It makes me sad that all the while the author played role playing games, he never got over a misguided feeling of shame.

Look where you are now. Imagine who the people are who created and expanded this internet where your living is made. Were they vapid drunks or were the around the table late at night, pilfering jewels from some wizard?

I think an honest examination should lead to the conclusion that either gaming creates creativity in people who then go on to invent and innovate or there is some other casual factor that leads to both creativity and alienation.

I agree whole-heartedly. I'm a professional in my twenties and I STILL play D&D, and I do so without shame. This I do every Saturday afternoon, after which we all get dressed up and go out to clubs and bars and drink and dance and make small talk like normal people. And guess what, me and my fellow gamers all have careers in the entertainment industry, where we turn fantasy and creativity into consumable products, and make cold hard cash doing so.

I agree as well. I played D&D as a younger child, and moved into wargames. Now, I'm a veteran, an attorney, love mixed martial arts fighting (to the horror of some), and play the online version of D&D. I wear my 'Lawful Good is Lawful GREAT!" T-shirt with pride.

Enh, I understand. It may be socially acceptable to be "square" today, but that wasn't really the case 15-20 years ago. Everybody likes to wear nerdy glasses today and the IT guy is a lot cooler now than in the day.

You shouldn't be ashamed of your inner geek but lets not pretend that we've had an open and loving society toward intellectuals and the unhip.

I played D&D through most of my last two years of high school and well into my 20s, and the only real reason I quit was that the gang I played with fell apart (college, marraiges, professional moves -- it got hard to get the gang together for several hours on Friday or Saturday).

The wierd thing is, with the possible exception of myself, my crowd wasn't geeks -- we were rural redneck kids, but completely social at school and in our peer groups. We just liked the role playing aspect of the game, and the chance to explore new maps and have new adventures -- I think everyone of us is now an avid video gamer, and we're all in our 40s now.

I never carried any shame for playing D&D - it brought me hours of enjoyment with people who are still my closest friends.

I never played in high school, and that didn't stop me from being a geek with all attached stigma (until someone needs homework help, right?). I have played as a 20-something working professional, and I can happily state that in our gaming group single people were in the minority, no one lived in their parents' basement, most of us were musicians and/or artists, travel, kick-ass at work...all the hallmarks of well-adjusted individuals, right? No shame!

The 'geeks are COOL' shift really kicked into gear when I was in college, I think - and it certainly IS a shift. Video games and the current rise of fantasy in the movies, not to mention the career choices for computer savvy nerds, has made geekdom much more acceptable to the mainstream.

I think the author's latent shame is because they stopped playing in highschool. Highschool is all about feeling uncool. Maybe if they'd kept going, they would have eventually leveled up enough to make their saving roll against shame.

I have no idea when you were in college, but the "cool geeks" phenomenon is ridiculously easy to date. It happened when the web boom did, and suddenly geeks were becoming millionaires and even billionaires overnight.

Which in a way, of course, is pretty sad. Suddenly geeks had dates with hot girls, but only because they had money, or the possibility of it.

"Which in a way, of course, is pretty sad. Suddenly geeks had dates with hot girls, but only because they had money, or the possibility of it."

It's no worse than getting dates just because you're good looking or "well-endowed."

Both reasons are pretty shallow.

Thanks, malcalypse, for putting my same misgivings about the author, who I get the sense is trying to explain the appeal of dnd to an audience he (perhaps rightly) assumes is skeptical, without coming across to that skeptical audience as one of those 'geeks' himself.

Anyway, I feel no shame for my past AD&D habit, and I don't share the same hesitation of the author in declaring it a legitimate social activity, even if it never becomes mainstream.

Like Gygax and the author, I do lament it's change from team-centric play to individual play, and from p&p play to computer play. Even if playing with a group online, or playing through an amazing storyline in the Black Isle games, I've found it's really no substitute for a good DM and friends at someone's house.

maroci:

..."cool geeks" phenomenon is ridiculously easy to date. It happened when the web boom did, and suddenly geeks were becoming millionaires and even billionaires overnight.

For adults, maybe - it takes more time to trickle down to adolescents and teens! I was in HS for the boom, finished up just with the bust, and I can promise that geeks weren't cool - it took awhile for pop culture to catch up! In the years directly after that, geek 'culture' (gaming, fantasy lit and cinema, etc) became much more in - I could see it watching younger sibs and friends go through the meat grinder school system. Not that any of it matters once you're out in the real world - too bad the columnist didn't realise that! Stop geek appologists!

And yes, isn't it lovely that it takes a boatload of money to make people realise that intelligence might be a good quality?

Amen. I didn't pick up on pen-and-paper RPG's until college, so I missed out on that experience.

I still play D&D weekly, and dabble in a couple other systems. All of my "gamer friends" have decent jobs; most of us graduated college; about half of us are married (to other gamers, though some of the "gamer wives" have picked up the dice in self-defense, I think), and a few have started families.

It hasn't lead to any great works of art from us, but D&D has lead to various pieces of fiction (Writing for fun! Who knew that our comp. sci. guy would do that?), as well as campaigns focused on story and character, as opposed to "hack, slash, and loot!" The character backgrounds we write up vary from shallow to ten-page soap operas. It also is a way to meet new people, which as a shy introvert, I value.

And if people want to call me a geek or a dork for my pass time, so be it. IMHO, people spend too much time evading their inner dork instead of embracing it.

I prefered dating the "geeks" and still date "geeks". I was never classified as a "geek" myself.

Hmm, I think I feel old now. I am and always have been quite at ease to claim D&D and role-playing in general as a part of my hobbies. I started playing in 1978.. yeah there is some old school for people. {I currently have dice older than some of my players..eek} Like we all noticed, gamers were in the not cool list, yet, gaming has appealled to people of all walks of life and interests. In these nearly 30 years I have played and ran games, I have had people of all HS stereotypes, and walks of lives play. Even when the 'cool' older brother and his friends stood around attempting to show we were geeks, it was rare that after twenty mintues those very same people were not sitting there playing with the rest of us. Its far more than just a form of social acceptance for those who desire more than a drunken haze, its not even about its geek factor, read the 25th anniversary book, and note all the famous, and very 'cool' hollywood types who wrote forwards for it. D&D and all its children, or spawn, speak to human creativity, imagination, and need to express themselves. It truly is, this age's version of sitting around the fire telling stories. That is why it has lasted this long, its why it will continue. Besides, where else except the movie the Breakfast Club could one possibly find such diverse personalities sitting together civily, and even friendly? That we all grow from our geek roots to someone respectable in the world however, that I am not so sure on. For every lead programmer for a clinic (me), there are fast food workers at 30, 28 year olds living in mom's basement, people in institutions, mental and criminal, artists, scientists (never never play a scifi RPG with the professors of a science department....) on and on the list goes. We all, all people role-play much of the day, some of us, just decide to count the experience.... How profound... but then its late, and I still have to make a character for this weekend.. Gary, I hope you find your own piece of Olympus, and enjoy the rest of the game.

I began playing D&D in 1980, as a 30-something newly divorced mom with a very sad & angry 10-year-old gifted son. I still play my (now) 12th level fighting cleric with him, his friends, and other family members. D&D gave us a bond, an outlet, and the opportunity to transform our scary emotions into something positive and ennobling. I'm looking forward to introducing my grandchildren to the game - whether it's tabletop or CGI. Gary Gygax's imagination got us through some very emotionally turbulent times, and enriched our lives. if that makes us geeks, then I wear the Geek Gramma badge proudly. Brynna of Gard has another hero to emulate.