Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Celebrating Dungeons & Dragons' 40th Anniversary

Posted by samzenpus on from the roll-a-d20 dept.

disconj writes "With the 40th anniversary of the release of Dungeons & Dragons coming up this weekend, the Internet is ablaze with reflections on its legacy. Dave Ewalt gives an intro for the uninitiated. Ethan Gilsdorf explains how 'all I need to know about life I learned from Dungeons & Dragons'. Finally, Jon Peterson presents a video show-and-tell of rare artifacts from D&D's development." The real question is how many characters have you lost in Tomb of Horrors?

57 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. Roll 1D20 .... by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Funny

    You fail your morale check and can't post this round.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  2. Tried playing this game by rolfwind · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Got bogged down by the rules.

    I always had a lot more fun as a kid playing pretend games (when kids still played those instead of video games) than RPGs with a lot of rules. I think the amount of books and their expense just killed it. Tried several RPGing systems since, BESM and the like.

    I learned that I like it a lot better when a computer takes care of all the details.

    1. Re:Tried playing this game by msevior · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Clear rules are what makes a good game. It's really frustrating to play a game where "you make it up as you go along" :-)

      D&D was awesome as a 20-year-old and its far more fun having people rather then computers to interact with.

    2. Re:Tried playing this game by doctor+woot · · Score: 2

      That's a shame, computers are largely limited to what the coder who wrote a piece of software came up with, which, if you're imaginative and have played a tabletop RPG, you'll find ends up missing an awful lot. That's why tabletop RPGs find a wide audience to this day, they give you the flexibility to do what you want even when what you want to do isn't covered by the rules explicitly. In the majority of computer RPGs out there, if what you want to do isn't covered by the rules, tough shit. Either mod it (which does little to sidestep the issue of complexity) or hope someone else does.

      Besides, any half-decent roleplaying group will assist you in learning the rules and getting a hang of things. After just a few hours you stop getting confused by stat sheets and the like.

    3. Re:Tried playing this game by DrFalkyn · · Score: 5, Informative

      D&D was all about the DM ... if you have a good one, it was a blast, if you had a bad one it was snore. The rules were really only there as a guide, a good DM would learn to ignore a bad dice role (and, occassionally ignore a good one :-) ) .. thats what those screens were for :-)

    4. Re:Tried playing this game by gman003 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As an avid video gamer who's gotten into tabletop gaming, I've found they both have their strengths.

      Computers work well for rigidly-defined rules, particularly for stuff like combat. If all you're doing is slaying orcs and such, computers can do a lot of it better.

      Tabletop gaming works for less well-defined systems. No game has really, *really* gotten diplomacy right - it comes down to figuring out the right choices to make in a few menus. And clever players will be able to work better in a tabletop RPG - things that totally would work in the real world, but the official rules don't have anything for. With video games, maybe you can find a mod to add a button to let you do something, but with a tabletop game and a decent GM, you'll be able to create "rules" on the fly to handle it.

      Example:
      My players were fighting a dragon, and managed to wound it enough that it would (logically) retreat rather than keep fighting. He took off, they all fired off ranged attacks while he flew off, except for one. She threw her grappling hook at it, which there aren't specific rules for so I treated it as a ranged touch attack. Success. She tried to climb it (which there is a set of rules for), failed, and then failed an opposed strength check from the dragon trying to shake her off (I improvised the check being necessary, but used the general rule for "two people doing something against each other involving muscle").

      I've gotten to the point now where I don't even try to plan things step-by-step, I just invent a scenario and let my players figure out the best solution. For another example:
      In the aftermath of the last quest, two of the three players ended up in jail (on charges of public indecency/intoxication and high treason/negligent regicide, respectively). The last had to break them out. All I had planned was what sort of cells and protection each was under, as well as the idea that they would be taken eventually to the court to be judged and they could possibly be rescued in transit. They figured out how to get one out beforehand by bending the bars of the window enough for him to slip through. They then set up a detailed plan to rescue the last guy in transit, having one person in disguise as a guard to disable the guards with drugged treats, with the other standing by on the rooftops to Errol Flynn his way in if combat broke out. Meanwhile, the imprisoned guy was taunting his captors, trying to goad them into dragging him out of his cage to engage in some police brutality (both as a distraction, and to get out of some of his restraints). Their stealth approach failed, but they managed to fight their way through it with the element of surprise. The game starts up again tomorrow with them on the run in the immediate aftermath, and I have absolutely no idea how they're going to get out of this, but I'm sure they'll come up with something.

