PBS Video on Tabletop Gaming (Dungeons & Dragons)

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Awwwwww YEAH 2020 is where it's AT.

The only cyberpunk game done right, mostly because of the fantastic Interlock system they used for the rules.

In fact, my group and I love the interlock systems simplicity and flexibility so much we ported Dark heresy to it AND Pathfinders D20 system.

Yeah, interlock is a good system, I think a large part of the reason I haven't been more motivated to try and get a game of DH/RT going is that I feel the systems suck balls next to Interlock. Which is weird, because I think the WHFRP V2 system is great.

I assume you've seen Wisdom000's Interlock unlimited project?

 

[Something Amyss]

Wait, were is the scapegoating? The demonizing? I've watched two minutes of the video so far and it hasn't told me yet that I am the spawn of satan and a blight upon the earth. Have I gone mad? Am I in the Twilight Zone? Has existence shattered and is that video the only way our human minds can interpret such a cataclysmic event?

Or, I could just say it's nice to finally see a levelheaded, even positive report on tabletop rpgs from a non-geek culture-related medium.

And yes, I've played D&D, Call of Cthulhu and a little bit of Vampire: The Masquerade (but that was quite a while ago). I started out playing tabletop rpgs because a friend told me about it, said he wanted to try one and it seems like fun. So yeah, that's how it happened and that's all there is to it.

It's PBS. They're too bland for that sensationalist crap.

OT: I've played most of the major ones, and quite a few less known tabletop RPGs. I used to have thousands of dollars in books, most of them destroyed when my last place caught on fire. Most of my collection is from Drivethru RPG now. I don't play as much, though, so I haven't bought many books.

And the whole devil worship thing is totally bogus. If anything, my love of Satan led to my gaming!

...Kidding, of course.

 

[Murrdox]

Like a couple other people that have already posted here, I cut my teeth on D&D.

My first roleplaying purchase was the Players Handbook to AD&D 2nd Edition.

Since then here's the list of games I've played that I can remember:

AD&D 2nd
Mechwarror (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Editions... we've played a lot of Mechwarrior over the years!)
Shadowrun (2nd, 3rd, 4th Edition)
Robotech
GURPS
Vampire the Mascarade
Cyberpunk
Deadlands
Heavy Gear
Warhammer Fantasty RPG
Dark Heresy
D&D 3rd and 3.5 (Never got into 4th...)

Probably a few others I'm forgetting.

Currently I'm in a Skype group that is playing two games. I'm playing in a Rogue Trader game, and I'm GMing a Shadowrun 4th Edition game. I'm also GMing another online group that formed on Reddit that wanted to start up a Shadowrun game. I can't wait for Shadowrun 5th edition to come out in a few weeks time!

Anyone on this forum who doesn't own a set of dice and a player's handbook for SOME kind of RPG owes it to him/herself to give it a try. Talk your friends into it. Bring beer and pizza.

I used to have thousands of dollars in books, most of them destroyed when my last place caught on fire.

Oh my god I would cry for all my RPG books. I think I'm going to go upstairs to where my old-edition Battletech books are sitting in a box, and just cuddle them for awhile.

 

[Something Amyss]

Oh my god I would cry for all my RPG books. I think I'm going to go upstairs to where my old-edition Battletech books are sitting in a box, and just cuddle them for awhile.

Yeah, it was rough. Though oddly, I was more depressed over the ones I played most, rather than the more valuable ones. Though not always mutually exclusive. My friends mostly liked playing D&D and Star Wars, which was more frustrating since Wizards threw a tantrum a few years back and pulled their stuff from digital services. I know it's back up now, but it didn't help me then. Also, no SWRPG because they no longer have the license. I am a sad panda.

I had a few pretty rare White Wolf books, which is sort of an overlap. They're all (I think) replaceable online, but it blows to have lost some fairly rare pieces.

 

[Altorin]

I started playing D&D in middle school. my parents wouldn't let me because they thought it was satanic, so I wrote my mom a letter (it was much easier for me then discussing it in person) explaining how that was ridiculous, and citing incidences where that view point was shown to be political and just wrong.

So they let me play D&D (although prior to that my dad did throw out all my magic cards to "protect me from the devil").. I actually didn't play very much. Only a few games before high school.. in High School I played a bit more frequently, but most games didn't last long. I got more into white wolf for a while, and my friends all got silly into white wolf (one of them runs a weekly larp that I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole but he swears by its fun).. post-school, I ended up getting into a couple Exalted games that ran for long enough that I became good friends with the group.. they've since abandoned me but I have lots of fond memories playing with them.

Now I basically just sit at home, playing D&D by myself

 

[Murrdox]

I started playing D&D in middle school. my parents wouldn't let me because they thought it was satanic, so I wrote my mom a letter (it was much easier for me then discussing it in person) explaining how that was ridiculous, and citing incidences where that view point was shown to be political and just wrong.

So they let me play D&D (although prior to that my dad did throw out all my magic cards to "protect me from the devil").. I actually didn't play very much. Only a few games before high school.. in High School I played a bit more frequently, but most games didn't last long. I got more into white wolf for a while, and my friends all got silly into white wolf (one of them runs a weekly larp that I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole but he swears by its fun).. post-school, I ended up getting into a couple Exalted games that ran for long enough that I became good friends with the group.. they've since abandoned me but I have lots of fond memories playing with them.

