What does d&d do to people, really?

[Ry]

I'm a very hard worker, both for my hobby, and in academics (and now, in my career). I am the most avid gamer in my group of friends, and I have always had the highest marks in every stage of school (top of my class in high school and university - and I ain't afraid to admit it, no sir, sentence fragment, consider revising).

At the same time, I have met people outside my core group of friends for whom RPGs and nerd culture has taken over their lives - when they mention their grades, they are definitely below average (several have dropped out of high school). So there's balance in everything, although I am a little unbalanced in favor of hard work - that's probably why I'm appear to be a bit more of a gamer than my friends.

 

[GrayIguana]

Some of the smartest people I've met, play or played D&D. While I've met some strange people in certain gaming circles, the majority have been intelligent, well adjusted people. I would also add that I don't believe D&D effected the grades of these people as much as these people were attracted to D&D as a some what intelligent hobby / passtime.

For myself, D&D made getting good grades a challenge at times (if I remember correctly), but in the end I don't think it affected my grades either way. As a DM, I still scramble to balance creating a decent game with all of the other things vying for my attention.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

My grades went up when I started playing (sophomore in high school; 1979). Conversely, my grades went down when I stopped playing.

Just as in college, my grades went up when I joined a speech team. Way up. I blame time management - if I was pressed for time, I managed it well and did well in most endeavors. If I had a lot of free time, procrastination became the order of the day (or the next day or the next ) and quality suffered.

 

[CGoat]

So gamers are above average... it’s a thinking game it makes sense.

I've got some memory problems... I'm starting to blame it on a head injury from college... I'm not sure what happened since all I remember is waking up the next day in the hospital (that was 13 years ago). Well I just saw my doctor the other day and complained about my memory...and he's like. "Well you need to exercise your memory." I can't think of anything better for exercising your mind than D&D. I wonder how bad my memory would be if I didn’t play D&D twice a week.

It’s always interesting to see me not remember a damn thing until we start talking about the last game… Then it all starts to come back.

Now all I have to do is convince my wife that playing D&D is good for me. I guess I should be grateful for a wife that wants me home all the time. She claims I put the game even before her… I hate it when she’s right

If only we could reverse that damn social stigmatism for playing. Its sad that most of the time you hide that fact that you play D&D for fear of ridicule... One guy in our tuesday game just got dumped by his girlfriend because he wouldn't tell her what he did for 6 hours on tuesday nights.

 

[shilsen]

*tosses peble idoly*


What do you teach?

English literature. Once you've been an Indian teaching Greek drama translated into English by a Frenchman to Americans, suddenly DMing doesn't seem too tough

 

[D+1]

Didn't have good grades in school. But that's because I wasn't challenged so I did very little schoolwork. Since they LET me be an underacheiver but I still got by as a slacker I was in effect trained NOT to be a very good student. Possibly I even ought to have been bumped a year forward. I went to a small, private school that at the time was simply not geared to properly handle a kid such as I was.

 

[Shemeska]

My grades in college as an undergrad alternated between C's one semester and straight A's the next with little rhyme or reason and unconnected to how much I played DnD.

however once I got into grad school and started to DM extensively, my grades went up to around a 3.9GPA or so. But, grad school being grad school I didn't have much of a choice in the matter

Some of my players have gone down, mostly one of them, and I had to brow beat him for gaming all weekend before he had like 4 exams in 2 days or so. Most everyone else has seen the same old same old.

 

[lonesoldier]

I'm one of those people who enjoy pain, or well why would I be in IB?

Teacher: More homework?
Me: Yes please!

I've always had a mark around 80%, which in IB is enough for a 7/7.

Mind, you my playing group conists of (including me):
4 Gifted and Talented Education kids (GATE)
2 International Baccaluearte kids (IB)
1 Some dude with cancer

So all-in-all we have above average marks, IQs and are generally better than thou!

 

[Mercule]

D&D didn't impact my grades. I always slacked and got Bs and Cs. What it did do was give me an excuse to study stuff and an outlet in which to apply what I learned.

 

[bubbalin]

Ok, so for some of you, this might be kinda personal. I'm sorry for those I might afend. But it always seemed like the D&D players grades rised a bit above avarage, or seem to hold an intelectull advantage. Please do comment.

I'm sorry, but it bugs me...

Obviously it hasn't helped your spelling, or you don't play many PBMs

Offend
average
intellectual

Spelling bugs me.
and I won't start on sentence construction. (especially since I began a sentence with 'and')

And on the question... I don't know how to reply. Does getting average grades in a difficult university course compared to good grades in school count as a worsening of grades?