This photo was taken at the Shippensburg Adventure Game Camp in 1982. Are those dragons I smell? Nope, they’re teenagers…even worse than dragons.
Shippensburg Adventure Game Camp ran in the summers of 1981 through 1985. There were two one-week sessions, each Sunday evening through Friday afternoon. I found out about it because the teacher we had convinced to sponsor the school D&D group got a flier for it when it was first organized.
Campers were divided into different gaming groups at the beginning of the week, with councilors doubling as DMs. There were morning lectures (seriously) with gaming in the afternoon. All the groups played through the same adventure, written specifically for the camp. It wasn’t an actual tournament, but each group pretty much tried to get as far as possible before the end of the week — a slightly rigged process as I found out once I became a councilor.
I never knew something like this existed when I was a teenager. I’m sure I would have loved it.
Link to D&D Camp (via BoingBoing)
