Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    I've role-played a _little_ but not on computer.
    
    Alice T.

    
    1)  Modified D&D Thursday nights since June 1978.  
    
        Shortly after I joined Digital two of my new co-workers said:
    	
        "You like Adventure on the computer.  Come along this evening and
        watch us play Dungeon and Dragons - you don't have to play..."
    	
    
    2)  Two week-end murder mysteries a year since December 1985.

    AD&D!!!
    
    D!

    Oh, more info...
    
    I play two characters in two campaigns.  A human female cleric, and a
    human (mumble) ranger.  I used to never plays humans because they were
    "boring" - if I wanted to be human I could just live my life! - but now
    i play humans because they tend to be more well-rounded characters, and
    there are no limits on how far they can go.
    
    One of the campaigns I'm in is loosely based around the commercial
    system "The Forgotten Realms".  Our DM keeps trying to get us to read
    the books in the Forgotten Realm series, but I have never been a fan of
    "fictionized" RPG's - that is, books written to conform to a commercial
    RPG system.
    
    D!

    A little involvement with the SCA, but mostly I liked reading their
    literature and using it to help me design medieval backgrounds for my
    role-playing games. [Much, much more detail on all this in ERIS::FRP.]
    I enjoy role-playing games very much; genres have varied from the
    fantasy-medieval to '20s pulp (usually mystery or Lovecraft-mythos).
    I've also done a lot of live-action role-playing in the form of the
    murder-mystery games. The settings of these games have varied from 
    18th-century to modern.
    
    I only "discovered" role-playing games after joining DEC. Since it's
    the perfect social hobby for us introspective, socially-challenged
    types, I can't help wishing I'd had it available when I was in high
    school. How much difference it would have made, I can't begin to guess,
    but I'd have loved it...
    
    -b

    I've done some, but would love to know more about recreational role
    playing...  Seems I know very little about it.

   Allison

    Forgive my ignorance, but I'm not really sure what is
    meant by role-playing games, or what it involves specifically...
    
    Is this something serious, fun, a hobby, all of the above?
    
    Is there a deeper purpose other than adventure/entertainment?
    
    Just curious..
    
    Chrsitine

    It's fun - it's a game.  But like any game (from baseball to Chess to
    hopscotch) there are some that take it very seriously.
    
    I'm sure you played informal role-playing games when you were a kid. 
    The most common ones I played were "House", "Doctor", and "School",
    where we would play various roles in those situations.
    
    FRP's are the same, except formalized, and with more exotic venues.
    
    There are various games...he original one was D&D.  It's a game set in
    a Meideval (sp?) world where there are humans and humanoids (such as
    elves, dwarves, gnomes, orcs, etc), monsters of various varieties,
    deities of various varieties, and where magic works.  The world is
    basically modelled after Tolkein's Middle-Earth, if you ever read any
    of the Ring trilogy or whatever.
    
    The game is mostly verbal.  One person is the "game master" - they
    design and implement the game, they know what, who, where everyone is. 
    The rest of the characters "explore" the world, usually with a goal in
    mind.  (Get money, save the prince in distress, save the world, kidnap
    someone, whatever.)  the GM will descibe the surroundings to the
    players.  ("You are standing in a tavern, which is smokey and noisy. 
    In front of you is a bar, and the bartender smiles at you.  To the left
    is a large group of ogres who appear very drunk.  To the right is...")
    and the players describe their actions to the GM ("I walk up to the bar
    and order a beer.")  The GM will then describe the results of their
    actions.
    
    In some games, props help - figurines can be used to help you remember
    how your party (a group of role-players "travelling" together) is
    physically situated, which is especially helpful during a fight.
    
    Anyway, that's the basics...if you want to know more, just ask!  [there
    are a lot of FRPers at DEC.]
    
    D! 