      As a guy who both studied game design and is working on a video game, and as a guy running two Pathfinder* campaigns, both have their unique strengths. A paper RPG that has too many rules *is* doing something wrong, but that's a fault of the specific game, not tabletop RPGs in general. And I think it may have been a historic thing - since I'm far from the first to realize the strengths of the two, tabletop RPGs have mostly gotten simpler and more streamlined since the early days, and having massive multi-volume rulebooks is no longer considered a good thing.

      * Pathfinder is basically D&D 3.75. Like with any nerddom, major changes piss off users, so a company (actually the magazine publishing arm of WotC, which was spun off shortly before D&D 4.0) took advantage of the open-sourcing of D&D 3.5 to fork it and make a new game that's basically 3.5 with some simplifications and a new trademark, rather than the major upheaval that is 4.0. I like it because it's just complex enough to be interesting, and it's also like 75% cheaper (you can get into it with just the Beginner Box for $30 or so, and the only book you absolutely need for the full game

    5. Re:Tried playing this game by msobkow · · Score: 2

      A good dungeon master makes all the difference.

      Especially one who can make up the game as they go along instead of strictly following "the path" one is *supposed* to be following. Many a night we'd never actually get around to the campaign, because we decided to get drunk at the bar and rearrange the trees and shrubberies in town in our drunken 18S stupors.

      He wouldn't even let us play some of the campaigns after we did that because he said we'd been banished from the village for our behaviour. :D

      --
      I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    6. Re:Tried playing this game by gman003 · · Score: 2

      "Things don't always work the way you expect" would be better advice for a GM than for a player. At least with one set of players (I GM two games), I've found it better to just create a scenario and let them figure out how to deal with it, rather than to come up with one solution and try to lead players to it. Which leads me to think like an adversary - I'll think "OK, so the players are going to try to bust this guy out of jail, now how would the city guard be protecting him? He's awaiting trial for multiple murders, treason and grand theft, so they'd be keeping him in a secure cell. Deep in the dungeons, probably. And in solitary. Probably keep him manacled even in his cell, come to think of it, since they're claiming him to be 'the most dangerous man in the eight kingdoms' and the sole mastermind behind the big attack to mask their incompetence that let the other two escape.". I figured out general guard schedules, equipment and such, but left the details to be improvised.

      I make sure that there *is* a viable solution or two (imitate a lawyer to sneak in and meet with him, pass him some kit for him to escape with; actually act as a lawyer and get him off on a technicality (technically it was a different party member who did most of the murders); forge a request for extradition from another kingdom that wants to execute him for negligent regicide (he actually did do that one); hire an army of goons and storm the Bastille; buy a dozen scrolls of teleport and just warp in and out), but I've never successfully predicted one that they've used (they waited until he was being taken to trial, then tried to recreate the scene from The Dark Knight with the police convoy).

    7. Re:Tried playing this game by nedlohs · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1. It is fun with a weak character relative to everyone else.
      2. Failure is as fun as success - notice that almost all old school D&D players have a favorite story to tell in which usually a character if not the entire party dies.
      3. Fudging dice rolls is unnecessary. Yes some DMs want a softer game and so do that - which I guess is fine if that's the game you want to play. There's no need to, just don't get attached to that character...

    8. Re:Tried playing this game by dcollins · · Score: 2

      Different editions vary a lot. The original edition was the best IMO -- one single box, three small booklets with everything needed to play (monsters, infinite levels, dungeon/wilderness/air/water environments, castle-building, etc. etc.; 1974 white box set). I only got my hands on it myself in 2007. It was truly eye-opening, and it's all I've played since.

      Like many things, the business thereafter was increasingly built on unwanted features and unnecessary bloat.

      --
      We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
    9. Re:Tried playing this game by cerberusss · · Score: 2

      Cl

      D&D was awesome as a 20-year-old

      It's still awesome as a 30-year-old :) I'm playing with a bunch of people who work in the same building as I do. We usually play every two weeks. Sometimes it's old-school AD&D, sometimes the newer 3.5. It's amazing to just forget a bit about work, wife and kid, and play the hammer-wielding cleric.

