Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons

Welcome to the forever I'm Brent. I'm Dan. I'm Dan. I'm Dan.

I'm just hanging out. Yeah. Have a good time living your best life. I don't know why I hate that phrase but just living your life, living your best life, living your best life.

And that's probably true, honestly. I mean, especially with, you know, lack of children and really any major issues at the moment like yeah, I kind of am living my best life. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

A little bit. Like if I didn't have to go to work every day, I might be dead by now or just into some really weird shit. Yes. Because I already have a lot of free time.

Yeah, works kind of like the only thing that keeps you from going crazy. Yeah, kind of keeps me in the mainstream. Yeah. I got to socialize people.

I got to be a member of society. Yeah, man, but not soon. Whenever they close everything down, we're all isolated. You buy a bunch of toilet paper?

No. I'm worried because I'm down to like two rolls in my house. You shouldn't be. You want me to tell you why?

Because you can still buy it everywhere. Well, our old buddy, Kyle Kinan, whose show was great by the way. I don't know if I mentioned that last time, but he put out a tweet that was like, Hey, Demis, why are you hoarding all this toilet paper? What do you think you're going to do with loads of free time and running water in your house?

Yeah, running water in your house, which actually led to a series of tweets about how the coronavirus was just a conspiracy by a big bidet. I didn't see that. Yeah. And then there's an article about like the sales of like skyrocketing and then he's like, Now, do you believe me?

Yeah, I mean, I would just shower if I ran out of toilet paper. Yeah, I'm just worried about like, I'm not in isolation, but I still need toilet paper in my house because it's way easier to just what I'm asked and not shower every time I boot. Plus, I mean, here's the thing that we we work in a service industry. So whoever will allow us to come on site, which I guarantee you is most people.

Oh, yeah. Anytime there's something making noise, that's the big one, right? Yeah. Burglar alarms, fire alarms.

Yeah, stuff that is active, even when no one's there. Anything beeping. Yeah. It's the beeping, really.

Are there getting phone calls because of it? We wouldn't get any phone calls if it weren't for the beeping. Yeah. Like, can you shut this thing the fuck up, please?

I mean, I can get a phone call every two AM at night. Could you could you make it not do that no more? Exactly. Oh, yeah.

By the way, if you're a new listener, we both work in the alarm industry. So we won't tell you who for because, you know, we don't want to lose our jobs. I don't think we'd lose our jobs. I mean, what do you even have to do lately, man?

I'm just saying. Aside from the Corona thing, do you really think it's a big deal? No. I don't think it is.

I think I've already had it. I think I might have already had it, too. Like I had that weird coffin thing and you had it in... No, I wasn't sick.

Someone else had to work at it and then I got it again somehow. Yeah, you always get sick twice. I don't know what to do. I have to do it.

I will admit. It's a little bit of a deterrent to come over your house. Yeah. Whatever.

What is your wife have recently that was kind of crazy? Hand-foot mouth disease? Yeah, that one. Yeah.

But there's more than that. No. Run the holidays? Yeah, and then also the neighbors' kid was staying with us, too.

Yeah, I mean, it was a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, like extra dogs, extra people, extra kids. Yeah, but it's all calmed down now. Yeah, everything's clean.

It's got to go back to normal. I'm super clean for any ladies, listen. Okay. Oh, weird.

That's good. Just kidding. Yeah, my brother called me from Florida and he said that you would think that it's Armageddon. And he was like, is it not like that up there?

Oh, no, not at all. He's like, oh, I imagine it's like that because 70% of the elderly population on the east coast lives in Florida. Oh, and also I'm supposed to go in Florida next month for training, like in three weeks. I don't know.

I don't know. But I'm supposed to take a train and fly. So who knows? I got which one's going to be canceled.

I think it's going to die soon, man. Yeah, I think I understand it isn't concerned for elderly and infants because it's basically flu-like symptoms that can also kill you. It's a little more, it's a little higher death rate than the flu, but... Thank God.

King Kardashian pointed out that Sylvia Brown, the psychic, predicted this back in 2008. Are you aware of this? No. I think Sylvia Brown was this shyster that was on the Oprah show.

She writes, in around 2020, a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself is the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived. Attack again 10 years later and then disappear completely. This was a prediction from Sylvia Brown in 2008.