Now I basically just sit at home, playing D&D by myself

I actually had a similar experience. When I was in middle-school and playing D&D my parents thought it was "negative". They weren't religious, but I think at its core what they didn't like was the idea of killing creatures and people for experience and treasure. In spite of that they let me play.

Then I got in trouble because I was taking up the phone line going through D&D books and talking with one of my friends (we were supposed to limit our phone calls to 20 minutes) and they threw out all my D&D books. To "compensate" me for it, they bought me a badminton and a croquet set and a soccer ball. I guess they wanted me to get out of the house more.

The only thing they succeeded in doing was ostracizing me from my fellow nerd friends. It didn't stop us from gaming, I just didn't have books anymore. But I've let them know since it's pretty much their #1 parenting mistake they made raising me.

Wish I still had all those classic books.

 

[The Gnome King]

Wait, were is the scapegoating? The demonizing? I've watched two minutes of the video so far and it hasn't told me yet that I am the spawn of satan and a blight upon the earth. Have I gone mad?



Or, I could just say it's nice to finally see a levelheaded, even positive report on tabletop rpgs from a non-geek culture-related medium.

That's generally what I thought. Nice to see tabletop gaming portrayed as a positive thing. I remember 20 years ago being handed a "Chick Tract" called "Dark Dungeons" talking about the dangers of D&D in comic form - http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.ASP - seriously check that out...

We've come a long way.

 

[The Gnome King]

I actually had a similar experience. When I was in middle-school and playing D&D my parents thought it was "negative". They weren't religious, but I think at its core what they didn't like was the idea of killing creatures and people for experience and treasure. In spite of that they let me play.



Wish I still had all those classic books.

The only book I think I freaked my parents out with back in the 90's was the "Kult" rulebook - it had full-on rules for doing dark rituals, etc:

http://rpggeek.com/rpg/971/kult-1st-edition

It actually came with the warning:
"WARNING

Kult is a game which explores the dark side of the human soul; some may find this disturbing. Kult is not recommended for players under 16."

I recall it really freaked out my poor Catholic grandfather. I tried explaining that it was just a game but... well, Catholic grandfather.

 

[The Gnome King]

So you can see, I've been in gaming longer than the internet has existed. Quite possibly longer than most other Escapists have existed (or been alive for that matter) and I must say, it is refreshing to see someone that doesn't have a negative stance or view of tabletop gaming. There were days when I had been bullied because of my active role if games like these, but I got over it.

I remember D&D being something I played in High School back in the 90's... started when I was 12 so... 22 years ago. Wow. It was definitely not something the "cool kids" did - this was way before the whole "hipster nerd" culture thing that developed in the late 90's and beyond.

When gaming started becoming "cool" in the large city I grew up in was when LARPing infected the "goth" crowd. This was probably mid to late teens for me... I'm thinking the height of the whole LARP craze was around the time I was 16 in Phoenix. Gaming started to become cool because "cool" kids started doing it (albeit Vampire LARPing, not D&D) - and for the first time ever I saw a gender ratio that was actually balanced. Women seemed to *like* this Vampire LARP stuff and our 40+ person LARP every Saturday night was about half male, half female. That went a long way to influence the acceptance of games, I think.

LARPing kinda fell off the map in the US compared to what it once was, though I hear it's still quite strong in Scandinavia & UK university culture.

It's interesting for me to see my age group (mid 30's) now and how we still are playing our old versions of D&D, bringing about an "Old School Revolution" in gaming, alongside a new-school tabletop crowd that really embraced the last version of D&D, for example. (If you've ever played an MMO in your life playing 4E D&D really won't be a stretch to you at all.)

 

[Dirty Apple]

I'm still waiting for the religious right's delusions that were promised to manifest when I began playing D&D.

Has your cleric been raised to the 8th level? I heard that that's when you learn how to have the real power. [http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.ASP]

This comic's Christian author assumes Wiccans actually have power to begin with, why would they make that assumption? If I say I'm a Jedi would they assume I carry a light saber and can throw things with the force? Some of these people will just believe any claim you make simply because they seemingly don't have the practice in analyzing bogus claims.

I played AD&D for a short while in high school before we all got onto different things. I would have been 17 at the time and I remember having to talk to one guy's mother ensuring her that we weren't being indoctrinated. "Yeah, but what about those kids who DIED in the 80's," she asked me. I said that anyone who could commit violence to themselves or others and attribute it to a game, probably had problems before they started playing.

 

[Windcaler]

Its nice to see a much more even handed report of tabletop gaming. Unfortunately for years people who didnt know a thing about gaming bought into the scapegoating hype of a case back in the 70s of a young man who was mentally ill (much like they do for gaming today).

