[Lil' Hannah]

D&D casts life-long spell
By Manuelita Beck
Published: Thursday, October 21, 2004


I don't remember her name, but I remember she was a red-headed druid.

It was the first time I ever played Dungeons & Dragons, and I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't understand what the statistics stood for, what the jargon meant, or why I needed all that funny-shaped dice.

Maybe it was my 10 years of Catholic school, but I was also pretty uncomfortable about playing. A child of the '80s, I still remembered the pamphlets about how D&D players were satanic.

But I was also the kind of kid who read J.R.R. Tolkien's Silmarillion before the age of 12. I would play "Star Wars" and act out parts from the movies with my friends - even if I whined about being forced to be Princess Leia.

To this day, I still don't consider "You're the only girl" to be a valid reason for anything.

When my then-boyfriend mentioned playing Dungeons & Dragons, I was hesitant to agree. But I was already playing "Daggerfall," a computer role playing game, and my boyfriend had just sucked me into a "Magic: The Gathering" obsession, so tabletop role-playing games were probably the next logical step.

I don't know what I expected from that first night of gaming - sacrificial knives, creepy robes, chanting - but I never thought I would still be doing it six years later.

In hindsight, my redhead wasn't a very good character. For one, everyone else already knew what character class they wanted to play. Because I was new to the game, it was "suggested" I play a character with healing spells so the group would have a healer.

For another, it took me a really long time to learn how to fight. It was months before I could remember which spells did and did not affect my armor class, the statistic that determined how hard it was to hit my character.

But I still remember that first game night. It was when we introduced "the God factor" - the term for when the cat bats your dice around after you roll it.

Until my job called me away on Sundays, I gamed with a group of friends every week. Two of them were at that very first gaming session of mine. It's no accident that they are probably my oldest friends.

While the stereotype of D&D players is not flattering, to say the least, I've always found it to be more of a social activity. I've had conversations about everything from episodes of "South Park" to "Shark Week" to the downfall of WorldCom over dice and character sheets.

Dungeons & Dragons celebrated its 30th anniversary on Saturday. According to a CNN article, 4 million people play D&D regularly.

I remember when gaming was a "weird" thing - something only the geeky kids did. But thanks to the mainstream success of fantasy-genre things such as "The Lord of the Rings" movies and the Final Fantasy video games, the geeky stuff in life is actually pretty popular.

I may still get made fun of, but at least I know I have a lot of company - with more on the way.

Now that D&D is 30 years old, the people who've played it all their lives will be able to pass it on to their kids.

I know someone who's been playing D&D since he was a 7-year-old. He has a whole binder full of character sheets from his childhood, and stories about the friends he gamed with.

He introduced me to gaming when we were dating. We're now married, as are some of our other gaming friends. One couple already has a child, and I can't imagine him growing up without throwing around some dice here and there.