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Send the Barbarian in First
- toyg 9y agoI introduced my kids to roleplaying and they didn't really like it. Then I tried with Warhammer Quest, and it was a wild success. Being able to focus on something simple like dice and squares helped my youngest focus. Now he plays "Warhammer Quest" with his friends at school - without boards, miniatures or dice, they just roleplay as heroes and villains of the boardgame. The problem I have now is that these games require a certain amount of preparation (backstory, maps etc) and I'm very lazy. My wife is a bit uneasy with it. She fears they will become "losers" and "shut-ins" like we were. The "hidden shame" that the writer here briefly touches on, for some of us is a bigger and heavier complex of self-loathing. Which is stupid: the world has changed, this is the new mainstream, and we should just enjoy it while it lasts. But I do have some of these worries at the back of my mind too (in my case mostly about computers, to be honest).
- mfoy_ 9y agoThe stigma is lessened, but not entirely gone... you can be "cool" despite playing D&D, but definitely not because of it.
- wst_ 9y agoI really don't understand. Looks to me like I am surrounded by different people, then. I didn't caught real RPGs because for some reason it is difficult for me step in someone else shoes but I love board games as well as PC games. The richer story, the better. All my friends are either playing as well, or at least aware about such kind of entertainment and none of them said a bad word about it. Certainly not avoiding the subject. Some of them even meet weekly, old chaps playing board games in a pub. If that's not cool, I don't know what is.
- sametmax 9y agoAnything creative will never be seen as cool outside of the niche it lives in. You are cool if you play in a movie, not if you write it. You are cool if you wear clothes, not if you design them. You are cool if you play football, not if you compose teams. It's because it's difficult to assess the quality of creative work. It requires to take a personnal stand. But it's easy to engage emotionnaly in a demonstration of something basic like wearing a shirt or hitting a ball. Hence most of the world can do the later, but surprisingly not that many can do the former. In the HN bubble it's easy to forget the vast majority of the world is composed of simple people. And they are the major force driving the world, just by sheer number.
- loriverkutya 9y ago> You are cool if you wear clothes, not if you design them. I disagree with this, because if this would be true, you would have no idea who Coco Chanel was.
- gambiting 9y agoThere's nothing cool about sitting down and designing clothes for a lot of people, while Coco clothes are perceived as cool. Similarly, a lot of people don't see anything interesting in designing cars, but they get excited by seeing a lamborghini.
- loup-vaillant 9y agoNot that it actually matters, but, didn't she wear what she designed?
- sametmax 9y agoCoco chanel was definitly not cool because she made clothes. Read her bio. She was actually made fun of, like all geniuses. She became cool in her niche. Then rich and famous. Then mondialy cool because rich and famous. Being rich and famous makes everybody cool. Pew die pie is cool now. Me playing in my living room ? Nope. Take chanel or jobs or jk rolling before they became rich and famous. How do you think people consider them ? At best originals. At worst loosers.
- dnate 9y agoLets ignore that "cool" is not really well defined for a moment. > Anything creative will never be seen as cool outside of the niche it lives in. In my experience the exact opposite is true. The cool kids back in my school were the ones who were into music and art. It was mainly the lifestyle surrounding the "creative, don't care" type. Even now that is still the case in my culture. People whose main profession is writing/painting/producing music are "cool". But maybe that is different in your culture.
- sametmax 9y ago
- darepublic 9y agoI don't think there's many activities which bestow coolness merely through participation at a casual level.
- dsacco 9y agoBut thankfully, we have ultimate frisbee to fill the gap.
- CodexArcanum 9y agoI've played a fair amount of D&D, but I've always enjoyed other RPGs quite a bit more. There's a huge variety of games out there covering every genre and playstyles ranging from the densest exercises in tactical spreadsheet juggling to storytelling fare so light it's more like improv than gaming. My tastes lean much more towards the latter. Try looking up the FATE Core system, there's a lot less dice and rules but just as much fun and adventure.
- jdmichal 9y agoOne of my biggest complaints about the games I play is the level of dice rolling for even tasks that your character should be perfectly competent in. To me, it breaks the immersion of, say, heroic-level skills in sneakiness when some random untrained person always has a chance of noticing you. I think some of the later versions of D&D "fixed" this with mechanisms like taking 10 and such, but as long as 20 is always an automatic success, that's a 5% chance of failure all the time. Is this something that FATE fixes? If so, I'll have to look into it!
- aeling 9y agoIt's worth noting that technically 20 is only an auto-success on attacks and saves. The way you describe is a very common house rule, but it seems to frequently be an accidental house rule (more of a misreading).
