Topic: 30 years of Freaks & Geeks

[Sirgod]

Darn. Oh well, It still is Great Hearing other's stories like this. You have some great one's Nemesis.

Stephen

[Gambler]

For those of you who've DM'd.  Did you actually read the dice when you rolled them or just use the sound of the rolling and go with the flow of the story?

[Sirgod]

I went with the Dice Gambler, Then Again, I had some that had Became "attuned" to what I wanted, so It was never a Problem. Heck I got so good, I would Show the Dice rolls.

Do you guys remember the First Edition stuff, when a Character didn't keep trak of there own Hitpoints, but would be told something Like, you took a Hard shot to your Shield Arm?

Scary stuff back then.

Stephen

[Gambler]

Speaking of dice.

One of my best friends went off to one of his mid-terms taking a couple of D4.  He knew the material inside and out.  He sits down in the very front row of the class and takes out the dice.  He read the first question, rolled the dice, read it, wrote down his answer.  By the second or third question the teacher asked what he was doing.  He replied "taking the test and I need some help".  He did the entire test that way.

It blew the professors mind when he got 100% on the test.

[Sirgod]

Speaking of dice.

One of my best friends went off to one of his mid-terms taking a couple of D4.  He knew the material inside and out.  He sits down in the very front row of the class and takes out the dice.  He read the first question, rolled the dice, read it, wrote down his answer.  By the second or third question the teacher asked what he was doing.  He replied "taking the test and I need some help".  He did the entire test that way.

It blew the professors mind when he got 100% on the test.

Damn that's Too Strange.

Reminds me of a Few College Stories...

Angels on a Pin

A Modern Parable
by Alexander Callandra
Saturday Review, Dec 21, 1968.

Some time ago I received a call from a colleague who asked if I would be the referee on the grading of an examination question. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed he should receive a perfect score and would if the system were not set up against the student: The instructor and the student agreed to submit this to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.

I went to my colleague's office and read the examination question: "Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer."

The student had answered: "Take a barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower the barometer to the street and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building."

I pointed out that the student really had a strong case for full credit since he had answered the question completely and correctly. On the other hand, if full credit was given, it could well contribute to a high grade for the student in his physics course.
A high grade is supposed to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try at answering the question I was not surprised that my colleague agreed, but I was surprised that the student did.

I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics.
At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said no. He had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on. In the next minute he dashed off his answer which read:

"Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop that barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then using the formula S = ˝at˛, calculate the height of the building.

At this point I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and I gave the student almost full credit.

In leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said he had many other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were. "Oh yes," said the student. "There are a great many ways of getting the height of a tall building with a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer and the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building and by the use of a simple proportion, determine the height of the building."

"Fine," I asked. "And the others?"

"Yes," said the student. "There is a very basic measurement method that you will like. In this method you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units. A very direct method."

"Of course, if you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of `g' at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference of the two values of `g' the height of the building can be calculated."

Finally, he concluded, there are many other ways of solving the problem. "Probably the best," he said, "is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: "Mr. Superintendent, here I have a fine barometer. If you tell me the height of this building, I will give you this barometer."

At this point I asked the student if he really did know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think, using the "scientific method," and to explore the deep inner logic of the subject in a pedantic way, as is often done in the new mathematics, rather than teaching him the structure of the subject. With this in mind, he decided to revive scholasticism as an academic lark to challenge the Sputnik-panicked classrooms of America.
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An economics professor at school had a strict policy that the hourly examinations were to be completed at the bell and anyone who kept writing on their exam after the bell would take a zero on the exam. Well, one guy kept writing on his exam for a while after the bell and then confidently strode up to turn it in.
The professor looked at him and said, "Don't bother to hand that paper in... you get a zero for continuing after the bell."
The guy looked at him and said, "Professor, do you know who I am!!"
The professor replied, "No, and I don't care if your dad is president of the United States...you get a zero on this exam"
The guy, with a enraged look on his face, shouted, "You mean you have no idea who I am???"
The professor responded, "No, I've no idea who you think you are."
With that, the guy said "Good!", plunged his exam into the middle of the stack of other students exams, and did a hasty retreat from the examination room!

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The story around Harvard was that there was a graduate Math course whose final always consisted of "Make up an appropriate final exam for this course and answer it. You will be graded on both parts."
Then one year, a student answered as follows: The exam is: "Make up an appropriate final exam for this course and answer it. You will be graded on both parts."
The answer is: "Make up an appropriate final exam for this course and answer it. You will be graded on both parts."
His reasoning was that since that was the best exam the professor could write, it certainly ought to be good enough for a student.
He got an A. The professor specifically prohibited that answer from then on.


The learned but unworldly head of the department devoted to the study of comparative religions at Harvard invariably asked the same question on every final examination: "Who, in chronological order, were the Kings of Israel?" Students came to count on this procedure as a sacred institution and prepared accordingly. Some crabby misanthrope tattled and, one precedent-shattering spring, the professor confounded his class by changing the question to: "Who were the major prophets and who were the minor prophets?" The class sat dumbfounded and all but the one member slunk out of the room without writing a word. This sole survivor scribbled furiously and deposited his paper with the air of a conqueror. "Far be it from me," he had written, "to distinguish between these revered gentlemen, but it occurred to me that you might like to have a chronological list of the Kings of Israel."

