D&D PLAYERS - PLEASE HELP

[Mr. Kaze]

So this is the sort of thing I'll be emailing in...

What is the appeal of playing D&D?

After a week of working as a computer programmer writing B2B software for the bloated Accounts Payable of a mega-corporation, being able to pretend that we can do amazing things that have global repercussions as part of a relaxing game is really quite enjoyable. I rather suspect that most D&D players are introverts and the concept of a world small enough for them to have a significant historical impact on it (without becoming president or something) is really quite appealing. We contribute time and money to charities in real life to try to make the real world a better place too, but there's just plain more reality than we can actually fix or have a historic/epic impact upon -- so we scale it down, spice it up and enjoy the unfolding of the story.

What is your current or favourite character name, race, character class and level.

My current character is a halfling Shugenja (Oriental Adventures, 6) Fire Elemental Savant (Tome & Blood, 1) called Tso Nao Wut. Can't say much for the class selection, but I love that name. But mostly I DM.

What are your best D&D memories.

Every evil party needs to have a troll. And then be set upon by a single Umber Hulk which liberally uses its Confusion gaze attack. That fight -- against a single umber hulk -- took an hour and saw...
- The fighter sit on the troll.
- The troll sit on the fighter.
- The cultist fail every single saving throw available to him.
- The umber hulk get away when there were enough troll scraps lying on the ground to keep it well fed for the next three years.

Session jourals 10 & 12 at http://www.bardicgrove.org/~kaze/darkstar.xml are also classics (Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil spoiler warning...) for my group.

Why do you think the game has survived?

Because the culturally successful fantasy and sci-fi ventures like The Matrix and Star Wars are ruined by the, quite frankly, defective storytelling readily witnessed in The Matrix: Revolutions and Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. When the target audience could tell a better story by sitting around a table than our dear modern cultural shamans tossing tens of millions of dollars at their epic stories, then there's going to be a market for a storytelling framework (that doesn't cost tens of millions of dollars). D&D has, since the release of the vastly more flexible d20/3.0 rules, provided a suitable storytelling framework running counterpoint to the tripe we're given in the movie theater.

Now that can explain FRPG-ing in general -- but what's so special about sword & sorcery D&D? After all, the two film examples given were both sci-fi, right?

Well there's two things to consider. First of all, any character-driven story can be put into virtually any setting with any set of actors. Consider Shakespeare's works and their abject lack of stage directions -- their storylines (and sometimes even their lines, characters, titles, etc) are readily channelled into modern storytelling. You can see Hamlet's conflict with his stepfather as much in Luke Skywalker denying that Darth Vader is his father as you can potentially see it in a tiefling struggling against their fiendish heritage. The hero and the villian are blood-relations and the hero has to actively fight against the villian, knowingly putting them into the moral ambiguity of "how am I different from them?" And it's far more satisfying for a player to be able to answer that for their character than it is to sit through four hours of Hamlet just to watch him die at the end or through Return of the Jedi just to see Darth Vader get the "Turnaround Deadbeat Dad of the Year" award by saving Luke from the emperor.

Second of all, we've reached a technical point of boredom. The wireless broadband internet, cell phones, even space travel used to be awe-inspiring technologies that we could only imagine in movies. Well we've got all of that now -- and we've got the pop-up ads to show for it. Probably the best example of a modern sci-fi film is Minority Report -- there's a bit of advanced technology and the like there, but most of what we see of our culture reflected back at us are ubiquitous personalized pop-up ads. And if that's the best our culture can use technology for, then maybe we were better off when we didn't have to think about technology. It's been noted that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic (Asimov, I think) and so -- giving up on actual technology -- the natural regression is back to magic. Really, if I could subject you to a 10d6 fireball or 10d6 pop-up ads, which would you rather be on the receiving end of?

So D&D fills a cultural gap where we want to tell interesting, personalized epic stories that aren't filled with cares, concerns, and banal annoyances of modern life.

Tell me about meeting up with your friends.

The game I DM features me, my wife, my brother, my brother's ex-roommate from college, and a couple of guys we picked up off the internet. I, my brother, his ex-roommate and one of the two guys all work for the same mega-corp in real life.

Cheers,
::Kaze

 

[Talmun]

Might be cool though to see everyone's replies here too

What I sent, more or less:


Your actual name, age and location ie New York, LA etc

Josh Gillis, 28, Indianapolis Indiana USA

What is the appeal of playing D&D?

It is a social game, much like any board-game, but it is very open-ended and is designed to allow a game to continue indefinatly. It also encourages teamwork and cooperation among the players.