I mean, it's not resistant to medicine. What is it? Well, we don't have any cures for it. We don't have a vaccine for it, but it's...

Exactly, so that would mean it would be resistant to current things. Well, I mean, flu vaccine. It's not going to work. I don't know.

I also feel about that the way I feel about Nostradamus where it's just like... And it's funny too, because if you actually look up the passage I'm talking about, if you look at the shit above and below that passage, it's crazy ass shit. I think it's like Nostradamus. You just throw enough shit at the wall and like, hey, look, I predicted something.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even predict shit, man.

Come on. Yeah. Yeah. That's the whole thing that Nostradamus like, hey, okay, well, he wrote 5,000 things.

One of them is going to be kind of true. And even that, you have to skew to fit what you're saying. Right. So actually, when he said dragons, he meant telephones.

It's like, what? The only one that's kind of close, in my opinion, with Nostradamus is the London Fire. He actually said something about a fire breaking out in 66, which actually did happen in 1666 was the London Fire. Yeah.

Kind of interesting. But I mean, if you throw that in there with like all the other shit that he did, same kind of thing. Yeah. Anyway, I didn't want to get off on a tangent about those bitches.

We could always do one Nostradamus. We could. We could. Anyways.

Yeah. So yeah, it's just been avoiding Corona. We had dumber people that they're not buying Corona beer. What do you mean?

Like Corona beer has gone down. It is weird that it's gone down. You think it's really effective thing? People are stupid.

Like they're not going to Asian supermarkets. Like it's people are stupid. You know, I was in public, in pigly wiggly the other day. And this Asian dude walked in and grabbed a cart and he did like look around the room like is anybody looking at me?

Like he did look like he like felt a little uneasy about it. Yeah, man. I just, I mean, sometimes you know, like terrorist after 9 11 like, yeah, I'm not a terrorist guy. Yeah, like it's crazy.

But the, the shit's gone kind of crazy, man. I was in target yesterday and this never happened, never happened before. I actually had to wait in line for the hand sanitizer. Like usually when I'm cruising into target or grocery store, I'll have a little hand sanitizer.

I might grab one of those wipes for the cart. For those who don't know, dance a little bit of a germaphobe. I'm a tiny bit of a germaphobe. And I still disagree with that.

I'm just not gross. Okay. I'm just not gross. Yeah, that's true.

I just like to clean things a little bit and I don't need after people. I like my hand. Everybody's like, oh, look at germaphobe Dan over there washing his hands. Yeah, like I'm a fucking weirdo because I try to stay clean.

Anyway, just so you know, I look my hands every time I'm sure you do. Anyway, I'm like saying at the hand sanitizer and there's like, I don't know, 15 people there. I'm just like, I'm just standing there waiting in line. And I'm just like, good job everybody.

They're all like, you know, you know, so if water actually works better than hand sanitizer, right? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Are you one of those people that are like, oh, well, we use the hand sanitizer.

We're going to create a super virus. I mean, I don't use it as much as you do for that reason. Yeah. Is that just a thing people say because is there any science behind that?

Please show me. I don't know, man. Exactly. That's that's some like Facebook bullshit.

And we all have our thing. Oh, you mean that shit that pharmacies, doctors, offices, fucking hospitals use all the time? Yeah, that's where all the super books come from Dan. Oh, it's not super beetles.

People just keeping their hands clean. It's not a big day. By the way, never wipe your ass with lights on wipes. Oh, really?

Have you done that? No. I can imagine not being good. I imagine baby wipes would be desirable if you're out of toilet paper, huh?

Yeah. If you got in on the toilet paper game? No, I'm actually almost out of toilet paper. All right.

I have like two rolls at home. Well, I mean, do you need some? No, I'm good. Because I didn't buy any extra.

Yeah. I saw somewhere online someone had bought like went to their local stores and bought up all the hand sanitizer stuff and they were trying to sell them eBay and Amazon and they shut them down because he was price gouging. Oh, good. I mean, I'm just stuck with a whole bunch of.

Yeah. Fuck that guy. Yeah, like an asshole's. Oh, man.

Yeah. What about what about the rest of the madness? Isn't it insane that people are buying shit like it's a hurricane? Well, yeah.