Im a little ashamed of the escapist members though, the people who scapegoated tabletop gaming did not do so because their faith or political beliefs told them to. They did it because the law enforcement personel (or private investigator in the case I previously mentioned) took the easy way out rather then doing a proper investigation and blamed tabletop gaming rather then these individuals mental illnesses. They did that because the public wanted answers and it was the easy way out. Rather then rising above what was done to us in the past some people seem to be falling into the same trap of finding our own scapegoats to "explain" the mistreatment we experience

As for my own gaming experience. I was introduced tot he game when I was 6 years old and within 6 months I became a full time GM for our group. My friends and I played all the time and I always tried to inclusionary, inviting others into the fun. Ive continued playing since and Ive tried various games both as a GM and a player. My favorite fantasy game is currently Pathfinder although my personal gaming group play Scion at the moment and I really wish I could find some people who want to play werewolf the forsaken

 

[Eddie the head]

Yeah, I'm way to introverted to want to ever play a table top RPG. At least on World Of Warcraft I can ignore people.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Cool video, I've only in the last year got into table top RPG games. I've started as a GM for a Pathfinder campaign and it's been awesome so far.

Was good to see they showed a lot of different kinds of people playing too.

Why did I get into them? Well my friends and I play a lot of board games each week, so we decided to give this a go. Haven't regretted it at all, it's a lot of work, but I love doing it and it breaks the monotony of only playing our board games each week, now that's every second week or so.

I have been invited to play a twelve session game a co worker is starting next week, us players will be dragons each ruling a kingdom and such, I don't know much on it yet but I'm excited to see the player side of things.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Nice video. I definitely appreciate some positive light being shined on this hobby.

 

[Rellik San]

I was born into a roleplaying dynasty myself, I was bred to be a tabletop gamer.

Fer srs, both my mother and uncle played table top, both my older sisters, most of the familial friends, all my friends in school, so it's not really a matter of me discovering tabletop gaming as it was finding a tabletop system that suited me. Which I did with Vampire: The Masquerade at age 10.

 

[Murrdox]

The only book I think I freaked my parents out with back in the 90's was the "Kult" rulebook - it had full-on rules for doing dark rituals, etc:

I wish my parents actually paid attention to the actual content of the game to that degree. They didn't know what books were what, or what anything of it was.

I remember having a discussion with my parents about it when they were harping on how "negative" it was. I told them there's lots of "good" things as well, and tried explaining the "Alignment" system to them. I leafed through the Monster Manual for a few seconds, showing them there were lots of "good" or "neutral" people and creatures, and that the game wasn't necessarily about killing all the time. You helped out people, rescued people in trouble, solved mysteries, etc. in addition to killing monsters.

All that pretty much fell on deaf ears. I think I showed her a picture of the "Pixie" a Neutral creature from the Monster Manual. My mom looked at the picture and just said "Well he still looks mean".

12 year old me throws hands in air. Loses all D&D books to ignorant parents a few months later.

 

[Nieroshai]

I'm still waiting for the religious right's delusions that were promised to manifest when I began playing D&D.

Most of us are too busy playing our druids and shadowrunners to care what our puritanical fundamentalist grandparents think about a simple game. We're also pretty sure if our deity's son can hang out with whores and discuss philosophy with legionnaires, rolling dice with a wiccan and having fun is just plain human decency. Funny story: my Lutheran grandmother bought me my starter kit. Cool lady.

 

[The Gnome King]

I wish my parents actually paid attention to the actual content of the game to that degree. They didn't know what books were what, or what anything of it was.

Growing up where I was in the 90's in an upper-middle class neighborhood and a High School where the graduating class of '97 was over 2,000 kids... let's just say my conversation with my parents went something like this:

"Mom - the rulebook might look messed up but this is make believe. We're playing a game. We know this. You know what the other kids are doing? They're having sex and doing drugs. My friends and I are in straight AP courses and we're playing a game. At home. With soda, not alcohol. What would you rather I do?"

Also - telling her that she was welcome to sit in on one of my games (she never took me up on it) seemed to help alleviate some of her fears. It's like... we're rolling dice around a table. Not summoning the Dark Lords or whatever.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

Well, I played a bit of D&D and Dark Heresy with my friends a few years back. We never really took it very seriously (or at least they didn't, for the most part I was the GM who they enjoyed annoying) but it was good fun. Since then I mainly just collect more tabletop rulebooks now and then, such as Call of Cthulu and Paranoia.

And I have way too many Dark Heresy books now, although I spend most of my time complaining about how bad they are. A few of them are really good, like The Inquisitor's Handbook, Ascension, and Disciples of the Dark Gods, but most of the other ones are full of mistakes and generally repeat themselves as much as possible. You should only get those if you're really interested in the subject material.

I'm still waiting for the religious right's delusions that were promised to manifest when I began playing D&D.

Has your cleric been raised to the 8th level? I heard that that's when you learn how to have the real power. [http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.ASP]

"You, who are involved in the occult, think you have achieved power. But you have been trapped in a dungeon of bondage."

I'm gonna be honest with you, D&D's fun and all, but if it actually led to being, ahem, "trapped in a dungeon of bondage" I think I'd play it a lot more.

 

[Murrdox]

I'm completely baffled that kids these days even still make the occult D&D references. I thought this was something that nerds outgrew in the 80's like heavy metal kids did with their Judas Priest music.