Dungeons and Dragons

Yes, I played Dungeons and Dragons. Were we geeks, those of us who did? Maybe we were, all of us were already in the freaks and geeks crowds at our respective schools, each of us having learned to play chess, each of us avid readers, movie buffs, and maybe a little introverted, in our own ways, but we certainly didn’t feel like it. We also played sports. We also started drinking at about 15, far too young for that nonsense, but we grew up in Northern Ontario, so that was almost a given.

I began to play “the game,” at the pool. Henri Guenette approached Garry Martin, Jodie Russell and I and asked us if we’d ever heard of “D&D.” We hadn’t. So, he showed us what his elder sister had bought him for his birthday, a Basic Box Set, an AD&D Player’s Guide and DM’s guide (those in the know require no explanation, anyone else can look them up). Most of us had grown up watching and reading science fiction and fantasy, Star Wars, Star Trek, Sinbad movies, Doctor Who, Arthur C. Clark, Asimov, Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock, and the like, so we were intrigued.

None of us knew what we were looking at, so we spent our break between swims in the relatively secluded and sunny spot out back of the pool (the same spot where we would sun tan, what we’d been doing at the time) leafing through the source material (the game books), Henri filling in what little he’d already gleaned on his own. We decided to give this new type of game a try.

We had our first session; again, out back in the quiet seclusion, and were hooked. Before we knew it, we were playing upstairs in the glassed in observation deck most evenings. The place was perfect, long folding tables, folding chairs, and it was a place we were already at. Other members of staff watched, a few declared it silly and stupid, a few asked to play.

But we didn’t have a complete set of books, and each of us wanted our own. We asked the older lifeguards, those heading down to Sudbury to check out the university, to pick us up the books at whatever store was selling them at the time, Comics North, most likely. And before long, we each had a new set. We studied them, and the largely made up rules we’d been playing by up to then fell away.

Then Tory, our boss, asked us not to play at the pool anymore. Someone had seen us and complained. She said it was inappropriate. We weren’t aware of it at the time, but this was during the Satanic Panic, back when the news was reporting that the game was stirring up Black Masses everywhere, in the schoolyards, in dark basements; that, and mass murders and suicide. Truancy, runaways, cavities!

We convened to basements, splayed out on couch and floor, our papers fanned out around us. Pop, chips, pizza, then after some time, beer. Lots of tense moments and even more laughter.

When my mother heard about it, close on the heels of watching “Mazes and Monsters,” Tom Hanks’ greatest film before beginning his acting career, she asked me about it, and told me that a friend of a friend of a friend said—you know the drill—that we were worshipping the Devil (now my mother is a fairly religious woman, so she was understandably concerned); so I showed her what books I had, showed her the tables, the stats, the dice, showed her how the basic mechanics of the game worked, and then said to her, “this is no different from any board game; it’s just played in our heads.” She never forbade me from playing.

Did playing D&D stunt my development? I don’t know. Maybe. But it also quickened my interest in mythology, history, ecology, and helped develop my understanding of statistics.

Say what you will, but it also created some of the most deeply felt friendships I have ever known, memories of which I cherish still, regardless my not having seen some of them for some 30 years.