      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
    10. Re:Tried playing this game by VortexCortex · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Clear rules are what makes a good game. It's really frustrating to play a game where "you make it up as you go along" :-)

      This is an anecdotal statement, and I disagree vehemently. The rules only help the GM make a game good. I shall counter with my own anecdote: In my youth I played a wide variety of RPGs in a nearly daily group of about 10 friends, we'd hit up someone's house after school, and summer time was 3 months of non stop RPG building, story crafting, and playing. We had some games that lasted for years, and developed a set of "house rules" for running games. In our experience Role Playing games are far more fun when the Game Master (read: DM) is used as a story teller and the rules are largely set aside to let us focus on the game play, i.e. let us use the available skills and world crafting and thinking in-character on the fly instead of hampering creativity and bogging down battles. If a plausible explanation could be made, we rolled with it -- or rather didn't roll for anything at all. Rules of the game were used to settle disputes between the players and GM, and the GM applied the player's actions to the world according to a general understanding of the character. Anyone could challenge an event to trial by dice, and that's really the only role the strict rules played well. In fact, when the new editions of AD&D came out we just used the settings and monsters, etc., screw all those bullshit rules. GURPS was better for combating power creep anyway (and let us throw in time traveling cyborgs, or characters from other campaigns etc. from time to time).

      In fact, some games like In Nomine, embraced this type of game-play where rules take a back seat explicitly. It had a simplistic dice mechanic that called for a degree of interpretation and yielded far more frequent spectacular successes and failures. [2D6 to beat a target number for a skill / ability, blow karma points to lower the target, 1D6 is severity of success or failure, 1,1,1 = Divine intervention. 6,6,6 = Satan smiles upon you -- Either is good or bad depending on who you're working for.] The dice in this use were like an aide to the story teller and players -- To smooth disputes, and let chaos nudge the course while allowing a player's desire to win a dice roll actually influence its outcome somewhat. E.g., A player spends two karma points to really end his foe, and insists on rolling to ensure the GM doesn't tamper with fate:

      You rare back and throw every fiber of your angelic form into the punch, nearly tearing the tendons of your corporeal vessel. The blow destroys the treacherous demon's skull will a loud crunch. As the vermin's soul escapes back to hell you catch a fleeting whiff of brimstone and realize that in the scuffle your own flaming sword of valor has set your hair afire. The voice of the Dark Prince himself booms from everywhere and nowhere, "Consider the hair cut a gift for saving me the trouble of finding that fiendish failure. Yes, the diabolical look does suit you..." The 666 roll doesn't have to be terribly bad for the good guys, it can just add character and mood, or it can enhance the plot -- for instance, if the angel falls. The flexible rules allow success and failure to be far more nuanced and malleable to both players and story tellers. A good Game Master uses the rules to make the game more fun, and a good rule set lets them do so. It's why we play after all.

      D&D was awesome as a 20-year-old and its far more fun having people rather then computers to interact with.

      Then why the hell would you apply strict rules to make humans emulate computers? All the speed and determinism of a human calculator trying to apply complex rule based programs with all the frustration of interfacing with a dumb computer running glitchy logic and neither knows nor cares about what 'fun' is. You picked the worst spot in the venn diagram ever. Creative people make the classic RPGs fun, not the boring rules.

    11. Re:Tried playing this game by Vintermann · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The dice are there to force you out of your prior expectations, and keep you from going down the same old paths.

      This was one of the central messages of Kirk Botula's "Complete book of Villains", IMHO one of the most underestimated RPG accessories of all time. Many bestselling fiction writers would have been better for reading that book.

      If you tell a person "make up a hero", or "make up a villain", he might make up an original one - once or twice. Then odds are they'll start to resemble each other, and display lack of interesting diversity. Botula's advice was to use die rolls, and try to make sense of them. So your villain has high intelligence but low wisdom. How can we interpret that?

      Or you could roll for a villain's motives. Wealth? Power? The need to feel loved? Or even the need to be seen as the good guy?

      And as always, of course, not slavishly follow the die rolls. If every villain is super-complex, you get a soap opera. Some combinations just don't make sense (or, at least, you're going to get a really weird world if you always try to force them to make sense.)

      Basically, you use randomness to resist your own biases and predictability, and push the limits of your creativity and imagination.

      --
      xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
    12. Re:Tried playing this game by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Clear rules are what makes a good game. It's really frustrating to play a game where "you make it up as you go along" :-)

      Ever played Amber DRPG? If the storyteller is good, the game is good. If the storyteller sucks, the game sucks. Strict rules are a crutch for shitty storytellers. And as has been noted, it is a pain in the arsehole tracking all the rules. It's daft to play complex RPGs without a computer to mediate unless you've got a group of math savants.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    13. Re:Tried playing this game by gbjbaanb · · Score: 2

      disagree - its not about learning the rules inside out, its about relaxing the rules where you disagree with them, bringing in "house rules" that suit your style of play better.

