Posts Tagged ‘college’

“I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else.” — Gary Gygax, 1938-2008

Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson—may they rest in peace in a land where skimpy chainmail really does protect better than full body armor on big-breasted women—created D&D and published its first book in 1974.

It was different from tabletop wargames in many ways, allowing for each player to essentially create and become a single character of their design to embark upon adventures in a fantasy setting. This was all guided by the Dungeons Master or DM.

Besides telling the story the players’ characters live through, the DM’s job is to try and kill the characters off. Hopefully, your DM wants you to succeed, but if they’re not throwing challenging monsters and puzzles your way that could potentially kill your character at every turn then they are not doing their job.
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I am a geek. That has already been established purely by the existence of this blog. I am also very typical of the American woman my age. Middle class, over-educated, under-appreciated, with a husband, a cat, and a lot of bills to pay. I believe that my current financial position of getting by paycheck to paycheck is in part the fault of my geek status.

Allow me to explain.

I attended St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. This was the most expensive of the schools I looked at toward the end of high school, but it was the one I had to go to, no compromise, because of what it offered. My first year of schooling was $28,000. By the time I graduated the yearly tuition had increased to $38,000. That’s a $10,000 increase in four years. Frightening, right?
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