RPG Storytime - Dungeons & Dragons

The first weekly episodes of RPG Storytime had to be the classic where it all began: Dungeons & Dragons.  And what better adventures to do than some of the early classics from back in the '70s and '80s when I first began playing?

I've taken these adventures from my childhood and adjusted them to fit into my current world of Angepa.  I'm hoping to tie it all together as one large world where everything connects.

One of these D&D series is Indiana Jane & the Lost City.

https://rpgstorytime.buzzsprout.com/1015516/3380611-dungeons-dragons-indiana-jane-the-lost-city-episode-1

The Great Dungeons & Dragons Scare of the 1980s

One of the most absurd and even comical scares in history was that over Dungeons & Dragons in the early '80s.  The game had been released a few years before, and many kids of my generation were fascinated by the imaginative nature of it.

I remember first walking into my cousin's bedroom to find a bunch of pencils and paper and strange looking dice around the floor.  I asked where the game was and they said that was it.  I didn't get it until about halfway through the game when I started picturing everything in my mind.  Our whole party got killed, (that often happened in first edition,) but I was blown away by the possibilities.

Of course, since it became popular, the parents all had to panic over it, especially the religious ones, which was the community my family lived among.  I even went to a religious school, and there were outcries for the books to be burned or buried and for kids to stay away from the evil.  God forbid any of them should actually do any research and learn what D&D actually was.

There was even a TV movie made about it starring Tom Hanks in his very first ever role where he loses his mind to the game.  I was excited to watch it thinking it was going to be a D&D story made into a movie.  You know, something productive.  But instead it warned about a danger that didn't exist.  News specials followed, and warnings to parents.  Of course, none of them actually did any research into what was going on.

Even 60 Minutes fell for the hype, doing a whole special where they described kids who had been "hooked" to the game that killed themselves.  In every instance the kids had other problems, such as substance abuse or child abuse problems, or sometimes poverty or something like that.  But no, it's the game that's the problem.

I didn't realize until recently how much of this was a generational gap issue.  It took me a long time to accept the fact that the Baby Boomer generation is simply the laziest and most judgmental in a long time.  They are absolutely the type of generation that would see something unusual and, rather than learn about it, they just pass judgment on it.  Far from the social change generation they pretend to be, they were the generation that expected conformity, and adjusted the change worse than anyone.

The '70s and '80s were a period of fearing the unknown.  The Cold War was winding down.  Terrorism and the ambiguous war in Vietnam left people uncertain who and what to trust.  That mixed with the strong religious ties that generation had made for a mixture of manufactured fears.  Additionally, being a pre-internet time, learning the truth, or countering rumors took effort that was hard for anyone to do, especially a generation of entitled people who didn't want to do any research.

And thus, the fear mongering of D&D took hold, giving it the Satanic reputation it had.  This video below gives an even better in-depth description of this fear, and of the generation gap that caused it.

RPG Into a Book

I’ve been thinking about the role playing video idea and I know what I want to do with it.  First, I want to do my own version.  It won’t likely have as good of production value as Wil Wheaton’s, but I plan on doing something he didn’t; use miniatures.  This will bring over what I’ve already collected for my mini-wargaming show, and will hopefully bring over that audience.  It will also give a separate voice from other rpg videos already out there.  It should also look really cool.

But what will also make this endeavor work is the idea that I could make a book based on the story at the end.  The videos can generate an audience which is then drawn to the book at the end, because it’s the story they just watched unfold.  What’s more, I have had this idea for a fantasy world for a long time, but I didn’t have a specific story put together.  This will fill in that all-important part while giving me the chance to fulfill this desire to build my fantasy world.

I’ve also determined that sci fi and fantasy are a lot more likely to sell in self-publishing, and have determined to focus on that from now on, so this fits with my overall plan more anyway.

A New Form of Storytelling Through Roleplaying Videos

When I first learned about the concept of a roleplaying game in the 1970s, I was confused.  How could you have a game with no board, no cards, no pieces even?  I was blown away when I learned how Dungeons and Dragons worked, and how it was a story being made up by several people sitting in a room together.

There are many people who have forgotten this concept, and turn role playing games into mathematical equations, (also referred to as roll playing.)  But the people who truly understand the concept know that it’s about creating characters and a story and everyone making it together.

I always knew the strength of using this to create stories and even books, or even as inspiration to make a movie.  What hadn’t occurred to me until recently is how the medium itself can be used to create a storytelling video; one where you do not use the story as a script, but rather you show the people creating the story to begin with.

This has been achieved with Wil Wheaton’s Titan’s Grave where he and four players create a story by playing a role playing game and taping it with a professional crew.  What’s groundbreaking about this is the fact that it’s not used as the structure for the story, but rather is the story.  The concept of a storyteller has of course been around for eons, and has been popularized the last few decades on A Prairie Home Companion.  This takes that concept and increases it by five in the way it has five storytellers all doing it together, and you get to see the story form in front of you.  It’s made all the more exciting by the fact that the end is not predetermined.  Characters can die, and the party can even lose in the end.  It’s a mixture of a story and a sporting event all in one.  And the fact that it’s low budget means they’re less likely to pander.

I’m looking to do my own role playing videos as soon as I can; thus mixing the three things I enjoy most, storytelling, gaming, and videos.  I have several I want to do, including D&D, Outbreak, Savage Worlds, Star Wars, and Deadlands, which has already been started, but without cameras.