Gaming in Iraq

[Boredflak]

I recently got a couple of emails from one of my Hypertext d20 SRD subcribers that really got me jazzed. Thought I'd share (with the author's permission of course)...

I'm currently living in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and I
have been wishing lately that I had brought some of my DnD stuff to pass the
time. Then a friend from the states showed me your site... fantastic. I
don't know if I'll be able to find anyone to play with, but with a set of
rules handy (and a random-number generator in lieu of dice) I'm almost
there.

Thanks for the site. Let your wife know that your hobby is benefiting the
boys overseas.

Accessibility was always one of the main goals of my site's mission, but I never really anticipated that someone might have access to the Web but not to the rulebooks. A few days after the first email I got this one:

I've been using the local version for a few days now, and I used it to teach a few of the guys on my team about the game. All in all, it's an interesting experience. I work in Counterintelligence, so although the two guys on my team have never played D&D before, they have good problem solving skills. I explained combat and the rules briefly, took them through an adventure (a first for me, I've only played the game a few times, and I've certainly never DM'd) and was amazed at how quiclky they outwitted the scripted 'bad guys' and solved the adventure. And the role playing was fun, since our job is basically 'role playing' with local nationals and telling them X so that they tell us Y.

I can't thank you enough. Fantastic stuff.

I think I'll send him a care package with a set of dice!

 

[GlassJaw]

One of the guys in my new group served in the Army for a while. He said a LOT of people in the military play RPG's. I was pretty surprised. Gaming doesn't seem like a "military" type activity. He said there is actually a lot of downtime so it made sense.

Bring 'em home so they can play back here!

 

[kirinke]

Well if you think about it, RPG's are very good for military types. It teaches them tactics. &)& i'm surprised that they don't use a version of it in their classes. Well, scratch that, they do... it's called war-games. ^(^

 

[Sirius_Black]

I volunteered and ended up serving in Desert Storm. I ended up gaming with some of the military police that I served with. There was plenty of downtime once we switched duties to inspections for such activities.

 

[Krieg]

Thanks for the great post Boredflak!

Well if you think about it, RPG's are very good for military types. It teaches them tactics.

Don't kid yourself but there isn't an RPG out there that teaches anything of real tactical value.

...squad level tactics, hand and arm signals, patrolling techniques, radio calls, eight digit grid co-ordinates, light & radio discipline, silencing gear, foot care, weapon maintenance, issuing a frag order, heck even proper vehicle identification (and so on ad nauseum)...

None of the above is going to be learned by playing RPGs. If you think otherwise you will just get dead real quick, even worse you will probably kill some folks who are relying on you as well...

The reason gaming is popular in the military is the same reason it is popular outside of it.

I volunteered and ended up serving in Desert Storm.

Well to be fair, it's not like there were many draftees over there.

What unit BTW?

 

[cdsaint]

Yup, Been there, done that. I was over for Desert Shield / Storm and we were bored silly during downtime. Had my wife mail my 1st edition stuff to me in a care package. Better than pogey bait! I ran for several guys in my platoon most of whom had never played before. It ended up being a lot of fun, but definately one of the oddest games I've ever seen. You have to bear in mind the high level of tension and the fact that all of us were living together in a tent for 7 or 8 months. The game was a safe place to take out frustrations, so there was quite a bit of inter party fighting. I don't normally go in for that kind of thing, but somehow it worked.

Chris

p.s. I was in the 1st Cavalry, 68th Chemical Co. Smoke Platoon.

 

[Henry]

I loved the old Dave Arneson story that, according to several letters he received from U.S. servicemen in the Navy, that at one point in the 1980's almost EVERY single nuclear sub on active duty had a D&D group on it.

Something to give anti-D&D activists a mental breakdown over...

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

I loved the old Dave Arneson story that, according to several letters he received from U.S. servicemen in the Navy, that at one point in the 1980's almost EVERY single nuclear sub on active duty had a D&D group on it.

Almost undoubted true... I never saw a lack of players on the mess decks of Carl Vinson, they actually had a few groups, and though I've transferred from Carl Vinson my "new" command of about 50 people has at least 2 others that do game and I haven't really looked around for more. (I would say there are at least 2 more, which would be 10 percent of the command. I imagine that's better than a crosscut of must of companies.

 

[Dark Jezter]

One of the guys in my new group served in the Army for a while. He said a LOT of people in the military play RPG's. I was pretty surprised. Gaming doesn't seem like a "military" type activity. He said there is actually a lot of downtime so it made sense.

Bring 'em home so they can play back here!

One of the players in my Forgotten Realms campaign is a naval intelligence officer. He plays a dwarven rogue who is basically a cross between Indiana Jones and Gimli.

I also know a guy who met his wife during a D&D game back in the 1980s when they were both stationed at a U.S. Army base in West Germany. He was a dwarf fighter, she was an elf druid.

Apparantly, there are a lot of military personell who play D&D.

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

Hi-

I served with the 814th MP Co at camp Bucca(a POW camp) and Port Shoiba in Kuwait doing customs inpections.
Just returned from the mid-east, and ya, I could attest to the boredom, but being a high speed low drag MP, I brought the basics along with me IE my three Core books, FRCS and City of the Spider Queen along with a few Dungeon Magazines, by the end of my tour, every item had fallen apart and was stuffed in folders. I guess 160+ degrees is pretty harsh on books. But my dice did survive, ended up giving them to some players at Camp Wolf before my unit left.
Let me just say, those times we did play, we had a blast! And when you have a bunch of MP's playing, I as the DM got bombarded by questions, motives that sort of thing.

Scott