What is your current or favourite character name, race, character class and level.

Talmun Lorric, Human, 15th level Wizard/10th level Elemental Savant (note, these are his stats as an NPC, when I last played him he was a 9th level wizard - 2nd edition)

What are your best D&D memories.

There are so many over the course of the more than 10 years I've been playing. While playing the above character nearly every session was memorable...

Why do you think the game has survived?

Because it has so many players who continue to play for years, rather than treating it as a fad.

Tell me about meeting up with your friends.

I assume you mean the currant group I game with…I met their DM when he and I worked together in 1999. We started talking and found out we both loved D&D, I was invited to play with them and that was that. We play every Sunday night, if we can help it, and have a blast.

 

[pdkoning]

Your actual name, age and location ie New York, LA etc
Peter de Koning, 20, central part of The Netherlands

What is the appeal of playing D&D?
It is fun to play an epic fantasy story together with your friends.

What is your current or favourite character name, race, character class and level.
I am playing in two adventures right now:
1) Name: Torenell Van'tBozz, Race: wild elf, Class: Bard (7)
2) Name: Golradir Telperien, Race: elf, Class Druid (2)

What are your best D&D memories.
One session I really remember is one when we sat (in summer) outside, candles where lit, and our characters were stuck in a room that only consisted of mirrors, it took our characters a whole evening to get out of that room. It was SOOO annoying, but we had a lot of fun.

Why do you think the game has survived?
Because it is easy to play D&D (AD&D not, but 3.0 & 3.5), and because there is not one way to play the game, and there is more than one campaign setting, you can choose whatever theme you want.

Tell me about meeting up with your friends.
I play with friends from my school, and someone from a game-shop of a nearby city. D&D is also a good way for social contacts.

 

[jeffh]

It's been noted that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic (Asimov, I think)

Arthur C. Clarke, actually, if memory serves.

 

[Goblyn]

An answer.

Your actual name, age and location

Jim McKay, 24, Chilliwack, BC

What is the appeal of playing D&D?

Many reasons. It's social, it holds the excitement of video games and the engaging capacity of reading(hopefully). It is also largley customizeable to one's own tastes.

What is your current or favourite character name, race, character class and level.

Thevalt Mensen-Dallaxis, a half-elf monk who went from level 1-4 before drowning in a trap because I couldn't answer quickly enough the final of seven consecutive riddles.

What are your best D&D memories.

Said monk attampting to attack a golem near pit, losing his balance and almost falling into the pit. He heroically grabbed the side to avoid falling into the pit, only to be picked up and used as a club on a fellow player.

Why do you think the game has survived?

I think that it is because the aforementioned appeal is not the type which fades with time.

Tell me about meeting up with your friends.

The current group I play in assembled specifically to play D&D. Before that, I gamed with friends in high school and college.

Thank you so much - from a man who still feels the pain from the death of his Lawful Neutral 12th level MU killed by a member of his own party - 16 years later!

You're welcome - and damn, that's rough. The only time my own party killed my character, I was lucky enough not to have invested too much time into
it; he was still level 1.

 

[Mark]

Welcome to the boards, dj!

I'd want to know the following:
Your actual name, age and location ie New York, LA etc

Mark Clover, 41, Chicago, Illinois.

What is the appeal of playing D&D?

The problem solving and teamwork aspects of the game are what I find most challenging and enjoyable to create.

What is your current or favourite character name, race, character class and level.

As a Gamemaster, primarily, I have the good fortune to create dozens of new characters for each game session as well as the chance to weave in regular appearances from old favorites.

What are your best D&D memories.

Although I've been playing since the introduction of the game back in 1974, some of my best D&D memories are fairly recent. Several years ago, WotC had the wisdom to open their core rules to periphereal, would-be publishers. I joined those ranks with my own e-Publishing company, Creative Mountain Games, and am very pleased to be able to bring my own thirty years of experience to the design process, creating gaming products for an International audience.

Why do you think the game has survived?

Unlike games that have a finite, single goal of simply winning, D&D encourages the exploration of ideas and sharing of fun through a potentially, endless series of challenges and scenarios. The key ingredient doesn't come in the box. It's a person's imagination and never has to become worn out or discarded.

Tell me about meeting up with your friends.

I've made hundreds of new friends through my association with the game of D&D and although some are now spread to other places in the world, we still manage to maintain contact and share many happy memories of D&D and other activities. It's a wonderful hobby that has no limitations, opens up the mind to countless possibilities, and helps to broaden a person's perspectives, education, and social circles.

