tl19801024-000 "VOL. LXX1N No. 9 It5olVerlig PUBLISHED BY THE STUDENTS OF TOWSON STATE UNIVERSITY The library alternative Yes,it's mid-term week and you know what that means- 8,,,t114, study, study. It looks like these guys have uiscovered something; is this a game or just a cover-up for a new electronic card catalogue? Only their grades will tell. TL photo by Cindy Shoesley D&D: Afantasy game for those long knights by Deborah Feaster tl.There is nothing remarkable about ZaPPearance of the group of people ting at the table. They concentrate ''P apers in front of them. They seri- Sly discuss their business. But, there is more to this group than meets eh, e,,e,ye. These young men and women Cuerige awesome foes and perilous azards in pursuit of adventure. e�:� yeu are approaching a cave. The ""'lance has a high stone arch."" ""We choose to go in."" 1,""You are now entering the gallery. �""e smell is awful; bones and rotting '-�rPses are strewn about."" We slowly walk forward."" ""you almost stumble across a Sleeping h owlbear, who has just fin-ed a meal of troll, and decided to .qtke a nap.,, We quietly retreat!"" Strikes late! It has awakened! It .14es out. You each receive four hit ""Ints and your leader is killed."" thillis dialogue is typical of events in 1e game Dungeons and Dragons. piqine�ns and Dragons is a role- !, f, g fantasy game loosely based works of J.R.R. Tolkien. In the li players adopt the character- Various fantasy and science- T;on characters. ""ice are used to determine the players' levels of basic ability. (The game uses four-sided, six-sided, 12-sided and 20-sided dice.) This determines level of strength, intel-ligence, wisdom, dexterity, consti-tution and charisma. Based on this, an occupation, cruid, cleric, magic-user, fighter, or thief, is chosen. An align-ment is picked to determine whether the character is good, neutral or evil. The players then set out for adven-ture in the world chosen by the Dungeon Master. The DM possesses the maps and guides and must de-scribe the imaginary words to the players. Occasionally the DM may hint that there is danger ahead, but players are supposed to outguess the DM. (Players must watch out for bugbears, gray oozes, greenslimes, giants, Liches, dragons and other creatures.) Experience points are awarded according to the number of monsters slain and amount of treasure found. ""In my world, I let players do pretty much what they want,"" said Gary Smith, Towson State freshman and avid D and D player. ""But some DM's are tough and make it almost impos-sible to win,"" he said. Last November, Smith was walking along Cathedral Street when he discovered D and D. tida Peo , Statt`e all across the country are playing Dungeons and Dragons and Towson re students are no exception. People all ages play the fantasy game which quires imagination and a good sense of adventure. TL photo by Bill Breldenbaugh ""I was walking down the street, and I looked up and there was this store. I said, 'That's wild!' I went in."" He now plays D and D every Friday evening and Saturday afternoon at Strategy and Fantasy World at 505 Cathedral Street. Besides D and D materials, the store sells war games continued on page 3 Contents Sports 6 Entertainment 5 Features 3 Weekwatcher 9 Newsbriefs 10 Classifieds 11 Commentary 11 October 24 1980 Residence Council loses $6, 1 94 in Oktoberfest by Nancy Zeleski Because the Residence Council lost $6,194.38 on Oktoberfest, the SGA has been forced to act in an advisory capacity to the group. Jay Blanton, SGA treasurer, said the financial basis for Oktoberfest was not sound. The actual cost for the Residence Council to provide the dinner, the dance with live music, a beer mug and T-shirt was $12.70 per head. The cost of the ticket was $7.50. Blanton said the Residence Council expected the proceeds from a dance held in September to offset the dif-ference between the ticket price and the actual cost of the function. Even if Oktoberfest had sold out and had good beer sales, the group could not break even, said Blanton. Blanton added that inexperience was to blame, shown by the insuffi-cient advertising and promotion and in setting unrealistic goals for the success of Oktoberfest. Both Blanton and Greg Nicholson, Residence Council president, said Residence Council leadership and membership changes each year. ""I came in cold,"" said Nicholson. Losses could have been less The Residence Council could have cut their losses more if they had backed down on their original com-mitment to Servomation for the food for an expected 650 people. Blanton said the group simply lacked the experience to judge atten-dance basd on their ticket sales in the weeks prior to Oktoberfest. John Downs of Servomation said he spoke to Nicholson two or three weeks prior to the event about cutting back on the dinners ordered. ""Either people will buy tickets to an event or they will not,"" said Downs. ""There is always a risk involved."" Nicholson said there was too little time to organize for Oktoberfest. He said planning should begin two or three months before school starts. While the Council administration was elected lat spring, Nicholson said University relies on system the representatives from the dorms were not elected until the first part of October. As a result, there was little input from current membership in planning Oktoberfest. Nicholson said many of the prob-lems besetting the present Council were given to them by last year's Council. Inaccurate records kept One of the biggest problems facing the Residence Council is the Mac-curate records kept last year, he said. Last year's treasurer often wrote blank checks and did not keep an accurate running tally of the ac-counts, said Nicholson. Last year's Residence Council left a bill for approximately $3,000 owed to Servomation in connection with a bull roast held during Parents' Weekend last fall. Unlike most on-campus organi-zations, the Residence Council main-tains its own checking account for funds earned from their own fund-raising activities. The money for tickets sold on con-signment by resident students for the bull roast was inappropriately depos-ited to this checking account instead of being returned to the box office, said Arlene Campeggi, business office manager to