Yes, I played Dungeons and Dragons in the 1970s, and it was exactly as the Dead Alewives portray it, right down to the guy always cruising for munchies.
(via Dr Bushwell)
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I was a D&D (Okay, it was AD&D) in the early nineties. The random rolls combined with the rules made it quite enjoyable. The only reason I don't still do it is because most of the people I gamed with were more interested in gaining power than actually having any fun. When one of your DMs got an idea for how our characters could "become" deities, I quit.
Honestly, I think I know why religions "ban" their congregation from playing. If they did play, they'd find out how God(s) is/are supposed to work.
-Berzebub
Oops... I was a D&D (Okay, it was AD&D) player in the early nineties.
DM: You enter a frightening room full of what appears to be animotronic dragons with people riding them. There are also a bunch of zombies wandering around, looking at the fake dragons.
PC1, a Fighter: Are the zombies attacking us?
DM: No. They don't appear to notice you. One of them is handing out fliers... and it's smiling.
PC2, a Wizard: That's creepy! I take a flier from the zombie.
PC1: I'm looking for an exit as I draw my sword!
DM: Wizard, the zombie begins to talk to you. You feel woozy, like your mind is being drained away. You lose 2 Intelligence points. Roll two d10 and add six.
PC2: Wtf!? No way! Don't I get a saving roll?
DM: No. Do you look at the flier?
PC2: This is stupid! Stupid! I... yeah, why not? I look at the flier. Am I dead now? ::pouts::
DM: No, you're not dead. But now you know that you've entered the Cursed Museum of Creationism and that your party is facing Ham Zombies. It's kind of like a room full of not-so-bright Mind Flayers.
PC1: I attack the zombies!
DM: You're sword is useless. The zombies start murmuring things like, "Atheist" and "Darwinist" as they close in on you.
PC3, a Scientist, sub-class Biologist: Okay, I start berating them with rationality, logic and facts that contradict their reality!
...
Later....
PC1: Man... That was hairy. But they weren't so tough once you [talking to PC3] attacked them. Good going. You're the man!
PC2: Yeah, but it was uber-creepy when that Bloated Behe appeared. What was he, anyway? Some kind of Undead King? I thought he'd be harder to kill than the zombies, though.
DM: You guys still had to run from the Museum.
PC3: Yeah, and the Bloated Behe and zombies will return. We'll have to find a way to defeat them. Maybe on their plane of origin....
DM: You mean Genesis? That's a hard fight. You'll need to level up a few more times before you can even think about it. But I do have a hint for you all.
PCs in unison: What is it?
DM: Education. Keep studying. Keep reading. Keep learning. And take your P-Zed dagger with you. You'll need it in order to get past the zombie hordes that guard the Tower of DI.
PC2: I want a Dawkins.
This was actually the sountrack of an animated sketch using characters from a gripping PC game called The Summoner. The story went as follows:-Born with the mark of the Summoner, Joseph possesses a power greater than emperors and gods. As a child, he summoned a demon to save his village, and watched in horror as those he loved were destroyed. Nine years later, the armies of Orenia invade, and Joseph must confront the prophecy he was born to fulfil. It, if I remember rightly, was only activated on actual completion of the game, as little (well earned, it was a tough game) humorous reward. I am sure it will be remade many times into the future, a true classic.
Jesus saves, all others take full damage.
(stolen from a thread at Pooflingers Anonymous)
The "Summoner" promo video (done by the Summoner/Red Faction development team) using this audio can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYO1j2Vhztc
but the sketch existed prior to that, too. It was part of a comedy CD they did way way way the heck back in 1996.
Like everything else of moderate renown and questionable import, there's a Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Alewives
Heh...I played D&D about 3 hours ago. Ah the memories...
I'm playing tomorrow, actually.
Yeah, D&D is still just like that. AD&D, D&D 3.0, and OSd20 (the open source D&D) are all still like that. You should see what Whitewolf is like. That's why I'm a GURPS man now. ^_^
ah yes, I remember those days... only the video didn't get it QUITE right. Seems to me it was a half dozen or so people on a crowded dorm room floor, trying not to sit in the day old pizza boxes from the night before (when the campaign started). I don't recall there being any roomy kitchen nearby, but there was soda (and the occasional beer)in the bathtub, and a few warm ones scattered around the room. Since there was a deli downstairs that sold almost nothing but elephant ear pastries, there was plenty of those on hand, and on occasion someone would make their way down to the lobby and grab a few things out of the vending machines.
oh, and there's the time I decided to bake for the gang in the little kitchen shared by all the suites on the floor, and forgot about the stuff in the oven in the excitement of the campaign until the firemen came to evacuate the dorm...
I concur. It's still pretty much exactly like that. Wonderfully, our White Wolf games were exactly the same, but the characters had different names.
I also played D&D in the 70's and our games weren't exactly like that. We had girls.
Well, one girl.
I stopped role playing the instant my high school 'friends' decided to start playing a Vampire LARP 24 hours a day. I got a really sick of my character being 'attacked' when I was sitting in class doing school work.
Yes, well-- that's why some of us prefer to play Call Of Cthulhu and Paranoia.
Yes! I love that cartoon, have known it for years.
I didn't play D&D, but I did have a friend just like the redhead there. "Where's the cheetohs?! Does anybody want some Mountaain Dew?!"
Another funny D&D toon can be found Here, at Newgrounds. VERY NSFW, but not that dirty either. Lots of cursing.
D&D was a gateway game for me back in the late 70's/early 80's. Soon I was losing my sanity after being transformed into a proto-shoggoth and vomiting dead sailors out of cruise ship port-holes, designing a superhero character (monkey-boy) that was actually three escaped monkeys from a government research lab in a bio-mechanical human suit who worked as a 7-11 clerk by day, and fighting imaginary communists with the incredibly dangerous gadgets thrust upon me by a drug addled R&D department. Ah the nerdy days of my youth...
I think the Dead Alewives merely recorded the theme song. I have the psychic flash that they hail from the shores of Lake Michigan.
I played D&D precisely once... though I had pretty good Tolkein/SF cred at the time, I was fortunate to have other obsessions. This would have been...heh...1978. As I recall, I rolled dice to determine my character's attributes and came up with max courage and minimum intelligence. So I named myself Sgt. Rock and went blundering violently into every situation. After about 2 hours of incredible bloodshed and general dungeon- splattering misadventure, I was myself slain by some nefarious Magicke and that was my D&D career.
I am such a Neanderthal that I still object to the word "game" as a verb.
and, uh...what's a "lolcat macro"?
Hai! I can has cheezbuger plz? Kthnxbai!
* Translation: Visit http://icanhascheezburger.com to learn about Lolcats. Happycat will be happy.
Feh. D&D is passe. Exalted is where it's at now!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exalted
Exalted also has a great explanation for "If God loves us, why is there evil in the world?" The answer: The gods are junkies who spend all their time lounging in a Jade Pleasure Dome and don't really give a damn about the world as long as nobody takes away their cosmic crack pipe.
LOLcats are those captioned, humorous pictures of cats. They are image macros, which combine a picture with overlaid text. There's a Web site called LolCat Buildr,
which, co-incidentally, I described here because I've just discovered it. And now you can start making your own: LOL scientists.
You can use their images (tons are uploaded daily) or upload one of your own. Here's a direct link to the site LolCat Buildr.
Speaking of being under a technological rock, I've just discovered that one can buy waterproof MP3 players for aquafitness.
Even at Extreme range, a Twelfth Level Elvish Mage vaporizes when hit by a FGMP-14 round.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_(role-playing_game)
fusilier
James 2:24