RPGs & the Armed Forces - a liability?


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justawhit said:
I am currently in my 3rd enlistment in the military spreading my service over a 24 year period. During my 2 previous enlistments I have observed or played in several games. From what I can remember no one either encouraged or discouraged any of us from playing. The groups I became involved with consisted of enlisted personnel so I didn't have the benefit of what an officer thought about RPGs. One of the biggest issues we had were people leaving for other duty assignments.

What I find with my current enlistment is this time around I'm in a national guard unit and not on active duty. This takes a weekend a month which is prime playing time, and the unit I'm in is in another county so I don't socialize with the fellow soldiers while off duty. Plus, my wife along with my work does the dampening on my playing time and not the guard. Otherwise if I was on active duty, and I wasn't in the field, then playing almost every weekend would be a dream.
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I served in the US Army in the 80s. While stationed in Korea, we played most weekends that we didn't have a pass. For clarity's sake, I was in the 2nd ID and we were limited as to how many people we could have off-post at any one time.

I was a 2nd/1st Lieutenant while stationed there and I never had anybody in my chain of command say anything remotely negative about playing RPGs (we played D&D, Traveller or DragonQuest.)

It was probably a good thing we played RPGs as it cut the alcohol consumption down. Better to play D&D (Occidental characters adventuring Kara Tur course) and drink moderately than to get rat-faced.

Later when stationed in Turkey we played there too. I was assigned to a remote detachment and none of us could leave the post after dark unless we were invited to the Turk Officers' Club (which when it happened involved drinking outrageous amounts of alcohol, specifically Raki.) So lots more RPG time there too. We had a small budget for recreational stuff which included books, VHS tapes, basketball and other sports equipment and also included RPGs. As the Detachment Supply Officer I ordered D&D Red Box sets and others and passed them out to the troops.

Thank you all so much for your tax dollars! Oh wait...I paid taxes then too. I thank myself.

So at least in the mid 80s, TSR stuff was in the official supply chain of the US Army.

Hopefully nearly 20 years on, some of those guys are still playing!

Thanks,
Rich
 

I'd imagine that role-players in general would have an easier time if they were captured and held by the enemy. Instead of dwelling on their situation a role-player might be more prone to "escape" into his/her imagination rather than get caught up in hopelessness, fear, and self-pity. I'd say that would allow the role-player in that situation to survive captivity with his/her sanity more intact than a non-role-player.

Other than that I can't really see an advantage or disadvantage. I was in the USAF for 9 years and role-played the entire time, mostly with other servicemen. I won't discuss what clearance level I had but it never hurt me or affected my ability to do my job.

When I spent a year in South Korea (Osan AB) I was part of a fairly large group (10 members) and we played 12 hours a day on Saturdays and Sundays. Most of the guys playing were married and didn't want to get caught up with the crowd going downtown to get sloshed at the juicy bars or chase juicy girls so I guess in a way it was helpful in keeping everyone faithful. It was a hell of a lot cheaper too. :)
 
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Wik said:
There ya go, folks - if you can't find a gaming group.... JOIN THE NAVY!
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May I just say, you don't know how scary it is to have 30 - 40 bored sailors find out that you are a GM while the ship is at sea doing circles. :lol: I never had a problem with rules-lawyers on that ship. Anyone who tried to argue was reminded that they could be replaced in about 30 seconds. :lol: No more rules arguments, and that was in the late 80's and early 90's.

Gods, sometimes I miss being in the Navy. Then I wake up and ask myself if 20 years wasn't enough. :lol:
 

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