      People who lawyer up on the rules end up just playing a game of who knows the rules better. Those who take a more relaxed approach to having fun, have fun.

    14. Re:Tried playing this game by msevior · · Score: 2

      We were all Physics nerds so I guess that is close enough :-) Not that it was hard to play AD&D in the 1980's. There were tables for everything and the DM had them all on easy to read screens. As a DM I invented my own monsters and dungeons as did my friends when they were DM in their turn. I also bent some of the rules... A good dungeon is one where the players barely survive and sometimes you have to adjust probability to get that :-)

      The rules give the game structure. The human element knows when to adjust them. All in all far more fun than a computer :-)

    15. Re:Tried playing this game by nedlohs · · Score: 2

      You do not do 50 damage, and the next 2 people do not do 150 damage + stun + whatever

      A first level character hits with a sword and does 1d6 damage. A 7th level character hits with a sword and does 1d6 damage. One of them might be a fighter and get a bonus for strength if they have a high strength which isn't likely anyway - but that could be the 1st level character.

      Now of course the first level character will die faster - which is why they are actually using missile weapons and not making themselves a target. This is balanced by the fact that XP is shared evenly not adjusted by level and thus the lower level character will shoot up levels in a flash anyway removing the "problem" in a handful of sessions.

    16. Re:Tried playing this game by Mashdar · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Hell, as a DM I even lied about rolls with some frequency. Players rolled their own attacks for the excitement of it, but many of the various environmental checks and more bizzare actions taken by players were rolled behind a screen. (Along with many "fake" rolls to prevent metagaming.) Sometimes the lie was just more fun than the actual roll. :)

    17. Re:Tried playing this game by Talderas · · Score: 2

      If you're talking 3.5 D&D then you should read up and understand the Tippyverse. It's an application of the 3.5 ruleset in its entirety.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    18. Re:Tried playing this game by akinliat · · Score: 2

      Computers work well for rigidly-defined rules, particularly for stuff like combat. If all you're doing is slaying orcs and such, computers can do a lot of it better.

      Tabletop gaming works for less well-defined systems. No game has really, *really* gotten diplomacy right - it comes down to figuring out the right choices to make in a few menus. And clever players will be able to work better in a tabletop RPG - things that totally would work in the real world, but the official rules don't have anything for. With video games, maybe you can find a mod to add a button to let you do something, but with a tabletop game and a decent GM, you'll be able to create "rules" on the fly to handle it.

      This was true until 2002, when Neverwinter Nights was released. The buillt-in toolset allows the DM pretty much the same flexibilty as the D&D PnP rules, while the extensive (and C-like) scripting language allows for all kinds of automation. If that's not spontaneous enough, there's also a DM client that allows the DM to manipulate the game with near-omnipotence(create "rules" on the fly). Just like PnP D&D, the DM can assume the role of NPCs while they interact with the party(there's your diplomacy). You can even setup a system that let's you use a MySQL database to dynamically generate new areas while a game is in progress.

      I've played D&D since the '80s, and the only real limitation that I could spot with NWN was the fact that everyone needs a computer, so you either have LAN party, and cimmunicate outside the game, or you're limited to typing your conversations (which is just not as fun as talking to people). Well, I suppose you could use something like TeamSpeak, but it's still not as social as the sitting around a table with beer and snacks.

  3. Re:When?! by mikerubin · · Score: 2

    no, but it is/was fun.
    and nothing more.

    --
    I sat down to write a new sig tonight and all I did was make the chair warm.
  4. Re:and beanie babies and whatever by rmdingler · · Score: 2

    was... obviously just a ploy to pick up chicks.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  5. Q: How many characters lost in Tomb of Horrors? by xymog · · Score: 5, Funny

    A: All of them!

    1. Re:Q: How many characters lost in Tomb of Horrors? by zoward · · Score: 2

      This. I was the DM for our merry little band of adventurers traipsing through the Tomb of Horrors. We couldn't stop laughing. It was INSANE - no one could survive this. It was like they designed it to torture the players. One thing I'll never forget about it: after one particularly nasty trap that stripped the players of all the gear they were carrying, the text in the book said, parenthetically, "cruel, but most entertaining for the DM". And the same could be said for the entire module.

      Second place for player cruelty goes to the Judge's Guild module Inferno, based on Dante. Then again, a lot of Judge's Guild modules bordered on the impossible.

      --
      "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
  6. Recall how it was going to turn us into Satanists? by sandbagger · · Score: 5, Informative

    Adults in the 60s, 70s and 80s were smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol, getting high on grass and coke before they had kids and now were suddenly worried about everyone's grip on reality.

