The incredible austerity of D&D in 1980

I know she gets a huge kick out of staying up with the adults.

this was a huge perk when my dad was taking me to the HSS and ICE sessions during middle school, we stayed up hella late

I remember our parents being deeply suspicious of our dungeon master who was in his mid-20s when we were all like 13-15, but in retrospect he was in fact just a dude who loved tabletop gaming and we were enthusiastic players it was easy to schedule gaming sessions with.

adults hanging out w teenagers in a social setting is always going to look suspicious, and for good reason

Then we got to see the first year when Magic: The Gathering was the new sensation, and the following year when it had completely taken over the convention (and our hangouts).

Ha, legendary! I remember reading about that Gen Con in a magazine a few months later and it was the first time I heard of MtG. We got started in the early stages.

Yeah, these days things would be very different wrt kids and older players.

Ah, yes, Magic was the closest I got to real world gaming experience, back when they released the basic version of it, Portal. I managed to organize a little tournament with the few nerds in my school, with the prize being the large sized cards that were made to promote some expansion (Weatherlight, I think). Don't recall where I got them, probably InQuest magazine, my pre-internet source for any gaming news. Sadly, that was not the gateway drug to RPGs I hoped it would be. (Though probably doomed to fail anyway; I can hardly understand why I thought I could get a bunch of 8th graders into something as esoteric as a Mage or Ars Magica game!)

there is currently a moderately interesting doc on the history of D&D art on Amazon Prime, a pretty deep dive into specific artists and styles, history of TSR etc. The woman who's tried to plastic surgery herself into an actual elf is a bit much though.

Vin Diesel taught Judi Dench how to play Dungeons & Dragons on the set of THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK and she went on to become DM for her grandchildren https://t.co/k5mdwB9cAf

— Ben Mekler (@benmekler) November 13, 2019

Hey y’all.
No time to write an article about my personal history with d&d but my question for you all is — do you fuck with retro-clones or other old-school style RPG’s? Talking about thinks like White Box (clones original d&d) and Basic Fantasy (clones the Basic/Expert rules) and OSRIC (clones first edition AD&D) which seek to re-edit/re-organize various old rules systems and make them easier to understand and play for modern gamers.

I’ve picked up a few of these games as physical print-on-demand books and many are available for free as pdf’s. There are loads of these games.: some seek to clone old editions of the game, some mix & match, and some use modern mechanics (ascending AC for example). I’m hoping to find some folks to play with sooner or later. I do play a 5e game with friends but I’m kind of into visiting a world where clerics don’t get any spells at first level, all weapons do d6 damage and there’s much less to keep track of.

I do what's easiest for the people I'm playing, ie what's most widely available which at this point means 5th edition.

Well that’s half the point of these games is the accessibility— the basic fantasy books are sold at cost, and many games are available digitally for free too. Whereas the 5e players guide is $50. And the other half of the point is wanting to post something simpler and more open than 5e where everyone is a superhero by 3rd or 4th level. The austerity is the appeal to me, too.

This is 100% me retreating from the brutal reality of our present moment.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1503334945/ref=ox_sc_act_image_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1545516480/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

https://goodman-games.com/dungeon-crawl-classics-rpg/

I’ve looked into DCC — a fella I follow on Instagram plays it and reps it pretty hard. The weird necessity if buying extra dice sets is annoying, and there’s something about the vibe that isn’t quite there for me. Too gonzo? Idk. I did pick up the cheap quick start booklet but after looking through it, it didn’t seem quite what I was looking for.

whenever i want to do something homebrew i look at GURPs but it's so dense at this pt it fails what i need from a system which is almost zero fiddliness and just a couple of easy mechanics for storytelling. but maybe you'd find it useful?

I’m not even particularly looking to make an exciting homebrew system, I just want to play something sandboxy that makes me feel the way I did when I was 12. I’m pretty fascinated by the genre of games though.

oh i think i can help you bc i have been playing loads of tt roleplaying games over the last decadeish trying to recapture the way i felt when i was 12 and despite lots of cool stuff being out there i am happy to report that feeling is ephemeral and tied directly to the powerlessness, imagination, time, and friendship that was only available at 12yo, it can never be recaptured alas.

