Sorry guys, I know I'm killing the uninitiated with this. Just wanted to report back on the Coates-Matthews family journey into the realm of swords and sorcery. All things considered, it went really, really well. We played Keep On The Borderlines but only made it to the Keep and then to the Southern wilderness--where Kenyatta (half-orc fighter and halfling thief) and Samori's characters (half-elf magic-user, human cleric) were promptly owned by a party of chaotic fighters. They did better than my first time in. My brother Malik was DM (I hope's reading this, don't know if he remembers) and my party was basically slaughtered by a mad hermit and his pet mountain lion. This was disturbing for many reasons. 1.) I was seven and had no idea what a hermit was. 2.) The hermit didn't even use weapons, he beat me with his bare hands 3.) I'd never played a game where characters actually died. I couldn't believe I had to roll another one.
One note of sadness--it's really depressing that so many of the intangibles of table-top RPGs have translated over to computers relatively poorly. I say this as a recovering World of Warcraft addict. (keeping my distance from Wrath of the Lich King.) The little non-combat things, like the importance of dialogue, the comprehension of various languages, the role of race, the exquisite customization, have all basically been shaved away. Part of that has to do with the limits of technology--I think you basically need AI to experience a D&D level of dynamism on a computer. In fact, it may be good that that hasn't happen. You think WoW is bad--a WoW that could truly envelop you like a good game of D&D would raise the divorce rate, the dropout rate and the bankruptcy rate in this country by a quarter.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
You make D&D sound sort of appealing. Hmm.
On a related note, Samori's popped collar is awesome.
Great pic, and thanks for the update! Quick question: to what extent was your interest in FRP's related to an interest in fantasy literature? Did you read Tolkien or Lewis (ugh, but other people like LWW I guess) or Susan Cooper as a kid? Has Samori read The Hobbit or read/seen Harry Potter?
I see palace of the silver queen and is that the betrayal with the blue cover? Can't quite remember it. Keep was a classic...remember the goblins and kobolds etc. Good times.
You're rolling (ha!) old, old school. just need to see the hold hardcover players and DM guide!
He saw the three Lord Of the Rings pics, and that was it. He read the Epic of Sundiata this summer, which has some African fantasy elements. I may get him The Hobbit. Right now he's reading something called The Fire Within. I picked up for him while I was out of town. He says its great.
The blue cover is Isle of Dread by the way.
Oh, that picture makes me smile. Having half a dozen oddly shaped dice spread out in front of him would have put the cherry on top though.
You can download a bunch of these classic modules for the Neverwinter Nights computer games. I played the Neverwinter Nights 2 version of Keep on the Borderlands a couple of months ago. It was fun, but definitely would have been better with someone other than just me.
You may or may not be killing the uninitiated, but I'm loving it. Keep us posted.
WoW has really only scratched the surface of what's going to be possible in online RPG's. They have a rather formulaic success that satisfies the character progression/loot/adventure foundations of traditional tabletop RPG's. But if they take that foundation, add a more sandbox-like environment and a few more elements for the RP'ers, they could well advance things significantly.
Magic User? What's wrong with "magician?"
I guess we should start referring to our own military as jet users, tank users, and memo users.
Paul Camp -- Magic User? What's wrong with "magician?"
Because "Magic User" is the old school D&D vernacular? IIRC, it's the broad group that would later specialize into wizards, illusionists, etc.
"Magic User? What's wrong with "magician?"
I guess we should start referring to our own military as jet users, tank users, and memo users."
Not sure how it was in OD&D, but in third edition, you have the division between Arcane and Divine magic. Within Arcane magic, you have (in the core ruleset) Bards, Sorcerers, and Wizards, none of which is exactly the same as the other. Within Divine magic, you have Clerics, Druids, Rangers, and Paladins - again, none of which is exactly the same. "Magician" really doesn't capture what any of those classes can do, so it usually isn't used. (You also have special distinctions like "full casters," but that's getting technical).
Heh, Keep on the Borderlands was the first adventure I did as well... back when I was probably 8 or so... in my after school daycare actually. I think we got pwned by some kobolds or something else equally embarassing in retrospect about 10 minutes into the adventure.
I'm not much of a collector, but I think original 1981 D&D modules like those should actually be worth something. I'd treat them well if I were you ;)
I have to say that no matter what you else you may write around here or what your opinions may be on any given topic, for being a D&D geek, you will always be on my list of "the good guys."
Keep rollin' the dice, brother. Keep rollin'.