Why toilet paper? That's the whole thing too. Like, I don't get, well, I don't get that. I don't get water.

I don't get like people sucking up like it's the end of the world. Well, I think they're assuming they're going to be isolated in their house for two weeks or something like that. But this is America. Shit doesn't close on Christmas, man.

You're going to be able to go. I mean, you've been through hurricanes. I've been through hurricanes. A lot of the country hasn't been through hurricanes and so they don't see how people operate.

First of all, unless something is impassable or like literally like telephone poles flying through the air, people are going to leave their fucking house. Yeah, absolutely. And they're going to go try to buy shit. And there's an opportunist somewhere that's like, hell no, we're not going to close.

Yeah, well, we'll be open. I mean, how many bars are open during hurricanes? Almost all of them. Yeah.

Like it's, you're going to be able to buy shit. Absolutely. And the utilities are still going to work. You and I know because we work in service industries.

How could you imagine? We're probably still going to have to go to work. Imagine the internet just went down just because they're like, hey, yeah, we got too many sick people. We're going to shut the internet off.

No, I know that it makes sense. It doesn't make sense. Well, and I don't think that'll be an issue because unless there's a larger. I think the issue would be if everyone's isolated in their homes too many people on the internet at once.

That I think is a real thing. Yeah. Xbox Live was down on Friday and I'm like, I bet it's because all these people are fucking home. It's crazy.

It's stupid. It's stupid. But it is kind of entertaining. A lot of people buying guns and ammo acting like it's going to be Mad Max and it's ridiculous.

What about you? Are you a gun guy? I'm not much of a gun guy. I have a couple rifles and pistol and I mean, I don't like use them or carry them on me or keep them with me in the car or they're just in my house.

Yeah, I'm not much of a gun person. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I mean, I'm calling it shotgun and stuff. It's fun to shoot guns. Oh, hell yeah.

I'm not saying I don't like them. But you just don't know that I'm not a big gun person only because it's an expensive hobby. Yeah, it is. That's the problem.

Like, that's really what I'd love to have like an AR 15. Oh, yeah. If I was a millionaire, I would have probably a room full guns. Yeah, definitely.

Hell yeah. I'd have a gun. I'd have like a gun range where I would just find different shit to shoot all the time. Yeah, it'd be super fun.

Yeah. I'm going to go down to Florida where you can shoot fully automatic guns. Like gun range. Like gun range.

I can go in rent. Yeah, I know. My brother sends me pictures of him at the range all the time. Yeah.

And actually he showed, he sent me one yesterday of him holding up a couple of different rivals and then he like sent me another one of a zoomed in picture of his left hand, like on the trigger, he's like apparently I'm a psychopath. Like, yeah, dude, maybe keep your hands off the triggers you dumbass. Yeah, especially on a total control gun. But no, I haven't really had anything personal going on.

Well, you've had any movies games. Oh, I guess we've been playing a new game. Oh, yeah. That's a whole deep hole though.

I don't even want to get into it, but I kind of feel like that's what kicked off today's topic, but we got into Elder Scrolls Online. I think because we were talking about looking for shit to play. I hadn't played MMO in a long time. I wanted to get into it.

And you were looking for something to get into, like get deep with. And I'm like, go look at it like Conan or any of the online MMOs. Maybe there's something cool that we can both get into that doesn't suck. And you're like, man, you got to check out Elder Scrolls Online.

Yeah, because I did play like four or five different games. Did you really? Yeah. What did you end up playing?

See Conan, Star Wars, the Old Republic, Planetfall. Oh, I heard a Planetfall. Planetfall 2. What's that one about?

So that one is pretty cool too. It's a first person shooter. Oh. That was the game I was telling you about where it's like a first person shooter.

And it's basically like three teams and you're fighting over the whole planet. So we log in. That's cool. Like you just go and try to take over an area.

And there's other people there and you shoot them and take over the area. And then someone else will come and try to take over the area. You can either defend or attack. That's cool.

I actually like that idea. Yeah, it's super, super fun. And you ever play a... And then of course, as you kill people, you get points and then you can like, All right, well, I'm gonna call in a tank.

And then you get a tank that you can drive around. You spend your points on whatever you want. Shit. So you can spend your points to get a bad sniper rifle.

