![]() Two, the game I found was set in a fictional world already declared “safe” by my Dad and Mom and peers. ![]() One, the game I found allowed me to pretend to be a character in a fictional story I had already come to enjoy. Notice three reasons I was attracted to role-playing. We bought piles of rules manuals and source books for the games that expanded the story from the original premises and read all of these many times. I also read some of Tolkien’s other works that laid more background material for his mythology, such as the Silmarillion. Over the next 10 years I would read the complete trilogy 3 times, the introductory volume called “The Hobbit” some five or six times, and in attempts to re-read the trilogy I re-read “The Fellowship of the Ring” over 10 times. While some aspects of the story were beyond my adolescent attention-span, my imagination enjoyed the idea of elves, dwarves, humans and hobbits using good magic to fight orcs, trolls, and their evil allies. High I found and read Tolkien’s famous Lord of the Rings saga set in his imaginary world of Middle Earth. I discovered the “Middle Earth Role-Playing” Game (MERP) by Iron Crown Enterprises (I.C.E.). In general, the rules were far less complex than war-games and the immersive escapist aspects of the story far more intense, precisely because it wasn’t being interrupted by for obscure rules. The rulebooks provided fictional background material and a combat system to game man-to-man (or beast, as the case may be) combat using a variety of weapons. Each player makes every decision his respective character faces as the story unfolds. ![]() The story focused on a character controlled by the player. While similar to war-games and simulations in having large rulebooks, the role-playing rules taught the players how to tell an interactive story. The summer before I entered High School, I discovered RPGs. No doubt, you’re already worn-out just reading my recollection! You might be wondering what that has to do with role-playing. That might have changed the entire course of the battle, but it happened five turns ago, and I only just discovered it while looking up rule 7.5.10 about flamethrower operations. I think I forgot to count the correct distance for the bullets to penetrate and roll on a chart to see if the units behind the target were injured. However, like any lazy North-American child, I quickly tired of misplaying these games because I’d forgotten rule 3.4.2.3 (no kidding) about the correct way to game, for example, the bullet penetration of a. These games, especially the war simulations, began consuming an increasing amount of my time as they often required 40-80 page 8.5x11 inch rule-books and hundreds of small cardboard counters to represent everything from flamethrowers to tanks to individual officers on a battlefield. My mind was captivated by the prospect of sophisticated make-believe with quasi-realistic representations of the choices a General, WWII squad leader, or stock investor might make. High student, my inquisitive mind discovered board-games, strategy war-games, and simulations. ![]() That seemed to be the extent of the warnings I received about role-playing games (RPGs).Īs a Jr. Those warnings focused on the pagan/Satanic material that game authors such as Gary Gygax (of D&D fame) used as source material for creating their pretend magic systems and fictional fantasy worlds. After being rightly warned to stay far away from anything even remotely occultic, we might hear a few brief thoughts about Dungeon’s and Dragons (D&D). ![]() These lessons would focus on the fantastic, nearly unbelievable activities performed by devotees of these black arts. Every three to five years, someone whose interest had been piqued would offer a Sunday School lesson or sermon about witchcraft, sorcery, magic, Satanism, and the occult. G rowing up in an independent Baptist church, we were occasionally warned about the dangers of the occult. ![]()
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