsters, and people

You forget one very important thing about D&D and RPGs in general... the game is what you make of it. The system is incidental. If your GM and players all want a game about hacking and slashing, then the d20 rules will give you a great place to do that. If your group wants action, adventure, character development, intrigue, and all of the "flavor," then you can also do that within the framework that WoTC has provided with third edition. Or you could use another system. Or use no system at all.

Personally, I'm thrilled with the changes made from 2nd edition to 3rd. 3.5 doesn't sit as well, but they really did fix a lot from 3.0. But the books themselves are there as tools to help GMs (sorry, DMs) build worlds, and it's up to the storyteller to create a world in which the players can find adventure. You don't need rules for that... you need rules to keep everyone from arguing with each other when you do need to figure out what happens to the kobold when it gets hit with the +5 axe of vorpal soothing.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[meringuoid]

WoSC group

Wizards of the Sword Coast?

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[skroz]

You know what? Just to prove it can be done, I'm going to run my next session using the rules for Chutes and Ladders... just to prove my point to, er, myself.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[heptapod]

The biggest flaw with D&D 3.5 is the fact that it still requires people to use obscure polyhedral dice. How many times have you rolled a d12 in a game?
I'm surprised that the folks working on D&D didn't take stock of what kind of dice get rolled most frequently and migrate the system to using one kind of die like other gaming systems.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[BeerCat]

Ah, the days when the DM concentrated on storylines, all the while trying to avoid the IUDC syndrome.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Anonymous Coward]

I think TSR redeemed themselves to the hard core RPGers with Planescape. Too bad they killed it. It was a truly outstanding campaign setting. Currently D&D has no setting for advanced players so they tend to play rifts, shadowrun, or white wolf games. Pity.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[ahknight]

How many times have you rolled a d12 in a game?

Every time my Dwarf attacks ...

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Anonymous Coward]

Wtf is chutes and ladders? a politically correct american snakes and ladders or something?

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Allen Varney]

sadly TSR has gone downhill since being eaten by the [WotC] group [...] TSR jumped the shark with Ravenloft, not to mention Spell Jamming.

As others have pointed out, TSR published the Ravenloft and Spelljammer campaign settings long before Wizards of the Coast bought TSR. More to the point, many fans regard the Ravenloft setting as one of the high points of the TSR years, because of its sharp sense of the Gothic horror genre. Wizards sold the line to White Wolf Game Studio, which continues to publish it under its Arthaus imprint.

As for Spelljammer, that was my own favorite AD&D campaign setting (along with Al-Qadim, the Arabian Nights setting). I had great fun writing the first Spelljammer module, WILDSPACE. Unfortunate much of the support line failed to live up to the premise's potential.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[meringuoid]

you need rules to keep everyone from arguing with each other when you do need to figure out what happens to the kobold when it gets hit with the +5 axe of vorpal soothing.

His arm comes off, but he's OK about it.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Planesdragon]

I'm sorry but TSR jumped the shark with Ravenloft, not to mention Spell Jamming.

TSR jumped the shark with 2nd edition. Not "During", "with". Which is why when WotC sent Ryan Dancy to check out if they could be bought, he found a warehouse full of unsold 1st edition material.

TSR was bought out because, quite frankly, they didn't know what they were doing. WotC took D&D and made it what it always had been at the core--a rather campy hack & slash system with rules clear enough to be stretched to tell good stories.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[NeoSkandranon]

3.5 Almost seemed to me what WinME was to Windows....some of the errata seemed to work well, but there were other things (didn't they reintroduce a form of 2e Kits?) seemed to be unbalanced (or else targeted at simple hacknslash campaigns) ---if i'm wrong please tell me, but from what i've read/heard....

Oh, and there was that part where (again as far as i know) if you have 3.0 core books you have to buy brand new 3.5 books all over again (not a drop in the bucket to a college gamer)

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[muhcashin]

Well, from my experience, rules are useful (and perhaps necessary) to hack-and-slash games. Those games require a lot dice rolling whereas the more-talk-less-fight games generally don't need very detailed rules. Immersive story-telling games need only a reasonable DM. And to those who hate hack-and-slashing, D&D was born from war games, so it only makes sense that violence and killing be part of it.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[ThJ]

You must be mistaken. An RPG in which your sole goal is slaying innocent monsters to collect points? That's Ragnorok Online! :O

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Bigbutt]

Yea, I really enjoyed Spelljammer. Especially the expansion of the Beholder races, always my favorite monster.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Thangodin]

I am partial to 2nd ed, and I loved the first ed Gygax modules (the Vault of the Drow series and Giants series). And I've got a shelfload of Dragon magazines. But really, the whole point was never the rules, but what you did with them. The nice thing about D&D was the fudge factor--as the DM, you could scale the difficulty level as you went to bring the party to the edge of defeat without wiping them out. More strictly defined rules systems didn't leave this leeway, because players could tell from the dice roll whether they had succeeded or not. In D&D the DM was always the final arbiter. Now you can run online adventures with Neverwinter Nights, so if your old D&D group has split up into different cities, you can still play together, but I'm not sure it gives the same leeway.

I was lucky in that I played in university with a bunch of people with multiple degrees. We had people in history, philosophy, english, political science, psychology, and engineering, all voracious readers, and a couple of hard core gamers. The interesting thing about running in a tabletop game is that the DM plays God, so you really get to see what their idea of justice, politics, economics, and human nature is. This led to a lot of interesting discussions on subjects like the nature of evil or medieval politics. We used to have pitched arguments about the difference between religion in the game world vs. the medieval world. The gods in the game world took active roles, while the God of the medieval church never intervened. This meant that religion in the game world was actually controlled by the gods--a very interesting premise.

Another interesting thing about D&D is that it is intended as a fully cooperative game. A lot of cooperative games were created in the 70's, but D&D is the only one that caught on. The opponents are provided by the DM, who nevertheless is not playing against the players. This was always missed by the hysterical critics, who were obsessed with the violence in the game or the mythical elements (eewwww--the occult!) Media coverage of the game in the early days was pathetic. They were always so intent on looking for a scare story that they couldn't see what was going on right in front of them: players working together in a creative hobby.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[JudicatorX]

using one kind of die like other gaming systems.

Boring....

I don't want to need to roll 4d6 for every attack.

Using one kind of die == lacks versatility.

Besides, d10's, d12's etc are are hardly "obscure"... d1000's yes, but when you can get the damned things for under a buck, I'd hardly call them obscure.

Also, you can use them to fascinate non-gamers ("wow, a dice that doesn't have six sides...")

:P

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[RosebudLTD]

3.5 streamlined a few problem areas. For instance, it took a few of the really overabused spells, and fixed the abusable parts. The folks I've heard complaining the loudest, appropriately, are the players that are always looking for a loophole to exploit to guarantee their character is better than yours. There's one at every table.

The closest thing to 2e kits are prestige classes, which were introduced in 3e. Some of the more popular ones from expansion books were stuck into the 3.5 DMG, but other than that nothing really changed.

Two other significant changes: the combat rules in the Player's Handbook got a bit of an overhaul, streamlining some of the more difficult-to-understand options... 3e at large is entirely more tactical than 2e. It doesn't mean that it is focused on combat... it just took something that was kinda rough and freeform before, and makes it easier to visualize. (Beauty of it is, just like any other ruleset, that you can choose not to use the tactical part of the rules in your home campaign, if it doesn't suit you).

Second, the Dungeon Master's Guide got a huge section filled with tips and tricks for DM's, and a lot of common sense guidelines. A real good read for a fledgling DM.

The cost of buying new books? Phhh... 20 bucks to buy a new PH. It costs more to go out for a night of drinking, and you'll get much more value out of it. A gaming group only *needs* a single copy of the DMG and Monster Manual between them... it was easy enough for everyone to chip in for a set and share them, until people felt like getting their own. A few of our folks still only have the PH.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[LaminatorX]

To me, the FR was always something of a let-down. It tried very hard to be larger than life and succeeded all to well. To my mind, the world of Greyhawk is the once and future D&D setting. It's deliberately middle-fantasy, aggressively neutral, and sits nicely on its own.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[grahamdrew]

The cost of buying new books? Phhh... 20 bucks to buy a new PH. $20 if you get it from Amazon. Nearly every other place on the planet sells it for the $30 retail. 3.5 didn't have the $20 "introductory" period 3.0 did. Can make a good bit of a diffrence if you're looking to replace a full 3.0 set, and come up short $30...

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Edie O'Teditor]

Media coverage of the game in the early days was pathetic. They were always so intent on looking for a scare story that they couldn't see what was going on right in front of them: players working together in a creative hobby.

Well what did you expect them to make up stories about, teh intarweb hadn't even been invented[1]!

Actually, IIRC, it seemed to alternate between RPGs and heavy metal music (Iron Maiden seemed to be particular targets), at least in the UK during the late 80s. Ee, them were the days.

[1] well it was pretty much unknown outside government & academia.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Mannerism]

I would like to thank Ed Greenwood for his wonderful contributions to the game in the form of the Forgotten Realms. Truly inspirational work this stuff is, or at least was.

For those who prefer a higher level of consistency and a somewhat lower level of fantasy, HarnWorld is unparallelled as far as RPG settings go. I find it infinitely more inspiring than anything TSR/WotC has produced, FR included. Both the official (here and here) and the fan-produced material (example) is outstanding.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[HiThere]

OK. I'm still mad about TSR? copyrighting/trademarking the name that people were already using, and making it so that no one else could call their products D&D.

