Dungeons and Dragons ~ The First RPG

[Kai Monkey]

Inspired by topic here, about alternate words for "Magic Attack" and why "Intelligence" tends to be used so much. 

The answer to this question, as well as the origin of almost all RPG cliches, is Dungeons and Dragons*- the very first RPG. 

As someone who grew up with knowledge of the non-computer origins of RPGs, and an evid gamer of games like DnD, it seems strange to me how many players of games like Skyrim (Which was even inspired by a game of DnD ran by the developers) have never heard of this game.

So I was wondering how many of you guys have heard of DnD? How many of you play it? Used to play? What are your inner most thought and feelings on the topic?

/Kai

*Other than spikey haired protagonists, that's totally a JRPG thing. 

 

[Andar]

Used to play a long time ago, but due to its balancing problems switched to other rule systems and later started writing my own PnP-RPG-Rules.
Still do - but the latest variant of my PnP RPG rules is switching between "on hold" and "slowly worked on" due to medical problems.
Some of the work already done can be seen on rpgAvarion - DeviantArt (english, commissioned artwork) or www.avarion.de (old rule version, ca. 200 pages in German)

 

[Benjamin Kuli]

Oh, D&D. Some good ol' classic. I actually played a game or two, but switched to several other systems, then later decided to create our own worlds with the friends. Of course, we used some of these systems as "resources", but the whole idea, the creatures, and most of the classes and skills were created by us, and to be honest, it was really fun. I miss the times when we could play it with friends and I wish I could play at least once again.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

Played D&D starting with AD&D, and continuing through 3.5 when I realized "man, I don't actually like this system much." I have always played tons of other ttrpg systems as well (L5R, WoD, various Star Wars games etc. etc.), but somewhere around the end of 3.5's life I just realized how much I'd rather play those than D&D.

I played some 4e, and actually don't hate it, as its own thing. 5e is actually super solid and fun. But really I play tons of different systems, D&D just has the advantage of having lots of supplementary releases of premade adventures and monsters that make it fairly easy to run comparatively.

Systems I would rather run before 5e D&D (even though I think its a solid system):

FFG Star Wars

Fate Core

Marvel Heroic

Leverage the RPG

Mutant City Blues

Numenera

Legend of the Five Rings

Savage Worlds

 

[TherainED]

I have played DnD once with a couple of friends of mine in a con here.

And unfortunately didn't even get to finish that game. And I am saying unfortunately because it was way more entertaining that I thought.

Then again, It's kinda better to wait 4 months for a Manganime/Comic con, hope for short queues and pray there is some DnD table open, which is usually not. The other choice, one has to travel for an hour to get to a place where, if you're not an associate, you have to pay to enter and join a game, not to mention that to be an associate, you got to pay as well.

Apparently I'm that one that doesn't get why do you have to do at least one payment to be able to play a table game with some folks.

Oh, well. "Poderoso caballero es Don Dinero" I guess.

 

[Rhaeami]

I first heard of DnD from some of the video games that have been more directly based on it - i.e. actual DnD games, like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, though I've never gotten to play an actual game of the pen-and-paper version due to lack of opportunities.

I always find it interesting to look at older RPGs and see just how heavily they draw on DnD, particularly compared to modern ones.  Final Fantasy 1, for instance, made use of the spell level MP system, and actually used several iconic DnD creatures, such as Beholders, Mind Flayers, and (if I understand correctly) Bahamut himself.

But, yeah, many don't seem to be aware of DnD, or pen-and-paper RPGs in general.  For me, the topic most often comes up when people ask about why games are called "Role Playing Games".  Most assume that you have to "role play" in them for it to count, because that's what it says on the tin, when in reality even the name of the genre is a carry-over from tabletop stuff.

 

[Zanthia]

I play D&D 5e regularly at a local game store (the non video game kinds). I didn't think I could get into it at first, but it was a great way to interact with people who are like me of different ages. There are 5 or so groups that play at once and ours is the young group, (14-25 years old(they're not set up as age groups but people of similar ages tend to have similar play styles)) but it still opened up communication with people from different schools, people in uni, people in the workforce that I wouldn't be able to have casual conversation with on an equal playing field most of the time. 

I think a lot of writers, and RPG video game players would love to play it if it weren't for the masculine nerdy impression people get(think of all the table top RPG players you've seen in fiction, think about how many give a good impression of those TTRPGs). Anyway, D&D is really good, a little difficult to get into but I think it would benefit people a lot to try it out. 

 

[Jesse - PVGames]

I loved D&D. I think I started in the 2nd Edition and played through 3.5 but then that was it, all my friends stopped playing (this was around the end of high-school days). I miss those days, D&D was amazing.

 

[_Shadow_]

I played ADNd 2nd Edition back in the days. 

Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms were the settings I played.

I never played Ravenloft though.

Anyway then came 3rd edition and I really disliked it.

At the same time I discovered Vampire the Masquerade, a fantastic PnP RPG.

Then came World of Darkness setting that was nice, but Vampire Requiem was lame in my opinion.

And then I discovered G.U.R.P.S. (Steve Jackson's Generic Universal Role Play System). 

Imagine it as a cross platform system.

You can play DnD, Conan, Lensman, World of Darkness, Mage, Wraith (oh man I wanna play this one day), Werewolf.... whatever world you like. 

 

[Kaelan]

It's what got me into RPGs in the first place! Still remember spending weekend afternoons playing Vampire: The Masquerade w/ friends.

 

[captainproton]

Played D&D a few times in high school, but it got pretty tedious with all the math. It could have just been the DM, too.

