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Looking for Traveller players in the military

1. free advice: learn proper sentence structure, and learn how to properly capitalize words.

2. have this on me:
salute.gif

1. Free advice: Learn not to bash someone for something trivial when they were showing respect to others.

2. Don't correct someone on capitalization while leaving words uncapitalized yourself.
Let it drop, both of you, please.
 
It always baffles me how such a geeky hobby can be picked up by guys in uniform. Not the type of RPG (Traveller, Twilight 2000) but the hobby itself.

What did your mates think of it all? Was there no 'peer pressure'.
 
It always baffles me how such a geeky hobby can be picked up by guys in uniform. Not the type of RPG (Traveller, Twilight 2000) but the hobby itself.

What did your mates think of it all? Was there no 'peer pressure'.

I always thought that there was an element within the military that was very pro-RPG. I don't think it was the military mind that liked RPGs, but teenage RPGers that tended to be very pro-military. It was probably more often RPGers that joined the military not military that picked up RPGing. Any post I went to had a few RPG gamers. I imagine today it has turned towards video gaming in the military. That being said, once I became an NCO it wasn't something I discussed in the office, only after work.

Overall though, much better attitude then the one I find in law enforcement today. My RPG background is still a secret.
 
It was probably more often RPGers that joined the military not military that picked up RPGing. Any post I went to had a few RPG gamers. I imagine today it has turned towards video gaming in the military.

That's true for me. I started with wargames and RPGs in junior high, carried on through high school and into the military.

That being said, once I became an NCO it wasn't something I discussed in the office, only after work.

True for me as well. I continued playing while I was a cadet because that was among peers. Since then it has only been rarely that I get to play and that is only between peers and with friends outside the military.
 
I enlisted in the Navy in '75. I had never heard of an RPG - other than the grenade launcher - until I got to my posting at the San Diego sub base in '76. D&D was quite popular at that time amongst "bubbleheads". Some shipmates and I discovered Traveller in '77 at a San Diego FLGS.

Since we were shore-based at a training command, we were able to use class-rooms with lots of blackboard space for our games on the weekends :)
 
USN 69 - 77 (naval nuclear power) MM2

Got into RPGs after I got out, but played a lot with some others gamers who were still active duty.

Duty stations excluding boot camp & schools

USS Tidewater AD-31 while waiting nuc power school,
USS Enterprise CVAN 64 left for transfer to USS Nimitz precom duty the day the announcement was made that the US was pulling out of Vietnam
 
It always baffles me how such a geeky hobby can be picked up by guys in uniform. Not the type of RPG (Traveller, Twilight 2000) but the hobby itself.

What did your mates think of it all? Was there no 'peer pressure'.


My first "in-person" exposure to RPGs (as opposed to ill-informed rants in the media) was in the base recreation center on Naval Air Station Millington, Tennessee in 1982 (primary training base for Naval Aviation maintenance personnel).

There, in the heart of the Bible Belt (just north of Memphis, TN) there were several groups of USN and USMC trainees who played D&D/AD&D, on base, in public.


There were active groups at every base I have been stationed on, as well as every ship that I was on or knew crew from.
 
man :(

hey guys,
just checked the forms from my email and to my SHOCK i see what blackbat has posted:(. i dont really care to much about structure or spelling (well maybe a little), or all that other stuff all I care about is getting my message across. so plz (as nicely as possible) lay off. and thx Sturn having a fellow Travellers back while i was off:D. anyway on with the thread, also i have a question does anyone think there are any WWII players out there? cause i meet one once, it was cool :D.


From,
The Last Browncoat
 
...<snip>....anyway on with the thread, also i have a question does anyone think there are any WWII players out there? cause i meet one once, it was cool :D.

I would think that due to the age requirement that would be an extreme rarity. Those of that honored generation would probably rarely even know what an RPG was. And sadly, few remain if they did. My grandfather, who I have quoted in my signature, passed a few years ago. I would have never imagined him playing an RPG. The gentleman you met must have been a true rarity.

Since we are listing military services and already I listed my own, I will post my grandfather's. Please don't be angry for me taking this even further off-topic, it may be an interesting read for some :) :

grhisle_ww2_sm.jpg


Airborne, Glider, and Ranger trained (but not in a Ranger unit). Landed in D-Day as part of a Glider Infantry Regiment. During the initial action he led a platoon of Ranger-trained GIR troopers when the only officers left standing (many died during landing) were only pilots. He was an E5 Sergeant at the time. After D-Day, moved to 101st Airborne. Wounded when a bomb exploded in the air above his head (he reported he was dead center below it which actually may have saved his life). Purple Heart (had a piece of shrapnel under the skin of his face until he passed). Almost lost a foot to frost bite during the Battle of the Bulge. Spoke of house clearings and surviving barrages of 88s. Once awoke his platoon while guarding a bridge after seeing what appeared to be 100 Germans crawling towards them across a field. As the sun came up, they saw it was 100...tree stumps. Once turned to see a German aiming straight at him across a stream, heard a shot, thought he was done for, to see the German fall from a shot from his friend. Towards the end of the war, he chased a Nazi SS Major through a house not bothering to actually shoot at him, but picking up the souvenirs left by the Nazi discarding his uniform. :)

He didn't talk much about the action itself, but through my grandmother I learned a few other things. He spoke of shooting at two Germans running across a field, watching them fall, and later praying he did not actually kill them. During a German counter-attack, he braved MG42 fire while bringing a civilian German doctor with him to help bring first aid to the fallen. The German doctor cried afterwards for helping save the Americans' lives. One of the US soldiers saved by the first aid sent my grandfather a Christmas card every year afterwards until he passed, thanking him for another Christmas.

But, the most heroic thing he ever did: Years after WW2 there was an initiative to award medals to veterans that had not received them earlier due to the chaos of the war. Friends submitted paperwork to have my grandfather awarded the Medal of Honor for his action braving machinegun fire to bring first aid (spoken of above). When my grandfather received government paperwork in the mail asking him to confirm what had happened, he threw it in a trash can stating (according to my grandmother), "I don't need a medal, God knows what I did".

I put this quote in my signature a few years ago when he passed away.
 
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If we are still asking for service stuff

Army:
91-95: 11B1P (1st/504th/82nd ABN DV)
96-99: VA ARNG: 11B2P (A/1/116th Inf 29th ID (NG).
2002-2007: 91W3V W1 - (HHC/75th RR, HHC & B/ 1st/508th 173rd ABN BDE, HHC /1st/504th 82nd ABN DV).
Tan & Maroon Beret.
OEF Veteran
 
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