I've refused to purchase their products ever since. (Mind you, I dropped out of the genre when I graduated from college...so it's been decades.)

It's really sad that whichever way you look, the laws allow and protect IP claimjumpers with money. (And this just means relatively a lot of money. TSR? [whoever it is that's allowed to use the term Dungeons and Dragons] had a lot of money relative to their competition, so they were allowed to handicap them by forcing them to repackage their products with new descriptions.)

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[techno-vampire]

One of my friends was one of the playtesters for Greyhawk. He's been teaching it to Gifted Students during summers for over a quarter of a century. He uses an eclectic mixture of 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition rules, with characters built under each. His motto is, "I'm easy; I can kill anybody." I've never seen him go out to kill a character, nor hold back when it happens.

To give you an idea how wild his games can get, I once had a 4th level mage in his game with a bracer that could put up a Prismatic Wall. He couldn't advance while holding it, but once he took a crit in the head, put up the wall and staggered back. The entire party (except for one character who was lucky enough to be infront of mine.) went through the wall backwards. We had to take several piles of rubble back to town, then get somebody to cast mend followed by stone to flesh before we could try to raise dead. My character got several hundred accidental XP for trashing his own party.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[muhcashin]

I was introduced to the FR setting through novels and not the game itself. So, FR being larger than life works with the novels, I have trouble imagining Drizzt et Al. being very interesting had they been agressively neutral. Although FR wasn't originally based on novels, we can agree that much of its more recent material is based on them. And most rpgs/campaign setting based on or licensed from other stories kind of suck. Dragonlance is not fun to play, Star Wars is very difficult to manage because people cannot detach from the books.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[myowntrueself]

"and migrate the system to using one kind of die like other gaming systems."

Oh yeah, like white wolf and their D6 system of dice pools... which, when you look at the combinatorial analysis of that system, is totally insane, counterintuitive and makes no sense whatsoever.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Nutria]

Wtf is chutes and ladders? a politically correct american snakes and ladders or something?

A board game for young children. Been around forever.

What's Snakes and Ladders?

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Joe Tie.]

Glad to see I'm not alone in that. The usual knights and dragons were fun, but at times it was even more so to transplant the concept into something a bit askew from it. Both in ravenloft and spelljammer, one of my favorite parts was the whole idea of taking things familiar to one setting (beholders, mind flayers, thri-keen) and tossing away a large amount of what players were expecting. I wish it would have lasted a bit longer, and gone into more detail on how the different worlds got along. It would have been fun, for example, to get some information about the relations of normal gnomes and dragonlance gnomes.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[skroz]

Oh, and there was that part where (again as far as i know) if you have 3.0 core books you have to buy brand new 3.5 books all over again

Not really. WotC put out a free PDF that summarizes all of the important changes in all three of the core books and all major changes that need to be applied to supplements up to (I believe) FIend Folio. It does the trick for me. It isn't a perfect solution, but it is enough for people on a really tight budget. People at GenCon 2003 even got a printed copy. :)

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[serutan]

Forgotten Realms has been a great setting. One concept I really liked is the Harpers operating in the background. The new Eberron setting looks pretty interesting too. In my campaigns magic tends to be more common than in standard D&D, so I like the idea of magic being an integral part of the economy. As soon as my group finishes its current extended campaign, the next will be set in Eberron.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[greulich]

If you are really low on cash you can just use the SRD. All of the rules available for free on the web. What a concept...

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/s rd35

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[DeadScreenSky]

Like any RPG, Star Wars (at least the old-school West End one, I haven't played the newer one) was whatever the players and GMs wanted to make of it. None of the games I ran had more than a Jedi or two in them, and my players spent much of their time running from the Empire's gigantic army, rather than just "killing more stormtroopers". Basically I made my games a lot like the films (and like what the RPG books recommended) - it sounds like your GM ran the campaign as a powergaming Monty Haul thing. :D

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[RedWizzard]

They basically did. I get the impression you don't actually play, or you'd know that the type of dice rolled most frequently is the d20. That's why it's called the D20 System. Other dice are used almost exclusively for damage and hitpoints, with the occassional d% thrown in (though very rarely for players). The other dice add variety, but the d20 is by far the most important one.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[RedWizzard]

You're confused. Ravenloft and Spelljammer are pre WotC, and the power-gaming you seem to be complaining about was around well before 3rd edition, infact most of it predates 2nd edition. Was it really necessary or desirable for TSR to publish statistics for gods (Deities and Demigods)? Was there much storytelling potential in the artifacts presented in 1st edition? Or monsters such as the much loved Tarrasque?

From the economic point of view 2nd edition really felt exploitive with the never ending range of class and race specific handbooks. TSR were known for their heavy handed tactics with website owners and small publishers, and indeed anyone they felt was a threat.

After WotC bought TSR things immediately improved. 3rd edition is a much more consistent and intuitive set of rules. The few badly abused rules in 3rd edition (like critical ranges) have been mostly fixed up in 3.5. The Open Gaming License and free availability of the System Reference Documents make WotC at least appear to be much more friendly, fair, and reasonable with their customers than TSR was in the later years. There is also a huge amount more free content available from WotC than TSR ever provided.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[HappyRonin]

Amen, brother. FR gives you just enough historical context that you can latch onto and use as an adventure hook. The tremendous amount of materials, books, etc. help it to be a recognizable, yet unique, setting for your group to enjoy.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Ondo]

You have no clue what you're talking about.

But sadly TSR has gone downhill since being eaten by the WoSC group

You apparently mean WotC. However, none of the decline you cite can be attributed to Wizards.

who used to just make a bunch of playing cards.

No, Wizards started by making RPG supplements - The Primal Order was their first product, IIRC. And referring to Magic as "a bunch of playing cards" is absurd.

I'm sorry but TSR jumped the shark with Ravenloft, not to mention Spell Jamming.

See, this was far before Wizards took over (1997). In fact, Ravenloft (1983) predates Forgotten Realms (1985), so it's pretty clear you haven't a clue. In fact, these settings you dislike were dropped by Wizards. Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms are the only TSR settings Wizards continues to publish books for.

I'll have you know that any time a module presents NINE 10th level fighters together as a battle, like in the Ravenloft adventures in and around Bluetspur

So what? Not only is that just a single encounter of a single adventure, which by itself is going to show little, it's not even written by Wizards of the Coast! White Wolf took over Ravenloft after Wizards bought TSR.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[CaptainAvatar]

Yes, and d4's make great caltrops, if you need to delay your pursuers while making a quick getaway!

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[CaptainAvatar]

They're the same game. Looks like "snakes" was the original name - "chutes" dates from 1943, Britain imported "snakes" from India in the 1890s, and it looks like the (ancient) Indian version had snakes and ladders (although it was called "The ladder to salvation"). See here and here. Most countries seem to call it "snakes", lthough "chutes" makes more sense than "snakes" - who ever slid down a snake?

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Bigbutt]

It's been a long time, but if I recall correctly, one of the problems I always had was the minimum requirement to play in space. 12th level or 15th level.

I had created a few cloud castles which were aloof from the "lower realm" so little contact was made. The Spelljammers had relationships with the folks in the cloud castles which was how I was going to introduce my parties to space.

It never worked out. The groups I had never had any party loyalty and kept killing each other off. That's what finally caused me to move away from board games. Most of my friends who were smarter had already moved to computer gaming.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[ObitMan]

for about 3 years we played 2 SW RPG campaigns under the old wes end rules.
My buddy Steve ran the rebels game in which I played a good old style "Han shoots first" smuggler.
I ran the Imperial game where he played a Dark Jedi that was constantly on the run from or working with the empire.

The 2 campaigns rarely crossed but when they did it was fun.

But it pointed out that it's more the GM and the players than the game system.

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Mycroft_VIII]

For me (A)D&D was Greyhawk when I started playing, though I've gotten quite used to Forgotten Realms as a story setting.
Somehow the pre-generated worlds all wind up hard to actually play in if they've gotten any significant number of stories set in them because you get into situations where someone who doesn't know the background and history simply blows the feel of the setting and the akwardness of that seems to play havok with suspension of dis-belief.
IIRC it was late 1980 when I got started in (A)D&D. I still play to this day, though with a few years off here and there.
I've played a lot of other games: two or three of Palladiums wierd system, gurps, shadowrun, starwars (pre and post d20), some odball one-offs, etc. But I still prefer good old AD&D most of the time.

Mycroft

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[Quobobo]

You can have my bag of 4/6/8/10/12/20/30 sided dice when you pry them from my COLD DEAD HANDS.

(joking aside, D&D just wouldn't be the same without the dice)

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[RexCelestis]

White Wolf uses d10 for their rolls.

The Traveller 4th Edition uses strictly d6. It also uses half dice system. That's a bit screwed up.

Rex
Nothing fades as fast as the future,
Nothing clings like the past

Re:Nice, Sort Of

[myowntrueself]

"White Wolf uses d10 for their rolls."

Well when I played it they used steaming great piles of D6... and the math was horrendous.

Am I the only one that noticed...

[slappyjack]

...that it looks like the A.P. has poorly educated High School Students writing their articles now?

I mean, this thing looks like its target at about a 4th grade reading level.

Happy B-Day to D&D anyway.

Re:Am I the only one that noticed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most news articles are written at or below an 8th grade reading level. The author probably asked his kid in high school for help.

Re:Am I the only one that noticed...