In college, I found White Wolf games, and started playing in the World of Darkness series, particularly Changeling: The Dreaming and Mage: The Ascension. Most the structured P&P RPGs I played since were New World of Darkness blends; Vampires, Changelings, Mages, etc, all in the same setting.

Mostly, I play free-form forum/chat style rps.

 

[West_Winds]

I've never found anyone to play D&D with so I've never played. I have played a lot of the PC games based on it though and I love the forgotten realms. I DO play pen and paper and table top RPGs with friends. The first one I ever owned (But never found anyone willing to play) was Mage from the old WoD. I've played a lot of Vampire the Masqurade, and Victorian age Vampire. My friends and I are currently on hiatus from New WoD Changeling. I've played quite a few GURPS 4th edition campaigns and own the basic set. I have Shadowrun 4th editon but haven't had a chance to play, played some L5R. Played a nifty game called Victoriana.

 

[Jay_NOLA]

Started playing D&D back in 1977.

Joined the RPG in the mid 80s and built up a huge collection of RPGs.

Had my collection of RPGs get destroyed a few years back as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

I've had in the past the opportunity to hang out and talk to many old paper and pencil RPG designers in the past at local convention and got to ask numerous questions about game design, etc. with them.

I honestly don't like most modern RPGs and preferred my old school games

Currently I did get into  Labyrinth Lord which is retro clone of B/X D&D & AD&D.

You can download a free version of the rules at

http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html

The rules are mostly open source and a huge market of people making supplements ,etc. exists for it.in

I also have played Kuro, which is a horror game set in a futuristic cyperpunk Japan that has supernatural threats.  I'm also listed in the credits of the English version of Makkuro supplest for it.

The games I ran the most in the old days were Top Secret, Aftermath!, & Cyberpunk after I got tired of AD&D.  In the mid 90s I still was buying RPG stuff, but was very rarely running any games due to school, work, and the difficulty of getting players together on a regular basis

I also don't like the poor research, junk mechanics, and political correctest that has shown up in most modern RPGs and how this has ruined several games I used to like.

Google +"racism" +"D&D" and you'll get some blogs, etc. in which people complain about several things and make absurd in many cases claims about racism, etc. in D&D unfortunately these people are very vocal and they managed to get a good number of things changed in latter editions of D&D to fix preconceived racist things they found in D&D.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

@Jay_NOLA, curious what you think of 5e. Even the most grognardy community on the net that I know of (theRPGSite) generally admits that 5e is actually a solid game. Maybe not their preferred D&D, but very very playable.

I disagree on your assessment of modern RPGs in general. I think there are quite a lot of newer games that just suck, but also there are a good many old games that are terrible. There are a good many that shine as well, in both newer and older styles of design. (In fact, even with old school games, I would probably pick up a more recent game made in the old school vein such as LL, DCC, Arrows of Indra, ACKS, rather than pick up OD&D. They just tend to be better organized and more cohesive).

 

[West_Winds]

Speaking of table top games, do any of you play on virtual table top sites like Roll20.net?

 

[StrawberryFlower]

I've never had a chance to play until recently, when I convinced my BF and our Dev Team to play. With many mental disabilities we decided to play simple, based on one of the Adventure board games.

I also made up the world and races, because I knew certain friends would get a kick out of that.

We tend to play Saturdays, except not during IGMC 2015 right now.

Work work work!

 

[Jay_NOLA]

@Jay_NOLA, curious what you think of 5e. Even the most grognardy community on the net that I know of (theRPGSite) generally admits that 5e is actually a solid game. Maybe not their preferred D&D, but very very playable.

I disagree on your assessment of modern RPGs in general. I think there are quite a lot of newer games that just suck, but also there are a good many old games that are terrible. There are a good many that shine as well, in both newer and older styles of design. (In fact, even with old school games, I would probably pick up a more recent game made in the old school vein such as LL, DCC, Arrows of Indra, ACKS, rather than pick up OD&D. They just tend to be better organized and more cohesive).

I do agree that LL and the modern retro clones of older games as having much better organized than the older games they are emulating.  Most of the older games suffered from bad organization.

One other problem that does crops up often in a lot of older RPGs is overly complex rules and lots of sub systems to handle different things that are different .  (You get one system to handle hand to hand fighting, another for guns, another for  vehicles, etc.  which requires you to look around in various parts of the rules during game play One game I mentioned in my post has a 3 page flow chart just to help you with combat.

I haven't looked at 5e in detail so I can't give an opinion on it.  The last copy of D&D that I bought in book form was 1st edition AD&D years ago which I no longer have and I have no desire to spend money on a new edition.  (I do current have the 2nd edition Core Rules 2.0 & expansion software though.)

 

[BeardBro]

I used to play with a group of friends, but we could never take it seriously. Our adventures would usually include intercourse with ghosts, contracting phantasmal STDs, collecting cats, using alchemy to make nuclear weapons, and a whole bunch of other ridiculous stuff.


This is an accurate portrayal of our DnD adventures.

 

[LaFlibuste]

I used to back in highschool, it was 3.5 back then, but I eventually got to hate the system. It's too rule and math intensive. I haven't really experimented many systems, but I kinda like WoD. Although I almost never actually played it for any meaningful period of time, since I don't really have anybody to play with and don't really have the free time for it either. Also, finding a DM worth his salt is near-impossible.

 

[Omega Weapon]

I have played and ran some 4e in my early days at our Roleplaying association. However, I have recently moved on to stuff like FATE. For some stuff though, I'm learning WoD. My boyfriend has sparked my interest in OVA and Marvel Heroic Roleplay as well.

Also, If I wanted to run/play something DnD'esque, I'd go for 13th Age. Less restrictive DnD with roleplay built into the system. Look it up.