The ad shows girls playing D&D. That's called "false advertising".

(Sorry, bbeck.)

I remember that ad. And I think that ad is what prevented me from EVER picking up a d20 except to look at the geometric design and wonder about hallucinogens.

Agree that having two actual females is over the top license. Also, what's the deal with the older dude? he seems a bit young to be the dad. Pitching D & D as a family game, instead of the bottom-of -the -food chain social misfit game that is was, would pretty much constitute fraud. OTOH, if he was supposed to be a creepy college-kid-with-no-friends-his-own-age, I guess that works.

I had the AD&D Basic Boxed Set in 1979 (pre Books), right before I went into high school, so I just about had full duration on the AD&D phenomenon. I'll point out that in my school, D&D Players were about equally divided between dorks (moi) and stoners. It was an odd alliance, and we got along fine.
Most of my good friends are friends from high school, and the vast majority of them I got from playing D&D. Except for a few flashbacks to painful episodes of dorkiness -- not to mention the others I've probably blocked -- I regret nothing.
Except maybe for not going etherial before that party fight with Ar Pharazon's crew...

D&D guys before the age of 22:

Are dudes

Either are dressed by their moms (nerds) or wear smelly heavy-metal T-shirts (stoners)

Don't have girlfriends

Have not been laid, but jerk off a lot

Read a lot of books but get shitty grades

Have 30% chance of being a homo

MP: You mixed Tolkein & D&D? Dork.

Jocks before the age of 22:

Strangely think they are the "cool, popular" crowd

Either are dressed by Polo (closet gays) or think their letter jacket is high fashion (slobs)

Have girlfriends who are dumb enough to date them, probably because of the cool cars dad bought them

Have not been laid by anyone sober, and they **** off a lot

Don't read any books and get passing grades with their remedial schedule

Have 80% chance of being homo, at least every once in a while during a post-game shower

*****

Heh, you can clean up a dork, but Dumb is to the bone.

Later,
bbeck

OH, and AFTER 22...

DnD vets - Six figure salary

Jocks -- Thinks salary is a green 'vechtable' on the salad bar they monitor

Later,
bbeck

Whoops, one more thing...

Someone, no offense taken. I'm a little more put off by the fact that ACE thinks picturing DnD chicks as semi-cute is "creative license."

*sniff*

See if I ever send HIM a picture again.

Later,
bbeck

Today on a very special episode of Ace o' Spades,

I'm actually disappointed that I don't have any friends that will actually play D&D with me. (and I am over 22).

MP: You mixed Tolkein & D&D? Dork.

MERP baby!

bbeck's last few posts= what ugly D&D dorks' moms tell them to make them feel better, and what their ashamed fathers try to convince themselves of

I'm confused. Is ace 30% homo or 80% homo?

Dork Addendum:
I like Ace in part because he makes occasional references to Traveller and Gamma World. Now that's industrial-grade dorkiness that I can respect.

I remember that.
I think I still have that stuff somewhere...

God, was I a dork - AD&D and SFB.

better question, if I make good money now, how could I have played HS sports (and gotten laid by girls while wearing Polo)?

I was a hardcore D&D geek back in the day (80-83), but the reference to Traveller just whopped me upside the head. Now THAT is a d6 laser flashback!

bbeck,

You know, I almost put a disclaimer on that, because of your pic (by the way--monster f'n' rack, nice!) but in the end I thought that it would undermine the joke.

Sometimes humor requires a lack of nuance.

You can't fight the funny.

But I'll now put up a disclaimer.

Y'all wanna know how pathetic I was as a child?

(HOW PATHETIC WERE YOU, KNEMON??)

I'm glad you asked.

I enjoyed reading RPG rule-books (D&D was all right, but my all-time fave? Call of Chthulu), but *never actually played a game*.

That's right. I was too anti-social to get along ***with D&D dorks***.

According to the thread over at the host site for this clip, the semi-cute girl is Jami Gertz. If that's the case, this commercial has zoomed right out the far side of false advertising into a new and undefined realm.

Ah, yes, Traveller. Yeah I still got that stuff somewhere too. And a ton of Avalon Hill games. And a lot of GDW's Europa series. And ICE's Middle Earth stuff.

Christ, I was pathetic.
But at least I did get some. :)

brak's last post = the sad lie jocks still tell themselves because they're losers clinging madly desperately, hopelessly, to something...

"I coulda bin a contenduh...I coulda BIN sumbody...Uh, what does 'contenduh' mean, Coach? And is it, like, cool? And if it doesn't make me popular then it's just SO not worth it! Now, which drunk cheerleader do I get to bang tonight? I hope it's not the same one that made my pi$$ burn. I had ta miss practice and a half day of Vo-Tech goin' to the doctor!"

And Ace, really, I don't want my pride to interfere with your comedic timing. The latter is MUCH more important. ;) But thanks for the disclaimer. Always the gentleman, you.

Later,
bbeck

Mikey: ICE had conversion tables for 2-12, 3-18, 1-20, and percentile game systems, so you could play Traveller and AD&D and what have you using ICE's Arms Law/Spells Law system (use elemental attack spell tables for energy weapons effects).

And as for SFB, Type-R plasma torpedoes rule, baby!

God, help me.

jocks vs. nerds....just like mom said, "they only make fun of you because they are jealous"

hahahaha

I'm slow to pick on the D&D set. The ones I can't abide though are the older ones, the skinny losers who should've outgrown it along with their pimples.