    Also, computer adventure games evolved from D&D (Dungeons and Dragons,
    TM TSR).  The original was called Dungeon, which later evolved into
    Zork, and was loosely based on the D&D system.  Then came Adventure
    (aka Collosal Cave) and then they just exploded, and now there are
    zillions of them.  For those who haven't played them, they are (mostly)
    text-games, in which the computer is the game master, and you are a
    lone adventurer.  You explore the world by giving the computer commands
    such as "go west", "get gems", "kill dwarf" and "wave wand".  The
    computer responds by describing what happens and what your surroundings
    are ("You are standing to the west of a white house.  There is a
    mailbox here."  you type: "Open mailbox".  Computer says "There is a
    piece of paper in the mailbox".  You type: "read paper" etc...)
    
    D!

    And to answer Christine's questions specifically...
    
    >Is this something serious, fun, a hobby, all of the above?
    
    all of the above.  for many of my friends, it is more than a game, it's
    definitely a hobby.  While the actual game is going on, it's a game -
    but off-hours you can do research about the world, you can do character
    development, you can interact with other players (all of the players in
    all of my games are on the Net...very convenient), etc.  The playing
    itself can be very time-consuming.  Back in high school and college,
    when I had more time, a whole "game" (meaning the achievement of one
    goal, the completion of one "dungeon") would typically take about 40
    playing hours.  Then we would often play multiple "games" in one world,
    sometimes they fit in with eachother (a "campaign" and that could go on
    all year.  I think every RPGer has stories of playing all night,
    consuming vast amounts of pizza, marathon sessions, etc.)  Now that I'm
    a boring ole adult, the playing sessions usually last 3-4 hours.
    
    >Is there a deeper purpose other than adventure/entertainment?
    
    No.  And Yes.  The deeper purposes for me are 1) social interaction
    with people with common interests, 2) excersising my imagination and
    problem-solving abilities, and 3) escapism.
    
    for many people who discovered role-playing in high school, it was a
    matter of life and death...D&D (the only one that existed when I was in
    HS) tended to attract the social misfits, the type who were excluded
    from "normal" cliques such as cheerleaders, brains, jocks, druggies,
    etc.  This provided a social outlet for the "nerds".
    
    D!

   Fuzzy memory alert...

   Back over a quarter of a century ago the local neighborhood group
   used to meet in my backyard at night to play a role game in which 
   we would try and storm the castle (tree fort in the woods at the
   back of the property) without being seen, sorta hyper-tag.  Good fun
   and met the parental requirement of "stay on the property".  Besides
   scaring the neighbors (what's going on the woods at night?) every time
   we played it was different, teams, individul effort and so on.  Seems
   that ws the root of many games to come.  Where did come from, books of
   course.

   Allison

    D!
    
    Thank you so much for the explanations!  It sounds really 
    interesting.  I was curious too, because my fiance used to
    do the D& years ago, but was never very good at expressing
    exactly what he did!  Maybe in a future life (this one) it
    would binteresting to see how this works.  How does one go 
    about this?
    
    Christine
    

    I play in a campaign that has lasted for over 2 years.  The one
    before that lasted 4 years and would have kept going except for the
    fact that we were all betrayed by another party member and the
    whole group was killed off.
    
    The system we use is Hero.  I like it for it's versatility.  D&D
    seemed to have "cookie cutter characters".  Hero is a system that
    allows a character to build in the areas they want.  You can be
    a  mage, fighter, thief if you want...you just won't be as good as
    a specialist in these fields.
    
    Congrats to D! on her excellent explanation of what role-playing
    is about.
    
    
                                      L.J.

    For more than you ever wanted to know, etc., you can read and write
    in the FRP conference on ERIS (Hit KP7 or the `Select' key.)
    
    I'm a neo compared to Cathy; I started board-gaming in 1983 using 
    FuRPiG, in "the Tuesday night game", and live role-playing (like
    acting without a script) in 1987.
    
    In both classes of games, you look at your fixed information, and
    build up who you are from that.  ("You are a young (age 70), small
    (weight 1400 pounds), female Naza.  Your name is Pfusand m'bu
    M'Neza og Whan; you own two Cheza.  Naza are solitary, migratory,
    and emotionally very sane.  Only Naza like Cheza.")  The big
    difference is that in our particular live role-playing weekends,
    you must create in yourself the ability to kill quickly and without
    compunction.  (Our Creatrix has taken to making the murder a
    surprise for the murderer.  Sometimes.  (It keeps us on our toes.))
    