[John Courtland]

Yep, I've noticed numerous spelling errors and pretty substandard grammatical constructs recently as well. Not just stupid shit like how to use a semicolon or ending a sentence with a preposition either, but about sentences that contain vague subjects and verbs with improper tenses.

Re:Am I the only one that noticed...

[Edie O'Teditor]

Most news articles are written at or below an 8th grade reading level.

Being written so that an 8th grader[1] can read it is not the same thing as looking like an 8th grader wrote it.

[1] Whatever that is in your Earth years, hu-men.

Re:Am I the only one that noticed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a funny one for you --- as a pro journalist, I got yelled at by an editor for using the word "brachiation" in a story.

I slipped it in inside an utterly worthless story about a local man who claimed his dog could climb a tree. My editor, God bless her soul, was not amused (apparently she hadn't read the article too closely before it hit the press).

I learned that word when I was a teen from the AD&D Second Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. As in "bracers of."

Well, I thought it was interesting, anyway.

Obligatory

[quintesson]

... and it still hasn't moved out of it's parents' basement!

I wonder if the D20 system will last that long.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Death to the evil RPG builders who introduced the D10 as an action die. Unclean heathens!

Gaah!

[Trikenstein]

I blew my saving throw and had to rta!

Where're the Cheetos???

[zrk]

Can I have some Mountain Dew?

Re:Where're the Cheetos???

[Gabrill]

Yes! You can have a Mt. Dew! Just go get it!

Re:Where're the Cheetos???

[Psionicist]

I attack the darkness!

Re:Where're the Cheetos???

[Anonymous Coward]

I cast.. magic missiles!

Re:Where're the Cheetos???

[miyako]

Where's the mountain dew!?

Re:Where're the Cheetos???

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.flashplayer.com/animation/8bitdnd.html

That one has the 8 bit theater characters

Re:Where're the Cheetos???

[crimson30]

It's in the fridge, duh!

World Record?

[BurritoWarrior]

Will they get into the Guinness Book for all-time largest gathering of virgins?

Re:World Record?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, Slashdot is pretty much solid with that record.

Re:World Record?

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

... followed shortly thereafter by the Guinness Book record for all-time largest virgin sacrifice.

Translation, please?

[DogDude]

Wow, I thought I was a geek, but apparently not! Can you provide some kind of translation into English so those of us who HAVE seen real naked women can understand, please?

Re:Translation, please?

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically he's bitter because everyone wants to drive a sports car in a world filled with Honda Civics.

That first session, so long ago...

[Etherwalk]

In the beginning there was the fighter, and he was without wisdom and void of intellect. So he was named sponge. And there was evening and there was morning, the first character.

Re:That first session, so long ago...

[Sponge Bath]

So he was named sponge.

Whaaa? I always played a bard.

<musical spock>
Ahhhhhh... bitter dregs.
</musical spock>

Re:That first session, so long ago...

[red floyd]

Many moons ago, my favorite character was an AD&D(1ed) Bard named Noman (I was into the Odyssey at the time).

Wow..

[NightWulf]

"An estimated 25,000 fans in 1,200 stores celebrated the anniversary Saturday". Wow, A vacuum of virginity only rivaled by that of a Star Trek convention. I kid! I kid!

Re:Wow..

[ckaminski]

Great comment on WAAF in Boston Friday:

D&D is 30 today, only 2 years younger than the virgins who play it.

Re:Wow..

[Fallen Andy]

Cough. Splutter. Nice collective noun. I always like
a "charm of goldfinches" myself...

Dupe

[Junior J. Junior III]

This story hit a few months ago, and was covered on Slashdot.

Here and
Here.

Re:Dupe

[beowulfcluster]

Neither of those stories are about this great Gathering of Virgins, they're about other aspects of this momentous geek event.

24,999 guys with chainmail bikini posters.

[leftie]

1 chubby girl that shouldn't have worn a chainmail bikini.

Yeah - definately !

[bushboy]

By about 0.000000001%

Yeah, mod me down already - I've known approximately 4 people out of at least 2000 who have ever played D&D ;)

Re:Yeah - definately !

[Inn0vate]

you should clarify, you know 4 people out of at least 2000 who _admit_ to having every played D&D.

Re:Yeah - definately !

[ahknight]

Bluff check, DC 15.

Re:Yeah - definately !

[scribblez]

Same here, I got into D&D through the game planescape: torment. It was hard for me to find people to play D&D with.. But at the end, i did find people, so it was ok. Nevertheless, I don't often hear of that many people playing D&D (around my age group at least, which is 20)

Re:Yeah - definately !

[Erik Hollensbe]

I have never had any problem finding players, so I guess I'm different in that regard.

My problem is finding players that don't utterly piss me off. You know, the guys that waste 30 minutes in the middle of initiative rolls reading passages from the PHB to the DM when the result is inevitably going to be what the damned DM said in the first place.

Another group that really annoys me are guys that aren't necessarily "power gamers", but don't realize that flaws in a character, well... add character. I find that most of these people have never played in a game of GURPS, where choices like this are required and a good GM will enforce that you RP them.

Oh well. To be honest, my favorite RPG has and always will be Vampire. However, especially nowadays I can't stand that group in general, to a point where a D&D game with the players I described above sounds like a joyous session in comparison. And LARP is like ripping your imagination out and replacing it with really bad acting and replacing any tactical action with a large chance of success, regardless of challenge. (as most LARP actions are decided by Rock, Paper, Scissors) And of course, LARP DM's (if you can find them) don't care about any of this.

Vampire used to be a fun political RPG that had little to do with Vampires and more to do with intrigue. Now everyone paints their face white and for some fucking reason, thinks that Vampire is a Goth RPG. Good god, I wonder if they dress in cherokee headwear for Werewolf games. Oh well.

Well, at least no one has fucked with Shadowrun. Oh, wait, someone actually needs to fuck with Shadowrun. Oh well.

Re:Yeah - definately !

[pdangel]

".... reading passages from the PHB to the DM when ...."
I need to get out of my IT career. I read that and was wondering why he was talking about "Pointy Haired Boss" being read to the DM.
??!!??11

Re:Yeah - definately !

[Lord_Dweomer]

I actually hate LARP for a different reason. I find that players become even worse powergamers in that setting as opposed to D&D. While there is political intrigue, eventually, everything comes down to chops, and while chops is basically rolling the dice, the only way to really affect outcome is to stack the hell out of your character.

Having played and DMed D&D for many years, I thought I had seen the worst of powergaming.....boy was I wrong......The fact that many of the rules are fairly vague makes it even worse

Re:Yeah - definately !

[Kosi]

Exactly the same happened with me. Took me some seconds to parse PHB as the Player's HandBook. :-)

Re:Yeah - definately !

[Erik Hollensbe]

Good players with a bad DM will always equate to a bad game. It's like trying to multiply against 0 and get a positive result.

Changing Demographics?

[subrosas]

I've seen sailors in the USN play D&D, lawyers play D&D, children play D&D with their parents. I've seen sysadmins play, financial advisors play, even a high school teacher or two.
D&D has left the basement rec room geek nirvana of the early '80s and gone elsewhere, as the article (barely) alluded to.

Re:Changing Demographics?

[skroz]

It's apparently HUGE in the USN, particularly on submarines. The crewmen are trapped down in little sardine cans for months on end with little to do when not on duty, so a lot play D&D.

Re:Changing Demographics?

[Anonymous Coward]

i play with a few lawyers and a preacher. times, they is a changin', certainly

Re:Changing Demographics?

[Tet]

I've seen sysadmins play

As a sysadmin, I would write a longer comment here, but I've got to go as my weekly AD&D session is about to start...

Re:Changing Demographics?

[hai.uchida]

It's apparently HUGE in the USN, particularly on submarines. The crewmen are trapped down in little sardine cans for months on end with little to do when not on duty, so a lot play D&D.

Those geeks should get out and get themselves some girlfriends!

Re:Changing Demographics?

[AndroidCat]

At least they wouldn't get too many arguments when the ref says "No, you can't swing your two-handed sword or ride your horse in that narrow dungeon corridor."

Re:Changing Demographics?

[swillden]

children play D&D with their parents

I play with my family. I'm the DM, my 11 year-old son plays a half-eleven wizard named Galador, my 9 year-old daughter plays an elven fighter named Arwen, my 7 year-old son plays a human Monk named Max (hey, he picked the name) and my wife plays a human cleric named Brenna and a halfling rogue named Mordoc.

We play once or twice a week most weeks, usually no more than about two to three hours per session. That's about the limit of the attention span of the seven year-old. We started out playing from my old 2ed books, but I just bought a set of the new 3.5 books and some figurines and we've switched over. I really like the new rules, even though I'm not very comfortable with them yet.

As a matter of fact, my daughter just asked me when I was going to get off the computer so we can play... I guess I'd better go.

Re:Changing Demographics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here on the USS ESSEX (LHD2) we play ParanoiaXP ...

Old or young?

[mhollis]

Back in the Middle Ages (the 1980s) I had a group of about ten people, male and female playing regularly. We played one dungeon for about four months and it was then that I started allowing everyone to keep their characters and started reading history in order to accomodate their increasing character strengths and abilities.

We were also playing games on Apple ][ computers...

Sadly, I moved out of the area we were playing in to accept a job where I have now lived for 20 years. Last I heard the group still met, though once monthly. One of the girls in our group married one of the boys (they were well-suited for each other even though I always thought their characters took out their relationship frustrations on each other) and they now have two children.