But when you die, you no longer have that sniper rifle and stuff like that. So I'm down. That sounds pretty fun. Yeah, but it's PC only.

Yeah, but on Steam it has a 9 out of 10 rating. That's pretty strong. Just got a huge update. It's actually free to play.

And it's all in PlayStation because it's developed by Sony. But it never comes in Xbox. Oh, bullshit. Yeah.

But no, it was a fun game I remember playing it years ago. I guess there's a big enough population still playing it. They're still putting huge updates into it. Apparently, they added an orbital bomber too.

So now just blow up the whole entire area. That's pretty dope. Yeah. Yeah, I remember when I first heard about Destiny, I was like, everybody's like, oh, it's like an MMO with guns.

And I was super excited. But it's not. It is, but it's not. Yeah, well, this actually is.

This is like a first person shooter. So if you don't own an MMO, you should probably just turn this podcast off completely because we're gonna be talking about Dungeons and Dragons. But MMO is massive multiplayer online game. So Dungeons and Dragons is basically like the precursor to an MMO.

And we can totally talk about Elder Scrolls Online. For probably an entire episode. But I think RPG games in general. In general, yeah.

Which yeah, I think we'll get in that a little bit later. But yeah, I mean, I like it because it's not very MMO-like. Like I've played City of Heroes. I've played Guild Wars.

I've had my City of Heroes. Yeah, it was a shit. There's, I mean, I've played pretty much every MMO that's come out. Yeah.

Did you ever play Final Fantasy XI? Yes. That shit was garbage, man. This is people still playing it.

Oh, yeah. People are definitely still playing it. It's crazy. Man, you weren't talking about grind.

Only what I didn't really play was RuneScape, which apparently you did. Never played it. I was listening. It's pretty good.

And it's supposedly really good. Like, you can literally, I played Ultimate Online. Do you know what Ultimate Online is? I know what Ultimate is.

I never played it though. Ultimate Online, like in the 90s. I heard it was a shit. It was cool because it was like Skyrim and all those games, whereas like the more you use an axe, the more you level up your axe skill.

That's how it was. But it was just completely open world. You could do anything. You could go and just chop trees.

Right. Open up a shop, sell wood. And that was what you did. Yeah.

And that's what got me into other scrolls online. Because I avoided it at first. Because it just looked like another MMO. Which for people who haven't played is a lot of fetch quests, which is like go from point A to point B and then come back to point A.

Or you go and you kill... X amount of dogs. 15 lizards and come back and I'll give you some XP. And then you can go onto another level.

So now go kill the Red Loser. Now go kill the Blue Loser. Right. And it's all auto attack or like basically just like a dice roll.

Which I'm sure, you know. Yeah, basically it's not a attack. Dd players would probably be fine with. But you're pressing skills every time they refresh.

It's not active. No, it's not. It's passive. Whereas other scrolls online is a lot like a single player Skyrim game, or Morrowind game, mixed with the online element.

Which is pretty fun. It's pretty fun. And it's giant. It's fucking massive.

Massive. Massive. I went on what I call like a travel quest. Because I really think that sometimes they put in quests to just show you what the area looks like.

Yeah. They're like, hey, check out this continent. It feels like a fucking continent. Dude, I was on one mission, took an hour and a half.

Mostly because even on my mount, riding across town or riding across villages after villages. Dude, I encountered so many cities. Like completely fully realized cities with real players in them. Yeah.

Like this looks like a corner of the map that nobody goes to. And it was still chock full of players. It's a really impressive game. I will say the only downside I have about it is the enemies.

This seems like there's too many enemies. I don't know. When riding from one area to another, it's like you're constantly getting attacked. Yeah.

But at least there's a lot of shit that is true. I mean, even amazing games like Skyrim or the Witcher or whatever. Like the random encounters are a little too infrequent once you get leveled up and actually kick some ass. Anyway.

Yeah. So anything else going on before you want to talk about the topic? No, man. I'm ready to get into this.

Can I throw out a brief sidebar? Just, you know, because I want people to know. Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know when this is going to come out maybe this week, maybe next week. But the Democratic primary is coming up. I'm not a political person. I don't really care.

But there's video evidence of Joe Biden being a creep. And by creep meaning a pedophile. Just go look it up. Just go look up Joe Biden as a creep on YouTube.