That is fantastic!!!
So what did he think? This may sound like a strange thing to say, but I do not think that I would have grown up as well adjusted (at least I think so) and as happy without the influence of D&D. It gave me a creative and imaginative out away from the cruel, ignorant and bullying group of kids in my neighborhood and the confusion of parents from NYC raising a child in the Dante like depths of rural suburbia. I ended up playing with another friend of mine and we never got too caught up in some of the rules (encumbrance anyone?), or the potential personality splitting obsession (Mazes and Monsters? Go Tom Hanks!!!), but it was the game and the stories that mattered - and they were awesome.
I wanted to make a quick comment re: some earlier postings about starting a group in Harlem and how D&D is a white game, etc... I think people would find that trying to sell D&D to a group of white school kids would be about as difficult. You think people thought I was the bomb because my paladin could make short work of lesser demons or that I could differentiate between a Hill Giant a Frost Giant and Fire Giant and probably tell you what their base damage was? Let me tell you, it especially went over well with jocks and cute girls. But I bet you could find the same creative, maybe not the coolest in the class, awkward kids in either school who would have a blast playing it. It also wasn't marketed to urban black children back in the day. And I will second the comment that I walk into gaming stores in NYC and there all races/colors of people (kids and adults) playing games at the tables in the back. I say try it and see what happens.
I know you do not want D&D overload here, but if you make it to the supremely masterful (no bias here either) giant-underworld-drow series you NEED to start another blog and detail that journey. I can't think of anything more intense than those 6/7 modules. It's probably kind of frightening (and I can hear my earlier "well adjusted" comment getting laughed at now), but I can still remember details from those modules 25 years after the fact. I have always thought about doing those again some day...but things like a successful relationship with a female and a job prohibit me from pursuing that line...for now.
In all seriousness - good for you and your son. I hope you both enjoy it.
I know you do not want D&D overload here,
I'd be okay with overload! Great picture by the way. I love that claw thing he's doing with his left hand.
Y'know, while the depth of play of a "pen & paper" RPG blows games like WoW out of the water, the best thing about them continues to be the camaraderie. I've met some really great people through D&D and had a lot of fun in the process. I'm glad to see it works that way for your family as well.
Holy crap is that a cute kid. Good work, man.
When EverQuest first hit the scene back in 1999 or 2000 there were a lot of minor role-playing elements that were picked up from D&D-type games and incorporated into EQ because, well, those were the types of things that role-playing games were supposed to have. Stuff like needing enough food and drink in your bags before you set off to see the world. Different races speaking in different languages.
As time marched on the game designers became less and less interested in features whose sole purpose related to role-playing, and they started eliminating these features to the extent they were seen as an annoyance to the actual gameplay. Food and drink became something you would consume to give yourself bonus stats, not just a role-playing feature with no real purpose.
You saw much the same thing in WoW, where the game had a number of features at release that were appealing to the role-playing people but annoying to the computer gaming people. The gamers always win in the end, and so these role-playing features got eliminated. One of the most obvious examples from both EQ and WoW is transportation - game designers always want to make it tough to get around the world, to give the game an epic feel and to impress upon you the massive size of the world they've created, but gamers basically just want to get to wherever they need to be. So games always have laborious transportation systems when they get released - the sort of thing where you stand there for 10 minutes waiting for a ferry to arrive - and as time goes on, they add more and more streamlined methods of getting around until it's like you basically click a portal stone and you're there.
So anyway, getting back to the point of the post, that's why roleplayers always find games like EQ and WoW unsatisfying to some degree in the end. What you want as a roleplayer - the little details and nuance that give you the feeling you're really there - are simply different from what the button-pushing gamer types want, and there are more of them than there are of you. So the designers may start out with a role-playing mentality, but they always end up catering to the gamers one way or another.
Disclaimer; I'm joking here.
But you can't discuss something like D&D being played in the 1980s without this being referenced:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3njjD41f48
Disclaimer; I'm joking here.
But you can't discuss something like D&D being played in the 1980s without this being referenced:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3njjD41f48
Now, I agree mostly with what you say about MMORPG's, but have you tried the solo games 'Planescape Torment' or the 'Fallout' series? Fantastic CRPGs! The story, characterizations, and moral decsion making in both games is fantastic (especially so in Planescape: Torment). Fallout 3 comes out soon. My wife is not happy about that.
And I have just gotten into WoW. The chat channels are full of 3rd graders it seems. :(
THIS IS AWESOME!!