    I was probably more obsessive about Star Fleet Battles than D&D but for some reason fears over D&D caught the wind. Why? Sci-Fi nerds were supposed to appreciate science but not people who were obsessed with dragons. Weird.

    --
    ---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
  7. No save option by stackOVFL · · Score: 2

    I could never figure out how to save the game so I always had to start over naked, in the woods, on a dark path where I found a a wood club. Kinda strange how I always had a wood club when I was naked in the woods hmmmm. Wait a minute! Girl DM's go figure.

  8. Re:Rogue by SQLGuru · · Score: 4, Funny

    Who? My faithful dog WandTester? He was awesome.....at least until I found a Wand of Death.

  9. A couple things I learned by Krishnoid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The concept that alignment describes behavior along multiple axes and how the differences between wisdom and intelligence are explicitly called out, are a couple things that shaped my perspective on the world.

    1. Re:A couple things I learned by reve_etrange · · Score: 2

      In newer AD&D releases, a player can just rustle up junk, carve up one

      And pay steep materials and XP costs. Don't expect the game to balance if the DM doesn't charge the players for spell materials and XP costs.

      In 1E, it took a very high level wizard

      In 3(.5)E, you have to be 5th level to enchant weapons, 9th for rods, 12th for rings and staffs. Those levels are minimums; the actual requirements depend on the features of the items. In practice in 1E, it was almost impossible to ever create any kind of magic item. The slightly lower requirements in later editions were designed so that it would be possible for characters in medium-length campaigns to create something.

      That said, the zeroth rule of role-playing games is: it's your game. Don't complain about the rules when you can just change them. Personally, I mostly play in ultra-low magic games, in which the requirements to cast spells and create items are far in excess of those even in 1E.

      --
      .: Semper Absurda :.
  10. Re:When?! by dreamchaser · · Score: 3, Informative

    Thankfully it's also a myth. It never stopped me at least. I haven't played in years now except occasionally, but from about '76 through '86 it was one of my favorite non-sport pastimes, and it never got in the way of getting girls :)

    I guess YMMV.

  11. Re:When?! by aevan · · Score: 4, Informative

    Considering we had several girl gamers in our groups, and several married that spat out kids over the years we gamed...
    *shrug* but sorry, you were on a non-fact rant, apologises for interrupting you with some.

  12. Ah yes, the good ol' days of D & D... by SpankiMonki · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...when disaffected nerdy kids could lock themselves away to play for hours and hours and hours without fear of getting sent to Chinese rehabs.

    Of course, players back then had to worry about being burned at the stake.

  13. Pathfinder by SteveFoerster · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's why my group uses Pathfinder, a fork of third edition D&D that is still supported and thriving. And all your third edition supplements are compatible.

    --
    Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
  14. Re:Recall how it was going to turn us into Satanis by SteveFoerster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Meanwhile, I played as a kid, and now I play with my kids. It's actually a convenient parenting tool, because you can let them perish from the consequences of their poor decisions without being arrested for child neglect.

    --
    Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
  15. Re:Roll... by gman003 · · Score: 4, Funny

    And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what a human of intelligence 4 looks like.

  16. D&D Anecdotes by LordLucless · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, this seems to be the place for sharing anecdotes (which, I think, is the big pull of D&D - the ability to create shared moments that you can look back on, talk about, and laugh at).

    There was the time the party was sneaking in to a goblin warren. The rogue volunteered to try and scout out the entryway, and slipped in. Sure enough, there were two goblins on watch. When spotted, he managed to kill both goblins before they raised the alarm. After this impressive feat of martial prowess (and lucky dice), he signalled the rest of the party that the way was clear by blowing his signal whistle (which the player had included on his sheet, and was looking for a reason to use), thereby alerting the whole warren who promptly swarmed out and mobbed him. After the party had rescued him, and beaten back the goblins, the paladin smashed his signal whistle.

    Then there was the time the ranger decided to try and activate the mystic weapon-orb at the top of a tower under siege by the undead, because the party's wizard was being too slow and cautious. It activated, destroying the undead, but also blew the ranger off the top of the tower. He had the ability to reduce falling damage though, and survived the fall. Running up the tower to meet his companions, he forgot about the flame trap the party had avoided earlier, and got scorched into the bargain. Finally he stumbled out onto the towers roof, interrupting the party leader's impassioned eulogy.