5e is fun enough tho. i get together with mostly dads once a week to play for about 3 hours. it really is nothing like when we were all 12 and could play long afternoons of shadowrun or star wars or cyberpunk 2020 or 2nd edition but it still has its pleasures and feels prosocial.

oh i think i can help you bc i have been playing loads of tt roleplaying games over the last decadeish trying to recapture the way i felt when i was 12 and despite lots of cool stuff being out there i am happy to report that feeling is ephemeral and tied directly to the powerlessness, imagination, time, and friendship that was only available at 12yo, it can never be recaptured alas.

― Mordy, Friday, January 31, 2020 10:05 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

important post

that said I wrote a game some years ago trying to recapture the feeling of being 13 years old at a synagogue sleepover, maybe y'all can give it a try

http://jklol.net/grace.html

silby i don't know if i could ever find a good group for playing that (or one i felt comfortable enough with to do so) but i would be curious to hear about yr playtests of it and any other playthrough reports you may have??

It’s been years since I actually played but I had a nice time doing it and at least one group in the world with nothing to do with me has played it, might be able to find their play report…

found it

http://story-games.com/forums/discussion/comment/391359/#Comment_391359

https://jennitalula.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/grace/

oh and we actually discussed it on story-games when I first wrote it http://story-games.com/forums/discussion/16033/x

I was much closer to being a teenager then…

I got given the slipcase version of Art & Arcana for Christmas and the early stuff looks amazing in it.

DCC was the most fun i've had since ad&d second edition

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the-advanced-dungeons-dragons-players-handbook-essay-benjamin-markovits/

I played Dread with some old college friends, and our first scene (before the horror started) captured what I think your Grace players felt from their play through: there was a surprising catharsis in role playing the real insecurities and conflicts of our younger selves through the lens of the game. It helped me treat my younger self with empathy—a salve I didn’t know I didn’t have. I’m wondering if it would be nice to find a group to play Grace, and double down on role play as a catalyst for healing.

If you do please post about it! Nothing would warm my heart more

has anybody read any of appelcline's books on the development of d&d? thoughts?

what the
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERj78rMWoAACgzk?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERj78rVWsAAZ1q1?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERj78rLXUAADeu1?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERj78rLXkAApBYC?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

roll em up everybody

"I kick the pagan with my Boots of the Gospel of Peace, aiming for his head"

What Dice Would Jesus Roll

three sided, duh

the enduring Christian qualities of Faith, Hope, and Quiet Movement

dampening dragons' spirits brb

Oh god. This looks like shit they would have at the Christian bookstore my parents would take me to as a kid. I think the store was called Agape, which in retrospect is lol.

Now I am remembering when I had to do a project for bible class in the low-rent private Christian school our church effectively ran (one step from homeschooling). I waited until the last minute and half-assed it, and my Mom got angry and wouldn't let me hand in what I did. So she helped me put together a poster about "putting on the full armor of God" from Romans or something. "Breastplate of righteousness" my ass.

somehow I have never seen this although it came out m/l in my peak RPG phase

Resist Torture?

Kinky.

totally

it's no Bunnies and Burrows

https://lightraiders.com/dragonraid-2nd-ed/

Please remember that DragonRaid is not just a fun game, it is intended as a serious discipleship system for teenagers (and adults who still have teen-aged hearts). Though the system used as an ordinary roleplaying game (RPG), it is much harder to teach the players how to be more Christ-like, which is the goal of the DragonRaid system. While some of the material presented here is more game-mechanics oriented, that is not intended to be an endorsement of RPG-only play.

Translation: If you RPG without Jesus, you are going to hell.

they're not wrong, many of the kids I played D&D with ended up stranded on one of the outer planes

there is no way i would game with christ, dude is too much of a powergamer

"uh, i shoot a flaming sword out of my mouth and instantly destroy all evil forever"
"sigh. roll for initiative."
"i don't have to roll for initiative, the flaming sword is a free action"
"jesus, is this on your character sheet?"
"yeah, check it out here"
"this says 'and there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of jesse'. what does that have to do with flaming swords?"
"uh, it's a PARABLE, duh! i'm 'jesse', the stem is my mouth, and the 'rod' is a flaming sword that destroys all evil forever."

lmao

That is very good.

amazing stuff

started playing a variant of basic D&D w a few friends on roll20, it is fun, really good quarantine activity. highly recommended.