Portrait of an Older Geek Learning to Play D&D (1982)

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?

9 Responses to “Portrait of an Older Geek Learning to Play D&D (1982)”

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1 Jason January 8, 2014 at 5:09 pm

Probably just a split second which the camera happened to capture, but that facial expression looks *seriously* defeated…

- 2 2W2N January 8, 2014 at 5:39 pm
  
  “How did I get myself into this? What the hell does ‘roll for initiative’ mean?”
  
  - 3 Jason January 8, 2014 at 6:35 pm
    
    “This thing reads like stereo instructions…”
    
4 Don Gates January 9, 2014 at 2:37 pm

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…

- 5 2W2N January 9, 2014 at 9:39 pm
  
  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.
  
  - 6 Don Gates January 12, 2014 at 4:27 pm
    
    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.
    
7 newwavepop January 26, 2014 at 8:53 am

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.