Just how popular was DnD? Did kids really play it during lunch? (red box nostalgia)

[Lord Ernie]

We played Magic during lunch and played RPGs after school (we actually played way more TMNT, Rifts, and WoD then we did DnD.)

Middle School 94-96, high school 96-99.

Heh. We did the same during university, but roughly ten years later. Though we mostly played D&D for RPG's, cause that's what our DM/GM's were familiar with.

 

[jonesy]

We played in school between classes. They had these sturdy oak tables set up in the hallways you could use for homework and stuff. Sometimes we'd play in the school cafeteria when there was room. One of the teachers joined in sometimes so we could go to the library.

I kind of miss those days because there was a good flux of players. A student would walk past the game in the hallway and ask what we were doing, then join up, play a couple of sessions, maybe leave, then another student, etc. It was really fun having these random 'extras'.

 

[okdaddio]

1983, sixth grade. Practically the entire class (girls excluded) would play D&D everyday during break and lunch. The craze only lasted for the sixth grade year as far as I remember though - only one or two of us played after that.

Of course the coolest was the kid who could already grow a moustache and had the clear translucent dice.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thanks for all the memories shared so far...it's amazing to think that a game that's now so niche used to sold in (even grocery) stores, in the same class as Monopoly or Uno.

It's also neat to hear about quick traveller and D&D sessions, as if talking about "a quick game of halo" today. Which I guess really are equivalents.

It's weird though, I just don't remember that level of popularity at all. 78-80 we lived right near a certain large Army base. Tons of the younger enlisted guys played (they had a lot of cash living in barracks) and the ones that weren't out blowing it on girls and booze were in the game club building up massive collections of figures and playing all sorts of games. Outside of the club (which could order stuff from distributors) finding any RPG stuff was impossible. I never saw a Basic box in anything but a few toy and hobby stores. Seems like maybe around the time 2e came out, about 1990 TSR finally got into most of the chain bookstores. I have yet to see gaming stuff in a discount store.

Can't say I ever recall anyone "popular" in school EVER admitting to playing (or actually playing) any RPG, but I graduated in 1980 from high school, so maybe that happened later. Even in college we had to give up playing in the student lounge because so many dorks would come around and give us a hard time. There were maybe 5-6 gamers in the whole place (800 students).

 

[IronWolf]

We played occasionally at lunch at school. Most of the time we talked about the weekend campaign at lunch though and did the majority of our playing on Friday or Saturday nights until the dawning hours of morning.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

The only time I gamed actually in school was when a friend helped me create my first character while in our European History class before the period started. The teacher got miffed and threatened us to put away the dice or he would keep them. I always assumed he thought we were gambling but maybe he was a secret member of BADD.

 

[Shin Okada]

In 1985, when I was a 14 years old boy, Japanese Edition Red Box was released. It was one year after the release of Japanese Edition Traveler.

I played both of those games, and other RPGs, card games & board games in Junior and Senior Highs School. I played them at lunch time & afternoon in our class rooms & club rooms (there was no gaming club in my school but there were many gamers in the school's Chemistry club).

 

[Holy Bovine]

I remember playing every lunch period (which, thanks to how we all arranged our schedules was 2 hours long!) from grades 9 to 11 (so I was 14 when it started about 1984). I had been playing with a couple of friends for a few years before that (and my cousin who lived out of town but visited often) but it really took off during those 3 years. We played through the first 6 modules of Dragonlance, a homemade campaign that got us from 1st to 10th and so many one-shot games i couldn't count them. mostly it was (A)D&D but i also remember running Traveler and playing in a Top Secret and Star Frontiers game. We never really hid the fact we played and would occasionally get one of the "cool" kids hanging around us as we played and few even joined in. D&D products could be found most anywhere I remember finding the basic boxed set (Holmes) at KMart! Then my family moved and I changed schools - I never found a gaming group in my new school and it wasn't until i entered university 2 years later that I started playing D&D again.

Haven't really stopped since then!

 

[Joshua Randall]

5th-6th grade. This would've been... 1983-1984 or thereabouts.

We played Basic D&D at lunch. Sometimes we even remembered our character sheets. *heh*

There were about a dozen of us in various permutations. I went to a pretty small Elementary school, though. Maybe 100 kids in each grade. So 12 / 100 was a fairly decent chunk.

You'd see kids reading D&D books in the classrooms, too, either between classes or during if they though they could get away with it. I can distinctly remember passing notes with another kid where we were desinging an intelligent magic sword.

I also remember Dragonlance being huge when the first book was released. HUGE. Practically every boy in the school was reading it, even if they didn't play D&D.

 

[Festivus]

We didn't play during lunch, but we did play just about every single night during the summer for several summers in a row, and weekends during the school year.... by weekends I mean from Friday night sleepover till Sunday morning sometime. This was in 1978/9 or thereabouts.