    					Ann B.

    Re .12 and "how to go about it": On the one hand, it's very easy to
    start up a game; all you need is a rulebook, some dice, pencil and
    paper, and a minimum of two people (there are solitaire games, but the
    "role-playing" options are limited). On the other, it can be difficult
    in the extreme to find enough people, close enough to you, to play
    with. The FRP conference sometimes lists openings in existing games,
    and most ongoing games welcome guests who want to see what it's like. 
    
    And then there are some of us who would think it rather fun to run an
    introductory gaming session; I, for example <heh, heh>, get a kick out
    of showing new people what it's all about. (Interested parties in or
    about southern NH may send mail...)
    
    Hmmm. Come to think of it, what _would_ a =wn= dungeon be like?
    
    -b

    > I, for[D example <heh, heh>, get a kick out
    >all about. (Interested parties in or
    >bout southern NH may send mail...)
    
    Shoulda mentioned this before three months ago when I wasn't already
    involved in two, yes *two, campaigns.  *and* a full-time job.  *and* an
    active social life.  *and* numerous other hobbies. *and*.... :-)
    
    >Hmmm. Come to think of it, what _would_ a =wn= dungeon be like?
    
    I've often wondered that.
    
    Ya know, I think it would be really neat to play a Free Amazons sort of
    game (not in Darkover though, because that's a pretty boring place -
    not enough magic or monsters! :-) with a gang of rebel women running
    around saving lads in distress!  :-)
    
    "You are sitting in front of a terminal.  There is writing in the
    common tongue on the terminal."
    
    "Read terminal."
    
    "It says 'Welcome to Womannotes-V3'.  You are approached by a human
    male weilding a large dictionary.  You notice a rather large chip on 
    his shoulder.:
    
    "Hit next unseen."
    
    ;-)
    
    D!

    Ah, I love role playing games.  I'm currently in a weekly GURPS 
    campaign set in a post cataclysmic earth.  I play a magical fire 
    lizard (imagine Anne McCaffrey's fire lizards, only with magical 
    powers and ability to speak telepathically) named Tir.  I've been 
    role playing for almost a dozen years and it never grows old.  The 
    games get more creative and fun with experience, and the fun and 
    learning never seem to stop.  
    
    I also play in a weekend game that meets every other month or so.
    That's set in 1928 New Orleans, where I play a lovable lunatic
    named Murdock.  He's a pilot with delusions of an invisible pet
    dog, and an uncontrollable ability to teleport.  He's inspired and
    loosely based on "Howling Mad" Murdock from the A-Team.
    
    I like the escapism.  But I also like what I learn about myself and
    others in the often-intense interactions that take place in a game.
    Definately not for the faint hearted!
    
    Karen (aka Tir, aka Murdock, aka Hilary, aka Torene, etc, etc...)

    An aspect I hadn't heard until .17.  It is a great way to find
    out more about your friends to better understand them.
    
    In many ways you're playing what would be an ideal persona for you.
    Maybe someone who has a lot of qualities you'd like to see in 
    yourself.
    
    Of coarse, this theory doesn't sit to well with the fact that my
    all-time favorite character was an evil and quite vain sorceress.:^)
    
    
                                 L.J.

>    That's set in 1928 New Orleans, where I play a lovable lunatic
>    named Murdock.  He's a pilot with delusions of an invisible pet
    
    *Sigh*! I wish Neetz could've met him.
    
    I only started when I moved to New England, because it seemed like
    that's What One Did here (if one didn't do babies and barbeques). My
    best characters were fairly transparently derived from models I knew a
    lot about:
    
      - Butler, an upper-class fin-de-siecle Celtic occultist poet into
    romanticizing the peasantry (any guesses, English majors? The chief
    changes from the model were his penchants for poisoning and cheap sex.)
    
      - Chester Boom, an obnoxious fat walrus-moustached rock critic from
    Detroit (any guesses, punkers? Absolutely no changes to the model.)
    