    --
    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    1. Re:D&D Anecdotes by reve_etrange · · Score: 2

      Once, the party was investigating an abandoned Dwarven mine, when we stumbled into a beholder's laboratory, littered with odd, incredibly life-like statues of heroes in various horrifying poses. The beholder came home while we were rifling through his treasures - leading to a desperate battle in which the creature used telekinesis to pin the cleric to a wall, and heat rays to begin dissecting him. We soon discovered the provenance of the statues, when our brutal lizard-man warrior was turned to stone.

      The rest of the party managed to escape. We then quested for months in search of a Wand of Stone to Flesh, eventually obtained by burglarizing a powerful wizard. In the course of these adventures, the rogue was forced to become a were-rat (on pain of death) in order to join the upper ranks of the Thieves' Guild, the ranger was seduced and nearly devoured by a vampire, and the wizard was driven mad by a Gibbering Mouther who tempting him with a Book of Vile Darkness. He became meglomaniacal, and imprisoned the souls of an entire lizard-people village before we pinned him down and burned the evil tome in front of him.

      Wand in hand, we returned to the beholder's lair, leading to a second desperate battle which was won only when the rogue was able to trigger the wand and restore the warrior, who surprised and killed the beholder while it was trying to dissect the cleric again.

      The rest of the PCs elected not to tell him about the escapade involving the souls of his kinsmen.

      --
      .: Semper Absurda :.
    2. Re:D&D Anecdotes by meerling · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Here's one for you. The party had decided that the Merchant was actually a thief (now known as rogue) and tried to force him to open a chest in an empty room. He figured it was a big obvious trap, and refused, also taking offense to being called a thief. They responded by putting a crossbow to his head (and other weapons pointed at other body parts) and forced him to open the chest.
      So he wouldn't try something, and so they'd be there to grab the loot, they went in the room as well. To avoid getting caught in the trap that must be on the chest, they were all 15' back.
      The merchant wasn't very happy about that. Seeing no other options that included possible survival, he unlocked and opened the chest.
      At this point, the entire floor of the room, except for the chest, and the tiny area in front of it collapsed into a very deep pit trap. All of the party except for the merchant were seriously injured by this.
      Taking advantage of the situation, the merchant spotted a handful of large gems in the chest on top of the coinage, which he promptly pocketed before yelling down to see if the party survived.

      Now you might think the GM was pulling a fast one to punish a party that turned on one of their own for loot and broke their vow to not harm one another. Well, we all pretty much thought that, including the player of the merchant. So we called the GM on it. He laughed and pulled out his map of that small area, and pointed out the room, and the trap notations. He didn't fudge a single thing. That's exactly how that trap was supposed to work.
      The GM thought this was hilarious. After seeing that the GM didn't pull a fast one of his own, the merchant player did to.
      On top of that, his character ended up with more valuables than the rest of the party did combined on that little delve, and he couldn't have done it if they'd have just trusted him. (Actually he wouldn't have even tried to steal those gems, except for the threats to his life. They convinced him that he needed some just compensation for their blackmail and attempts to kill him.)

  17. Let's hope 40 looks better than 30 by Aeonite · · Score: 2

    http://books.slashdot.org/stor...

  18. Re:Recall how it was going to turn us into Satanis by msobkow · · Score: 2

    Yeah, but the same people who were ranting about D&D were also claiming Ozzy Osbourne was the devil himself, heavy metal was the end of society, and so on.

    Nowadays the descendants of those nutbars blame it all on the gays, the muslims, etc.

    There are always whack jobs looking for someone to blame for their own problems.

    Which reminds me of a good post I read recently:

    Believer: God, the troubles in this world -- it's all because of the gays, isn't it?
    God: Yes, yes it is.
    Believer: I knew it!
    God: You misunderstand. It's the way you treat them.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  19. Re:Never understood it by meerling · · Score: 3, Informative

    Gaming isn't for everyone. No big deal. If you don't like a form of entertainment, nobody really cares.
    It's like football, or opera, or country music, or chocolate, so many other things. You like it, or you don't. It's just the way it goes.

    Unless of course you happen to be one of those ignorant douche-bags that rag on hobbies you don't understand or don't like.
    If that's the case, then I'll just point out that I've made a number of those types miserable and horribly embarrassed in front of their peers and have no regrets for the divine retribution they were slammed with. It's rather easy to do with that type, and their 'friends' tend to be the ones to thoroughly enjoy watching it happen.

  20. Ah... the memories... by Tolvor · · Score: 2

    You stand in front of the Cave of Alborath, and the signs point that the orc raiding party definitely passed this way. There is a fresh orc-clan sign written in blood to the left of the cave entrance. You hope that the blood is not of the town captives that you seek to rescue.

