On a Role: Thirty Years After Dungeons &Amp; Dragons Hit the Scene, Character-Playing Games Catch Fire Again

By Christopher Caskey, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Feb. 17–If you walked in on Matthew Hurley and his friends on a Saturday night, you might think you just crashed a probability project for a statistics class. You’d see seven shaggy-haired teenage boys sitting around a table, flipping through stacks of textbooks, rolling dice, jotting notes and typing on their scientific calculators.

But for 16-year-old Matthew from Granite Bay, this is a chance to rule the world for a day – even if it is a fantasy world.

He and his friends are playing Dungeons & Dragons, the popular fantasy role-playing game. And tonight, Matthew is the dungeon master. This means he gets to decide everything that happens in the game – where the players will go and what adventures they will get themselves into.

His power is absolute, and whatever he says, goes.

“I don’t mean to geek out too much,” Matthew says, before starting to read tonight’s interactive story. “But I titled my chapters.”

Matthew is one of about 6 million people worldwide who play role-playing games. The hobby, first made popular in the late 1970s and long seen by many as an activity of the socially inept, has found a resurgence in popularity among teenagers. Thanks to game-playing celebrities and a new acceptance by pop culture of all things geeky, a new generation of gamers is breaching the mainstream.

In 2004, specialty and hobby stores sold around $36 million in role-playing merchandise in the United States alone, according to Comics and Games Retailer, a trade publication. That number does not include sales by large retail chains.

First published in 1974, written by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, Dungeons & Dragons is the oldest and by far the most popular role-playing game. Today, D&D is published in 14 languages, and according to Comics and Games Retailer, at least half of all role-playing merchandise is related to this game.

All that’s needed to play is a copy of the “Dungeon Master’s Guide,”"Player’s Guide,” and “Monster Manual ,” the three guides that lay out the rules and regulations. Then you need some dice, a pencil, some paper and your imagination, and you’re ready to go.

“You’d think it would become stale after all these years,” said Toby Nelson, a spokesman for Wizards of the Coast, the company that licenses and publishes Dungeons & Dragons and other games. “But it’s a dynamic, expanding phenomenon. It’s more popular now than ever before.”

Participating in a role-playing game is a little like being in a movie without a script. Each player creates a character from specifications given in the guidebook, giving the character its strengths, weaknesses, skills and powers.

Those characters are then led on a journey by the game master, who creates the setting and tells a story involving the characters. The game master involves the characters in various adventures, and the players have to work together and use their characters’ skills – and some luck (by rolling dice) – to solve problems and win the adventure.

Some people spend hours coming up with a story. Others make them up on the spot.

Gabriel Vega, producer of the ConQuest SAC gaming and science fiction convention, once heard it described as “improvisational radio theater.”

“You’re responding to situations without the use of a script,” he said. “It’s all oral. There’s a story being told and you’re part of it.”

ConQuest SAC is an upcoming gathering that will host role-playing and board games, science fiction events and other activities. The three-day hurrah will start on April 7 and will be held at the Red Lion Hotel on Arden Way. More information on the event can be found at www.conquestsac.com.

Vega, who also owns a retail store that sells role-playing merchandise, has noticed more and more young people becoming interested in role-playing. Many of the younger players, he said, come to the store with their parents, who became interested in role-playing when they were teens.

He felt that role-playing games had officially made it into mainstream culture when a “Dungeons & Dragons for Dummies” (For Dummies, $19.99, 430 pages) book was published.

“That means it’s pretty much part of our pop culture,” Vega said.

Toby Nelson from Wizards of the Coast attributes much of role-playing’s recent popularity to the entertainment world. He said characters such as Napoleon Dynamite and Seth Cohen of the popular television show “The O.C.” make things like comic books and fantasy games seem normal – even hip.

“Geek culture is really big right now,” Nelson said. “(Role-playing) games are an icon to geek pop culture. It’s the cornerstone of the movement.”

And it doesn’t end with fictional characters. A number of popular musicians have admitted gaming, including members of Weezer and My Chemical Romance. Actors Matthew Lillard (“Scooby Doo,”"Without a Paddle”) and Vin Diesel (“XXX,”"The Fast and the Furious”) have talked about gaming in interviews and have included role-playing references in their movies.

And some of the most popular movies of the last few years have not featured big, burly heroes.

With more and more celebrities exposing the masses to role-playing, popular culture expert Patricia Leavy said that the image of the gamer as an anti-social “nerd” is falling by the wayside.

“If you get enough popular people out there who say this is cool, you will alter these stereotypes,” said Leavy, a professor of sociology at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass. “A lot of (celebrities) were outsiders growing up. Now they want to give back to these kids.”

And, Leavy said, role-playing teens may be more likely to end up in music, acting or writing, since the hobby demands imagination and creativity.

“Creative activities have always been pushed to the peripheries,” Leavy said. “If you’re a creative person, it can be hard to find other kids who value that and value you because of it.”

But Jason Mouzakis, 18, said that he and his role-playing friends still have to deal with the generalizations surrounding the hobby. Because of this, he likes to hear about famous people who also play the games.

“We get jived a lot. People think (role playing) is just about guys sitting in their moms’ basements,” said Mouzakis, who lives in Antelope and has been role-playing since he was 13. “It kind of gives us a boost of pride to know we’re not the only geeks out there.”

Mouzakis and a group of friends get together every Friday at a comic book store in Roseville. They play a game called Werewolf: The Apocalypse, in which they are members of a clan of werewolves who work to protect the human race. Much like Dungeons & Dragons, the game is run by a storyteller who guides each of the characters through various adventures.

Like most role-players, Mouzakis played Dungeons & Dragons first. He and fellow gamers jokingly call it the “gateway game.”

Mouzakis prefers Werewolf because it gives him more freedom in creating and playing with his character. Right now, his character is a mute, which means Mouzakis cannot talk while he is playing.

“I actually have to act everything out,” said Mouzakis, who is majoring in technical theater at Sierra College in Rocklin. “I can use more expression to get my point across, and they have to figure out what it means. It makes it more interesting.”

Sue Roberson, 17, plays Werewolf with Mousakis’ group. She said the game gives her a chance to be creative during her free time.

“In school, you get to think. But it’s not exactly about what you want,” said Roberson, who enjoys drawing and writing short stories. “Here, I can be free with what I’m thinking.”

As far as being classified as a “geek,” Roberson doesn’t mind.

“If I tell them I play (Dungeons & Dragons) and this game called Werewolf and they say I’m a nerd, I say, ‘thank you,’ ” she said. “I’ve never been much of a stereotype person.”

But for both Mouzakis and Roberson, like most gamers, their Friday session is more fun than games. They banter, burst into laughter and crack each other up with impressions of Bob Dole, the former vice president.

It’s just hanging with pals on Friday night.

“We’re all kind of this big family who’ve known each other for a while,” Mouzakis said.

Comics and Games Retailer editor James Mishler said the social aspect of the game is what keeps it popular. Even though there are dozens of computer and video games such as the popular “Everquest” and “World of Warcraft” that have fast, high-quality online offerings, role-playing in person offers a different experience.

“There is a social element there that computer games cannot emulate,” he said. “Getting together with your friends and playing together is just more fun than logging on, playing and typing ‘See you later.’ “

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

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