Tory roleplayers?

"for a few spotty years, i was that tragic geek"

Tory MP Micheal Grove on hes former love for D&D

with the death of the great white beared primark of d&d, gary gygaz, this week it has cuased pepole to reminise avout the grand old hobby, with suprising resluts...

with public figures like Darren Waters (BBC jornalist) and Micheal grove (tory MP) admitting to playing the game has D&D finaly lost the seedy image of the mid 80's suicide cult?

lets start at the beging, d&D has been villansed for years, even the bbc telvison drama tagart had a pop at it (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0716621/) and lets not even mention forssit gump's attempt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazes_and_Monsters) and of corse we are all famuiler with those poor sould who indvently gave d&d a bad name, just because of playing the game, Dallas Egbert III from the Michigan State and Irving Pulling II, the medis gobblubed up there playing of D&D, and compltly ignopred the preexisting metal health issues that they suffred from, so how did we get from that to where we are now?

Garay gygax himself went on record and is qouted as saying:-

The idea that a game is anything more than a game… You know, there are people who are basically unbalanced who are going to misuse a game and have bad results. If a golfer who insists on playing during a lightning storm gets hit by a stroke of lightning and is killed nobody says, 'There's golfers dying by the droves being hit by lightning!' You can overdo what you really like, and if you're unbalanced you go overboard.

and do you know what, its a good point. the sad fact is that young men comit sucided every day, and the type of enternment that they injoy has no baring at all on this.

its just sad that it took the death of the creator of D&D for pepole to openly admit that they play.

you might be a gamer if.....

You don't think of a Russian bazooka when someone says "RPG".
You use game stats to describe things in a movie. (Well, Han just blew his Fast-Talk roll)
The game master smiles, and you know it's too late.
Your blood pressure rises when the subject of "Dark Dungeons" comes up.
You know the singular form of the word "dice".
You can figure the odds (in your head) of getting a certain result when rolling variable sized dice pools.
You own a 30 or a 100 sided die.
you've ever spent a significant fraction of your life modifying game rules that you didn't like... and, as soon as the system worked to your satisfaction, discarded it.
you've ever seen the old AD&D tv series.
you've ever gotten into a screaming match over something that happened in a game... (You are so dead! I am not dead!)
you've ever neglected to buy the new edition of your favourite game because you already have three.
you keep old characters around just in case someone might run that system again. (Never mind that its TS: SI)
You knew what I meant when I said TS:SI.
you have a PhD in manipulating point systems to the best effect, even though you failed high school geometry.
you can consume your body weight in junk food in one gaming session.
you consider Party rings, Salt-&-Vinegar crisps, and Dr Pepper a balanced diet. (or even an acceptable combination.)
you have been known to drive to far away places where you paid enormous amounts of money for the privelege of sleeping on floors, eating crap, buying little pewter statues of Gandalf, and meeting dozens of psychopathic members of the alternate (or similar) sex who will follow you around for months, merely for the pleasure of playing with gamers you don't know. and then signed up en masse with all of you friends to play in games with game masters who you've known since high school.
you own your own weight in gaming books.
you can do AD&D money conversions in your head.
you consider the 20th century a state of mind.
you have a random NPC generator, written in BASIC, designed to run on the Trash-80 or the Commodore 64.
you've ever designed your own character sheets.
you can be more that three NPCs at the same time without generating more than reasonable confusion in your players.
you have ever played a Dwarven character who did not have "axe" or "beard" ANYWHERE in his or her name.
you know how to sex dwarves. (chromosome typing- required a blood sample. I'M not getting it...)
you've ever tried to explain gaming to a school counselor, parent, or other PW/OC (Person With/Out Clue).
you've suceeded.
you've played Talisman more than once.
you've finished a game of Talisman... more than once.

(yet) more motivation

Gary Gygax dies

no, its not a joke. the grand old (dungion) master has passed away at aged 69 in he's sleep after battleing ill health for a few years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/06/db0603.xml

so, gents.... what do we think? will he's sprit roll on a random table to diside he's fate, or will he simply be re-incarnated as a bug bear?