Well, I didn't have any 99th level demi-god wizards that could reverse a planet's rotation, but I had a pretty decent cleric... I was also a Dungeon Master for a while, but I got too power hungry player: OK, I want to study my spell book me: While you study, a huge bear attacks you. player: WTF?? A huge bear?? We're at an inn inside a city! me: OK, fine...after an hour of studying, you hear a knocking at the door. player: I answer the door me: A huge bear is at the door and mauls you... player: WHAT?? How the hell is a bear supposed to "knock" on a door? me: look, you whiney b****! You're lucky it's not a giant scorpion! Now, are you gonna fight, or what?
I started on D&D with some friends but it ended up evolving into a wrestling game. "Jimmy Superfly Snooka jumps of the top wrote and has a 6/20 chance of connecting solidly."
I used to be a huge gamer, but the group I was with had a falling out a while back. Never got back into it. I sooooooooooo wanted to run a Heroes Unlimited campaign, but all the other dorks were just into that fantasy crap. FT: sounds like a blast. I made a Steve Austin conversion for Rifts (complete with magical can of whoop ass) but the stupid GM wouldn't let me use it.
I played it a couple times, but my idiot friend who was DM never had the scenarios built before hand, so we got stuck sitting around waiting for him to put something together. That, my friends, is a formula for half-assed D&D'ing. I still read the D&D type books though. Big fan of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman series (Dragonlance, Rose of the Prophet, etc.)
I never played cause I didn't have friends growing up... I did however read Dragon Magazine and buy some D&D books, mainly for the artwork. I was a big 'drawer' back in the day!
We tried playing it for two sessions but it never really got off the ground. I was into muds for a while too.
I had a very brief stint playing it and painting little figures, like ogres and dragons, when I was under 10 years old. I used to buy the little figures at the hobby shop and collected a few with all those different shaped dice you needed to play. It quickly became a battle of sheer boredom, however. I never really played the game correctly and didn't much care for it. I'm sure all that junk is still tucked away in my childhood bedroom closet back home. On a side note, this guy I work next to in his 30s still plays the game to this day. He spends a lot of his free time playing it and he even bought material and molded his own castle and figures and stuff. He literally has spent many hours building his own D&D playing set. Whenever we start talking about games, I ask him if he ever played BattleField 1942 yet because he is a big PC gamer as well and I keep trying to tell him this is the best WWII fighter around yet. He never has played it and then goes into a boring one-sided discussion about how he and his wife play D&D all the time with their 30 something friends. I listen and just think to myself how dorky and geeky it all sounds. I could understand why you would want to play growing up. But, in your 30s? I'm sorry...I can't get past a 30+ year old D&D player or dungeon master. He starts talking about how he's a level something something. I can't even comprehend it. I can't get past the fact he is so into it. To each his own I guess.
There are still some decent Muds around. I played Islands of Myst which used to be Red Dragon, last summer while "working". I haven't played much sinc ethen but it did pass the time on some slow days.
I've got a 30+ year old co-worker who gets together with his buds every Friday night to play.... they make a big 'ol dinner, beers, everyone eats then they play till like 3 a.m..... He paints miniatures and creates games, etc... the whole sha-bang... I thought the game was interesting at the time, I was into all the medieval and fantasy stuff, but I was never invited to play and none of my friends were into it... I too, painted miniatures, but that was just for fun... I did however draw the hell out of some knights, dragons, monsters and the like! Growing up with the friends I did have, we mostly got together to draw stuff, play with army men, star wars and watch war and monster movies on TV... later on as we got older, we got together to 'jam'... we all had guitars and such. ahhh youth.
Geez...rockHEAD...we could have been friends growing up. What you just said is basically a re-creation of my wonder years. We used to have these jams with our guitars as well. We all sucked pretty bad back then but we would still do it. It was pretty hilarious. Then, we turned to the dark side. Then, we had to grow up and join society. Fun. Now, I'm stuck in this yearly adventure called work which I can't seem to get out of.
I said no, but I don't want to say that I think D&D guys are dorks. I was watching the "I love the 80's" thing on VH1 and Joel Stein (if you don't know who he is, I will smite you) was one of the people giving their take on things. Anyways, the D&D question came up and he kind of laughed and said something about how people make fun of D&D players like him, but how come nobody thinks anything negative about LOTR and Harry Potter. It's all the same.
I never even had a long enough attention span for Axis and Allies (which was a favorite of my H.S. friends), let alone D&D. So I usually played the Nintendo while they did all that stuff. That's why I always kicked their asses on Street Fighter II.
I don't think that it is. That just some excuse he was peddling to make himself out to be not such a nerd. Do yourself a favor...go to a hobby shop and buy you a few miniatures to represent your D&D character you choose and some of the bad guys you will do battle with, buy a D&D book, and find yourself a Dungeon Master. Then, play a few rounds. Don't forget to use your imagination! I don't even remember all that much about it other than it would be something like: "You enter a room. There is a long wood plank which stretches to the other side of the room. There is some rope hanging from the ceiling. There are tiny edges which go all the way around the room. What do you do?" . Then, it would be something like "I choose to cross the wood plank to the other side of the room.". Then, the Dungeon Master comes back and says something like, "As you walk across the wood plank, poison darts shoot from the wall into you and you take 30 hit points damage or something. You make it to the other side and find a few pieces of gold. You also build 1 dexterity point and 1 courage point." The Dungeon Master is reading all this from a D&D book and your outcome is decided by the path you take...or something. I dunno...something like that. That seems to be my recollection. There were no graphics or PC. It was all text and using your imagination while tracking your player and his development. If it is a lot better than that back in old school D&D, then I might have to revisit it. That was a joke .