- jdmichal 9y agoHas it changed over time? It looks like what you say is true in 5E, though only for death savings throws. But I played 3.5E. My memory isn't good enough to know whether that makes a difference.
- aidenn0 9y agoI looked it up in the various books I have on my shelf: D&D Redbox: No skill checks, Attacks succeed if the modified value is 20 or higher. So a level 1 Str 9 character can never hit AC -1. A level 1 Str 18 character needs only a 17 to hit any AC. These rules are different in later rulebooks when the THAC0 is introduced. [edit] Checked my Expert rulebook, and found that the modified 20 always hits is just due to very low ACs not being represented in the Basic charts (In OD&D lower AC is harder to hit). The target number to hit goes up as AC goes down, but "sticks" at 20 for 5 points of AC. There is no special rule for auto hitting or missing with a natural 20 in OD&D. Note that monsters are quite good at hitting with the weakest monsters hitting about as well as a mid-level fighter with mundane equipment. D&D 3E: Only attacks succeed/fail on a natural 20/1. D&D 3.5E and Pathfinder: Attacks and saves succeed on natural 20/1 I don't own any AD&D rulebooks.
- walshemj 9y agoThere is always pathfinder organised play where you are playing third-party scenarios. You can look for local groups on warhorn https://warhorn.net/ https://warhorn.net/
- overcast 9y agoI would teach your children the value of not caring what other people think. Probably a difficult task at such a young age. But the sooner people realize that grade school is a bunch of social nonsense, the better. Once you've graduated, the real world forces us all to work together, regardless of what we do in our free time. Enjoy your life, do whatever you're interested in, stop worrying about others. Chances are, they actually don't care either. You'll be happier for it.
- 7Z7 9y ago>I would teach your children the value of not caring what other people think That's not a great lesson if taken absolutely. Other people can give valuable feedback to social interactions. You should be aware of what people think, and be able to examine it, but not be ruled by it.
- leetcrew 9y agoI feel like english does not provide us with effective words for discussing this topic. unless you live alone in a cave, what other people think of you is important. it is exceedingly difficult to succeed in the modern world without cooperation, and people will not help you out as much or at all if they don't like you. this means you really do need to care what others think. that said, it is common to conflate this sense of "caring" with the deep seated need for external validation that many humans have. most people enjoy being appreciated by their community, and this is fine, but I think it is very important not to be overly dependent on this. ideally, one's self worth would come primarily from within.
- zeveb 9y ago> I would teach your children the value of not caring what other people think. I used to care very much about not caring what others thought of me. It didn't work out terribly well for me — neither professionally nor socially (nor, to be honest, spiritually). Eventually I started to care about others, and I've found that my professional & social lives have improved immensely. Man is a social animal; he lives in a society. Not to learn how to navigate it is to doom oneself to spending a lot of time wandering in a maze.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Scea91 9y ago> My wife is a bit uneasy with it. She fears they will become "losers" and "shut-ins" like we were. By not doing something because of a fear of being labeled as a loser you actually become one. Since certain age, I couldn't care less if other people think I am cool or not and just do what I like. I would hope to foster the same attitude in my kids as soon as possible and hope they do not grow up as slaves of what is currently trendy.
- arkades 9y ago> The problem I have now is that these games require a certain amount of preparation (backstory, maps etc) and I'm very lazy. Try Dungeon World, which excels with very little prep. I’d recommend your first few sessions with a GM experienced in that system, though. It looks like DND, but it isn’t, and trying to force that peg results in a bad time.
- aidenn0 9y agoI've not played them myself, but someone recently pointed me at these programmed adventures[1] that are supposed to require zero preparation; tokens maps and scripts are all included. 1: http://darkcitygames.com/ http://darkcitygames.com/
- duopixel 9y agoAs I was reading the article I thought about how cool it would have been to play with dad, but I’d be cautious not be pushy towards playing with my (future) children. Sons specially are thrilled to share activities with dad and will surely entertain him until they lose interest. But kids come with their own personalities and skills, should I have a child who is into sports, I would rather enjoy that with him or her instead of passing my old hobbies. I’d be hesitant to share time in front of a screen though, video games don’t seem to be real interaction.
- watwut 9y agoFamilly culture and who kids socialize with plays big role in which activities kids enjoy or find valuable. Especially small kids want to do same things as they see parents do (double bonus for parent of the same gender). Majority of skills are acquired during life whether from parents, teachers, friends, books or from playing around. You can not really manipulate them into hobbies in long term, but you and environment definitely can influence chances.
- Guthur 9y agoWhat does double points for same gender mean. Does that mean you get a doubling of the effect from one gender at the expenses of the other. Is that better or worse?
