gamedar....who's got gamedar?
Jul. 31st, 2002 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
violachicOk, this most likely isn't going to be as funny to the rest of you as it was to me when I first read it. But seeing how many people I know who game, or "role-play", I thought this might be worth passing along. I found it in the book The Straight Dope, by Cecil Adams. This column, for those of you who aren't aware, has been published in the Chicago Reader since 1973 and is written by someone who knows almost everything and isn't afraid to look up or make up the rest. This particular excerpt comes from the first volume of...well, I guess you could only call it an anthology...published in 1984. This is also my first attempt at making a cut so I might have to edit this a couple times to make it work right.
Q: In the past few years I have heard different things about various games played in some colleges in the East. Dungeons & Dragons is one of them. What I would like to know is the different types and rules of these games, and where I can learn more about them.- RCM, Skokie, IL.
A: The principal game played in colleges in the East-and everywhere else, for that matter- is called "Snoozing Your Way Through Four Years of Monotonous Drivel So You Can Collect a Piece of Paper That Entitles You to Make Twice as Much Money as the General Run of Mankind While Doing Half the Work." I played it, and see where I am today- a famous author and certified Beautiful Person. Most profitable damn nap I ever took.
I suppose, however, that you are referring to what are loosely called "Fantasy Games," a relatively recent offshoot of the military games that have been around for eons. Dungeons & Dragons (Or D&D, as it is moore familiarly called), is far and away the best-selling of all such games, presently, claiming some 400,000 devotees- I use the word advisedly- worldwide. Quite frankly I have some reservations about bestowing furthur publicity on this demented pastime, but a devotion to the noble principles of journalism demands that the facts be exposed, come what may.
D&D was invented in 1974 by one Gary Gygax, whose father was a violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. (This strikes me as significant, somehow.) Gary moved at an early age to Lake Geneva, WI, where his minions today are cranking out D&D rule books, D&D miniature playing pieces, and all sorts of other dubious D&D paraphernalia to palm off on a gullible public. By means of guile and threats of violence it happens I have managed to get my hands on a couple of those sacred rule books, and let me tell you, R, buddy, this game is weird.
The basic idea in your run-of-the-mill Go Fish-type game is to get all your opponent's cards, or all his checkers or some other readily graspable commodity, but this is not the case with D&D. Here is a quote from Mr. Gygax on the subject: "The ultimate aim of the game is to gain sufficient esteem as a good player to retire your character- he becomes a kind of mythical, historical figure, someone for others to look up to and admire." A lifetime of Parcheesi does not adequately prepare you for this.
To play D&D you need at least two acolytes, who play under the guidance of a vaguely Mansonesque personage called the Dungeon Master (DM). By means of various murky protocols involving the use of charts and dice, each player establishes the persona of the "character" he or she will manipulate in the game, who typically ends up (if male) being an antisocial cutthroat of some sort, or (if female) possesed of large, grapefuit-like breasts. I deduced the latter from studying the illustrations in the books. Apart from predictable characteristics like strength and intelligence, players also have to determine such baffling minutae as their likelihood of contracting communicable diseases or becoming infested by parasites. I am at a loss to comprehend the significance of such things, but that is what the rule book says.
The preliminaries having been dealt with, the players are led through an imaginary dungeon devised by the DM, in search of treasure or something similar. On the way, they will encounter varios obstacles and evil creatures, which they will have to defeat or evade.
The concept seems simple enough; it is the application that throws me. There are two main problems: 1)there are one billion rules, and 2) the game requires nonstop mathematical finagling that would constipate Einstein. The rule book is laden with such mystifying pronouncements as the following: "An ancient spell-using red dragon of huge size with 88 hits points has a BXPV of 1300, XP/HP total of 1408, SAXPB of 2800 (armor class plus special defense plus high intelligence plus saving throw bonus due to h.p./die), and an EAXPA of 2550 (major breath weapon plus spell use plus attack damage of 3-30/bite)- totalling 7758 h.p." Here we have a game that combines the charm of a Pentagon briefing with the excitement of double-entry bookkeeping. The lure of this sort of thing is beyond my comprehension.
If you wish to know more about Dungeons and Dragons, for some reason, you can find D&D paraphernalia at many hobby and game stores, or you may write to Mr. Gygax's company, TSR Hobbies, Inc., at Box 756, Lake Geneva, WI 53147. Among numerous other things, they offer a monthly magazine called THE DRAGON, which I understand is principally useful in obfuscating such portions of the game as you think you already understand. Lotsa luck, buddy.
