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The Life and Times of Dallas Egbert
May. 14th, 2003 03:13 pmOn my lunch break I stopped by a used bookstore, and picked up a particularly spicy meat ball - The Dungeon Master by William C. Dear. The book (published in 1982) is about the disappearance of Dallas Egbert, a gay 16 year old university student and avid D&D player from Yspilanti, Michigan, who disappeared for several days in 1979. William Dear was hired by the family to track him down, and he immediately tied the disappearance to D&D. It’s a rather lurid tome.
The promo text on the book describes Dear as a "hard guy with a soft heart" and “a kind of real life James Bond.” Dear enters the strange and twisted world of gamers, and even sits in on a game. He runs a character named “Tor” through a rather dull dungeon crawl, and undergoes a "discomfiting merger of his personality into the role the game required him to play." He even attends a science-fiction convention (NorthAmericon '79, I think) after someone mentions that Dallas hoped to attend, but couldn’t afford it. Somehow, questioning middle-aged men in propeller beanies and the author of The Eye of Argon doesn’t strike me as Sam Spade material.
In the end, it turned out Egbert had just run away from home after a bad drug experience. I’m not sure of the details, may he may have taken shelter in the steam tunnels beneath the school, where he used to play a live action version of D&D. Or, as the book puts it, where Dallas "obsessively played a dangerous real-life version of the fantasy game."
Turns out D&D had nothing (or extremely little) to do with his disappearance – his biggest problem was a serious drug habit. In fact, the university D&D groups seemed to exclude him because he’d show up to games while stoned. A couple of years later he committed suicide, so the book can say that his mysterious disappearance “ended in tragedy.”
The book later became the basis for the fictional book Dungeons and Dragons by Rona Jaffee, which in turn was the basis for the movie Tom Hank’s TV movie Mazes and Monsters. And now you know… the rest of the story.
While I doubt it will be a particularly well-written or accurate book, the descriptions of Dallas Egbert, and scenes where he appears, remind me very, very strongly of some furries I know – a young, upper middle class, intelligent, technophile, homosexual, alienated, con junkie who plays an idealized version of himself in role-play. Perhaps if he’d been born twenty years later, the Internet would have provided him with a connection to a larger society of like-minded people, and he’d never have taken his own life.
I also picked up The Shape of Things to Come and The Mote in God’s Eye at the bookstore. They’ll get added to the pile of “Influential SF Books I Intend to Read Someday.”
For the curious, here are the stats for Dallas Egbert’s magic user…
Strength: 8, Dexterity: 16, Constitution: 14, Intelligence: 17, Wisdom: 14, Charisma: 9
There’s no comment about his name, level, or equipment. However, there is a full write up for “Tor”, William Dear’s 3rd level magic user.
The promo text on the book describes Dear as a "hard guy with a soft heart" and “a kind of real life James Bond.” Dear enters the strange and twisted world of gamers, and even sits in on a game. He runs a character named “Tor” through a rather dull dungeon crawl, and undergoes a "discomfiting merger of his personality into the role the game required him to play." He even attends a science-fiction convention (NorthAmericon '79, I think) after someone mentions that Dallas hoped to attend, but couldn’t afford it. Somehow, questioning middle-aged men in propeller beanies and the author of The Eye of Argon doesn’t strike me as Sam Spade material.
In the end, it turned out Egbert had just run away from home after a bad drug experience. I’m not sure of the details, may he may have taken shelter in the steam tunnels beneath the school, where he used to play a live action version of D&D. Or, as the book puts it, where Dallas "obsessively played a dangerous real-life version of the fantasy game."
Turns out D&D had nothing (or extremely little) to do with his disappearance – his biggest problem was a serious drug habit. In fact, the university D&D groups seemed to exclude him because he’d show up to games while stoned. A couple of years later he committed suicide, so the book can say that his mysterious disappearance “ended in tragedy.”
The book later became the basis for the fictional book Dungeons and Dragons by Rona Jaffee, which in turn was the basis for the movie Tom Hank’s TV movie Mazes and Monsters. And now you know… the rest of the story.
While I doubt it will be a particularly well-written or accurate book, the descriptions of Dallas Egbert, and scenes where he appears, remind me very, very strongly of some furries I know – a young, upper middle class, intelligent, technophile, homosexual, alienated, con junkie who plays an idealized version of himself in role-play. Perhaps if he’d been born twenty years later, the Internet would have provided him with a connection to a larger society of like-minded people, and he’d never have taken his own life.
I also picked up The Shape of Things to Come and The Mote in God’s Eye at the bookstore. They’ll get added to the pile of “Influential SF Books I Intend to Read Someday.”
For the curious, here are the stats for Dallas Egbert’s magic user…
Strength: 8, Dexterity: 16, Constitution: 14, Intelligence: 17, Wisdom: 14, Charisma: 9
There’s no comment about his name, level, or equipment. However, there is a full write up for “Tor”, William Dear’s 3rd level magic user.