- 7Z7 9y agoI understood it to mean that a boy child would be doubly thrilled getting to do things that his dad does. Though I'm not sure it's as clearly true in my experience (daddy's girl/mammy's boy, and all that).
- Guthur 9y agoThere is evidence that it's generally phased. First years dominated by the maternal care with the paternal side increasing in later years.
- scott_s 9y ago> Is memorizing football or baseball stats any less obsessive? Those guys are huge nerds! They paint their faces on game days and argue in bars over obscure rules and regulations. Yes. Fantasy football is Dungeons & Dragons for jocks - and I mean that in the most loving way possible, having become "a jock" as an adult, and that's where much of my current friend pool comes from.
- uremog 9y agoCosplaying as your favorite player is also common and accepted.
- Guillaume86 9y agoAccepted is debatable: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=full%20kit%20wanker https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=full%20kit%2...
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Fantasy football is Dungeons & Dragons for jocks Fantasy Football seems more like a wargame using actual wars for a randomizer than an RPG.
- lolive 9y agoRPG has become such a part of the pop culture. We are now discussing how it links people together! My younger self would be amazed! During my youth, french TV depicted RPG in the most anxiogenic manner (suicide, desocialization).
- beams_of_light 9y agoMy dad was in the US Army when I was a kid. My family is primarily from the Pacific NW, and not particularly religious. When I was 5, my family moved to Germany. For me, it was a magical place, but and I fell deeply in love with it...but Germans aren't very religious, and we weren't while we were there, either. At the age of 10, my dad was reassigned to Ft. Sill, nearby Lawton, OK. You can probably imagine the culture shock of dropping into the buckle of the Bible Belt from agnostic origins. I ended up attending church services with various friends (which I had trouble making in Pentecostania) around the neighborhood, which were filled with fire and brimstone teachings, to include demoninizing D&D, which was lumped in with Quija boards, drugs, and premarital sex. The Southern pastors did a fine good job warping my young mind. So, I meet this kid named Teddy at school. I don't recall his last name, and sorry if you're reading this, Teddy. We have what would probably be called a "play date" nowadays, because my mom had to drive me over to his house, as it was too far for preteen cycling. We're having a decent time, mostly talking on the couch in his living room, when Teddy asks if I would like to play Dungeons and Dragons. Believing that merely opening the box for the game would have set loose invisible demons to whisk my soul away to Satan's bottomless HQ, I may have freaked out a little and asked to leave. The stigma of D&D stayed with me for a long time, even into my late teens/early 20s, and I regret never having gotten to play D&D, now that everyone's getting back into it later in life. Even knowing now that the stigma of D&D isn't real, there's still a vague, magnetic force present in my mind, pushing me back when I think about sitting down to play it.
- jbattle 9y agoAs a kid I played D&D and heard all the stories about how demons would posses even the game books. There was a small part of me that wanted to burn one of my books, just to see what would happen (the story I heard is you'd see screaming demons rising up in the smoke). I saved the books, and don't regret it. D&D seemed POWERFUL back then, dangerous, didn't it?
- beams_of_light 9y agoAbsolutely, Stranger Things might have been considered a cautionary tale in Anytown, USA during the 80s/90s.
- BurritoAlPastor 9y agoEverybody who played a lot of RPGs as a (pre)teen and turned out okay can tell you how it taught them creativity or self-expression or how to understand other people's ways of life, and that's all good and true. But I'm here to tell you how D&D changed my life: nothing prepared me for a career of navigating extensive, poorly-organized, frequently vague and occasionally contradictory technical documents like the extensive library of D&D rulebooks that I lugged around throughout high school.
- Fomite 9y agoI ended up in a career that I sometimes describe as "rolling dice for a living" - it's entirely gaming that prepared me for working on stochastic simulation.
- munificent 9y agoOh, God, this makes me imagine what it would be like to play a corporate-bureaucracy themed tabletop RPG.
- porker 9y agoBring it on!
- achileas 9y agoThis would be immensely fun to create
- digi_owl 9y agoParanoia?
- dbcurtis 9y agoI can imagine it, but..... I hope the dungeon master has a good sense of humor. I could be hilarious, or it could be very, very dark. The idea makes me recall one day when I was driving with daugher, and I did a "What?? Oh.. chuckle" and she says: "What's up?" -- me: "The sign on that building says 'Realty World', but in a quick glance I misread it as 'Reality World'". Her: "Reality World? The graphics are totally imersive and the physics engine is perfect, but the game play often sucks."
