Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wik" data-source="post: 4090418" data-attributes="member: 40177">D&D was one of those games that just... helped.I was an army brat growing up, and I often played D&D with my dad (who was a huge D&D geek, as many military folks are).  While I had a lot of friends as I moved, none of them were very close - I had a lot of birthday parties with just me and my parents.  But I always had those D&D books, which I read constantly.  I remember reading through the monster manual (I liked Monster Manual 2 more, because the pictures were cooler, but I was always embarrassed about the pictures with "boobies") the multiple times we did the six+ hour drive from Toronto to Timmins. When we moved to B.C., my first real "best friend" became my friend when I was at his house, and recognized his D&D books.  From there, we actually started PLAYING (before that, I played in the solo dungeons Gary wrote with my dad).That was a huge thing.  Doesn't sound like much, but it helped take a shy kid out of his shell.Many of my friends are my friends because we played D&D together first.  D&D got me into reading fantasy novels (D&D came first in my life), which I love.  D&D is why I have a love of writing (and my skill at writing was the source of much feedback from my teachers - loads of self esteem right there!)  D&D helped me stay abreast in math classes, despite sucking at higher math.  D&D got me into all those strange real-world mythologies, which led to my love of Archaeology - which lead to my love of Anthropology, which is now my major.  In fact, it would not be a stretch to say that I never would have taken Anthropology were it not for the foundation D&D laid.But, you know, those are all chain effects.  Sort of "because X happened, Y happened later".  What I'm really getting it is the fact that I am who I am because D&D existed.  I don't know who I would be without it.  It's scary to think how much the game has had an effect on my life.And yet, it *is* just a game, as Gary mentioned himself a bazillion times, right?  I think Gary was wrong there.  This is already huge news, and people from many different walks of life are feeling it.  I think, for some reason, the game has helped a lot of us come out of our shells, or turned us from loners and excluded introverts into something else.  Gary, Arneson, Blume, and all those other early gamer folks deserve much more than anyone could ever give them.I dunno.  I'm not good at this.  I suppose in the end, all I want to say is "thank you", even though it's been said a hundred times already.  It's just a game, but I shudder to think what my life would be like had the game never existed.</blockquote>

Verification