"So, Daddy, how did you meet mommy?"
"Actually, she cast a spell that felled an orc that was just about to kill me."

Another one of the girls married, then divorced one of the boys -- then married another boy from the group. They have no children, which is probably a good thing if my memory about their temperment serves me

"So how did you two meet, anyway?"
"I was married to one knight when he came in and swept me off my feet and onto his white charger, while fighting off an underworld demon. I cast a spell of enchantment on him and the rest is history."

Funny thing is, I'm still unmarried.

"Sincere, erudite dungeonmaster seeks....

Re:Old or young?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing is, I'm still unmarried.

Ya think?

Re:Old or young?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's that word... funny? No, interestingly? No...

Obviously. Ah yes.

If you find a hot, intelligent, interesting babe who finds all this geekiness attractive, you deserve all the congratulations you get.

Re:Old or young?

[Anonymous Coward]

Give the guy a break. At least he didn't say it was ironic.

Lame joke.

[Tracer_Bullet82]

variable : 25000
possible point-to-point connection : 625000000
actual date : priceless

And yet...

[Valiss]

.... 90% of the responses from players in game is still "I roll to attack."

I love hack n slash.

Re:And yet...

[BeerCat]

Roll?

The usual one was "I vape the b....."

But then, anything above about 15th level, and there wasn't much that would put up a good fight.


Unless it was a dodgy mirror placed midway down a corridor. Funny how they always fell for that one - one fireball bouncing back and then they know how much damage they can inflict on themselves.

New round, roll for initiative!

[Fractal Dice]

D&D really was one of those rare cases of something "new". Before the net was popular, it was a great tool for social networking for geeks. Every tech job I've ever had came not from my experience or my education, but from contacts made over the years around gaming tables.

Alas, it's a also a good example of how success is measured differently between sellers and consumers. D&D never really went into decline around here, but once you own the main rule books and some dice, you don't _need_ anything else and so game stores moved more heavily into card games where the profits were.

The d20 licensing scheme is very, very cool, although I have to admit that I still don't quite trust TSR/Wizards/Hasbro (their first reaction to the net was similar to the RIAA but then after an initial fan-relations-disaster they changed their tune and actually made an effort to reach out to the fans and address legitimate need to be able to share).

It's interesting watching a second generation of gamers start to grow up (and yes, there is a large and healthy population of them). They don't have to be saddled with as much of the "it's evil!" baggage (it's still out there, but weakened as the geek have inherited the earth)

Re:New round, roll for initiative!

[DoctorDeath]

My younger daughter (13yo) found some of my old AD&D books and has started an interest in it. She carries the monster guide with her and uses it as an inspiration for drawing. I guess the new generation will continue where we old timers left off. Happy B-day D&D!

Re:New round, roll for initiative!

[Fallen Andy]

Right. You've hit on social networking, but it wasn't just for geeks. Most of my AD+D friends were blue collar, (and on the side jazz rock musicians).

There's a long tradition of having a boring day job and thinking outside the usual football (soccer) loop.

Yes, this stuff *is* evil. Just like Scientific American, James Randi, Martin Gardner and all those
other wicked "freethinkers". (Hint: I'm from Norfolk UK although in Athens GR and my hero from
there is Tom Paine). I'm all in favour of it. Get enough of them, and it'll be the death of organized cults (no names mentioned).
Remember - the 36th triangle number is 666...

Re:New round, roll for initiative!

[magefile]

They don't have to be saddled with as much of the "it's evil!" baggage (it's still out there, but weakened as the geek have inherited the earth)

My problem is that it's still counterculture, so the one local group in my area is largely the assholes who can't find friends elsewhere. Not just the anti-social and the nerds, but the assholes. Argh.

ain't easy being a peasant

[eean]

But you know what happens to townspeople and peasants - sacrifaced to their Dragon master, killed off by a strange plague or senselessly killed by wandering adventurers.

Re:ain't easy being a peasant

[astro-g]

player 1: Arent we evil this campaign
All together: CLOUDKILL!
DM: @#$#@$ npc's, !@#$@#$ (tears up notes)

Explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

For those who haven't seen it...
part 1
Check your local P2P network for part2. Search for Dead Ale Wives Dungeons Dragons

Re:Explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Finding Part 2 is really hard.

Mostly cause practically no one knows it exists, there is no flash movie of it, and almost no one has it.

Luckily I've heard it a few times. Just don't have the MP3 of it.

Re:Explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the MP3

http://www.rpgmp3.com/modules.php?name=Downloads &d _op=getit&lid=9

it's a streaming file but it's hilarious!

D&D virgins?

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

I think not!

Re:D&D virgins?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think not!

On the contrary, I think your link proved the point.

Re:D&D virgins?

[geekoid]

A book about ahving sex proves that www.acc.umu.se students need more sex.

Re:D&D virgins?

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

Just as long as they know about the hazards of "Mummy Crotch Rot" and STL (Sexually Transmissible Lycanthropy).

DND Humor

[Anonymous Coward]

ED: You see a well-groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.
ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?
ED: (Pause) It's white, Eric.
ERIC: How far away is it?
ED: About 50 yards.
ERIC: How big is it?
ED: (Pause) It's about 30 feet across, 15 feet high, with a pointed top.
ERIC: I use my sword to detect whether it's good.
ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo!
ERIC: (Pause) I call out to it.
ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo!
ERIC: (Pause) I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?
ED: No, Eric. It's a gazebo!
ERIC: I shoot it with my bow (rolls to hit). What happened?
ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
ERIC: (Pause) Wasn't it wounded?
ED: Of course not, Eric! It's a gazebo!
ERIC: (Whimper) But that was a plus-three arrow!
ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a gazebo! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a @#%$*& gazebo!
ERIC: (Long pause - he has no axe or fire spells) I run away.
ED: (Thoroughly frustrated) It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo, and it catches you and eats you.
ERIC: (Reaching for his dice) Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my paladin...

Re:DND Humor

[killjoe]

My favorite DND moment (yes it actually happened).

Player: I want to cast a talk to plants spell.
DM: OK.
Player: I cast the spell and talk to the plants:
DM: Which ones?
Player: The bush in front of me, what does it say?
DM: It says "The sun, I love the sun, the sun is wonderful, you are in the way of the sun"
Player: I move out of the sun, now what does it say"
DM: It says "I love the sun, the sun is wonderful" what did you expect it to say?

Careful!

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

Don't make me hurt you!

I haven't played AD&D in a long time

[discord5]

Our AD&D sessions were always fun, back when we had too much time and no girlfriends.

DM: "You see a hallway with three barrels"
Player #1: "I walk to the barrels and pry one open"
Player #2: "No wait, you idiot"
DM: "A witch comes out of the barrel and rolls dice is preparing to cast a spell"
Player #1: "I cast burning hands and grab her tits"
DM: sighs "The hideous hag slaps you and continues her casting"
Player #2: "I apologize for my companions behavior and hit her with my longsword"

Somewhere along the line we grew up and got a life, although we all fondly remember being half drunk and playing AD&D.

It's almost as if ...

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

... some unseen force is controlling all actions in the world, determining fate by the roll of a die - an all-knowing, all-powerful being who enjoys pizza and pepsi ...

Old Tricks

[DrunkenTerror]

One of my favorite tricks to pull out when shit hit the fan was the ol' Portable-Hole-placed-into-Bag-of-Holding dimensional rift. :) That always spices up a boring game session.

What other clever tricks have you crowd employed over the years?

Re:Old Tricks

[meringuoid]

About the bag of holding... and bearing in mind I only know D&D thanks to Bioware...

Anything placed in a bag of holding effectively weighs nothing. Zero newtons weight, zero kilograms inertial mass. So.

Take two bags of holding, two cannonballs, two buckets, two pulleys and a length of rope. Now, put the cannonballs in the buckets, and fasten the mouths of the bags over the rims of the buckets. Fasten the buckets to the rope, and run the rope over the two pulleys with one pulley above the other. Make sure that on the left hand side the bag is above the bucket, and on the right hand side the bag is below the bucket so that the cannonball drops out of the bucket and into the bag.

Now, let go of the rope. The weight of the cannonball in the left bucket pulls down on that side, and the cannonball on the right weighs nothing because it's in a BoH. So, the left side moves down, the right side up, and the pulleys turn.

Eventually the bucket on the right goes up and over the top and the cannonball drops out of the BoH and into the bucket. The reverse happens on the botton: the other ball drops out of the bucket and into the BoH. Result: the left hand side is still heavier than the right, and the pulleys turn.

The pulleys turn faster and faster, with no end in sight. Feel free to attach the mechanism of your choice to this limitless power source.

Re:Old Tricks

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

Mordenkainen's Entropic Force Missile

Re:Old Tricks

[Jerf]

Rationalizing magic in most fantasy worlds is impossible and the DM should slap you for trying.

For one thing, with a multitude of readily-accessible planes, your "universe" is hardly a closed system.

But if you insist, there is a place to draw the energy from in your scenario: The space inside the bag. Space itself is energy of a sort; I don't know how to compute it from General Relativity, but my impression is that it is a rather large amount; one bag would probably keep that going effectively indefinately with neglibile space loss.

(Of course, that implies you must have access to an equally large amount of energy to create the bag in the first place; how convenient that there are so many highly energetic planes to draw from.)

