What does d&d do to people, really?

[IronWolf]

Grades were above average. No change from the time I picked up the D&D addiction... err hobby.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I don't think D&D affected my grades at all, but maybe they did and I just didn't realize it. I started in 5th grade, and prior to that, the school I was in used a different scale. I was a decent student (honors classes, B+ to A-), but probably a bit lazy, all through high school. In college I barely got by as a C+ student, but gaming was not the issue. Other things had much more of a negative impact on my grades than that.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

Depends on how geeky I'm feeling each day.

I tend to hit the 75% mark and I don't try very hard. However, most of the members of my group either hold useless degrees or work as skilled proffesionals/apprentices.

It's a bit weird, though. There's one guy who dropped out of high school - smartest man I know. Doesn't like academia, but likes knowing things.

He's not an einstein, but it's odd with me being a history major and a guy who never went to university or even finishing high school knowing more than me about it!

 

[Laman Stahros]

thanx, sniff. Once question, is your sig. from a movie called DUNGEON MASTER? That and there seems to be another guy called "DungeonMasterCal" that I would like to ask the same question.

I believe that Sniffles sig comes from the Mythbusters TV show on Discovery. One the guys on there said it at least once.

 

[Wayside]

Mythology -- D&D can help.

I'd have to disagree with that one pretty strongly. D&D vastly oversimplifies every form of mythology it comes into contact with.

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

I prefer English literature translated from Greek by way of Latin into a contemporary approximation of Anglo-Saxon . Do you read Greek shilsen? I know there are a few other Latinists around but I've never come across anyone with Greek (Attic that is, I'm sure there are a few native speakers around).

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Mine went up about half a grade, but I think that having any after school social life would have had the same effect. I needed to get out and socialize more. Wargames and D&D were what I chose for the task. I was surprised to find that one of the priests who taught at my school was also a player. (And played the most obnoxious cleric that I have ever seen in thirty years of the game!)

I bumped into him a couple of years ago, though he no longer plays he remembered the game better than I did, and I ran it after the second week.

The Auld Grump

 

[James Heard]

D&D never impacted my grades like drinking, drugs, and girls did. Actually those pretty much interfered with D&D for a while too. Ah, the wild n' whiskeery late teens/early twenties!

Um, I should probably note in my defense that my grades slipping before college is sort of a misnomer. I was still in the top 5-10% of my class. I was just bags-under-the-eyes geeky.

 

[arscott]

Meh, I've always been the "gets not-particularly-good grades in the advanced classes" sort of guy.

'cept now I'm at a college where most of the classes qualify as advanced.

Still I got a 1530 on my SAT, so D&D can't have been that bad.

 

[Meadred]

Well, my grades were generally good all the way through my compulsary school years (until senior high school). However, my English grade improved to an "A" after I began playing and DMing basic D&D. My teacher was quite impressed by my new and improved vocabulary (English isn't my native tonuge).

Also, I believe that playing RPGs have improved my creativity and my analytical skills, but that is hard to prove.

For me, RPGs never encroached on my homework or studying for tests; I did quit some other extra-curricular activities in order to be able to both study and play RPGs during my senior high school years.

Cheers,
Meadred

 

[shilsen]

I'd have to disagree with that one pretty strongly. D&D vastly oversimplifies every form of mythology it comes into contact with.

Definitely true. I've been a mythologist since I started reading the children's version of the Ramayana and Mahabharata at 4, and when I got to D&D it had very little connection with any historical mythology.

I prefer English literature translated from Greek by way of Latin into a contemporary approximation of Anglo-Saxon .

Do you read Greek shilsen? I know there are a few other Latinists around but I've never come across anyone with Greek (Attic that is, I'm sure there are a few native speakers around).

Nope. I've read a lot of Greek lit, but always in translation. I'd guess that there might be a couple of Greek scholars on these boards, but I can't come up with any names.