Vox explains D&D

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R.A. Lundberg

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It's funny, there's a lot more goodies that go along with it than I remember. All the little figures and pre-printed character sheets and all, a screen for the DM even. Yeah, OK, I was actually playing in the late 70's/early 80s with Basic first version and Advanced manuals. But what we had were lined paper for characters and notes, graph paper for the dungeon map, and random items like spools, salt and pepper shakers, and the metal things from a Monopoly game for spatial character references. And dice of course. Our DM kept the dungeon notes in two Trapper Keepers and stood two regular binders on end for a screen. But the game really has not changed, not that much. It's still your party vs the DM and his evil minions, and how well you work together determines your fate. Well and the rolls of those fickle, fickle dice.
 

Alessandra Kelley

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It's funny, there's a lot more goodies that go along with it than I remember. All the little figures and pre-printed character sheets and all, a screen for the DM even. Yeah, OK, I was actually playing in the late 70's/early 80s with Basic first version and Advanced manuals. But what we had were lined paper for characters and notes, graph paper for the dungeon map, and random items like spools, salt and pepper shakers, and the metal things from a Monopoly game for spatial character references. And dice of course. Our DM kept the dungeon notes in two Trapper Keepers and stood two regular binders on end for a screen. But the game really has not changed, not that much. It's still your party vs the DM and his evil minions, and how well you work together determines your fate. Well and the rolls of those fickle, fickle dice.

The first DM’s screen was printed in 1979. Lead (later pewter) fantasy miniatures predated D&D, which was originally an expansion of a set of rules for tabletop miniatures gaming. I think the earliest specifically fantasy miniatures I have date to 1972.

But you could always play with just pencil, dice and paper. It was part of the versatility.
 

Melanii

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It's awesome they want to teach more people how to play D&D! I use very simple version of the rules when playing with my friends since we all have disabilities that make learning and remembering a bit difficult. :p
 

Lissibith

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I was watching the new Voltron season last week, and their D&Dish episode made me a very happy nerd. :D The video is also really nice, thank you very much for sharing! I have a couple friends I may try to get involved next time I DM a newbie mission, and I may pass this along as a conversation starter.
 

R.A. Lundberg

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The first DM’s screen was printed in 1979. Lead (later pewter) fantasy miniatures predated D&D, which was originally an expansion of a set of rules for tabletop miniatures gaming. I think the earliest specifically fantasy miniatures I have date to 1972.

But you could always play with just pencil, dice and paper. It was part of the versatility.

Really? I had no idea. Heck, WE had no idea. Even if we had known about it, we probably couldn't have afforded it. Our group mowed a lot of lawns and stuff to afford our first set of books. (we were in middle school). We still had a ball fighting orcs and skeletons (and all the other nasties), casting spells, avoiding traps and mapping the dungeon. I bet those character sheets and stuff make it a lot easier to keep track of things; my character folder was always a mess. I'm also sure the figures make it easier to stay immersed. "My spool attacks the salt shaker with his magical battleaxe" kind of takes you out of the moment. :)
 

Doug Egan

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I quit playing this game in about 1982, which must date me. I've been pleased to see it coming back with young people. I've seen several different groups of kids playing D&D in the past year. In an age when so much virtual communication has supplanted traditional face to face communication, it feels ironic to me that a fantasy role playing game might foster a return to traditional head to head communication for some groups of kids.
 

CoffeeBeans

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In an age when so much virtual communication has supplanted traditional face to face communication, it feels ironic to me that a fantasy role playing game might foster a return to traditional head to head communication for some groups of kids.

I think that's exactly WHY it's coming back. I have been into tabletop for a long time but I noticed the girls I coach starting to talk about/get into games in the past maybe four or five years, and loads of them are super plugged in and not the most comfortable in social situations. D&D (or any of the other games - I've been steering them to explore the tabletop world beyond) is a nice balance to actual face to face social interaction and moderated/pretend interaction that seems to take a lot of the difficulty out of the face-to-face.

It also seems to dovetail nicely with the OCs they seem to be endlessly creating (don't get me started... I turn into the old lady yelling at clouds. Why make characters if you don't do anything with them? WHY?)

Aside from this - I was at a convention this past weekend and there was a booth devoted to tabletop books (not dice/figs/etc) and the growing variety of "nontraditional" games is really awesome (diceless/domestic/etc). I spent a lot of money on books.
 
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