Science Teacher Needs Help

[Vince53]

Folks, I'm a 55 year old retired high school science teacher, who posted these two articles on another forum:

Okay, my friend Gene wants to know where I got my information on the origin of D&D. Gene, over a quarter of a century ago, we had an uproar over D&D (which I have never played) being used to convert our high school kids to Satanism. I borrowed someone's and read the manual. I did all the research I could in those pre-www days, and I cannot document my sources. But here is is:

At that time, people played VERY lengthy strategy games using boards, dice, spinners, etc. When it was your turn, you moved your troops, ships, etc. Combat was determined by the relative strengths of your forces when your pieces moved into someone else's pieces. Most of these games were based on actual historical battles.

A bunch of guys who liked medieval knights got together and formed a "world" divided into kingdoms of equal strength, and then played a strategy game. No monsters were allowed: plots, alliances, battles, etc., were all realistic. One of the players had a kingdom called "Northbrook." He invented his own game, in which the other players would call a truce, and they would take their characters to Northbrook and fight monsters in the extensive tunnels underneath the castle. This guy invented the idea of having a certain number assigned to your strength, armor, resistance, etc. When you fought a monster, you threw dice and added the die number to your own number. He had wizards and clerics for magic and healing, and you could trade and buy items.

Calling it "The Northbrook Campaign," he wrote the rules and sent them to any interested players, including his friend Gary Gygax. Gygax improved the game, copyrighted it under the title "Dungeons and Dragons," and voluntarily gave half of all royalties to his former friend, who felt that Gygax had ruined the game.




Folks, I got into curiosity mode today, and I researched the origins of Dungeons and Dragons. I can find no reference at all to a game called "The Northbrook Campaign," and some sources list two other games that were precursors of D&D. WHERE did I get that information from, back around 1980?

I remember that some upset parents were asking me if allowing their children to play D&D would turn them into Satanists. I researched different magazine articles at two libraries and came up with a definite "No."

There had been an uproar when a dedicated D&D player committed suicide after his favorite character got killed. But teens who played D&D were actually less likely to commit suicide (they had friends, they had something to live for, they had less time for drugs and alcohol, etc.)

As a high school science teacher, I often wound up explaining (and proving) that real magic does not exist. It surprised me how many teen-agers were afraid of ghosts, vampires, etc., and they were visibly relieved when I showed that such creatures cannot exist.

But WHERE did I get that story about The Northbrook Campaign?


Okay, D&D fans, can you help me out? Have any of you heard that story about The Northbrook Campaign before?

[Oskatat]

did a search on the web, including link 218, and found nothing conclusive. I do know that there were other games such as the D&D game around, but D&D was the game that was easi(er) playable, had a marketing offensive and a cartoon made after it

on d&d and suicide: a dnd character is like your favorite cartoon character, (though its you), or a pet, and parents shouldnt worry about a kid having pictures of movie heroes, but worry when he destroys them, or ignores the pet. as far as i read in similar reports, the kid(s) were suicidal, and to tie all loose ends, the character got killed. so, if your unhappy friend quite obviously and intentionally gets his 7 year old, from lvl 1 to lvl 29, character killed, warn his (or her) parents


if you did not want a reply to the dnd/satanism thing, dont mention it multiple times in your post