Re:Old Tricks

[Anonymous Coward]

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Haven't you read any of the abstracts and papers by H.D. Froning? The research of Dr. Charles Sheffield? Their works regard the use of the energy in a vacuum. Richard Feynman suggested that a cubic centimeter of vacuum contains enough energy to boil all the oceans of Earth but John Wheeler discovered the value is larger by eighty orders of magnitude. Go read the August 15, 1984 issue of the Physical Review and check out Forward's article "Extracting electrical energy from the vacuum by cohesion of charged foliated conductors".

All of these theories and papers are based upon there being only one single prime material plane. Just think of the vast energies stored in a D&D world! Magic items simply tap those energies and direct them into various phases which cause a multitude of effects like healing and destruction with the pain and the hurting m'hey.

Re:Old Tricks

[Hao Wu]

For one thing, with a multitude of readily-accessible planes, your "universe" is hardly a closed system.
But if you insist, there is a place to draw the energy from in your scenario: The space inside the bag. Space itself is energy of a sort; I don't know how to compute it from General Relativity, but my impression is that it is a rather large amount; one bag would probably keep that going effectively indefinately with neglibile space loss.
(Of course, that implies you must have access to an equally large amount of energy to create the bag in the first place; how convenient that there are so many highly energetic planes to draw from.)

Did your girlfriend explain this to you? Oh... sorry.

Re:Old Tricks

[Kwil]

Two problems:

1. Your buckets would crack after having a bowling ball repeatedly dumped into them high in the air.

2. You can't dump a bag of holding. It requires a person reaching in and and act of will for anything to be retrieved.

Re:Old Tricks

[Anonymous Coward]

The vacuum energy isn't nearly as large as you think; about 10^-9 joules/cubic centimeter.

I haven't read Froning, but Sheffield's ideas only work if our vacuum is only a false vacuum, and we can extract energy differences between it and the underlying true vacuum. TANSTAAFL.

Re:Old Tricks

[AndroidCat]

Just think of the vast energies stored in a D&D world!

Just think of the bill from the demonic power company.

Re:Old Tricks

[geekoid]

Assuming the bag only act as weightless if it's open.

Ahother version for the Dead Alewives parody

[lesterchakyn]

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/90046

Salute to the D20

[splerdu]

All hail the whimsical, wonderfully tactile, d20. =)

Wives?

[Himring]

An estimated 25,000 fans in 1,200 stores celebrated the anniversary Saturday

And only 2 women were pissed at their husbands cuz of the event....

Re:Wives?

[geekoid]

Because either
A) they were there as well as the husbands
b) They lost the dice roll and had to stay home with the kids.
c) They missed a night of lovin, cause nobody is better in the sack then gamers.
d) Your are an ass for perpetuating a very, very, tired stereo type.
e) All of the above.

Mod useless parent (Sir Haxalot) down please

[Anonymous Coward]

• Re:Wow., Saturday October 16, @07:22PM, attached to Wearable LCD Display
• For those that didn't already know, Sunday October 17, @08:57AM, attached to The Hardware Behind Echelon Revealed
• For those that didn't already know, Sunday October 17, @10:32AM, attached to 30 Years Of Dungeons And Dragons
• People have been trying to make iPod killers for, Sunday October 17, @11:22AM, attached to Holiday Competition For iPod Dollars

Why gee, look at Pingular's last 4 posts, nothing but "I can contribute nothing but I can link to Wikipedia or other sites for cheap upmods!" Please don't waste your mod points modding this known Slashdot crapflooder up.

I celebrated, unknowingly.

[mbourgon]

Odd, that. That might explain why our weekly Neverwinter Nights game went off without a hitch. Teamspeak + NWN + Friends = Fun.

Heck, come to think of it, my wife finally installed it last night...

celibate D&D geeks

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

Once you've had wickedly nubile Finnish goddess of pain Loviatar (1st Edition Deities & Demigods p. 55), who can be ever be satisfied by mere mortal women again?

Re:celibate D&D geeks

[WWWWolf]

Once you've had wickedly nubile Finnish goddess of pain Loviatar (1st Edition Deities & Demigods p. 55), who can be ever be satisfied by mere mortal women again?

(Avoid entering of the Geek Mode and completely missing the damn point the parent poster was trying to make; Will save with +2 comedy bonus, DC 20. Voluntarily failing the save...)

Huh, Loviatar was supposed to be an ancient Finnish goddess? Damn, I always thought the name sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. Apart of the structure of the name, it didn't seem Finnish at all.

And a few seconds of grepping (okay, googling) the Kalevala does agree that this isn't just some mysterious TSR mess-up. =)

(Damn, a reference to the 45th poem? I should have read the whole thing...)

Goddesses of pain don't sound too fun though. Mielikki has been my favorite of the Finnish deities that got immortalized in D&D - though, well... unicorns? Bleah.

Re:celibate D&D geeks

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

No offense to celibate D&D geeks intended. I am a recovering D&D geek ... no comment on the celibacy status.

Loviatar, a goddess from Finnish myth, was in the AD&D Deities & Demigods manual - in fact, in her picture in the first edition she bared her breasts! This is something of an "in" joke for ex-D&D dufi like yours truly. Back in the early-80's, Loviatar's picture no doubt gave many an adolescent 'gameboy' his first glimpse of ... a woman. So what if she was a cheezy drawing ... she was hot!

The fact that she was the goddess of pain made it all the more titillating. I would try and scrounge an image, but I lost my manual years ago ...

Re:celibate D&D geeks

[boundless]

Do you have an scanner? :) No seriousely I would love to see this image as I have only the 2nd Ed. of AD&D. ;-D

Re:celibate D&D geeks

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh, Loviatar was supposed to be an ancient Finnish goddess? Damn, I always thought the name sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. Apart of the structure of the name, it didn't seem Finnish at all. And a few seconds of grepping (okay, googling) the Kalevala does agree that this isn't just some mysterious TSR mess-up.

Well, if you want to learn about Finnish mythology, Kalevala is not the best place to do it since Lönnrot did some hack and slash job when putting together different myths.

In original folk poems Loviatar was either one of the names of Louhi (among with Loveatar, Louhetar, and a number of other similar forms) or her daughter. (The folk mythology was not particularly consistent).

She got herself pregnant either by a sea monster (Iku-Turso, IIRC) or alternatively by evil winds and gave birth for nine demons, including at least Rutto, Rampa, and Perisokea (Plague, Lame, and Blind).

In the original poems she was not exactly a hottie, but an ugly hag.

Re:celibate D&D geeks

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

This was in the 1st Edition of the Deities & Demigods manual, but the 2nd Edition of AD&D overall. A little confusing, isn't it?

There were actually a few changes made from edition to edition of the Deities & Demigod manual. I believe there were some copyright issues over the inclusion Melnibonean & Cthulhu mythos. I've seen some of the 1st edition Deities & Demi on eBay and gave some thought to indulging my inner geek ... and getting to know Loviatar again ...

Re:celibate D&D geeks

[WWWWolf]

Well, if you want to learn about Finnish mythology, Kalevala is not the best place to do it since Lönnrot did some hack and slash job when putting together different myths.

Yep, not to even mention that most of the deities and such are only mentioned passingly. And since it's epic rather than prose, there's considerably less chance that the different people are that detailedly described, anyway.

In original folk poems Loviatar was either one of the names of Louhi (among with Loveatar, Louhetar, and a number of other similar forms) or her daughter.

Okay, now this starts to make even more sense. Thank you =)

cool

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

QuestionS

- using a separate server for Teamspeak, or does one 'player' act as server?

- how clunky is 'DM' feature in NWM?

Re:cool

[mbourgon]

1) We use the same machine that hosts NWN for our teamspeak, but all it does is connect everyone - I believe it's a P2P app at heart. It, and NWN, can fit inside a 128kbps upload cap, even with both servers.

2) DM feature - dunno - we don't use a DM. It's very nice - if there's a problem (all the people scattered around the map, or a door where we can't find a key), someone hops in as DM, fixes, then leaves. But for 99% of the time, we don't use the DM function at all - the module and the game handle all the details.

d4, the dreaded caltrop

[Anonymous Luddite]

oh the pain...

I can remember getting up from the gaming table and finding that missing d4 with my bare left foot.

Those damn dice were small enough to hide in a shag rug and hurt like a bastard when stepped on, (especially the early ones, cuz the corners weren't blunted)

Re:d4, the dreaded caltrop

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! Been there, done that!

"newbie" player compared to some of you...

[NeoSkandranon]

I've played D&D for four or five years, started in 3ed, but at one point i did roll a 2ed character for a campaign played via instant messanger. I honetsly dont see how you 2e players manage (3 seems so much more streamlined to me, but perhaps mostly becaues i'm familiar with it)

Anywho, I work at a bookstore, and we'v been getting materials for giveaways and displays from WotC for a while now, and in our fantasy section (which is my domain) there's a small display with forgotten realms novels and some D&D stickers and whatnot (sadly, we don't stock the game materials for two reasons: owners afraid to attract ultraconservative attention and they just wouldnt sell well)

And by the way...if you think vi vs. emacs is a religious war, try 2ed vs. 3ed...guy I knew totally violently slammed 3 for being "simple" and overpowered and whatnot...too bad he didn't have half his facts straight /me shrugs I WILL say this though ,the 2e treasure and monster manuals (esp the demons and devils) were absolutely badass, and my group translated those into 3e as needed for extra kick

Re:"newbie" player compared to some of you...

