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?

6 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. 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 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 :-)

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

    A: All of them!

  3. 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.
  4. 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
  5. Party Time! by laejoh · · Score: 5, Funny

    I put on my robe and wizard's hat!