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.