      - The Pinkerton Op (any guesses, Hammett fans?)
    
      - Anita "Neetz" Loose, a '20s flapper (even I'm ashamed of that one)
    
    Ray

    	Another AD&D'er here.  I played D&D in high school, then got
    back into it a couple years ago (and due to one of Jody's COUS,
    ended up in a group with a bunch of people I already knew! :^) ).

    	I do it cuz it's fun, the people are cool, it's escapism for
    an evening...

    	...and I like imagining the use of talents I couldn't
    ordinarily possess! :^)


    	amy

    
    Oh, go ahead, make me jealous!!!  :-)  I've been wanting to play D&D
    for *ages* but could never find anyone out here in the "boonies" to 
    play with!!!  Why can't you "guys" live closer so we could all go out
    and play together???!!
    
    I used to play Adventure and those type games on the computer, but 
    haven't had much chance to do that lately.  Did anyone here used to 
    play Star Trek on the computer??  I used to play that when it had to be
    loaded through a *paper tape reader*!  Took about 20 minutes just to
    *load* the program and I used to stay after work for -hours- to play
    it!!  This was *way* before Atari and Nintendo, so when people were 
    getting excited about "pong", I would just laugh and say I play some-
    thing much better!!   "Fire photon torpedos, Mr. Sulu!"
    The closest I came to role playing...
    
    Debbi

Then there's...tinymuck!

Dan

    
    I work hard, I play hard.  I enjoy the creativity that goes into
    gaming, and socializing with the people.  They're fun.
    
    I've been playing AD&D with sevarl minor modifications for about 10
    years.  I've also enjoyed DQ (Dragonquest).  I prefer writing
    live-action roleplaying games to playing them.  I am probably going to
    get involed in a NERO (New England Roleplaying Organization?)
    equivalent called the Realms soon, they do live-action medieval
    sieging, dungeoning, etc....
    
    -Jody
    

    I've never done FRP games, but something I've often wondered is when
    did this FRP games thing get started?  I feel like I missed out on
    something.  Was I asleep or am I just too old? (Don't answer that!)  It
    seems like a good way to exercise the imagination.  Imagination is
    one of those wonderful parts of childhood that you have to use or lose
    when you become an adult.
    
    Mary

   RE: .21  Debbie
   	
   20 minutes!  You must have had the cut down version of trek... The
   origonal version I had was about 10kbytes of Basic text without
   coments and ran on an PDP-8I(circa '69-'70) with 16k of core.  It took
   over a half hour to load via TTY(110 baud).  The later version ran on
   my 8080 based system in 12kbytes of ram it also took about 40 minutes
   via tty to load.  That was the era of lunar lander and other crude 
   by current standards "computer" games.  Half the fun was getting it to
   run!  Does anyone remember running the games in the maximum carnage
   mode just for variation?

   Allison

    Another gamer checking in...   I play in one game a week, using a
    skill-based system called Rolemaster, in a medieval fantasy setting.  
    I started playing about 4 1/2 years ago, and find it a great way to
    stretch the imagination, and to explore my own nature.  
    
    Just a few weeks ago, I also started GMing a game, and am finding it
    fun but frustrating!
    
    Linda

    Frankly, I can't see the appeal of being a GM.  All that work, and what
    do you get out of it?
    
    D!

Another thing to know about roleplaying:  much of the action is decided by
probability.  You can *say* your going to defend yourself with your sword
against the goblin attacking you, but it is the roll of the dice (and the
skill of your character) that says whether your sword actually *hits* the
goblin!

For instance, I have a wonderful female character named "The Lark" (real name
is Sarah Penwall, but few folks have called her that for *years*).  She is
a very skilled fencer.  Her shortsword skill is 18, where 10 is average,
and 18 is exceptional.  Say some goblin too big for his britches wants to
pick a fight with "me" (not a good idea, the Lark is known for carving up
goblins), and his skill is only 10 with the club that he carries.  He swings
the club (the person playing him rolls 3 regular [6-sided] dice).  If the
number rolled by the dice is 10 or less, he may have hit me.  I try to dodge
(I roll 3 dice myself).  If I roll low enough (I have numbers for dodge and
parry) then he doesn't hit me, but if I roll too high then he hits me
and he next gets to roll to see how much damage he did to me.  I can only
take so much damage (just like in real life) or I could be maimed or dead.