And you'll see what I'm talking about. I mean, I don't like Donald Trump. I think he's kind of a douchebag whether or not he's good for the country. I don't really know because I don't pay back low attention.

But come on, man. You're going to nominate a fucking pedophile. Like Joe Biden's a creep, man. Yeah.

Like tell your friends not to vote for him. And if you think I'm full of shit, just do a little, a little looking around. I didn't deep dive into it all that deep. It took me five seconds to find some horrible shit that Joe Biden has done on video.

By the way, on video, you can watch it. What the fuck? Why are we okay with this? Guys, he's powerful man.

Oh, yeah. That sucks. It's so gross. And it makes me feel gross for even talking about politics because I think it's disgusting.

Yeah. But I was so fucking blown away this week when I saw this shit. But I'm like, I got to tell at least the people I know to be like, hey, man, anybody that thinks this guy is okay just because he's not Trump. He's totally not okay.

Yeah. He's totally not okay. Please look around. I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to interject that into our fun, loving podcast. We're going to tell him that out until we get it out. I don't care. I don't care.

I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care.

I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care.

I just felt like I needed to say it. No, man. That's important to spread word. Anyway, sorry.

I'm off that. So this way. I think it's partly because when I was younger, it was like a super nerd thing to do and I wanted to at least kind of fit in. Yeah, there's those things where you don't want to go like full nerd.

Yeah. Never go full nerd. Well, I mean, you can now because the culture has changed. Yeah.

Now go full nerd and get ladies. That's what they say. So anyways, what is dungeon dragons? What is dungeon?

Dungeons D and D. I'm just going to say D and D for now because basically it's a pin and paper role playing game. What's a role playing game? A role playing game is where you play a role.

And again, of what? Anything. So RPGs, that's short for role playing game, are basically you can you take on a character, a persona and do actions through that person. It's like possession.

It's like choose your own adventure. But it's to your own adventure, but there is a person making up the story as you go along. Right. So I think that's a really poor description that we just had.

Yeah. It's kind of difficult without getting into the history of it and where it came from. So you were going to talk about like, okay, let's talk about like, it's like a competitive game. So think about chess.

It's more of like a cooperative game. It is. But you were going to get into some shit about like where like some of the origins. And in my mind, I, you know, with a good imagination, which I think is important in this type of game.

In my mind, something like chess is similar. And it is. It's a battle board with rules and you've got different roles. So two different things.

It's basically chess, but let's say you give the bishop a motive of why he's attacking the queen on a tag. Like it's it's more of a you're adding imagination and personality to and a scenario in a scenario. Yeah. Or what do you need people to call a campaign?

So role playing really started with war games. Yes. So even even back like in 2006 BC is like the earliest kind of like, oh wow. Example they have and that's the Han Dynasty would actually have historical reenactments for entertainment.

No shit. So yeah, so you know, they have examples in 16th century of Europe. They have improvised theater with stock characters, stock situations. So that you could like interact with the theater.

It was almost like a seriously murder mystery type show. Oh, that's cool. It was called a Camidia del Arte. So yeah, they would basically have it was basically live action role playing that you interact with.

So how did that work? You like tipped the swordsman like, you know, $3 to take three swipes at somebody? I think it was more like a murder mystery where it's like, you know, you ever been to a murder mystery? Yeah, actually really fun.

Fair fun. So, you know, something would happen. They have these stocks and areas and stock characters. And that's exactly what it is.

And then, you know, the actors would improvise the dialogue, of course, which is a real quick jump back to video games. Like that's the only thing we're missing from video games. Which is what? The improv, improvisation.

Improvisation that you get from like a real RPG, like a pen and paper RPG. Oh, I see what you mean. Or it's actually like, no, I disagree. If you get into like a legitimate like, larp style quote unquote role play, like I've joined servers.

Like a role playing server. Where people like want you to speak with an English accent or want you to only be in character. Like, yeah, you're a soldier in the army and you must act as if you are a soldier in the army. You know, you're just like on a game playing with other people.

Like, I think it's possible to play out those fantasies. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. I just meant like computer wise, a computer can't improvise.

Oh, no, no. But not yet. I mean, seriously though. It's common.

So yeah, so war games are basically the ancient version of RPGs. Yeah. And you know, like you said, including chess, because chess is basically a war game. Yeah.

