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Cultural Forum presents
An exclusive film showing of
"A Poem is A
Naked Person"
A film by Les Blank about
Leon Russell
^7T
"'...the best rock
film ever made’
— Tom Zito The
Washington Post.
This film has
never been
released publicly.
Shown by Filmaker
Les Blank
150 Geology—UO Campus
Thursday, January 28 • 8 p.m.
*230 UO Students • ‘330 General Public
Tickets available at the door
20%
OFF
all
FANTASY
SCIENCE FICTION
& WAR GAMES
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
TRAVELLER
Avalon Hill,
SPI,
Fantasy Games Unlimited
and more!
mRLQURGAMESLtd.'m^l
296 t Fifth Street 343-3331
IT’S JUST A FANTASY...
The motley party creeps
cautiously around the bend
in the corridor. The air is
thick, and the walls warm
“Ssshh!" warns the hobbit theif who
is leading the pack. "I think we're
coming up on something. "Yes,'
agrees an elfish wizard, "my ferret
thinks she smells something strange,
like — "
The wizard's words are cut off
when the floor suddenly falls under
their weight, and they are left facing
not one, but two angry dragons, who
are a bit upset at being wakened in
the middle of a nap The dragons
whirl about and prepare to attack
while the party furiously regroups
and pulls out weapons, magic
potions and scrolls with ancient
spells on them The party fires first
Two of the arrows hit their marks, but
the dragons shrug them off easily
One of the spells backfires miserably,
and two of the party fall into a deep
sleep
The dragons are now in position.
The first opens his mouth, exposing
two rows of razor-sharp teeth and a
forked tongue He inhales deeply,
steam rising from his flared nostrils
With a final flick of the tongue he
begins to breathe a stream of flame,
and
The Dungeon Master rolls an
eight-sided die "Looks like Smooth
Louie is in trouble " One of the
players rolls his eyes as the Dungeon
Master rolls another die “Six hit
points damage. Are you still alive?"
College students, professional
people and children bring this kind of
scenario to life in dorm rooms, in
back rooms of bookstores, and at
dining room tables every day It's all
part of Dungeons & Dragons, one of
the elaborate fantasy games that
have become a big part of life on
college campuses across the
country, second only in popularity to
beer drinking
Although all types of people play
these fantasy games, college
students are some of the most avid
players Darrel Plant, of
Gandalfs Den in Eugene, says “we
see kids from seven years on up
There's a fair amount of adults, but
it's mostly teenagers and college
students ”
Dungeons & Dragons started it all,
and continues to be the most popular
fantasy game, says Plant In the four
years since advanced Dungeons &
Dragons has been on the market, it
has been joined by a deluge of
similar games, including Tunnels &
Trolls and Dragonquest, Top Secret
(a James Bond-type adventure game)
and Traveler (a science fiction
role-playing game)
The popularity of the games is due
largely to their elaborateness,
stimulation of the imagination, and
fantasy fulfillment
The games are extremely
elaborate Detailed maps are made to
show exactly where the adventurers
are in a maze of tunnels The
Dungeon Master describes point by
point precisely what the members of
the party see, hear, smell, and do
The rules are drawn out at length —
guidelines and various character
descriptions for Dungeons &
Dragons take up four volumes
(retailing at $12 each) In the books,
a player can find charts that decide
everything from his character's
occupation to its eye color,
descriptions of a myriad of monsters
(and their strengths and
weaknesses), magic spells for almost
any situation, and combat charts tor
determining who wins when the
arrows start flying
The basic framework of the four
books is only the foundation for the
game The rest is built in the
imaginations of the Dungeon Master
and the players There is no playing
board, no cards to turn over, no
“moves" to be made: the action
takes place in the mind A character
can be almost anything, from a
friendly bard to a dastardly assassin
Through the characters, the
players can live out incredible
fantasies of heroism and cowardice,
benevolence or evil, and lots of
greed
David Sanders, an avid gamester,
thinks this fantasy fulfillment is the
games main attraction "This is the
only place a skinny, myopic kid with
two calculators on his belt and a slide
rule in his pocket can destroy the
world or rule a continent It's a great
way for people to get their
aggressions out At least nobody gets
hurt.”
