The magazine Wired featured Robert Wardhaugh. He has been the Dungeon Master of a very special role-playing campaign that has gone a bit off the rails since 1982. It has been running for 40 years. The man has collected 30,000 miniatures and turned the basement of his house into a gaming paradise. You are not allowed to touch the figures. He admits to having a slight god complex, says the Dungeon Master.
What is Dungeons & Dragons?
- “Dungeons & Dragons” is a “Pen & Paper” role-playing game invented in 1974. A “Dungeon Master” devises a story, represents all monsters and non-player characters in the role-play. The players take on the role of heroes and experience epic adventures “through this character” in a fantasy world.
- If you want to do something special in the game, you say it out loud. The “Dungeon Master” decides whether an action succeeds or fails by rolling a die: Depending on how difficult an action is and how good the character is in the required skill, a higher number must be rolled.
- “Dungeons & Dragons” is the basis for many great video games: Among them are the legendary series “Baldur’s Gate,” “Eye of the Beholder,” “Icewind Dale,” “Planescape Torment,” or the MMORPG “Neverwinter.” Also Solasta, which recently received a co-op mode, is based on D&D.
Because of a movie, the campaign had to be kept “secret”
What is special about Wardhaugh’s campaign? His whole life revolves around the campaign, which has been running for 40 years. They meet in Wardhaugh’s basement and play about once or twice a week.
The campaign started in 1982 in secret with a few friends. Back then, Dungeons & Dragons was considered highly suspicious in conservative America: After all, it was about demons, and there was a mania in the USA that the youth of the country was turning away from faith and turning to Satan.
Back then, many adults believed that “fantasy role-playing games” somehow led to violence. The film “Mazes and Monsters” with Tom Hanks ruined the reputation of Dungeons & Dragons back then.
Wardhaugh says he was accused of being “a cult leader” or a Satanist back then.
Today, Dungeons & Dragons has a completely different image, and Wired features the Dungeon Master in a video.
The Dungeon Master has already spent over 20,000 hours in “his campaign”
Today, it is said, Wired reports that he has:
- 30,000 hand-painted miniatures – including unique and special figures like Tiamat, the mother of all dragons, or the Demogorgon
- countless custom-made terrain models
- dozens of players from all over the world
He is evidently quite proud of what he has built:
If you want a game that lasts 40 years, it has to be a good game. You need people who want to play it, who are willing to fly in to play it. You must offer them a product that is better than all the others. I can say for sure that it is the best Dungeons & Dragons game in the world.
According to him, his campaign is a kind of alternate fantasy version of historical Earth. While a normal Dungeon Master supervises a quest for a handful of players over a few months, Robert Wardhaugh guides more than 50 players through stories that span decades:
When I welcome a new player, I welcome him into a world where he can play… until my death. You can play a character, and 9 generations later, a character from this family will lead the Roman Empire.
Robert Wardhaugh, Dungeon Master
How long has he been playing? The Dungeon Master estimates that he plays 10 hours a week and has been doing so for 40 years. That amounts to 20,800 hours he has spent on his campaign.
What does he do in real life? Robert Wardhaugh is a history professor at the University of Manitoba in Canada.
The professor aims to depict every terrain as a battlefield into which the players want to venture:
“My critics might accuse me of having a god complex”
Are there special rules? Yes, of course. The Dungeon Master says he doesn’t allow any miniature on the field unless it is “painted to a certain level.” Someone has to paint them, so he spends about 2 to 4 hours a day painting the miniatures.
As special rules, the following apply:
- No one is allowed to take the figures home
Worse: No one but him is allowed to touch the figures on the game table. Only he can move them on the table. Critics might perhaps attribute a small god complex to him, the Dungeon Master admits. It also fits that for years he has regarded the official rules of Dungeons & Dragons only as loose guidelines. His “house rules” are designed to make the game much faster than in conventional campaigns.
Here, the players are currently preventing an attack on a Norman nobleman who accompanied them:
“I don’t want it to be like a video game”
How does he keep the tension? To maintain tension in the game, they play for high stakes:
I don’t want it to be like a video game where you just hit the reset button […] If your character dies and you don’t have another character, you’re out. The game is over for you.
Robert Wardhaugh, Dungeon Master
He has experienced adults breaking down in tears. It is important that people have that feeling that something can really happen to them and they can lose a character they have already invested so much time in.
This is an exciting way to have spent the last 40 years. An alternative is known by a lady from Japan:
89-year-old grandma has been a gamer for almost 40 years – Explains why gaming is a wonderful hobby