[techno-vampire]

2nd vs. 3rd? Ha! When I GM (If I ever do again. No time, no local game but I was quite popular at one time.) I pull out First Edition and tell them that if it isn't in MY books, it doesn't exist in MY game. I'll play by newer rules if that's what the GM wants, as long as you'll play by mine in my world. I also love watching people try to bring all sorts of weird imaginary herbs (Usually mispronounced. For some reason these twits don't know the h is silent.) into my world and wonder why they've turned to dust. Then I tell them that if the herbs don't exist in the real world, they don't in mine. Why? Too many twit GMs create their own herbs with too much power and this is a way to keep things under control.

Re:"newbie" player compared to some of you...

[NoseSocks]

Honestly, the way 3e plays, I constantly feel like I have fallen into some terrible video game. Something about a GM asking me to roll a die to see if I convinced someone or not feels forced.
I honestly can't stand the new sorceror or monk classes, and I have a hard time picturing dwarven mages. I feel 2e had more depth in story and less "here's some BS story to make the game mechanics work out". I do like some changes in 3e, but when I get to choose between the two and the DM has some experience, I prefer 2e. To each his/her own.

Re:"newbie" player compared to some of you...

[Alan Shutko]

Bah. 2e was a feeble attempt to fix AD&D with some of the stuff from Mentzer D&D. D&D3e was just Rolemaster with different dice, finally kowtowing to the skill-based set. Bah! Give me races as classes or give me death!

Re:"newbie" player compared to some of you...

[famebait]

The 1st ed system is totally unworkable, but there is tons and tons of brilliant and atmospheric _stuff_ in those books to use (criticals, treasures, items, etc.) that just makes the 2nd ed books look completly boring.

Mix and match and do whatever is fun. Hell, if you're all good, experienced, and disciplinede players (and ditto DM), you don't need rules or numbers or dice at all. All the interesting stuff is about puzzles, plot, decisions, consequences, and creative ways of dealing with situations anyway. Oh, and role-play.

Re:"newbie" player compared to some of you...

[techno-vampire]

The 1st ed system is totally unworkable...

If that were true, DND wouldn't have lasted long enough to get to 2nd Edition. It would have failed before the material had been gathered together into hardcover books. No, it's not unworkable, it just takes more work than most players today are willing to give it. They want everything handed to them on a silver platter, with no need to think, adapt, improvise or work at it. When I started, 1st Edition was all there was; no Unearthed Arcana, no MM2, no Spelljamming, no Oriental Adventures. Just the classic three volumes and maybe Fiend Folio if somebody had a copy. Lots of games, lots of fun, lots of gamers.

Looking at 2nd and 3rd, I can see how the power-gaming munchkins are taking over the game. Less and less need to role play, more hyper-powerfull classes, artifacts and monsters. Hell; they've even come up with a god that expects his clerics to use edged weapons, and guess who most clerics serve now, and why.

Re:"newbie" player compared to some of you...

[stanmann]

A proper DM has at least 2 DM manuals... 1 and 3, 2 and 3, 1 and 3.5, etc. That way you have the freedom to mix, match and make up things as you go along.

Re:"newbie" player compared to some of you...

[techno-vampire]

Now, maybe. When I was active, there was no 3rd edition and 2nd was just coming out near the end. I can still mix and match, but it's more of 1st edition, Dragon Tree Spellbook and my own imagination. The last, of course, is the most important.

i still prefer Basic edition the best :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm too dumb for 1e/2e/3e. or maybe i just don't like lotsa rules. ;-)
ps. Erol Otus is da man!

Re:i still prefer Basic edition the best :-)

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

Erol Otus rocks! Tentacles, eye-stalks and ooze, oh my!

Obligatory Chick

[Anonymous Coward]

here

Re:Obligatory Chick

[Edie O'Teditor]

Is that a piss-take of fundamentalist hysteria or is it for real?

Re:Obligatory Chick

[Anonymous Coward]

I particularly liked the book burning scene in the last frame.

blunted corners?

[BitterAndDrunk]

Sheesh. Fireworks are illegal, kids ride bikes with helmets on, and now d4s have blunted corners. We've eliminated children's natural predators. They'd better make hunting kids legal again or next winter there may be thousands of them starving to death and running into traffic, just like deers.

Happy..

[Anonymous Coward]

DnD day, DnD. And may you never get the Mummy Rot.

Paper, take us home.

speedy sword-draw getting in the way of intimacy?

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

Don't be ashamed! Numerous adventurers suffer from the same problem and have found a solution. Talk to your healer to see if our solution is right for you!

Happy Birthday

[mdarksbane]

My girlfriend just got me into D & D (I would never touch it in high school, as tabletop games were too nerdy for computer gamers to touch), and it's been fun.

This video, however, is all too true.

The World of Eamon

[AtomicSnarl]

Ahhh... back in the Apple ][ days of yore... a fellow named Donald Brown created the world of Eamon, an RPG game with a fun twist -- it was also a game shell. You could get game modules from your BBS (at 300 baud on your Hayes Micromodem) or write your own modules. Your (mainly) text based game could have whatever number of rooms, treasures, monsters and allies (charisma roll please...) with whatever properties you wanted.

Tearing apart the Applesoft Basic and hacking my own weapons were a joy indeed!

And best of all, they're still out there!

Gary Gygax

[serutan]

Sadly, the article only makes a passing reference to the patriarch of D&D. I guess ownership is everything nowadays. GameBanshee.com has a nice interview with Gygax accompanied by lots of D&D artwork.

Re:Gary Gygax

[st0rmshad0w]

Worse yet,no one ever seems to remember that Gygax didn't do it alone. Somewhere David Andersson (sp?) is stabbing himself in the eye again.

What I wouldn't give for a time-machine, a pizza, and a six-pack to out-bid Gygax.

A cookie for anyone who can explain that.

Re:Gary Gygax

[serutan]

In the interview I referenced, Gygax gives credit to Dave Arneson, Jeff Perren and Don Kaye for their part in creating D&D. It's an pretty good interview.

Re:Gary Gygax

[st0rmshad0w]

I admit to not reading the atricle, cus well frankly I know all the history.

But do you know WHY Dave Arneson was no longer involved, its quite a silly tale.

Re:Gary Gygax

[Lord_Dweomer]

I agree. I used to drive an hour every weekend up to Lake Geneva, WI to play with the Gygax family at the Game Guild. Sadly I think the store went under, and I know the Gygax's haven't exactly made it rich off D&D.

There really is something to be said for sitting at a table discussing Bigby's line of spells and finding out the guy sitting next to you played the original Bigby, and the guy across the table played the original Mordenkainen.

That was hands down the best group of gamers I've ever gamed with in my life. I'd like to give the Gygax family a big warm thank you for filling my highschool years with creativity and a place where I fit in.

Re:Gary Gygax

[salyavin]

I heard it was a dispute over creative credit.

D&D == Mental Exercise

[LaCosaNostradamus]

D&D was always a wonderful exercise of mentality -- specifically, visual imagination, numerical computing, and social foresight.

Science Fiction and D&D are wonderful jump-starts to young intellects. The downside to them is that they are elitist and promote insular behavior.

Now collected around age 40, the people I knew who played D&D often still do, and on average the game didn't help or harm them ... it was just another hobby in life. All those dire predictions during the 1980s about D&D's harm had come to naught ... and in fact, all those worried parents instead did far more damage than D&D ever did by working all the time instead of keeping a presence at home with their children.

Re:D&D == Mental Exercise

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's a mental exercise. That's what every gamer says about everything they spend too much time on.

Re:D&D == Mental Exercise

[LaCosaNostradamus]

I have yet to hear from anyone who plays a lot of video/computer games that the games serve a mental exercise function.

GreyHawk

[Ferguson]

GreyHawk to me was the definitive setting for D&D, not Forgotten Realms. If you had read any of Gygax wonderful novels with Gord in Greyhawk then you can get an idea of how great that Campaign could have been. Sadly Gygax's involvement in the future evolution of D&D was terminated prematurely.

I don't understand why WotC doesn't invite him back. They don't even let Richard Garfield develop on MTG anymore. Why do corporations feel the need to divorce creators from their projects?

Re:GreyHawk

[cwaldrip]

Finally, someone old sk001.

I started playing back in the late 70's and Greyhawk was all there was for pre-made campaign settings. It was a great inspiration for us newbie DM's - and one that I don't think I could ever live up to.

Mystera and Forgotten Realms (majority of 1st and 2nd edition settings, respectfully) were great too.

Sigh, I have fond memories of travelling from kingdom to kingdom. Sometimes running from the authorities, sometimes working for them. But mostly working for myself.

I was never big on the hack-n-slash, although it was fun when needed. I liked the interaction and the exploration. All of that seems missing these days... games like Neverwinter Nights and Dungeon Seige just emphasize hack-n-slash. After a few hours of mowing down kobolds or goblins or the creature de jour it gets really old. Give me a mystery to figure out, or a war to prevent any day.

Re:GreyHawk

[malchus842]

One word: control. The creators want creative control. The bean-counters in the corner office often don't like the creators because they feel they "own" the product and will try to foce their will on the corporation.

It's just easier for the corporation to buy them out and send them on their way, and not deal with those "annoying" creators anymore.

Re:GreyHawk

[Stormie]

Wow, I've never heard anyone describe the Gord novels as "wonderful" before. As an author, Gary Gygax made a great game designer - you could hear the dice rolling in the background during the combat scenes.

Re:GreyHawk

[geekoid]

YEs, GReyhawk was the best world put out by TSR(formaly known as T$R ;). The material was better looking and more in depth the the forgotten realms material. I looked forward to the forgotten realms stuff, but once it got on the shelves it was pretty pathetic,

30yrs of dangerous sociopaths meeting in bars.