So actually originated as it was called a Chaturunga. It's an ancient form, a simulation of the ancient form in India. And that's considered the most ancient ancestor of D&D. No kidding.

Chaturunga. Chaturunga. This is going to be the name of my first album. Right.

Chaturunga. But yeah, there's gotta be a band out there. Just gotta be a punk band out there somewhere named Chaturunga. Chamba Wampa.

Close enough. Maybe a high-slendic metal band. Chaturunga. But yeah, I mean, it's hard for me to explain what a role-playing game is.

I mean, it's really a war game with style. Kind of. Yeah. So a war game with dialogue.

A war game with, so think risk, think chess, where someone injects more meaning or story to, like you said, what the motivation of the bishop is. Like, you know, is the- Why are these two kings attacking each other? Is the queen achieving horror? Like, you know.

Yeah. And I mean, nowadays- Putting some story-bond. They have role-playing games for every genre you could think of. Sure.

I mean, there's role-playing games about vampires, vampires, and that's great. Right. There's ones about, you know, cyberpunk. There's, you know, funk pop.

There's- I'm not sure there's a role-playing game where you're a band. And like- Sure. I'm trying to take a tour around the US. Like- Well, now I wasn't really thinking about getting into it that much, but larping, if you don't know what that is, is live-action role-play.

Yeah. Where it's basically where Dungeons & Dragons and Arinisense-Spher. It's like if you were to meet on the Venn diagram and they're, you know, it's like if a super nerd- Hey, don't put them down, man. No, I'm not.

Just because- I wouldn't have to do it. I wouldn't have to do it. Venn is on- Just because they have the time to, you know, build cosplay outfits where they can fight each other. I mean, it does look fun.

I'm not gonna lie. It looks fun. It's like paintball. Yeah, it is like paintball.

But- So what is this? Yeah. Like paintball with a story behind it. So anyway, what's the- what's kind of the story of modern Dungeons & Dragons?

Well, the reason that like when people think of role-playing Dungeons & Dragons like the first name that comes to mind is because it was the first commercially available role-playing game. Right. So 1974, a man named Gary Gagax. Okay.

He and Dave Arnison- Arnison. Yeah. Co-wrote and Gary Leeson under TSR, which was his company, you know, that's where the original books came from. Basically it was a set outline of rules that people could follow to play this game.

So there wasn't, you know, it wasn't like board games where there was no board. There was no like, hey, these are your- these are your people you're playing with. It was just completely open like- There's actually a guy a little bit before that. Really?

Pardon me, looking for my fucking nuts. Well, there were other role-playing games, but none of them were commercially available. Oh, maybe that's what it is. He was the first one to sell it as a book.

I got you because before that, there was the student name and really kind of the genesis of the whole thing. Medieval miniature rules, which is what you're talking about with role-playing games. So like, you know how like my father-in-law, not so much anymore, but used to be really into trains, right? And so what do you do with trains?

You have a- Diorama. You have a diorama and then you've got the miniatures, you've got the houses and little people. Well, a lot of people did that with wars. Yeah, war games.

Would build little miniatures of, you know- Army men or timeymen or sort, you know, sort guys. I almost said sort guys. Sort guys. Sort guys.

You mean, shield guys? Yeah, knights. Good grief. And you know, just put together like a visual representation of the battlefield.

And so because of the interest in such a hobby, Jeff Perrin developed a set of rules for fighting each other. Basically. Like I've got my set. You've got your set.

Let's do something. These guys were five points. These guys were ten. Yeah, exactly.

Which I think is just an expansion of like what my brother and I would do as kids. Like Army men. Yeah, well, we would have like a conglomeration of like he men, GI Joe's, like transformers, and like we would literally have like an action figure war. But like before the war started, and this was the interesting part, like we would decide like who was stronger than someone else.

Like GI Joe's are stronger for their way because they've guns, but they get close to he men. He's gonna rip their head off. Exactly. And you know, scale wise, he's like two times their size.

But it was kind of the same idea. And then believe it or not, this Jeff Perrin guy got together with a guy named Gary Giggax, or however you say that guy gags. Thanks. I'm D&D fame.

And they wrote a set of rules for a game called Chainmail. Are you familiar with that? Yes, I've heard that too. Yeah.