Me, I had my epiphany sometime my sophmore year of HS. I was sitting at one of the Commodor's in my H.S. science lab, typing in a program (BASIC) from the back of Dragon magazine that would determine if my dice were 'truly' random (There had been some talk bout a few to many vorpal 20's on my favorite big blue.)

Suddenly I saw myself very clearly. There I was traveling down the two dork roads, (programming n D&D) standing at their unholy crossroad. A dangerous spot indeed. At that moment I knew that if I didn't get off those paths, make big changes, I would likely never learn what a booby actually feels like.

Yes, two dork paths led deep into the woods. I took neither. And that has made all the difference.

"...just like mom said, "they only make fun of you because they are jealous"

Is that why you leapt on the opportunity to make fun of the nerds so dang fast, brak?

And Ray honey, I hate to tell you, but you post HERE. Seems to me like there was a third dork road option.

Later,
bbeck

that's why i laughed

mom was wrong

besides, i was just sticking up for the jocks...all in good fun, i enjoy reading about your foreign culture

The shame, the shame...

Were we really all that dorky? My favorite moment of shame was the commercial for the Legend of Zelda.

bbeck, if napoleaon dynamite taught us anything, it's that you should revel in your nerdiness.

Brak, it's all good.

My point -- and believe it or not, I had one -- is that a very small percentage of nerds, jocks, cheerleaders, debutantes, etc. actually fit into the stereotypes so promoted by those who DID fit into the stereotypes.

I was a Nerd (still am, can't get away from it) not because I didn't bathe (I did) or I had bad taste (I didn't) or Pizza Face (never) or was too fat/too thin (never again), but because I knew what was important (school) and what wasn't (football, pom pons, shiny cars, prom, Homecoming Queen, Who's Who). But, because I didn't/don't put emphasis on the superficial, I was/am negatively categorized by those who DO...and so is anyone else whose interests don't fall into the acceptable categories.

And that's okay, really. I consider it far better to be a nerd than to NOT be one.

Later,
bbeck

lol, Hob, I haven't seen the movie, but I don't need a movie to teach me THAT. :)

Later,
bbeck

They had commercials advertising D&D in your state? I think they must have been banned in Florida -- either because D&D was seen as an occult practice that was guaranteed to damn your tykes to HELL™ or as too much competition for Disney World. Probably both.

I just tried to post and was rejected. I did not cuss, but I did use the word "commie"once. What's going on here, Ace? It's not like I really supported the Whiskey Rebellion (much). Is this place Prude of Spades now?

Grrrr...

The spam-protection software looks for words or parts of words that are used in spam. You can't say 'soci@alism," because that contains "ci@lis."

You can curse pretty much all the fuck you twatting want.

I guess you just can't say "J-e-s-u-i-t" and "t-h-e-r-a-p-y" in the same sentence....

Yall need to see "Hitch," preferable with a female.

MP: "God help me."

Which mythos?

heh, heh.

Sparkle, Yes, "Hitch" is a great date (especially first date) movie.

Yeah, you'll lose "man points" for going, but you'll gain "chick points" at the same time.

Which kind of points would you guys rather have at the end of the evening?

Please, Ace,

Gamma World? you were such a tool of the commercial machine of the Commercialized TSR. Cool guys played Morrow Project. Even Top Secret wasn't very cool.

Ohhh. Top Secret. It was very had to get an "Ultra Clean" Assassination: Target killed, no innocent bystanders.

Kill me now.

Knemon :

Hah, the only 2 games I played were MERP and Call Of Cthulu...weird.

How has Ace managed to attract all the D&D'ers from 20 years ago into one blog?

Is this the part where we find out we're all connected, and Ace is the one kid we all used to laugh at until he had some accident and was presumed dead, only to come back 20 years later with a blog into which he sucks us into his nightmare for revenge?

The only reason Ace blocks Ci@lis is in case his supplier turns up to tell him when his next shipment is due to arrive. Though god knows how we could have a lower opinion of him even if he did.

If any guy tried to take me to go see "Hitch" on a first date, I'd suspect he'd be more interested in dating my brother.

Later,
bbeck

Call me slow, but is a guy named "hobgoblin" really claiming he never played D&D?

Uh huh. Emerson my ass.

Sure, D&D was cool (old-style, in the box), and Traveler was keen, Steve Jackson games were hot before he got busted (remember Ogre?), and Avalon Hill games provided hours of fun...

...but did anyone else actually play the snit games when they first came out in The Dragon?

I had a large snit drawn up on my whiteboard at my last non-consulting gig. NOBODY recognized it.

I had a brief courtship with D&D in elementary school. When the kid who got me started encouraged me to come to the library to play along with this "really cool" 20yr old dungeon master, I thought maybe that shit just wasn't how I wanted to roll.

Call it intuition - I didn't really figure out the full nerd implications of a 20yr old playing board games with a bunch of little kids until later in life.

I still play an occasional RPG and I can spend all day with my nose buried in a Robert Jordan book so I guess that makes me a nerd, too.

But none of us will ever have to be ashamed as long as we remember that 20yr old dweeb rolling dice with a bunch of grade schoolers.

It's almost not funny.

Man, I'd love to know what happened to that guy.

someone,

"Emerson my ass"

I don't even know the difference between a goblin, hobgoblin, and kobald (or whatever). Never said I didn't like farie tales, though.

My brother played all that stuff. I just liked the pictures of quasi-nekked women in the monster books.