[Chas]

You'd think these countries would have figured this out by now and prohibited access to inns to anyone who can do more than pass really nasty, eye watering fart.

But OH NO!

And look at the damage these violent drunkards have wreaked!

Dragon molestation on the rise.
Millions of trolls put to the torch.
And more orcs, kobolds, and goblins killed (wholesale slaughter) than there are stars in the sky!

Damn you Gary Gygax!
Damn you Dave Arneson!

Scoliotesticularcancerous The Red
The Inferno
Scourge of Twelve Nations
Spokesdragon for Monsters Against Dangerous Hominid Infestations

You see a brown rat, a tan rat and a black rat.

[GebsBeard]

Thanks for the memories. I was wondering if I was one of the few left who wandered the beginner's cave or visited the Temple of Ngurct. A great game indeed. You are at death's door, knocking loudly. (yes this is all from memory)

As far as anybody knows, it's real.

[Anonymous Coward]

This dude has been at it for like 30 years, whipping out hundreds of different tracts exposing the evil of everything from D&D to Catholicism to Mormonism to non-King James bibles. Some of them are unintentionally funny like the D&D tract, but most are just repetitive, banal, and stupid. He's sold something like half a billion tracts to churches and other Christian organizations. I often find them left in restrooms and other public places where people will hopefully pick them up and get saved.

If the guy's trolling, he's sure being persistent at it, and making a damn lot of money off it.

Re:As far as anybody knows, it's real.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the guy's trolling, he's sure being persistent at it, and making a damn lot of money off it.

I guess if you're a troll, best to be a consistent one. I'd probably start giggling at some point or add subtle jokes and give the game away.

Talking of making money, do you remember that Erik Von Daniken - he wrote "Was God an Astronaut" and similar books? Rumour was that when he got debunked, his sales actually went up, because people bought the books to see what all the fuss was about.

Bzzt!

[pjt33]

Actually, Richard Garfield is on the design team for Control. (See Q&A for 8th June).

Which is actually kind of sad..

[Kwil]

..when you think about all the other, better games they could be playing.

Waitaminnit!

[Infonaut]

So are you saying that the D&D computer games and novels are based on some sort of weird setup where people sit together in a room and socialize while throwing dice and fondling small painted pieces of lead?

How truly bizarre.

In all seriousness, D&D deserves kudos for being the icebreaker that allowed fantasy to break into the mainstream of American culture. I vividly remember my first exposure to the game, way back in 1980. I was in Junior High School, and I encountered this odd group of kids talking about whether Asmodeus could defeat Orcus.

A few days later I found myself rolling up my first fighter (yeah, my imagination needed a kick-start) and going on my first dungeon crawl. Through D&D (and a host of other games, many of which I prefered to D&D for game mechanics) I met some of my best friends, and found an "in crowd" of my own. Of course nobody else thought of us as the "in crowd" but that didn't matter. We had a lot of fun and exercised our imaginations.

As others have stated, the specifics of Basic vs. Advanced, 2nd Edition vs. 3rd Edition, etc. don't really matter. What matters is that D&D opened the door for everything from Aftermath! to Call of Cthulhu to Neverwinter Nights and the DragonLance world.

My cap is off to Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax for getting the ball rolling, and for the countless game designers, module builders, DMs, and players who have brought fantasy to life for so many people over these 30 years.

Re:Waitaminnit!

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

Be careful, man! Everyone knows you can't utter names of the dark lords without running the risk of summoning them and meeting a untimely Lovecraftian end. Phew, I was sweating for days in a self-constructed tent of bible pages last time I said Orcus ... oh wait ... I've done it again! What was that noise? There - in the shadows - no! Dread darkness! The colors! Ahhhgghhg ...

It all depends on what you count as "any"

[Anonymous Coward]

The D&D world is now flooded with fat chicks. If you don't mind being enfolded in someone you can't lift, getting laid is a piece of cake.

Literally. Bait them with cake.

And the 5th Anniversary of

[Anonymous Coward]

HoodyHoo.com Congradulations on 5 years. Knights of the Dinner Table is a great series.

And for those of you who miss the first edition flavor, Gary Gygax and Steve Jackson combined forces to bring you Hackmaster (named after the game they play in KotDT). It's not exactly a spoof of D&D, it's actually a fully realized RPG, with the humor thrown in to shake the WoTC lawyers. I admit that the 3E rules are the most elegant of the bunch, but I really do miss just reading and browsing the 1E books that were written by Gygax. The new books take themselves too seriously.

Check out the reviews for the Players Handbook and Game Master's Guide on Amazon. And yes, by Amazon I mean mother of all that is evil.

D&D Is Evil!

[serutan]

Back when the D&D-is-evil crap started, I researched news stories about teenagers who committed suicide because they got kicked off the swim team, blew their 4.0 GPA, broke up with girl/boyfriend, parents were assholes, etc. I read that the suicide rate among RPG players was below that of the general population.

That was back in the pre-Internet days when these things took time to find. Here is an article that summarizes some of that info. I used to keep some actual numbers in my head to toss out whenever some cross-waving idiot blamed RPGs for the ills of the world. If the anti-D&D crusaders actually looked up suicide statistics, they would probably be campaigning against report cards, team sports, the senior prom, and a lot of other time-honored institutions. In the real world, fantasy gaming is generally harmless fun.

Re:D&D Is Evil!

[theMerovingian]

I became a Christian somewhat later in life, after a childhood spent playing D&D, and my high school / college years spent playing sports, chasing after women, and trying to make money.

I'd have to say without a doubt that D&D had absolutely zero effect on me. It's pretty fun, I think, as long as you get the right group of people.

I agree that pressure to succeed, comparing yourself to your peers, and basing your self-esteem on your personal appearance cause far more harm to our young people than any game ever could.

That's gotta be a troll..

[Anonymous Coward]

..I mean lets be real here..

You want us to believe that you're a computer gamer who thinks tabletop games are too nerdy, that you have a girlfriend, and that she was into D&D before you were?

Pshyeah right.

Re:That's gotta be a troll..

[mdarksbane]

Haha.

Seriously. Computer gamers (especially FPS and RTS gamers, like the high school me) look down on D&D players the same way that "normal" people look down on us, and D&D nerds look down on LARPers.

My "real life" friends in high school were much to "cool" to play video games or D&D, so I never knew anyone who played the game. I met my girlfriend in college, and since she's introduced me to all her friends from high school with whom she used to play, and with whom we now play.

I realize my fortune; I'm dating a very cute girl who is a CSE major and like gaming. And the ink's barely dry on my deal with the devil.

Homecoming

[spike42]

25,000 people came? One third of the highschool's around the country had their homecomings last night.

Thats alot of kids that wanted to roll dice rather than get laid.

"Life is but a dream", Spike Speigel

1st Edition

[HBI]

That's why 1ed is the best. Less rules, and convenient ways to handle unexpected stuff. The apex of AD&D was reached in about 1985 when Unearthed Arcana was released. They had just about covered everything worth covering outside of a Dragon magazine article.

Straight downhill from there, and I have read through each rules edition since. The later editions spend way too much time holding the hand of people who aren't imaginative enough to GM a session.

Re:1st Edition

[CaptainAvatar]

Wow, I remember when Unearthed Arcana came out. Now I feel old ... We even called our team for a tournament "The Unearthed Arcanadaemons". (And I now I feel embarrassed!)

Re:1st Edition

[Felis Rex]

I could not agree more. 2nd Ed. only got it half right. 3rd + just suck. What I don't understand is, why do these people keep lapping it up every time a new "edition" comes out? Old doesn't mean used up. First Edition AD&D was and remains the best, and when I play (rare as that is these days), I play what I call 1.5 edition.

ObSimpsons

[Anonymous Coward]

[D&D]'s apparently HUGE in the USN, particularly on submarines.

Those geeks should get out and get themselves some girlfriends!

Smithers: I think women and seamen don't mix.
Mr. Burns: We know what you think.

Artwork...

[Ballresin]

My girlfriend's mother is insane. Clinically. She was spending some time in a mental hospital (still does) and was meeting new people aparently. Anyways, girlfriends' mom met a man that exclaimed to her: "I am the Illustrator for Dungeons and Dragons!". She isn't real intelligent, so just said: "Oh. Can you draw me something?".

He drew the most amazing dragon-ette (looks like a butterfly and dragon met at a bar one night...) anyways... it's absolutely incredible. He aparently drew the entire thing easily and quickly and just gave it to her.

So I am the proud co-owner of an original piece of undocumented art from the artist and illustrator of D&D. I'll try to scan it on my Dad's G5 tonight and post it to my .Mac account.

Re:Artwork...

[Joe Tie.]

He drew the most amazing dragon-ette (looks like a butterfly and dragon met at a bar one night...)

Would that be a fairy dragon perhaps? I always thought those were among the most inventive of the monsters in AD&D.

5th grade.

[raehl]

Major news media target a 5th grade reading level.

Snakes and Ladders kicks Chutes and Ladders' ass!

[Anonymous Coward]

What's Snakes and Ladders?

Squares 1..100, roll the die, move forward that number of squares, if you end up at the bottom of the ladder you move up to the square at the top, if you end up at the top of a snake, you slide down to the square at the bottom. First at 100 wins. No skill involved.