SGA. Despite Campeggi's efforts with last year's Council to get those funds into the proper account, it fell to this year's Residence Council treasurer to find the money. Of the $3,000, this year's Council was able to locate $2,300. Council dates set Nicholson said another problem is that the calendar dates for Residence Council events were locked in by last year's Council administration. He said he would have preferred to have scheduled Oktoberfest on a Thursday. The Residence Council is serving a ""suitcase college,"" said Nicholson. It is very difficult to get the com-muting students back on campus once they have left during the week and nearly impossible to get them back on the weekends, said Blanton. The weeknight scheduling would not have put Oktoberfest in direct com-petition with the football game which is free to Towson State students, said Nicholson. Faced with the financial loss from Oktoberfest, SGA had several avail-able options. SGA had alternatives The remaining budget could have been taken from Residence Council by SGA and the group expelled from the SGA, thus losing its status as a recognized on-campus organization. Or, SGA could have left the budget and the loss with the Residence Coun-cil and demanded that they make up the deficit on their own. Blanton said neither option was fair to the members of the Council so a third option has been taken. All of the Residence Council's funds have been put into a special control account, effective immediately. Blanton said there are two types of accounts used in funding on-campus organizatins. One is a line account which is money budgeted to the organization in specific amounts for specific events. This money cannot be touched by SGA to offset Oktoberfest debt because of provisions in both the SGA consti-tution and the general budget policy. The second is a general account. This money is raised by the group on its own initiative through events planned separate from SGA funded events. With the money from the Council's general account and all expenses ac-counted for, the remaining deficit is $4,966.23, said Blanton. SGA to co-sponsor events All of the Residence Council's remaining events will be co-sponsored by SGA. SGA will also be initiating other events to offset the remaining deficit. Blanton said he sees the co-spon-soring steps taken as setting a continued on page 12 Computerization lightens load by Francis C. Broccolino Computerization, often criti-cized for eliminating and dehuman-izing jobs, plays a vital role at Tow-son State. Specifically, computers are responsible for printing stud-ents' grades, statements of fees, course request cards, indentifica-tion cards, and many other impor-tant items. ""The list is just endless,"" said Robert F. Preville, data center man-ager. ""Just about everything the University does is handled by the data center. And anything the stu-dent receives from the University goes through our department,"" he said. The data center, located on the first floor of the administratin build-ing, does not do the actual compu-terization, but it does play a signifi-cant part in the process. This process begins when the reg-istrar and other offices send their information to the data center. Then the data center workers keypunch the information onto cards and send the input from a Univac UTS-700 computer to a centralized computer, via telephone lines. Located in Stevens Hall, this cen-tralized system is part of the Mary-land State College Information Cen: ter (MSCIC) which does compter work for eight Maryland state coll-eges. Richard Oldewurtle, MSCIC operations manager, said the organ-ization, employing more than 40 people, was formed in 1968. Independent from any colleges, MSCIC ""comes under the Board of Trustees,"" said Oldewurtle. ""MS-CIC processes the information,"" he said, ""and sends it back to the colleges."" As MSCIC's comptuer sends the information back to the colleges, it automatically turns on a printing machine which begins printing the output, such as schedules and grades. Preville said the advantage of a centralized system is that, if the keypunch terminals at Towson State breaks down, the work can be transferred to Morgan State, another school connected to MSCIC. The disadvantage of MSCIC is that, once the centralized computer breaks down, all computers connec-ted to the system are inoperable. However, Preville said computer-ization has been a tremendous asset to the University. For instance, Pre-ville said, ""From the time we re-ceive the grades from the registrar until the time we send the finalized griides back, (the operation) takes 48 hours."" ""They (the grades) probably could be done manually,"" he said, ""but God, it would take months."" ""We've gotten to the point where computers are relied upon,"" Preville added. ""For instance, until we get the budget reports out, the business and finance office won't know how much money it has to work with."" The data center also has a scor-ing machine to correct all comput-erized tests taken by students; like, wise, this scoring machine tabulates the students' evaluations of instruc-tors. Although mistakes sometimes are made during the computeriza-tion process, Preville said the error rate is very small in comparison to the amount of work completed. ""In fiscal 1980,"" Preville explain-ed, ""we keypunched 1,889,870 cards an increase of 121,000 over the pre-vious year. And our keypunch op-erators had one of the lowest error rates in the state."" Keypunch operators are not the only ones responsible for errors however. Sometimes mistakes are made by the registrar, the card read-er, faulty electrical impulses, or the computer. ""We in the computer business use the term 'GIGO,"" said Preville, continued on page 12 a Computers, once referred to as a machine and lately called the new employee on the block, play an important part at the University. Computers are responsible for printing schedules, grades ID cards and other items. TL photo by Judy Krasnick In this issue Just what you've been waiting for sports fans, ex-Yankee Billy Martin has written a book about his stint at the helm of the Bronx Bombers. See the review on page 8. Yes Virginia there are still a few hard-core Beatle fans out there. Read about one of them on page 3. "