Or do they? Is it possible that
some players become so
wrapped up in their fantasy
games that their real lives
become relatively unimportant? Plant
says that although this does happen
to some game fanatics, "you could
do that with anything. There are
people whose lives revolve around
sports, too ”
Sanders sees it a different way “A
lot of people think that D & D makes
people weird I'll tell you something,
those people are weird to start with It
may be a dangerous temptation for
unbalanced people, but they’re
unbalanced to begin with; the game
doesn't make them that way ”
' Another thing people think,” says
Sanders, "is that 0 & D is part of
graphic by |ana hart-mayar
some satanist plot. Admittedly there
are demons and devils in the game,
but in every game I've ever seen no
one's trying to worship them, they’re
trying to destroy them.”
A more immediate danger, says
Plant, applies to college students in
particular. "It's more fun to (play)
than it is to sit down and study.
Whether fantasy games are just
harmless recreation or dangerous
obsessions depends on the
individual, but one thing is certain. 40
years from now, when aging alumni
review their college memories, more
than a few will remember evenings
spent sitting around a kitchen table,
rolling dice and vanquishing
dragons.
D 6 D for
the complete dwarf
All right, so you're a little
interested in Dungeons &
Dragons But you don't
know your hit points from
your alignment Here are some of the
basic elements of the game, so you
won't be embarrassed by throwing a
sleep spell on a sixth-level illusionist.
First off, you’ll need to roll up your
character That means you'll be
rolling three six-sided dice ("D-six”
in D & D lingo). With the help of the
Dungeon Master ( "D M.” in the
lingo), you’ll determine your
character's strength, dexterity,
constitution, wisdom, intelligence,
charisma, and hit points (how many
points of damage your character can
take before he kicks the medieval
bucket) On the basis of these
scores, you'll decide whether you
want to be a magic user, a thief, a
warrior, or something else
Most D M s will let you decide your
own character's name, race (i e
dwarf, hobbit, man), and alignment
(lawful good, chaotic bad, etc ), or
you may have to roll them up on
20-sided dice (D-20s).
Let's say your character is pretty
smart, but not too strong You'll
probably want to run a magic user,
since that's your best bet. Your
character is Wartnose, a
chaotic-good dwarf Chaotic-good
means you're basically a nice person,
but you're looking out for Number
One. Kind of like anyone who’s gone
through assertiveness training.
On the basis of your intelligence
score, you’ll get a number of magic
spells. If you get to choose them
yourself (once again, it’s up to the
D M ), make sure you get a sleep
spell. It's useful for making meanies
snooze, so you can quietly disperse
them as you see fit. Low-level spells
won’t work on more experienced
monsters, which is why it won’t do
any good to use it on the illusionist.
OK, you’re ready. The D M.
tells the party the basic
story behind the adventure,
and you’re ready to go.
You decide on a marching order
(sometimes illustrating this order wi(h
tiny lead figures), and off you go. You
arrive at the dungeon, cavern,
pyramid or whatever, and go in.
The D M carefully describes what
you see and hear. You then carefully
what you’re doing (listening, walking
down the corridor, checking for
secret doors, etc ). Eventually you'll
run into some monsters, which you
battle with D-fours, D-sixes, D-12s
and D-20s Hopefully you win If not,
that’s the end of the game for your
character.
Assuming you survive, you then try
to find as much booty as possible.
Since you're chaotic-good, you'll do
it quietly, and share as little as
possible. But you won’t stab anyone
in the back to do it.
After you’ve gotten what you were
after, or it's time for dinner, you’ll be
ready to leave the dungeon and head
back to civilization. When you reach
town, you’ll tally up your winnings,
1 figure out how many experience
points you’ve gotten for killing all
those beasties, and maybe move up a
level, which means you get more hit
points and more spells.
It may seem like a lot to remember
i at first, but it gets easier as you go
| along. If all else fails, there are two
main points to remember: 1) if you’re
in a room with a lot of powerful
monsters run, 2) don’t make the
D M. upset — he’s in charge of the
whole garbonzo (particularly
obnoxious characters have been
known to be caught in small nuclear
explosions for no apparent reason),
and 3) enjoy yourself.
stories by matt meyer
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copies
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• 2 sided copies
• binding
• lamination
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