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RPG Evolution - True Tales from Stranger Things: Satanism, Strategy & Clubs
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<blockquote data-quote="Mad_Jack" data-source="post: 8726218" data-attributes="member: 6750306"><p>I started playing back when I was ten, my first set was the Moldvay box. A fair number of the kids in my neighborhood played a little bit between '82-86-ish, but I was the only one that really stuck with it after the rest started getting into music and sports.</p><p> It wasn't so much a regular group as just something the kids did when there wasn't anything else to do or we had no money.</p><p>Although the whole panic thing was definitely known about in our part of New England (although not really connected to D&D yet), our parents were mostly just happy to have us hanging out peacefully playing a game instead of being out running around fighting, shoplifting or starting fires, lol - there wasn't a whole lot to do in our area that didn't involve getting into trouble.</p><p> On Saturdays, we all went to Catholic Catechism school for about an hour or so in the mornings, so we'd play for a bit after class while waiting for our parents (who were always out doing kid-free stuff, and tended to come pick us up whenever they got around to it) - we'd draw a map in the dirt, and fight a couple improvised battles. In 4th grade, around '82 or '83, our teacher Sister Maria found us huddled in a doorway during a nasty thunderstorm, rolling dice and trying to keep our character sheets dry, so she let us play in the classroom after class. Since she was required to stick around while we were in the building, we let her play the party cleric, using a simplified ruleset. She got a huge kick out of wasting all her spells healing injured animals and giving all her gold away to the poor. (Pro tip: Never roll dice with a member of the clergy - that woman could roll a nat 20 on a D6...)</p><p>She'd understood, watching us play, that it was all just a game.</p><p></p><p> But eventually, things changed a bit.</p><p></p><p>In junior high, I'd spend most of my lunch period in the library reading, and the librarian lady <em>loved</em> me. (Like, to the point that later on in life I seriously began to wonder...) I eventually convinced her to let some of us play in the library during lunch, and for a while she was more than cool with it - we were playing a game that encouraged reading comprehension, math skills and critical problem solving.</p><p>By the last half of eighth grade, however, it was '86, and at some point a fellow librarian had apparently drunk the <em>Kool-Aid of Stupidity</em> and started filling her head with nonsense about how D&D was going to destroy our brains and corrupt our little souls. Now, this librarian lady, who loved me enough that she'd let me and my group eat our lunch in the library while we played, and who'd had absolutely no problem with us playing our game <em>for almost a year by then</em>, suddenly went all pitchforks-and-torches on us when she found out we were playing <em>THAT</em> game. She'd <em>seen</em> the covers of our books, had seen them every day for months, she <em><u>knew</u></em> what we'd been doing, but suddenly everything she knew about what we were doing was wiped out by blind hysteria.</p><p>(Looking back on it now, the huge blowout she and I got into really does read like a break-up fight...)</p><p></p><p>I went to a Catholic high school, and graduated in 1990. I never really had a problem with any of the teachers giving me grief about D&D, despite the fact that several of them had seen me bringing my books to school. My guidance councilor actually borrowed a couple of my books because she like the artwork in them (she was the theatre teacher).</p><p>By junior year the priest at the school had retired and his replacement, a younger guy in his late 20's, actually started up a conversation with me about D&D, heavy metal and the whole Satanic Panic thing when he found out I played. He liked to hear me tell war stories from the games I'd run or played in.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mad_Jack, post: 8726218, member: 6750306"] I started playing back when I was ten, my first set was the Moldvay box. A fair number of the kids in my neighborhood played a little bit between '82-86-ish, but I was the only one that really stuck with it after the rest started getting into music and sports. It wasn't so much a regular group as just something the kids did when there wasn't anything else to do or we had no money. Although the whole panic thing was definitely known about in our part of New England (although not really connected to D&D yet), our parents were mostly just happy to have us hanging out peacefully playing a game instead of being out running around fighting, shoplifting or starting fires, lol - there wasn't a whole lot to do in our area that didn't involve getting into trouble. On Saturdays, we all went to Catholic Catechism school for about an hour or so in the mornings, so we'd play for a bit after class while waiting for our parents (who were always out doing kid-free stuff, and tended to come pick us up whenever they got around to it) - we'd draw a map in the dirt, and fight a couple improvised battles. In 4th grade, around '82 or '83, our teacher Sister Maria found us huddled in a doorway during a nasty thunderstorm, rolling dice and trying to keep our character sheets dry, so she let us play in the classroom after class. Since she was required to stick around while we were in the building, we let her play the party cleric, using a simplified ruleset. She got a huge kick out of wasting all her spells healing injured animals and giving all her gold away to the poor. (Pro tip: Never roll dice with a member of the clergy - that woman could roll a nat 20 on a D6...) She'd understood, watching us play, that it was all just a game. But eventually, things changed a bit. In junior high, I'd spend most of my lunch period in the library reading, and the librarian lady [I]loved[/I] me. (Like, to the point that later on in life I seriously began to wonder...) I eventually convinced her to let some of us play in the library during lunch, and for a while she was more than cool with it - we were playing a game that encouraged reading comprehension, math skills and critical problem solving. By the last half of eighth grade, however, it was '86, and at some point a fellow librarian had apparently drunk the [I]Kool-Aid of Stupidity[/I] and started filling her head with nonsense about how D&D was going to destroy our brains and corrupt our little souls. Now, this librarian lady, who loved me enough that she'd let me and my group eat our lunch in the library while we played, and who'd had absolutely no problem with us playing our game [I]for almost a year by then[/I], suddenly went all pitchforks-and-torches on us when she found out we were playing [I]THAT[/I] game. She'd [I]seen[/I] the covers of our books, had seen them every day for months, she [I][U]knew[/U][/I] what we'd been doing, but suddenly everything she knew about what we were doing was wiped out by blind hysteria. (Looking back on it now, the huge blowout she and I got into really does read like a break-up fight...) I went to a Catholic high school, and graduated in 1990. I never really had a problem with any of the teachers giving me grief about D&D, despite the fact that several of them had seen me bringing my books to school. My guidance councilor actually borrowed a couple of my books because she like the artwork in them (she was the theatre teacher). By junior year the priest at the school had retired and his replacement, a younger guy in his late 20's, actually started up a conversation with me about D&D, heavy metal and the whole Satanic Panic thing when he found out I played. He liked to hear me tell war stories from the games I'd run or played in. [/QUOTE]
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