Boston, Massachusetts, March 19, 1982. (Photo: Unknown)
Probably from a Boston Herald story, the caption reads:
Chris Magliaccio, who helped organize the Dungeons and Dragons tournament at Museum of Science, playing the game. For the first time, I might add.
D&D tournaments were fairly common at museums of science in the early ’80s. You’ll recall this ad for a tournament in Miami. The game appealed to the kids who liked science because both enterprises are systems of knowledge organized around testable explanations.
I was more creative than analytical, so I enjoyed the fantastic, narrative aspect: building characters, adventures, exotic weapons, inescapably deadly dungeons, etc. That’s the genius of D&D, really. It captures both sides of the brain.
Good luck learning to play in such a short time, Chris. Can you see the beads of sweat on his forehead?
Probably just a split second which the camera happened to capture, but that facial expression looks *seriously* defeated…
“How did I get myself into this? What the hell does ‘roll for initiative’ mean?”
“This thing reads like stereo instructions…”
I never got to play D&D thanks to the “you’ll go crazy like Tom Hanks!” moral furor. I do own a few of the books and other RPGs, though, and always feel like if I actually DID get around to playing, I’d be sweating a hell of a lot too…
We can try to get an online game going. I’ve been thinking about that. But we’d need an experienced DM to organize it.
That sounds intriguing. I’m not sure how it would work, though. I tried a play-by-email thing once and it was fun- more like collaborative fiction.
that picture reminds me of my dad. same beard and glasses. in 82 I was 10 and my dad would have been 49 and we had been playing dungeons and dragons for about a year. my dad worked at a truck stop and he was friends with one of the managers there, and that managers son was in college and was in dungeons and dragons. and we rented a house together, my father was a big Tolkien fan and tabletop gaming fan so our room mate taught us how to play. I miss those days.