Gaming in Iraq

[Brother Shatterstone]

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

Hurry up and wait...

Really, your away from home and loved ones, you don't really want to think about what could happen, or for us navy folk your job is so boring that you don't want to think about it, so why not have a nice thought provoking game?

 

[Krieg]

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

Every single member of my current group is a combat vet.

Over the years I would say 90%+ of the folks I gamed with have been current or former military.

Of course that is probably more indicitive of my social circle than of gaming as a whole.

.../snip/...being a high speed low drag MP.../snip/...,

Sorry, just had to chuckle at that one.

 

[Boredflak]

Having very little experience with the military, I'm curious about the reaction playing D&D got from non-gaming soldiers.

I grew up in a small, midwestern town & caught a lot of flak for gaming. I guess I picture the military a similarly conservative environment.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Thanks for the great post Boredflak!

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...

Well, it seems to be at least the other way around - understanding real world tactics can be helpful in RPGs - not in all, certainly ...

But in RPGs you learn something about working together as a team, see what roles in a combat unit can help to achieve. (not that you will haver a wizard in your squad, but...).

 

[qstor]

Having very little experience with the military, I'm curious about the reaction playing D&D got from non-gaming soldiers.

I grew up in a small, midwestern town & caught a lot of flak for gaming. I guess I picture the military a similarly conservative environment.

It's a shame that there's still people like that out there. I wonder if there will be protests at GenCon

When I lived in the DC area we had a few soldiers from Ft Myers in our game. A lot of players served in the military too.


Mike

 

[jasper]

The reaction is same in college, in high school etc. Depends on the on looker. Some think weird, some think strange, some want to play, some what to bore you to tears and not let you play.

 

[Krieg]

Having very little experience with the military, I'm curious about the reaction playing D&D got from non-gaming soldiers.

I grew up in a small, midwestern town & caught a lot of flak for gaming. I guess I picture the military a similarly conservative environment.

Take those conservative midwesterners and plop them in a situation where they have to live with (and place their lives in the hands of) folks from every conceivable ethnic group and social background imaginable.

It isn't uncommon to have a good 'ole boy from Alabama living in the same room with a former gang banger from LA, taking turns listening to old school country and hardcore rap.

I served with Marines from every state of the Union, and from around the world. Marines from Puerto Rico, Guam, The Phillipines and Mexico are more common thank you would think.

Most servicemen have no choice but to learn tolerance pretty quickly.

 

[diaglo]

Most servicemen have no choice but to learn tolerance pretty quickly.

don't forget about those of us born into the service.

never really knew how good we had it... until we had to go to a public school off the base. man, talk about culture shock.

 

[Henry]

don't forget about those of us born into the service.

never really knew how good we had it... until we had to go to a public school off the base. man, talk about culture shock.

I never knew you were an army brat, D. I'm not one, but I've known a few people who grew up civilian on army bases.

Learn something new every day!

 

[ForceUser]

I served aboard the USS Kitty Hawk and was part of a regular Star Wars campaign aboard ship for about 3 years. We tried to play on the mess decks but after being told to leave on more than one occasion because our hobby was "weird," we ended up taking turns playing in our work spaces after hours. There's not much that can alleviate the boredom of a 59-day hitch at sea, but gaming helped.