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Sorry to go off topic like that, Back to the D&D stuff.

One of the Funniest Moments of Real Life Coming into play i ever had. I was Using the Throne Of Bloodstone, using house Rules etc, and we decided to Break, after the Players had went through a Hard and Debilitating Journey through the Lich City.

So we go to the Kitchen where we had "Spiked A Watermelon" the night before. We cut into It, and went to sit down. We where Playing that Night at my Friend Kieth McDonalds house, and he happened to have a very Large Cat.

Needless to say, I was the  last one to try and sit, and Having Given Kieth's Charactor alot of grief, His Cat Jumps on the Chair, as I go down, and I get two Paw Fulls of Claws right in the Posterior.

The people on either side of the Table start Spewing Watermelon At each other, as the Laugh at My Impending doom. Needless to say, It was a quick game the rest of the Night.

So I pack up everything, and we call It a night, Roll out the sleeping bags, and Call It a Night.

The Next morning, I'm driving Home on a Gravel road, and Get Pulled over. The Cop asks me If I had been Drinking, and I said No.

He then ask's If he can search the car, I say sure.

I wish I would have thought about all the Watermelon that had Been Abosorbed By the Books, Character Sheets, Modules, etc.

The Good news is, the Cop Joined our Game the next week, and It took twice that long to Get the smell out of my Car.

Stephen

[Klingon Fanatic]

Put up a Notice at the Center, or at a Game shop Carney. It's always easy to find Players even in redneck Ville , OK.

Man It's Hard to Believe 30 years, So much of my time Growing up was spent on that Game.

stephen

I also did advertise for D&D, Call of Cthulhu and FASA StarTrek in the late 1980s as an undergraduate in that manner. I spent a  lot of time and energry learing about my players characters and tailor making adventures for my players. I was a MUCH better DM/GM than a player...

Memories... I started playing in 1977, 7th grade IIRC, before AD&D books came out.
Dungeons and Dragons was awesome. I remember scaring the heck out of three [EXTREME] religious right roomates my freshman year in college just to get into a room with a fellow player. Funny how the people that hated D&D the most back then wouldn't take the time to see what it was really all about: Old fashioned INTERACTIVE Story telling [at least the way I ran my games as a DM].

I got out of TWO undergraduate papers by presenting material on how D&D was a new medium for preserving Irish cultural mythology and how the magic system borrowed heavily from the Bedouin tribes of the Arabian penninsula. I had a great time presenting a multi-media presentation in those two classes; got an A for both courses too!

D&D for me was a great way to meet chicks and it cost nothing most of the time to play unless I spent money to make props like old parchment maps etc. My favorite experience though was having thirty non-D&D players watch as I DM'd my regular players through the final adventure of a campaign involving the reclamation of an elven kindom from an undead army. I had props, miniatures, hand drawings and sound effects. It was awesome and I'll never forget the thrill of captivating that many people with my storytelling. One rule I always had with my players from the start was "If a rule conflicts with telling a good story that makes sense, then forget about the rule!"

Finally, in graduate school, after being told by academics that I couldn't do any survey research on kids under 18 who played D&D [over D&D's  controversial material], I traced the history of simulation games from 18th century wargames up through Magic: The Gathering and created a generic demonstration educational setting simulation card game to get K-12 grade kids engaged in discussing issues that go on in their school.

On the flip side, some of the chicks and friends I met playing D&D didn't seem to know when to leave D&D at the table.

Now I haven't bought any D&D books since the first edition. I always believed that for my own personal campaigns it wasn't necessary to buy every D&D product under the sun. Third edition looks good but I wonder if WOTC will heed the warnings of TSR and not oversaturate the market with products.

Now that I have a family, I can't play the games I want to anymore, at least for now. However, I do look forward to the possiblity that my kids might want to play D&D and I will teach them if/when they are ready.

KF

[Nemesis]

For those of you who've DM'd.  Did you actually read the dice when you rolled them or just use the sound of the rolling and go with the flow of the story?

Mostly I go with the dice.  Sometimes I will adjust if they do something STUPID.  I won't let a single bad die roll kill a PC or major NPC (helper OR Villain).

I find that letting the dice influence things inspires my creativity.  Sometimes the dice will point me in an interesting direction and enhance everything. 

For example the one group kept encountering Kobolds and one always escaped -luck of the dice.  After this happened a couple of times the PCs became convinced it was the SAME one.  They were random Kobolds not specifically rolled up - mere scenery.  I rolled for the chance that it was the same one, it rolled yes.  So I began to flesh it out, nothing serious to start with, but somehow they became convinced that he was a wizard and a major part of the adventure.  So he became a wizard (and wild Psionic 2nd edition).  They never were able to kill him.  This hooked into the earlier customs hut scenario.