Then it's my turn to try to hit him.  With my 18 skill, it's pretty easy
to hit (3 dice can only go up to 18, right?).  Maybe I'll try to hit him
in the head or the hand or something where he doesn't have armour.  It's 
harder to hit a specific (smaller) place, rather than just the big body,
so I won't get my full 18 skill, I'll have a disadvantage of a few points,
say 3 points in this case.  So I roll me dice and try to get a 15 or lower.
And so on, and so forth.  :-)

      Carol

I started roleplaying in 1978, back in college days.  I played D&D then, 
and started playing again after I joined Digital.  I played every Monday night
for 7 years, then switched recently to Tuesday nights (much the same group of
people).  Our group started with A/D&D and then changed to GURPS a few years
ago.  I like both, but like GURPS for the flexibility of the character
attributes. 

Some of my characters:
Lela (AD&D)- elf female, thief, adventurous, impetuous, slept with everyone.
	Actually became more thoughtful and a "better person" with age.
Sister Camille - very quiet, an observer.  Most people thought she was a nun,
	but in reality she was a lesbian separatist cleric in training, 
	temporarily celibate, getting ready to live away from men, and sent 
	to observe the outside world (and men in particular).  She was fun
	because of the way she was treated when people thought she was a nun.
Tamara (Runequest) - native-type, daughter of leaders, destined to be a leader.
	Brave, young, strong.  Received instruction from her ancestors in 
	private ceremonies.
Alura (GURPS) - aka Mistress Alura, aka Lady Alura (of Boisvert).  
	Goddess-worshipping cleric (a challenge for me, as a somewhat bigotted 
	Christian), kind, a healer.  Magick-user.  Tried to keep her status as 
	lesser nobility hidden, so as not to intimidate the poor.  Was pregnant 
	on most of her journey, but kept it secret so she would be allowed to
	continue on the adventure.  :-)

Re .9:

>    Also, computer adventure games evolved from D&D (Dungeons and Dragons,
>    TM TSR).  The original was called Dungeon, which later evolved into
>    Zork, and was loosely based on the D&D system.  Then came Adventure
>    (aka Collosal Cave) and then they just exploded, and now there are
>    zillions of them.  ...

Um, I believe that the original Adventure was the first such computer game.  It
was written in Fortran and ran on the PDP-10.  I date the explosion of such
games from the day someone revealed the program's existence to the masses in
an issue of ex-DEC employee Dave Ahl's _Creative Computing_ magazine.  As
ADVENT would tell you:

1	SOMEWHERE NEARBY IS COLOSSAL CAVE, WHERE OTHERS HAVE FOUND FORTUNES IN
1	TREASURE AND GOLD, THOUGH IT IS RUMORED THAT SOME WHO ENTER ARE NEVER
1	SEEN AGAIN.  MAGIC IS SAID TO WORK IN THE CAVE.  I WILL BE YOUR EYES
1	AND HANDS.  DIRECT ME WITH COMMANDS OF 1 OR 2 WORDS.  I SHOULD WARN
1	YOU THAT I LOOK AT ONLY THE FIRST FIVE LETTERS OF EACH WORD, SO YOU'LL
1	HAVE TO ENTER "NORTHEAST" AS "NE" TO DISTINGUISH IT FROM "NORTH".
1	(SHOULD YOU GET STUCK, TYPE "HELP" FOR SOME GENERAL HINTS.  FOR INFOR-
1	MATION ON HOW TO END YOUR ADVENTURE, ETC., TYPE "INFO".)
1				      - - -
1	THIS PROGRAM WAS ORIGINALLY DEVELOPED BY WILLIE CROWTHER.  MOST OF THE
1	FEATURES OF THE CURRENT PROGRAM WERE ADDED BY DON WOODS (DON @ SU-AI).
1	CONTACT DON IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, ETC.