Don't look at me funny, YOU'RE the one who games....
Q: In the past few years I have heard different things about various games played in some colleges in the East. Dungeons & Dragons is one of them. What I would like to know is the different types and rules of these games, and where I can learn more about them.- RCM, Skokie, IL.
A: The principal game played in colleges in the East-and everywhere else, for that matter- is called "Snoozing Your Way Through Four Years of Monotonous Drivel So You Can Collect a Piece of Paper That Entitles You to Make Twice as Much Money as the General Run of Mankind While Doing Half the Work." I played it, and see where I am today- a famous author and certified Beautiful Person. Most profitable damn nap I ever took.
I suppose, however, that you are referring to what are loosely called "Fantasy Games," a relatively recent offshoot of the military games that have been around for eons. Dungeons & Dragons (Or D&D, as it is moore familiarly called), is far and away the best-selling of all such games, presently, claiming some 400,000 devotees- I use the word advisedly- worldwide. Quite frankly I have some reservations about bestowing furthur publicity on this demented pastime, but a devotion to the noble principles of journalism demands that the facts be exposed, come what may.
D&D was invented in 1974 by one Gary Gygax, whose father was a violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. (This strikes me as significant, somehow.) Gary moved at an early age to Lake Geneva, WI, where his minions today are cranking out D&D rule books, D&D miniature playing pieces, and all sorts of other dubious D&D paraphernalia to palm off on a gullible public. By means of guile and threats of violence it happens I have managed to get my hands on a couple of those sacred rule books, and let me tell you, R, buddy, this game is weird.
The basic idea in your run-of-the-mill Go Fish-type game is to get all your opponent's cards, or all his checkers or some other readily graspable commodity, but this is not the case with D&D. Here is a quote from Mr. Gygax on the subject: "The ultimate aim of the game is to gain sufficient esteem as a good player to retire your character- he becomes a kind of mythical, historical figure, someone for others to look up to and admire." A lifetime of Parcheesi does not adequately prepare you for this.
To play D&D you need at least two acolytes, who play under the guidance of a vaguely Mansonesque personage called the Dungeon Master (DM). By means of various murky protocols involving the use of charts and dice, each player establishes the persona of the "character" he or she will manipulate in the game, who typically ends up (if male) being an antisocial cutthroat of some sort, or (if female) possesed of large, grapefuit-like breasts. I deduced the latter from studying the illustrations in the books. Apart from predictable characteristics like strength and intelligence, players also have to determine such baffling minutae as their likelihood of contracting communicable diseases or becoming infested by parasites. I am at a loss to comprehend the significance of such things, but that is what the rule book says.
The preliminaries having been dealt with, the players are led through an imaginary dungeon devised by the DM, in search of treasure or something similar. On the way, they will encounter varios obstacles and evil creatures, which they will have to defeat or evade.
The concept seems simple enough; it is the application that throws me. There are two main problems: 1)there are one billion rules, and 2) the game requires nonstop mathematical finagling that would constipate Einstein. The rule book is laden with such mystifying pronouncements as the following: "An ancient spell-using red dragon of huge size with 88 hits points has a BXPV of 1300, XP/HP total of 1408, SAXPB of 2800 (armor class plus special defense plus high intelligence plus saving throw bonus due to h.p./die), and an EAXPA of 2550 (major breath weapon plus spell use plus attack damage of 3-30/bite)- totalling 7758 h.p." Here we have a game that combines the charm of a Pentagon briefing with the excitement of double-entry bookkeeping. The lure of this sort of thing is beyond my comprehension.
If you wish to know more about Dungeons and Dragons, for some reason, you can find D&D paraphernalia at many hobby and game stores, or you may write to Mr. Gygax's company, TSR Hobbies, Inc., at Box 756, Lake Geneva, WI 53147. Among numerous other things, they offer a monthly magazine called THE DRAGON, which I understand is principally useful in obfuscating such portions of the game as you think you already understand. Lotsa luck, buddy.
Don't look at me funny, YOU'RE the one who games....
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WOOHOO!!
Date: 2002-07-31 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-08-01 12:04 pm (UTC)NOW PLEASE GET OFF THE PHONE AND CALL ME AT WORK.
I need you to drop someone off here on your way out!
PLEASE!