- tshanmu 9y ago"Never heard of Dungeons and Dragons? You must not have lived through the ’80s." no, you might be from the vast area called the rest of the world, where DnD was not available. (edited formatting)
- kohanz 9y agoIn fairness, The Walrus is primarily aimed at a Canadian audience.
- Tenhundfeld 9y agoOkay, reasonable point, but from the website: The Walrus is a general interest magazine about Canada and its place in the world. Criticizing a clearly Canadian website (even has a .ca TLD) for speaking to a Canadian (or North American) audience seems a bit silly, IMO.
- sampo 9y ago> vast area called the rest of the world, where DnD was not available It was translated into a lot of languages in the 80s. For example: French 1982, German 1983, Swedish 1986.
- simonh 9y agoThe anime themed Japanese rule books are hilarious. http://mystara.thorf.co.uk/jrc.php http://mystara.thorf.co.uk/jrc.php
- aidenn0 9y agoAlso absurdly high production values compared to my rule books that were stapled together pulp paper.
- sampo 9y agoThey were published in Japan in 1994, and are based on the Rules Cyclopedia -version of Dungeons & Dragons, published in 1991. http://www.tsrarchive.com/in/jp/jp-cyc.html http://www.tsrarchive.com/in/jp/jp-cyc.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_Rules_Cyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_Rules_Cyc...
- mooneater 9y agoI play with my kids and we love it. We play with almost no rules, tables, or equipment, so its perfect for a walk in the woods. It's one of the few things we all enjoy together, aside from video games.
- MrBingley 9y ago> Send the Barbarian in First As the barbarian in my group, I can confirm. :)
- logfromblammo 9y agoThe marching order for a known threat where stealth approach is infeasible is indeed tank -> damager -> healer -> scout. Most of the time, you can send the rogue in first, to mark the traps with chalk and then hide in a strategically advantageous position until the barbarian has everyone distracted with all the shouting, body odor, and flying droplets of sweat. Also, when in doubt, use oil. It's slippery, it burns, and it makes salads edible. Never bring a club. Use a crowbar instead. Can you tell that I like to be the thief of the party?
- raintrees 9y agoMy favorite memory was of a session over candle light at my parents' kitchen table while I DM'd* a raiding party through what they discovered to be the internals of the NCC-1701-C Enterprise - I had received the space ship's floor plans (the set in the vinyl snap enclosure) as a Christmas gift some years back, and decided to introduce a few of my younger friends to the D&D world spiced up with a bit of Sci-Fi. Did you know that according to those plans there was a restroom right behind the main screen? Now I have to go find my set and check my memory... *DM then meaning Dungeon Master :)
- dragonwriter 9y ago> NCC-1701-C Enterprise - I had received the space ship's floor plans There were Enterprise-C floorplans? While I never had any of them, I think I've seen them for the original, the -A version (or the similar TWOK refit, not sure), and the -D, but -C is kind of surprising, given its limited on-screen time.
- raintrees 9y agoSorry, typo, you are right. 1701-A...
- CurtMonash 9y agoElf = marketing Swordsman = sales Cleric = support Words © Lee Gold Tune: Walzing Matilda Once a jolly Cleric, and a magic-using Elf, And a mighty Dwarf with a sword plus three Left their native village - out to get their share of pelf. You bash the Balrog, while I climb the tree. First they met a Goblin - with a fire-breathing Hound. They bashed and they smashed and they scragged them with glee. Afterwards they searched them - and a Magic Potion found. You bash the Balrog, while I climb the tree. The low Wisdom Swordsman picked it up and drank it down, Changed to a Wolf immediately. No one could Dispell it, so they headed back to town. You bash the Balrog, while I climb the tree. Then a loud voice bellowed, "Who has slain the Goblin King?" Round turned our heroes; what did they see? Swooping down upon them was a Balrog on the wing. You bash the Balrog, while I climb the tree. "Help," screamed the Cleric; "Ditto," yelled the Elven Mage. The Wolf whimpered low - and he tried to flee. The Balrog fell upon them, and his flames began to rage; You bash the Balrog, while I climb the tree. They ran through the forest, looking for a place to hide, Pursued by the Balrog, so fierce to see. "Wait," cried the Elf Mage; "I have got a plan," he lied. "You bash the Balrog, while I climb the tree." Once a mighty Balrog slew a Cleric and an Elf And a smallish Wolf who had teeth plus three, Skinned them and tanned their hides...and kept them on a closet shelf. You bash the Balrog, while I climb the tree.
- wazoox 9y agoAmusingly, though I played only very little AD&D in my youth, I presented it to my teen boy and it clicked instantly, and since then for many years he's been an avid DM, buying all the rule books and building large dungeons to trap his friends inside :)