    From the cave mouth comes a slightly rotten stench. Light from the late afternoon sun allows you to see about 30 feet into the cave (60 with infravision) and you see a rough opening about 10' wide, with a 5' wide path around the larger rocks, strewn with fist-sized rocks fallen from the cave roof.

    How will you proceed?

  21. Re:When?! by dcollins · · Score: 3, Insightful

    http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com

    --
    We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
  22. Another one by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 2

    The game master would give XP for making an impressive joke, or figuring out a difficult puzzle, or whatnot. We also used to refer to the "Detect Magic" spell by the initials "D.M." (as in "I cast D.M.")

    After we had finished cleaning the room, a female player casually remarked: "Ok, now I'm going to blow my D.M". To which he replied: "you get 1,000 XP".

    We were rolling on the floor for at least 30 minutes...

  23. Re:Recall how it was going to turn us into Satanis by bob_super · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You may have forgotten how the first edition did have spec for all the major devils and demons.
    That's what freaked out short-sighted people. To them, it wasn't about how you were going to kick demon/devil butt, as much as the horror of seeing kids throwing scary names around.

    When Harry Potter came out, an otherwise very smart engineer, who spent too much time in church, told me that they had a discussion about the books and their influence on children. They had a witchcraft specialist (I think he said a witch) comment on how the spells JKR wrote down were too close to the real magic and children shouldn't be familiar with them or run around casting them at each other.
    I honestly wish I was making this up.

    So yeah, the bad rep of the game was because some people get scared at the mere mention of some dark elements of their religious mythos.

  24. Party Time! by laejoh · · Score: 5, Funny

    I put on my robe and wizard's hat!

  25. In celebration... by Loki_1929 · · Score: 4, Funny

    bloodninja: Baby, I been havin a tough night so treat me nice aight?
    BritneySpears14: Aight.
    bloodninja: Slip out of those pants baby, yeah.
    BritneySpears14: I slip out of my pants, just for you, bloodninja.
    bloodninja: Oh yeah, aight. Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.
    BritneySpears14: Oh, I like to play dress up.
    bloodninja: Me too baby.
    BritneySpears14: I kiss you softly on your chest.
    bloodninja: I cast Lvl. 3 Eroticism. You turn into a real beautiful woman.
    BritneySpears14: Hey...
    bloodninja: I meditate to regain my mana, before casting Lvl. 8 chicken of the Infinite.
    BritneySpears14: Funny I still don't see it.
    bloodninja: I spend my mana reserves to cast Mighty F*ck of the Beyondness.
    BritneySpears14: You are the worst cyber partner ever. This is ridiculous.
    bloodninja: Don't f*ck with me bitch, I'm the mightiest sorcerer of the lands.
    bloodninja: I steal yo soul and cast Lightning Lvl. 1,000,000 Your body explodes into a fine bloody mist, because you are only a Lvl. 2 Druid.
    BritneySpears14: Don't ever message me again you piece of ****.
    bloodninja: Robots are trying to drill my brain but my lightning shield inflicts DOA attack, leaving the robots as flaming piles of metal.
    bloodninja: King Arthur congratulates me for destroying Dr. Robotnik's evil army of Robot Socialist Republics. The cold war ends. Reagan steals my accomplishments and makes like it was cause of him.
    bloodninja: You still there baby? I think it's getting hard now.
    bloodninja: Baby?
    --------------
    BritneySpears14: Ok, are you ready?
    eminemBNJA: Aight, yeah I'm ready.
    BritneySpears14: I like your music Em... Tee hee.
    eminemBNJA: huh huh, yeah, I make it for the ladies.
    BritneySpears14: Mmm, we like it a lot. Let me show you.
    BritneySpears14: I take off your pants, slowly, and massage your muscular physique.
    eminemBNJA: Oh I like that Baby. I put on my robe and wizard hat.
    BritneySpears14: What the f*ck, I told you not to message me again.
    eminemBNJA: Oh ****
    BritneySpears14: I swear if you do it one more time I'm gonna report your ISP and say you were sending me kiddie porn you f*ck up.
    eminemBNJA: Oh ****
    eminemBNJA: damn I gotta write down your names or something

    --
    -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
  26. Re:When?! by Thanshin · · Score: 2

    I did fuck some of my female players.

    Wait... Were you on one of those "only men allowed" RPG groups?

  27. Re:Irritated Dungeon Master by VortexCortex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    DM: What class is your character?

    Noob: Vulcan! Spock is wicked cool.