Now for a bit of herstory:

Willie Crother and his wife Pat are spelunkers.  Pat was one of the four people
who discovered the connecting passage between the Mammoth and Flint Ridge cave
systems in Kentucky.  This historic event, told in _The Longest Cave_,
established Mammoth/Flint as the cave with the most miles of passages on earth.

While Willie worked for BB&N, he use a computer plotter to provide mapping
facilities for a group exploring Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.  Some of Willie's
inspiration for the game's terrain are locations in the Mammoth/Flint system.
				/AHM
P. S.  LABREA::"/usr/users/amartin/proj/pdp-10/link/3/test/advent.*" contains
the source.  Be warned: if your computer can't store 5 Hollerith characters in
an integer (i.e. you're not playing with a full DEC), you've got a lot of
hacking to do to get the game to compile.

    >     *Sigh*! I wish Neetz could've met him.
    
    Ray,
    
    Yeah, I think Neetz would have liked Murdock.  Say, we're probably
    playing another installment in October, you could fly out to join
    us.  :-)
    
    Karen.

    	I've done a couple of mystery weekends.  It's very much like acting
without a script.  Get's really interesting.  In fact, I met Ann Broomhead
and Beth Rust on weekends before I knew them through =wn=.

	I play DECweb (MAADIS::DECWEB) which is a play-by-email game that
involves some role playing.

	I also have a character in Dreamtime. (see ERIS::TINYMUCK)

						--Doug

    Re .27: The appeal of being a GM is that you get to be God. (ghod? A
    god? ghodess? How about "The Supreme Being"?) Some of us were _born_
    for this, you know. ;-)
    
    I think it gives one some insight into the creation of the universe
    ("Deserts, forests, and glaciers? Because I like contrast, that's why.
    The flamingoes are in there for accent."), as well as theories of free
    will vs. predestination ("You _are_ going to get to the Forest of Doom
    sooner or later. You can choose the left-hand fork, the right-hand
    fork, or a magic carpet ride, but you _are_ going to get to the Forest
    of Doom. I put too much work into it to waste."), and the efficacy of
    prayer ("Oh, all right, I'll let you roll again - but it had better be
    a GOOD one. Now bring me another slice of pizza.").
    
    I think Einstein said, "God doesn't play dice with the universe," but
    I'm not sure I believe it. ;-)
    
    -b

    >I date the explosion of such games from the day someone revealed the
    >program's existence to the masses ....
    
    Okay, but *when* was it that FRP games exploded?
    
    Mary - still trying to figure how I missed the explosion.

    
    I first heard about FRP in 1979, at high school in Lexington MA.  I was
    talking to some freshmen who were discussing D&D.
    
    I did not play the game until 1981.
    
    I did not discover live-action roleplaying until 1986, when I first
    heard of the games the MIT Assassin's Guild played (no they didn't
    REALLY kill anyone, it was all in good, highly challenging fun).
    
    -Jody
    

    I like to GM to get my creative juices flowing.  You don't have
    just one character, but dozens!  It's great!
    
    Of coarse, there are hazards involved.  It is a general rule that the
    longer the GM spends in planning for every possible action the party
    will take regarding a scenario they will do the only thing he/she
    didn't think of and botch the whole thing.  And in a way I like that
    too.  Some of my best runs were off the cuff things resulting from a
    party decision I hadn't anticipated.
    
    
    
                                     L.J.

    Re .34: A quick check in my books at home indicates that the
    "explosion" began at or around 1980; by '81 there were rather serious
    (if not always accurate) hardcover books in print, some decrying and
    some extolling this new fad among "our youth". For several years, FRPs
    were a boom business: new game systems coming out almost monthly, it
    seemed, and many, many game supplements showing up all over the place.
    
    Once there were a number of different game systems in common use, the
    "boom" phase was over; even if there are as many, or more, people
    playing FRPs now (I don't have any idea of the numbers) as there were
    in the biggest part of the boom, the numbers are scattered over a wide
    variety of games instead of being concentrated on the medieval-fantasy-
    D&D-style stuff.
    
