Happy Atheist Forum

Any Dungeons and Dragons players out there?  

We watched the latest "Futurama" movie on Friday which has a segment with the characters playing D&D, and today, Brendan comes out and tells me he invented a game called "Swamps and Seamonsters"!  He has a set move list, a list of weapons, little pieces of paper for some sort of gold/tokens, a sheet for each player to keep track of their progress, and the tell-tale divider board to shield the dungeon master from the players!  

I've never played, though I was curious about it in 1980 or so, and Joe's college roommates played and he watched, though they were bigger nerds than he was and he wasn't interested in joining them.

The Kid is 8yo and we think we might look at getting a started kit (on Amazon for $17) to see if it really interests him.  He was quite excited about the prospect, especially since Gary Gygax was a character on a few episodes of "Futurama" as well.

As an aside, when we were searching for pics of Gygax (so Bren could compare the real person with the animated caricature), we found a graphic of Gygax on which someone had put:  Gary Gygax is Dead, Jesus Wins... Again.  It was on an uber-Christian blog and told the false stories of the suicides of kids who played and some sort of ritual they had to do when their character died.  All BS... falsehoods passed down by religion to demonize a fantasy game.  So... D&D magic (fantasy magic) is bad and evil... but a man feeding a few hundred people with a few fish and a few loaves of bread is true?  A man rising from the dead doesn't phase them?  People turning to salt?!    

I've came across a "personal story" of a guy who, as a youngster, was playing D&D with a group of friends.  In this story, some of the members of this groups of kids' church had concerns about the game.  So in an effort to see what D&D was doing to the young souls, a few of the higher ranking members of the church asked to borrow the rule books for a week.

A week later, the kid gets his books back and is asked by the the same ranking church folks if they can sit in on a session.  At the end of the story, the adults were impressed at the use of complex math, vocabulary, and imagination used by the group of kids.  It was a pretty positive story.  

Maybe somebody else here has read it and would have better luck finding a link to post here.

Well, I played AD&D when I was a kid, and I turned out to be a socially incompetent, misogynistic, devil-worshiping sociopath, so...

 roflol

Go for it. The game is great, and really works the imagination. In case you need some assistance, here...

(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages42.fotki.com%2Fv1374%2Fphotos%2F8%2F892548%2F6278062%2Fstcuthbertmace-vi.gif&hash=e2a4c0b0e30bac319ed0100b4829d2f12cc60bae)

Take my +1 mace.  

Jolly, I'd LOVE to find that story... I told the hubby I'd love to have him play, share it at school (with all of his friends from ultra-religious homes) and we could start a club, like the Pokemon Card Club I sponsor now.  LOL!  See how outcast we become THEN.  (j/k...I really don't want to ostracize the kid.  Me, sure... him, no.)

Curio, we ordered the basic starter set and the For Dummies guide for him for Christmas.  I was going to get him the Bakugan battle set, but it appears to be the must-have gift for this year because it's out  at every Target and Toys R Us around here.  So... this was serendipitous.  And thanks for the mace.  

I don't play D&D, my boyfriend does, but i do roleplay practically anything. I've been doin it since i was like 10. I have a bunch pf premade characters and i make up a killer plot. If you're ever interested i'd be happy to work something out with you. I've been dying to feed my inner writer.

Well, the Kid put us through our paces with his Swamps and Seamonsters game this evening.  He rolled the dice, narrated a storyline, had us make choices to deal with the beasties he had us run across, gave us new weapons or upgraded our existing ones (he made up "weapons cards" with a shield, sword, and bow & arrows to start with).

I have no idea how a game of D&D works, but this followed what I've thought.  THis from just the exposure to an episode of Futurama!  Amazing!!!

Stoicheion, I've done plenty of roleplaying games in my life as well... just not D&D.  I'm actually kinda anxious to get started at Christmas!  

I ain't a D&D player, but Im a big fan of the dragons. I collect the figurines and the books and yeah. Im a dragon geek

I played D&D off and on with many people for about 15 years - I don't remember anyone having any horror stories linked to the game.

One would guess (I only played a few times as a kid) that D&D promotes imagination and problem solving skills.  If I am not mistaken, you can control the lives of many different types of 'people' by making all of their decisions for them.  There is a book of rules you must follow.  Can you see where this is heading?

Hubster played D&D as a kid. I didn't, though all my male buds did. We have a set now, which we got so we could all play together as a family. We enjoy it very much, though I'd like to let the kids take turns being dungeon master instead of hubs because I think they have great imaginations. Your kid sounds like he'd be an amazing dungeon master.

You may, however be doing him a better service by playing his game with him. It sounds impressive.

Quote from: "DennisK"One would guess (I only played a few times as a kid) that D&D promotes imagination and problem solving skills.  If I am not mistaken, you can control the lives of many different types of 'people' by making all of their decisions for them.  There is a book of rules you must follow.  Can you see where this is heading?

LOL!  Did I forget to mention that my kid IS god???  Small detail, I know.   :banna:

Quote from: "Wraitchel"You may, however be doing him a better service by playing his game with him. It sounds impressive.

Poor kid has been sick for a few days... just a cold, but those are sometimes more miserable than something worse.  He hasn't been in the mood for anything creative.  Though he did read his new Dragon Drive (manga) book in 15 minutes flat.  He loves that stuff!  

I  played D&D for years, starting when it first came out in the 70's. I probably played for 10 years, or so.

I started playing the White Wolf games (Vampire: The Masquerade, Mage: The Ascension, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and quite a few others) while playing D&D, and found them to be more to my liking, so I dropped D&D. I still have all the White Wolf rulebooks, but I haven't played in about 15 years or so.

I loved Vampire: The Masquerade. The vampire society was very fleshed out. There were several "races" of vampires belonging to 3 opposing factions, the Sabbat and the Ventrue, and the Anarchs. Some were violent soldier/punk types (Brujah), the completely insane Malkavians, the aristocratic Ventrue and Lasombra, and the ugly underground dwelling Nosferatu.

Ahh yes, the fun I had in that game.

As for the "OMFG D&D makes you kill everyone around you!" scare, it mainly comes from everyone's favorite lunatic, Jack Chick and his unintentionally funny Dark Dungeon (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp).

We play a parody of D&D called Munchkin.  It's quite fun and the puns are hilarious.

http://www.sjgames.com/munchkin/

Quote from: "jrosebud"We play a parody of D&D called Munchkin.  It's quite fun and the puns are hilarious.

http://www.sjgames.com/munchkin/

That looks hilarious!  And the kid LOVES puns!  Is it appropriate for kids under 10?

I think it is.    There are a few puns of a sexual nature, but none too offensive, imo.  (For example:  "Strategically-placed ribbons" are one form of armor.)