    Irritated? Dungeon Master, heh, yeah. What a bore. A Game Master would be Overjoyed. Halflings and Wizards can work with Spock, (hell, he'd be mistaken for an Elf in Shadowrun), and in games like Rifts, or super-rule-sets like GURPS, the more worlds collide the better!

    You'd actually be irritated instead of imagining a Star Trek 'away team' going off course on The Voyage Home and winding up amidst There and Back Again? You can't fathom the fun of Starfleet's finest crash landing on Bag End, and being guilt tripped into helping Gandalf take back the Lonely Mountain from a dragon that's been conspiring with dimensional shamblers to bring an evil cyBorg race to Middle Earth?

    Closed minds are the biggest reason the medium is in such a state.

  28. Re:When?! by Thanshin · · Score: 3, Funny

    I banged Magnys Carter the Barmaid/Whore in the ass, [...] Then you were born. I am your father.

    You seem to have a fundamental misconception about certain key points on human reproduction. Or elementary anatomy. Or both.

  29. caffeine.. by crossmr · · Score: 2

    Holy shit this guy could make a giant mech battle at a strip club sound like doing your taxes.

  30. Re:Recall how it was going to turn us into Satanis by ultranova · · Score: 2

    Weren't there some people that committed suicide after their characters were killed in the game?

    Please tell me you're joking, and don't actually think Dark Dungeons is a documentary.

    I don't think time spent studying the monster manuals or magic would be of much aid in the actual spiritual journey we face on earth even if you could make various other claims of benefit.

    It's amazing how many people have apparently completed their own journey despite still inhabiting their mortal coils, which they obviously must have because they have the time and wisdom to worry about the effect other people's pasttimes might have on reaching their destinations.

    Also, while each life stage certainly has preparing for the next as an important component, that isn't the only component. You are a living being, not just a production facility for your future self. The latter is committing the fallacy - and sin - of thinking people as merely tools to be used and discarded, with no value beyond their utility.

    Also, I doubt that very many devout Christians, reference above, were getting high on coke.

    From what I've seen, the "Christian" drugs of choice are hate, lust for power and fear. Frankly, coke would be less harmful to the spirit.

    --

    Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  31. Re:When?! by Zaatxe · · Score: 2

    No, I don't want fries with my order, thanks.

    --
    So say we all
  32. Ahh, D&D's 40th Anniversary.... by runeghost · · Score: 2

    ...guess I'll go play some Pathfinder to celebrate.

    Actually, I have a straight 1st Ed. game scheduled with some friends. But it is kind of sad that the name has been so badly handled by the current owners at Hasbro. I can't even find anything at their website to acknowledge, much less celebrate, the anniversary.

  33. Re:Recall how it was going to turn us into Satanis by Nyder · · Score: 4, Funny

    You may have forgotten how the first edition did have spec for all the major devils and demons.
    That's what freaked out short-sighted people. To them, it wasn't about how you were going to kick demon/devil butt, as much as the horror of seeing kids throwing scary names around.

    When Harry Potter came out, an otherwise very smart engineer, who spent too much time in church, told me that they had a discussion about the books and their influence on children. They had a witchcraft specialist (I think he said a witch) comment on how the spells JKR wrote down were too close to the real magic and children shouldn't be familiar with them or run around casting them at each other.
    I honestly wish I was making this up.

    So yeah, the bad rep of the game was because some people get scared at the mere mention of some dark elements of their religious mythos.

    Ya, I was given a D&D set when I was like 13 back in the 80's and got it taken away when the church told my parents it was "of the devil".

    Oddly enough, a couple years later I got a nice new wave hair cut with a tail, and my step mom cut off the tail because it was "of the devil".

    I like this devil dude, he sounds like my kind of guy.

    --
    Be seeing you...
  34. Re:Recall how it was going to turn us into Satanis by spacepimp · · Score: 2

    There was a statue on the cover. There were also a bunch of dead lizard men who used it as a place of worship. There were also characters stealing the gems from the eyes, who presumably had killed the flesh eating Lizard Men. Which part was Satanic? Killing the flesh eating disciples/worshipers of the Demon God or stealing the gems from the eyes of the idol?

    Creating a taxonomy and giving hit points and an alignment to such evil demons as Garl Glittergold shows a kid how to worship a pagan deity.?

    How so?

  35. Re:When?! by Saint+Fnordius · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, you're better off playing Illuminati or GURPS or Car Wars or Traveller or Warhammer or any of the other games. 1st Edition AD&D was just my gateway drug.