    Now, depending on where you were in the early '80s, it's quite likely
    to have never heard of the games. I spent a lot of time explaining FRPs
    to friends and relatives who happened to live in communities where it
    was "known" - if at all - as "that weird game that makes kids worship
    demons and/or kill themselves". (I believe it was also relatively
    little known outside the computer-jock/science-fiction-fan groups; I
    don't think it _ever_ became the game of choice for the Really Cool
    Kids, but I may be wrong.)
    
    Ah, the memories! ;-)
    
    -b

    And then there is the direct ancestor of FRP in the military battle
    recreators. Back in the 40's I know several folks in NY were doing full
    scale battle re-enactments with 1 figure=100 men and 1 inch to the X
    number of yards. They used little painted lead figures of soldiers,
    much like a lot of folks use lead figures in role-playing.
    
    Tamzen 

    Tamzen,
    
    Military recreation is not a past phenomenon -- it is very much alive. 
    Ships, for example, are made in a 1:2000 scale for naval recreation;
    this produces a USS Missouri, for example, that is about 4-1/2 inches
    long.  For land-based recreation, tanks and other armored units are
    made in (I think) 1:400 scale, so an Abrams tank comes out a little
    over an inch long.
    
    -d

> Willie Crother and his wife Pat are spelunkers.  

That's Will Crowther these days, and he's no longer married to Pat. He and his
wife Nancy are back in Mass. They no longer do any caving that I know of, and
not much climbing.

> While Willie worked for BB&N

Will works for BB&N again, after a stint at Xerox (where I knew him.)

... and for whatever it's worth, Don is now at Sun.

	-- Charles

Re .34:

I may have watched 3 others play some D&D during finals in spring '78.  The DM
kept his dungeon map in a 1/4" grid lab notebook.

The article "_Adventure in fORTRAN_ by Willie Crowthers and Don Woods" occupies
pages 34-35 (hex) of the premier and only issue of Dr. kiloBYTE's creative
Popular Personal Recreational MICRO COMPUTER DATA INTERFACE WORLD Journal (April
Fools 1980), which was the flip side of _Creative Computing_ April 1980, vol 6,
no 4.  Putting 4756 lines of source and data photocopied from greenbar paper
onto two pages of a magazine probably introduced a lot of high school students
to Vizine that April.

_The Longest Cave_ by Brucker & Watson was first published in '76 by the Cave
Research Foundation.  A real page-turner.  Mine came from at Speleobooks, Emily
Davis Mobley's bookstore in the octagonal barn behind her house.  (She was in
the news when she broke her leg while surveying Lecheguilla Cave in NM earlier
this year).  Pat Crowther helped make the Flint/Mammoth connection on 9-Sep-72.

Re .40:

Thanks for the updates.  Is/was/are/were.  Sigh.  Picking verb tenses can be a
bummer sometimes, eh?
				/AHM
P. S.  Oh, the spirit in those 15-year-old Creative Computings.  Line-drawn
cartoon characters right next to AI research written up for teenagers; every
person photographed smiling because they're having fun learning with
computers...

    
    I remember being in Toys-R-Us just before Xmas about 8 years ago--the
    hieght of the FRP games.  Standing before the rack of D&D modules and
    books were an older couple, obviously someones grandparents. :-)  The
    look on their face was priceless, as they picked up something from the
    rack--looked at it with extreme puzzlement, turned it around and around 
    in thier hands, trying *desperatly* to figure out what the -h*ll- this
    thing was!!!
    
    I took pity on them and went over to them.  "Can I help you??" I asked.
    The woman looked up in obvious *relief* and said "Yes!!  could you tell
    us what this is???  Our grandson wants it for christmas, but we don't
    really know what to get.  All it says on his list is Dungeons &
    Dragons.  Does it do anything??"  All this while waving a module
    around, getting more agitated by the minute.  :-)  I hadn't really 
    played much, but understood how it all worked.  I explained briefly
    that it was a role playing game where the kids used their imagination
    to make up characters and pretend they were in various places.  The 
    man said, "You mean I gotta spend 15 bucks so the kid can pretend
    something???  What does he need this for??", waving the Basic D&D set
    around.  :-)  I explained that what they were buying was instructions
    for how to play the game.  The woman thanked me and started picking
    out stuff from the rack.  As I walked away I heard her husband say, 
    "Humph, *I* didn't need instuctions to play anything, *we* just made
    it up as we went along!!!"      :-)
    
    I waited til we got out of the store before I cracked up laughing!!
    