The version of Chutes and Ladders Amazon.com sells looks like fundamentally the same game. But without the terrifying snakes (Perhaps the US versions are hobbled by the fear of lawsuits from parents of Rod-and-Todd type children frightened by the ferocious snakes. You watch out; you'll all end up in a Demolition Man-type situation, and you'll need me to help you out :-) )

Time for "Halloween III"

[Dogtanian]

They'd better make hunting kids legal again or next winter there may be thousands of them starving to death and running into traffic, just like deers.

Sounds uncannily like the plot of a film I once saw; cutting things a bit fine to get the plan ready for Halloween this year, unfortunately.

"14 more days till Haloween..."

What D&D has taught me about real life...

[spamguy]

'You're not there, you're getting drunk!'
'Okay, but if there are any girls there, I want to do them!'

D&D Suicide?

[Schnapple]

I guess this is as good a place as any to ask this.

So is there any one really good place to find out about that kid whose parents sent him off to college early (child prodigy) and when he disappeared they thought D&D killed him? He had just moved in with some friends and said "fuck the world" but the press went with the "D&D is devil worship" angle, even making that TV Movie with Tom Hanks (whose D&D-like name escapes me).

Kid goes on to become a virtual "comic book guy" store-owning type and eventually does commit suicide, presumably unrelated to D&D.

Is there any good place to find out information on this person and the accusations that D&D has faced over the years?

Re:D&D Suicide?

[TrentC]

There is a good PCGamer interview with Michael Stackpole that covers a lot of it.

The Pulling Report (named after Patricia Pulling, founder of BADD -- "Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons" -- who claimed that playing D&D led her son to commit suicide.

Of course, what comment about the "evils" of D&D would be complete without a link to Dark Dungeons, one of those annoying pamphlets that conservative Christian whackos hand out on the streets.

Jay (=

Re:D&D Suicide?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you mean the kid who attended Michigan State and played D&D in the steam pipe tunnels..

James Dallas Egbert III

Re:D&D Suicide?

[geekoid]

yeah, I know that story.

Sum up:
Boy goes to College kills himself. This chilad was put under an enormous strain to be the best, and had the emotional troubles that can go along with that pressure.
A provate detective was called in, and found out this kid was screwed up. In his investigation he found out that the kid play 1 (yes one) game of DnD.

Naturally the parents plamed the game. The fact the they through their child into an enviroment he was not emotionally ready for had nothing to do with it. Do to respect for his clients(the boys apraents) the dectivt did not make a statement of his finding public at that time. I think it was 5 years later he told the story.

Fortunatly, my parents have ehough common sense to talk to me about the game. They came to two conclusions:
1) as long as the came was part of my life, and not my life trhings were ok.
2) they wished I would spend that time doing more chores. ;)

Don't start planning for D&D's 35th birthday

[Dracos]

First, some history.

TSR originally published D&D. In the early to mid 90's TSR was publishing a lot of support material (modules, sourcebooks, settings) to keep sales up. As time went on, the quality and sales of this material went way down. TSR eventually owed $30 million to various debtors, primarily their printers. In 1997, WOTC bought TSR with the profits from Magic: The Gathering. Then Pokemon happened. In 1999, a struggling Hasbro bought WOTC to get the Pokemon cash cow. D&D Third Edition was released in 2000, after a year delay, under the d20 license. In 2003, D&D 3.5 was released.

WOTC had an understanding of RPGs, because the founders actually played them. Hasbro, on the other hand, seems to only understand board games for kids. Pokemon dried up, and they paniced. this is the big reason for 3.5, not "fixing things".

Not long after 3.5 came out, rumors began circulating that work had already begun on 4th Edition, and that it would not inherit the d20 license. If true, this would cripple all the companies that take advantage of the d20 license. The d20 license, by the way, is not granted in perpetuity, and can be altered at will according to the licensor's whim (look up the Book of Erotic Fantasy for proof).

Obviously, what Hasbro doesn't get is that RPG core books have a quite lengthy product cycle, but their scramble for income forces them to ignore it.

When I asked the general manager of my local game store what he though of the 4th edition rumors, the first thing he said was "I'm not going to buy it." (He was already annoyed at the existence of 3.5). Of course, he'd put it on his store shelves, he just won't personally own it.

A friend of mine, who still plays M:TG, has a conspiracy theory based on Hasbro realizing their mistake in buying WOTC and making the best of it. He believes Hasbro is quietly moving all of their debt into WOTC, and eventually plan to spin it off into its own entity or try to sell it. Good for Hasbro, but would be the end of D&D. I don't completely buy it, but the way big business is run nowadays, it wouldn't surprise me.

Re:Don't start planning for D&D's 35th birthda

[Comrade64]

Maybe it will happen like what BMW did with the Mini. Car company was failing, BMW buys it for $1, takes the best brand name from the company a few other small assets maybe, and sells the thing again. BMW makes out big with the Mini name, the new Mini cars and the rest will be history.

Maybe WotC will falter to such a point that Hasbro will sell it off for a very small amount...it's not a manufaturer that would be hurt by closing down plants, so I doubt it will be a $1, but I can dream :)...anyway, someone bys up the relic of WotC and takes the best brands from it, sending the rest of the company into oblivion. I don't think that will ever happen to D&D. It's at the stage now where just the brand name of D&D can command a little green. The owners just need to keep the overhead down.

Cheers and happy birthday to D&D! I'm playing Hackmaster now though! They licensed 1st and 2nd edition D&D rules to make a really fun game that truly hearkens back to the glory days of D&D. Also...long live KODT

Parody worth seeing

[crimson30]

here

trademark

[eean]

Whoa... wait a minute, "Mini" is trademark?

What a bunch of geek loons!

[geekoid]

Clearly Asmodeus could kick Orcus's ass.

G'ah

Re:What a bunch of geek loons!

[Infonaut]

That was pretty much the consensus view. I mean, come on. Orcus is clearly a lard-ass, and Asmodeus obviously works out daily.

Four-sided dice "instant kill" roll

[Minkey Brines]

I had a rule that when a four-sided dice (looks like a pyramid with chopped off corners) was rolled by a player for damage, if for some strange reason it landed on a chopped off corner and stayed up on it's own, that was considered an "instant kill". I have actually seen this happen twice.

ErrOr

[geekoid]

"My girlfriend just got me into D & D,,,"
Does not compute. More information needed...

"I would never touch it in high school, as tabletop games were too nerdy for computer gamers to touch"

ErrOr. Does not compute.
System terminated.

Re:Don't start planning for D&D's 35th birthda

[Alan Shutko]

Note that the Book of Erotic Fantasy _is_ still an Open Gaming License product. So while they could revoke d20 license, one can still create content under a lesser license.

The big problem...

[kria]

The big problem is that, IMHO, the module they sent to the stores SUCKED.

Well, pardon me, one of them. I only played one. The one I played was an Eberron module, from their new setting (the one they own lock, stock and barrel), and turned out to be in the back of the Eberron source book!

It was designed for four 1st level characters, in theory, and did not come with pregenerated characters, so you have something that's supposed to help introduce players to D&D and/or the Eberron setting and they have to make their own characters. Oh, or play the lame "Iconic characters" that have nothing to do with the Eberron setting.

And, on top of that, the module contained some insanely overpowered combats for a group of level ones. We had a fighter, a rogue, a cleric and a sorcerer, nicely balanced. And we have two characters go unconscious once, and one twice. We only survived due to using Eberron's action points (which are just a little too similiar to Spycraft's (www.alderac.com) action dice, but ah well.

Our special anniversary "swag" was a choice of 30th anniversary pen or mechanical pencil, a button advertising the anniversary that said "Experience Counts", a window clingy and a bookmark. And a bag to put it in.

Frankly, if WotC does stop making D&D, I'm looking forward to what some other awesome companies will do to replace D20, such as Paradigm Concepts, the makers of the Arcanis setting, a wonderful, wonderful world setting.

Oh, and for all those joking about it, I'll identify myself as a married female gamer. Married to a gamer, too.

Excellent!

[Colin Smith]

I actually ran a Runequest campaign which wasn't far off that. The characters were in a dream world which allowed me to get away with almost anything. Great fun.

Give credit to who deserves it

[Anonymous Coward]

This was Knights of the Dinner Table, not some guys named Ed and Eric. Jeez. And yes, I'm an off and on gamer for the past 15 years:)

Re:Give credit to who deserves it

[SoTuA]

Weren't those the names of the KotDT characters? (can't check it out, currently away from my Dragon Magazine collection :)

The most widely seen thought progress in D&D..

[SoTuA]

DM: You see a bunch of goblins guarding the main gate. However, they are drinking ale and not minding the smaller gate to the side, wich is ajar, through wich you could easily slip by.

Player's thoughts, Homer Simpson style : goblin -> combat -> gold -> experience! mmmmm... expeeeerience...

Player: I roll to attack!

DM: *groans*

ADD

[lupinstel]

The only time I played D&D, was AD&D (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) with a dungeon master who had ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), and I think was smoking weed. That game was slow, and impossible to figure out.

Funny On Topic Quote From Cartoon Character

[Anonymous Coward]

AW C'MON! YOU'RE GONNA KILL ME FOR HAVING FAKE SEX ON GRAPH PAPER WITH A GIRL WHO BARELY SPOKE TO YOU IN REAL LIFE?
-- Doctor "Rusty" Venture The Venture Brothers (2004)

This quote occured in the episode Past Tense in the scene following the previous one set during the Doctor's college days in 1982 where he and his roommates were playing a Dungeons & Dragons-like game.