So Chainmail is basically like a campaign mixed with, and by campaign I just mean a story. Yeah, scenario. Scenario, yeah. Mixed with rules for engagement between your characters.

So that's kind of like the genesis of the whole Dungeons and Dragons idea. And early on, there would have to be like a referee. There would be an intermediary between like the call people out for something. Yeah.

So that there was an unbiased third party that would watch, okay, well, these people fight. And that, because otherwise you're just gonna say, oh, well my guy's stronger than your guy, which is what happened with my brother and I all the time. Like, of course, Hordack is gonna be Skeletor because he's got this thing you can fly around on. And then my brother would be like, no, Skeletor's got the magic, bro.

He'll fucking just make you disappear. You got shit. So you gotta have somebody in there. It's gonna be like, no, these are the rules.

This is what you're gonna play by. And I think the referee naturally involved into the Dungeon Master. Yeah. So for those who don't know, Dungeon Master is basically someone running the scenario, running the campaign.

They're running the game. They are, in air quotes, the God of the world. They are the ones who, all the non-player characters, all the NPCs that the people run into, that's who voices on them, that's who tells the story, that's who progresses. That's who plans the dungeon.

Right. So it's the narrator. It's all the enemies. It's the narrator.

It's your guide. Yeah. You're never really sure if they're on your side or against you, then it might be both. Yeah, they should be neutral, but you're never really certain.

I mean, it depends kind of if you piss them off or not. Yeah, right. So if you've got a band of heroes that goes into one of these stories that were put together, and it's very creative, I mean, some of the earliest campaigns after Chainmail, you've got, what's the Hawk one? Yeah, sure.

It's called like Dark Hawk or something like that. Hawk Wind, maybe? Anyway, so the Dungeon Master not only facilitates the campaign, but also tells people when they're going to encounter something. So if you've got a band of heroes and you're leaving on your adventure, the Dungeon Master will narrate like, okay, the band of heroes leaves their tavern where they have met up, they describe traveling down the road.

And yeah, so they would set the scene for you. They'd give you the whole layout of the scenario so that you can kind of get into it with your own character and how they interact with the world. Anyway, so Gary Gigax later met up with, what's that dude's name? So obviously, Chainmail was pretty popular at the time.

This was also in the 70s. He met up with, oh, the guy you mentioned earlier, Dave Arneson. Oh, Arneson, yeah. And they created kind of the first set of rules for Dungeons and Dragons in 1974.

And created tactical studies rules or TSR for sure. And this was kind of the genesis of Dungeons and Dragons in general. There was another guy like Don K. I guess he was involved in 75, but he died.

And then the two guys named Bloom got involved. Anyway, it was Gagax for Gagax. How do you say his name? Gagax for the most part was kind of the...

Yeah, he was definitely like early on. When you think of who started D&D, his name is usually the one that people, maybe because he has a weird name, I don't know. Right. So originally, virtually unrecognizable game compared to what you would think from today.

So in the original 1974 version, or what a lot of people call OD&D for original Dungeons and Dragons, you only have three possible characters. You'd either be a cleric, a fighter, or a magic user. A little bit pared down from what exists today with multiple races and classes and all sorts of things. So your fighter would just be just like it sounds like a...

Sword and Shield. Sword and Shield kind of guy. Armor. Yep.

And in the original game, they dealt the most damage. They were the front lines. A lot of times you would call them a tank today. They were going straight on.

And your magic user would be more of a ranged kind of damage dealing, damage dealing sort of person. And the cleric kind of sucked from what I hear. Like you would think they would be like a healer because they're going to heal a role, but they're more like a support character. They were really just there to enhance the abilities, maybe with like some, what they call buffs to improve the abilities of the other two.

Which would kind of suck, right? Like why would you pick that unless they were just like, well, I'm going to be a fighter and I'm going to be a mage. Well, shit. Yeah, I guess I got to be the cleric.

Oh, Greyhawk. That was the name of the game, the expansion. So it wasn't long after the original set of rules came out that an expansion called Greyhawk came out. And that was a big boost in the openness of the scores.

The expanding of the universe. So that's where classes started to come in, different weapon specializations started to come in. I don't think that's where hit points came in. That might have been Greymore.