Happy Aniversary, D&D!

 

[jerichothebard]

I'd want to know the following:
Your actual name, age and location ie New York, LA etc

Prefer not to say on a public forum, 29, San Francisco Bay Area, CA
aka JerichotheBard on Enworld.org and Calai RedLeaf on Yahoo's adanddplayers group.

What is the appeal of playing D&D?

I get to be braver, stronger, wiser, smarter, faster, handsomer, and just generally more than I am in real life. For an evening or a weekend, I can perform miracles, save damsels, slay dragons, kick butt, cast spells, right wrongs, raid tombs, drink ale, and live dangerously.

It's a social outlet, a low-pressure way to kick back with the guys (and some of the ladies!) and forget about the troubles of work and school and real life.

And finally, for me at least, it offers a glimpse into my own being. Often the characters I love best are the ones that are the most troubled. As many psychologists have discovered, role-playing can be a powerful tool for self-examination. As the character develops his own life, he often shines a light onto mine.

As a result, I have learned much about myself, good and bad, through the game. A couple characters in particular taught me a lot about some anger issues I didn't even know I had - and helped me to deal with it.

What is your current or favorite character name, race, character class and level.

Current: Argus, a dwarven cleric of Luck and Magic (level 2) / rogue (level 2) - sneakin' for goodness!
and
Jericho, a half-elf cleric of music, knowledge and sunlight, level 6

Favorite: Caliban, a changeling Fire mage (somewhere around 17th level, I think).

What are your best D&D memories.

There are so many to choose from! Ultimately, my favorite memories are the ones where the games were challenging without being rigged, and where the characters come alive and begin to take their own initiative. Much like writers sometimes say that their characters begin to develop in ways they didn't expect, and react in ways that they can't control, so do mine.

In particular, some of the best memories are the ones where I got to match wits with my friends - even when I didn't win!

For example, one of my favorite memories is actually the death of the only character I have ever had killed. One of my close friends was playing a new character, a sort-of semi-retired villain, and through a long series of coincidences, wound up being assigned to kill my character. I spent the entire evening trying to weasel out of it, and he was one step ahead of me the entire night.

It was awe-inspiring to watch him plan everything out, and know there was no way out of the trap. To know that every time I thought of an out, he was telling the DM what he was doing to counter that very thing. It was also great because we were both able to keep meta-game knowledge out of the picture. Although I knew what he was doing, and he knew I knew, we both played the characters strictly from their perspective and with only their bank of knowledge to draw upon. This is actually very difficult, particularly when you are aware that it is likely to cost your character his life.

It was also - and this made it, finally, palatable - totally in keeping with his character and the plot-line that the DM had, not exactly intentionally, set up for the evening. Had it been a contrived setup, I would have been upset, but he was doing exactly what his character would do in that circumstance, and doing it as well as he could. My overriding feeling that night was simple admiration - for his skill as a role-player, for his cleverness, for outthinking me every step, for being dedicated enough to the concept of staying in character to go through with it, even as he (as a player and friend) felt bad about it.

Why do you think the game has survived?

See my answer to the appeal question. That should pretty much sum it up.

Tell me about meeting up with your friends.

I have had a number of different gaming groups in my life. The first was my geek high-school friends, and we gamed together and hung out and generally were friends for many years. We would often spend whole weekends hanging out together and gaming until late into the night. I was fortunate that my parents trusted me, and my friends.

Later, after college, I hooked up with a group at a game day run by my local game shop. They never really became friends outside of the games, but I played in that campaign for several years.

Recently, a couple of the gamers from this group joined a different group, and asked me to join as well. This campaign has just gotten off the ground.

A while ago, I started an on-and-off campaign of my own with some of my personal friends, which has been great. We don't always play when we're together, but try to as often as is feasibile.


Pretty much all these gatherings are the same, and always have been. Snack food, dice, bad jokes and Monty Python quotes, laughter and good times. Occasionally, we even get to the plot line of the campaign. The only real difference between now and my first game is that we are now old enough to drink beer instead of Mountain Dew.






I hope this information helps with your article. I suspect that you are swamped with replies. I am available for any further questions you might have!

jtb

 

[AGGEMAM]

Bump

 

[Ranes]

Heads up for anyone waiting to see this feature: Darren kindly replied to my email saying that the piece is for Monday.

 

[Morrus]

Yup, he gave me a call today and I gave him what info I could. I'll link to the article in the news on Monday.

He says the response from members of EN World was fantastic!