How RPGs Helped Me Grow Up

November 07, 2008 | Nathan Mobley

Two of my fondest adolescent memories took place during the summer following my seventh grade year.

One, I went to church camp and had the time of my life (I even got Camper of the Week).  And two, I played my first pen-and-paper role-playing game.  These two events culminated in paradoxical fashion because I had my first RPG session sitting on my bunk at camp, the same camp where days before, a speaker had come and denounced Dungeons and Dragons and other games like it as tools of the devil used to suck young minds into oblivion.  That simply intrigued me.  And once I played I was hooked, devil or no devil.  I loved it. 

The concept of role-playing games being Satanic wasn’t new to me that summer.  Sunday school teachers, parents, other kids had all hammered it into my mind from an early age.  My dad is a pastor and has been most of his life, ergo I got the brunt of a lot of vigilant Christian hysteria that probably did more to freak me out than to protect me.  Even though my parents probably knew there wasn’t much to the whole Satan/D & D thing, I guess they thought it better to be safe than sorry, seeing as my eternal salvation was on the line and all. 

Luckily, neither my mind nor my soul were lost from playing RPG’s, and in fact, in addition to having numerous memorable adventures, it improved my social skills, which were in desperate need of improvement at that point in time.

The Palladium game RIFTS was my entree into the world of RPG’s and probably still stands as one of my favorites.  Other games I played were Marvel Super Heroes, Ninjas and Super Spies (another personal favorite) and of course, Dungeons and Dragons, although the armor class thing always confused me and I never quite got it. 

Our crew was an interesting mix of people.  Most notably was my good friend Jeb who attended church with me and ultimately became my RPG pusher-man.  It was he who GMed my first session in the camp cabin, both of us skipping out on campfire vespers to kill monsters.  I remember a handful of other guys, all sufficiently geeky, all seasoned tabletop players.  I was the novice, the noob, and I’d found a place to fit in. 

Since then I’ve contemplated why that time in my life was so seminal for me and why I remember it with such nostalgia.  It may have been because it was the first time I’d made a decision that didn’t necessarily reflect my parent’s set of values.  I had passed through some invisible maturity portal that meant I could evaluate, decide, and act without adult supervision and low and behold my parents actually trusted that decision.  It was also probably the closest thing I had to a rite of passage, a sort of coming of age.  It was a chance for me to test myself and be the hero, if only for a few hours a month.

Unfortunately, because tabletop games require a degree of planning and several folks being in the same place at once, it seems they’ve lost much of the younger (and older) gaming generation to more convenient alternatives.  In fact, I’ve even resorted to getting my fix through PC gaming, which is still fun, but will never capture my affection like the pen and paper version did in my youth.  But, who knows, maybe the old-school RPG is due for a comeback.  And maybe our little series will help that happen. 

Anyone up for a game?