Please keep the updates coming. I spent a good deal of my formative years wandering around the keep on the Borderlands and sneaking throught the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief...and greatly enough burning those damn slave pits of the undercity down!!
This is fun...I think it's awesome you are introducing your son and wife to this...
This is great. The same thing happened to me.
I tried playing Planescape a few months back since I'd heard so many good things about it. I think I got about 1/2-way through and then got bored. Basically, my wife was in the next room, and I felt like talking to someone. That's when I figured out what I miss with CRPG's: hanging out (which is, after all, what non-troll people do in blog comments). And so I've starting playing tabletop RPG's again after a 16-year hiatus, and at the same time I started reading Coates' blog. Coincidence? Probably not.
You're not a recovering WoW addict; you just haven't yet started playing again.
It would be nice if Blizzard did make character racials and sex differences matter more. One thing they could do for a more dynamic experience would be to randomize the layouts of the instances and the placement of mobs in them. The old Rogue/Moria/Angband/netHack games had randomized dungeon levels and they were all ASCII-based.
This is a great installment...there is hope for keeping the lifestyle alive so to speak.
Does anyone else have fond memories of the West End Star Wars rpg? Some thought the rules were too simplistic, but I would take them any day over the D&D rules which could, in the wrong hands, and with the wrong DM cloud the storytelling--which was and should always be at the heart of a campaign. Thinking back, Shadowrun always seemed to have a nice balance in that regards--enough rules, with good flexibility, and a really rich gaming universe.
Speaking of overly complicated--Battletech (like Robotech) was a great universe but utterly unplayable--which is why it ironically would make a great computer game, and lackluster rpg, given the mecha and the universe's back story.
Cd
Magic User? What's wrong with "magician?"
A magician is someone who uses slight-of-hand and misdirection to pull a rabbit out of his hat.
A Magic User may pull something out of his hat, but what he pulls out levels your whole village.
Please keep the updates coming.
I love hearing about this.
Also, in terms of computer RPGs, if you are looking for insane levels of customization, check out Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.
The character creation is very in depth in both the appearance and the abilities of your character.
There's lots of online D&D hangouts these days, speaking of hanging out.
wizards.com - official site
enworld.org - user forums
giantitp.com - web comic and forums
thecbg.org - campaign building forums, IRC
Dozens more...
"giantitp.com"
Order of the Stick! Awesome comic, and terrific forums. They have another comic on the main site too now, "Erfworld." I second this recommendation!
Bah. All this talk about MMORPGs, Warcraft, NWN, EverQuest, and none of you younguns played Ultima Online? N00bs.
Seriously though, Ta-Nehisi, what you're doing is really great, and I'm looking forward to reading more of it.
I don't think there are very many recovering WoW addicts. You either are an addict, or you are not.
As an ex-addict, I didn't force myself to stop playing; I just noticed that it had been a two days since I thought about logging in, then a couple of weeks, then 6 months went by... When I tried to force myself to quit, I'd be back in three days.
In my personal experience, my desire to play crashed once I got a job I liked, and then died once I bought a house and had something approaching a life (whereas in my WoW heyday I was spinning my wheels in school counting the days to graduation and being poor as f***).
Not to generalize, but basically I stopped caring about WoW when my real life stopped sucking.
I could get into a MMORPG that wasn't modeled after an infinite series of carrots on a hamster wheel. But then would it really be an MMORPG?
Toxic,
That's basically what happened to me. I got a pretty big freelancing assignment (for this magazine, no less) and had the first draft of my manuscript due. I kept thinking, "Man if eff this up for WoW, I will shoot myself." That was almost a year ago. Haven't been back. But I do hear the call. I mostly miss my friends.
The social aspect is probably the biggest thing, but you can always hop on vent or call them or w/e. If they are really your friends, they'd enjoy the occasional call.
I think Blizzard is trying to allow people who no longer feel the need to be involved in a virtual life to play the game and have fun, but eh. If you aren't going to go full bore the game doesn't have a lot to offer.
I finally gave up on AD&D because no one I knew *role* played but rather *roll* played.
KoDT sure brings back some fun memories though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_the_Dinner_Table
Tabletop role-playing brings up a sort of magic--especially when playing with kids--that the cold world of MMORPGs can never match.
I'm in the Wrath of the Lich King beta, and other than the starting Death Knight quest chain being really cool, you're not missing a thing. Don't come back, WotLK isn't going to make me renew my real account, that's for sure.