Dungeons and Dragons

[Yachtzee]

Originally Posted by Johnny Footstool

Kitty Pryde.

Rivers Cuomo is rolling over in his grave right now.

Makes more sense if you follow the X-Men.

Kitty Pryde

And Nightcrawler too!

[zombie-a-go-go]

Originally Posted by Johnny Footstool

I'd rather hang out with people I know than jump online and go adventuring with Sven the submissive Norwegian necrophilliac and Larry the child predator who's looking for his next victim.

I meet enough of those types on RedsZone.

Oh, snap!

[SteelSD]

D&D. Dice chucking goodness. Alas, I gave it up to focus on card flopping (Magic the Gathering). It was too difficult to find folks to play D&D.

[Falls City Beer]

NEEEERRRDS.

[KronoRed]

/\
Word.

I on the other hand..am a geek

[Dom Heffner]

Once he got a monsters XP confused with HP, so we had to kill something that had 450 HP.

I'll bet this is something you tell the ladies.

[Redsfan08]

Dungeons and Dragons

[deltachi8]

My goodness, i thought the D&D geeks were left in huigh school! Seriously, a dice based fantasy game? Come on!

Excuse me, I'm late for my Strat-o-Matic tourney...

[Coffeybro]

Wish I lived in Cincy. Also if Todd's weekends were not already taken I'm sure he would be in.

[Doc. Scott]

Despite what Generation X-ers might think, there are more people playing D&D now than there have ever been. So therefore it's as close to mainstream as ever. (And jokes about it are most of that.)

I recently took the game up again after moving 2,500 miles just as a way of reconnecting with hobbies past and present. (And I figured my significant other could handle it after I watched her literally take over my game of Baldur's Gate II, knowing nothing about game mechanics, and stay up all night beating the expansion pack while I was sleeping.) The last time I'd touched it was nine years and an edition and a half ago. All I'd done was play the occasional PC game (and no, not MMO games, which I find slightly frightening). I'd sold all my books on eBay and dumped several years' worth of multiple magazines.

Despite not being familiar with many of the rule changes and such, it's still the same game I first saw in 1983. Sure, there's the same problems:

-It still attracts the type of people I was trying to escape in high school. I know that sounds contradictory, but there are people out there that are capable of basic social interaction that also happen to be gamers- you just have to search. This highly entertaining documentary on YouTube is a good illustration of what I'm talking about.

-It's still marketed at teenagers, even though there are as many older players as there have ever been (because the game is now 30+ years old). Perhaps that's more a problem of the game system, but I don't have enough experience with other systems and companies to really know.

-It's still really expensive. Books are $30-35 now, not $15 or $20. And now that the core rules use miniatures, count on even more cash for those. My eyes bugged out even though I have considerably more spare cash now than I ever did when I was bagging groceries and slinging pizza in high school. Of course, now you can steal PDFs on the Internet to see how good something is before you plunk down the cash for it.

Because the game is still a social experience (unlike MMOs), the quality of your time spent is more or less depends on the quality of your gaming group. If you game with shut-in, speech-impedimented megalomaniacs who are taking out their anger at the world, chances are you'll be left feeling much more negatively about the game than if you find those (sometimes elusive) Regular, Well-Adjusted People. And if you have an inept, ill-prepared, or otherwise unfit Dungeon Master, you're pretty much screwed. So choose wisely.

Fortunately for me, it's all gone pretty well. I like the same things in my gaming that I like in film or fiction- character-driven, lighthearted epics with good continuity. I managed to hit on a good character idea and it's all been quite a good time.

A game that's both good and sophisticated is a truly rare thing, so I hope, Zombie, that you find some new players that can actually breathe through both nose and mouth. Too bad I no longer live in the area.

[zombie-a-go-go]

Originally Posted by Doc. Scott

A game that's both good and sophisticated is a truly rare thing, so I hope, Zombie, that you find some new players that can actually breathe through both nose and mouth. Too bad I no longer live in the area.

Thanks. That's the primary reason I'm making the offer/request here as opposed to messageboards dedicated to the hobby. Let's just say that recruiting players through those venues have, in the past, attracted people I've been less than hip on spending time with (to put it politely). If I wouldn't go out drinking with them, I sure as hell don't want them in my house.

Of course, there are "shut-in, speech-impedimented megalomaniacs who are taking out their anger at the world" on RedsZone too - though RPGs seem to attract the type, they by no means have a monopoly them.

[Benny-Distefano]

I dunno... online games like Everquest are everything I wanted D&D to be, back when I was playing it in the 1980's.

1. Computer keeps track of stats.
2. Thousands of real people in the gameworld...not just the 5 dorks I always played with.
3. The whole visual thing makes it feel more realistic.

Tons of other reasons.

But hey, whatever floats your boat. But people have LAN parties, y'know. So there is still a way to play online and still interact socially.

It just seems to me that playing dice and book Gygax D&D in this day and age is a bit like installing an 8-track player in your car. Again though...to each their own.

[ochre]

what server do you play on Benny?

[Doc. Scott]

Originally Posted by Benny-Distefano

I dunno... online games like Everquest are everything I wanted D&D to be, back when I was playing it in the 1980's.

1. Computer keeps track of stats.
2. Thousands of real people in the gameworld...not just the 5 dorks I always played with.
3. The whole visual thing makes it feel more realistic.

Tons of other reasons.

But hey, whatever floats your boat. But people have LAN parties, y'know. So there is still a way to play online and still interact socially.

It just seems to me that playing dice and book Gygax D&D in this day and age is a bit like installing an 8-track player in your car. Again though...to each their own.

Well, I certainly would say MMOs are a way around having no one you know in your geographical area to play D&D with. If that's the problem, then I'd understand pimping MMOs as a worthy replacement.

But I wouldn't say that MMO players are particularly different from the "dorks" you always played with- where do you think the thousands come from? They're a thousand towns' versions of those five dorks.

Even worse, you have to deal with a lot of annoying, monosyllabic 13-year-olds screaming "LOL!" and "PWNED!" at you. If you don't want people like that in your D&D group, there's a way to escape it. Same with goldfarmers- if you're saddled with a Monty Haul powergamer in your D&D group, just eject 'em.

As for computers keeping track of stats, yeah, I agree- but that's what single-player RPGs are for. But you do lose the fun of rolling dice in person and having that fateful 1 or 20 come up just when you were hoping to see the opposite.

I like to have scheduled time set aside for gaming. Every other week, I spend three or four hours. With MMOs, it's very easy to watch them consuming every spare minute you have. And just like with TV or Baldur's Gate or Out of the Park Baseball or anything else that can sneak up on you, the quality of your life doesn't improve by you spending time on it in that fashion. At least not after you're a salary-earning adult with the occasional responsibility.

I don't play computer games as a way to interact with other people- I play them to not have to interact with other people.

[Doc. Scott]

Originally Posted by zombie-a-go-go

Thanks. That's the primary reason I'm making the offer/request here as opposed to messageboards dedicated to the hobby. Let's just say that recruiting players through those venues have, in the past, attracted people I've been less than hip on spending time with (to put it politely). If I wouldn't go out drinking with them, I sure as hell don't want them in my house.

Of course, there are "shut-in, speech-impedimented megalomaniacs who are taking out their anger at the world" on RedsZone too - though RPGs seem to attract the type, they by no means have a monopoly them.

Yeah, the Yahoo! group through which I found my Portland group has already cycled through a couple of less-than-optimal candidates. Just like with pitching prospects, you have to have patience and realize that not all of 'em are going to justify the development time.