    :-}  :-)
    
    
    Debbi

    RE:. name dropping
    
       And here I thought *I* was nifty keen 'cause my GM is one of the
    play testers for Fantasy Hero!  Harumph!  ;^)
    
    
                                L.J.

Re: .43

yeah, well, one of my good friends is a play-tester for Avalon Hill
war games.  Harrumph indeed.  :-)

-d

    
    nya nya nya nyaaaa nya.
    
    I've had the same DM for 9 years, and I'm still not sick of his world.
    
    (how does one textually thumb one's nose?  ;)
    
    -Jody
    

    Oh yeah, well *my* GM has been playing since he was 16 in this
    world and he still has folks from then in his campaign...he's
    25 now.  So there!  ;^)
    
    
                                    L.J.

    
    	Well, golly gee...I've had the same GM since I started in '78 
    	(and I'm not the senior member of the group).  The game and 
    	scenario started in late '76.
    
    	clb

>    (how does one textually thumb one's nose?  ;)


	How's this:	 F
			q^:



	*A*

    You can find out more about one of the live role playing games
    mentioned here called NERO (New England Roleplaying Organization) by
    hitting KP7 or adding SASE::NERO to your notebook.
    
    Because I'm in WOMANNOTES I feel obligated to mention aspects of the
    game related to women... ;-)  but these are only a few of the many
    reasons someone might be interested in playing...
    
    NERO recreates fantasy/medieval towns during events with more emphasis
    on fantasy, one reason being that they don't wish to discriminate
    against women, which many could argue the middle ages did. ;-)  Women
    are welcome to play typically male dominated roles such as fighters,
    they can attain positions of leadership, and in one noble court (of
    five) they can even be Knights.  
    
    Unlike AD&D, there are no limits on how high a female character can go,
    it's truly based on her own abilities.  If you're a great fighter,
    you'll go up as high as your natural abilities will take you.
    
    Sharon aka Anastiah, Leader of the Legion of R.I.C.H.        

    
    >Unlike AD&D, there are no limits on how high a female character can go,
 
    Eh?  There's a limit in AD&D to how high a female can go?!?!  As far as
    I can tell, as far as the rules and game-books are concerned, the only
    difference between men and women is for character development.  I have
    never seen a special table for female characters.
    
    D!

    Re .50: (Historical info - I haven't read the "AD&D II: The Sequel"
    rules set, which changed a _lot_ of things.) Female characters, of all
    races except half-orc (!), were restricted to a lower maximum strength
    than the male characters. For some races, this restriction was enough
    to keep them out of certain character classes. (These restrictions were
    decried from the very beginning, for all the obvious reasons; they may
    have been lifted in the latest rules revision. In most of the games I
    participated in, these restrictions were pretty much ignored.)
    
    Actually, now that I thumb through the old book again, I think maybe
    the strength difference didn't really restrict professions/classes;
    those races where the difference was greatest weren't allowed to be
    members of the strength-sensitive professions anyway. <wry face; AD&D
    was a very racist rules set. "Whaddya _mean_ elves can't become
    8th-level fighters!!!"> But the limits did prevent females from
    achieving all the possible benefits of certain classes. A female human
    fighter, for example, couldn't have STR higher than 18/50, and thus
    couldn't gain the highest to-hit bonuses.
    
    [Ah, the good old days! We all played AD&D, and we all carped about the
    silly restrictions, and spent hours debating things like "if male
    characters get higher maximum strength, female characters should get
    higher maximum constitution or dexterity" and "but is a 17-strength
    hobbit just as strong as a 17-strength human, or is STR relative to
    size?" Sheesh, we sweat _blood_ over some of those issues... ;-)]
    
    -b