Bickled

Jeff just ruined my day. I suppose I can forgive this unintentional transgression by considering the fact that he maintains one of my favorite blogs here in the blogosphere at :

Gameblog

As far as I’m concerned, the guy’s a gaming genius. Granted, this post is over two years old, but nevertheless he really pissed in my cornflakes this morning when I found this post:

Screwheads

Hopefully he won’t mind my linking said blog here, I cannot even begin to associate my own blog with his excellent long running Gameblog.

Anyway, the meat of the post is:

Let's get this out on the table: D&D was a fad in the mid-eighties. Nothing more, nothing less. Like any other fad a handful of social misfits continued to hold it near and dear to their hearts long after the rest of the world stopped caring. You and I are those rejects. And our beloved hobby will almost assuredly never reach the heights it did back in the day. Just get over it, please! Don't attempt to position RPGs in the mainstream. They were already there and the mainstream world moved on.

In many respects, Jeff is 100% dead on. Regardless, his comments were like a big downer for my sensibilities concerning the greatest game ever. I’ll admit that yeah, it was a fad in many aspects. There was a great media fueled spotlight that was placed on the game in the late 70’s/early 80’s, 99% of which was negative publicity. As it turned out, the old adage of any pub is good pub was true for D&D. It soared to heights never seen by any game of it’s ilk before. Keep in mind that in saying ‘ilk’ I am referring to hobbyist type games in general, before D&D these were pretty much limited to old school wargames.

I suppose that over the years I have come to accept this fact, that D&D simply isn’t going to ever capture the hearts and minds of potential game geeks the way it did in those halcyon days. When that landscape is littered with mega million dollar video and computer game corporations, insidiously sinking their talons into these young souls and destroying their creative nature at such a young age, who can argue with this fact? We live in an era of instant gratification, fueled by hundreds of TV channels, DVR’s, video on demand, internet instant information retrieval, and well…fast food.

The notion that some youngster might want to actually take the time to read a book, even a comic book, let alone DESIGN a campaign and find other like minded kids to join in on a pen and paper, dice rolling excursion into old fashioned role playing is naïve at best.

These are my own views on gaming today, and I too have succumbed in the past to the allure of video and computer games. I honestly doubt that if I grew up in this day and age I would ever have the patience to discover the joys of pen and paper gaming without proper guidance and exposure from some wiser soul.

What irks me is that I don’t think D&D should ever be forgotten. I just don’t think that the game gets it’s proper due.

D&D forever changed the landscape of gaming.

Fad? Yeah, I suppose it was. The notion that it should be remembered as simply a fad deeply disturbs me. To Jeff’s credit, the true intent and message of his post was not to write off D&D as simply a fad, but to send a message that D&D simply is NOT ever going to return to the peak it reached in the 80’s. With this observation I cannot argue. That is a fact.

It saddens me to think that D&D might indeed be viewed as simply an 80’s fad, though. I’ll say it again since it bears repeating:

D&D forever changed the landscape of gaming.

From where I stand, D&D was the jumping off point for gaming as we know it today. While others might argue this point, and say that it can be traced back to wargames in general, or Tolkein, or REH or other great influences, D&D by Gygax and Arneson was the untamed barbarian from the frozen North (Midwest) that rampaged, pillaged and conquered gaming. It’s essence is found everywhere in gaming today. The very notion of role playing, of classes, levels, races, experience, hit points, quests, and dungeons might still to this day be uncharted territory were it not for D&D. Yes, D&D had it’s own influences and inspirations that birthed it’s existence, but it was the game that started it all, the first one to really capture the throne and reign supreme.

Without D&D, would we have such games as Diablo, World of Warcraft, or any of the other direct descendants that owe so much to D&D? No. I would even go so far to say that Mr. Garfield never would have developed Magic the Gathering were it not for D&D. D&D made gamers out of so many of us. I doubt I would even consider myself a gamer were it not for D&D. Nearly every game I have ever enjoyed was spawned by D&D. Period.

The thought of D&D as a fad, though, is like saying Punk Rock was a fad. Or Monty Python was a fad. Or…OK I give up. It was a fad. Jeff and Travis Bickle were right.

(But damn, what a fad it was. Luckily in this age of hundreds of TV channels, DVR’s, video on demand, and internet instant information retrieval, I can relive many of these fads ad nauseam.)

~Sham

D&D Soap Opera

So pretty much what I’ve been blogging about is my view on D&D, or recollections of my D&D memories. I realized during all this rambling that I am a “Defeatist D&D Player“. While I will openly espouse the virtues of the greatest game ever (no, not golf) within the confines of the internet, and amongst fellow known gamers that I find therein, I’ve never been a walking advert for D&D or gaming in general. This has caused me to lose touch with D&D for the most part. I have not broadened my potential player base since the early 80’s.

It’s always been a dirty little secret of mine. Maybe that’s insecurity, I’m not sure. Here I am, 41 years into this life of gaming, and I still conceal my favorite pastime from friends, neighbors and coworkers? WTF I ask myself? Why?

I blame my childhood pals from the block, the neighborhood where I grew up (well, in theory only, my Wife will vehemently dispute my status as a grown-up). I had managed to discover D&D on my own, self-taught and met a few other like minded wannabe gamers in school. I would meet up with some of these other kids and play after school in our basement at my parents house.

Now, back then, where I grew up, there were lots of kids within a similar age range, most within 2-3 years of one another. Pretty much daily, before I discovered D&D, we would go knock on one another’s doors and join up to either:

1. Play street football
2. Play pick-up hoops
3. Shoot fireworks at the Wrights’ house, or
4. Sit around and argue whether Ted Nugent was the greatest guitarist ever.

Now, this was all fine, and I enjoyed most every delinquent activity we joined together in, but…as soon as I started playing D&D, I couldn’t find refuge from my positively NON D&D pals, even holed up in our basement. During a game, my Mom would inevitably at some point come downstairs to check on us, and tell me that Johnny or one of the other NON D&D gang was at the door, looking for me. I would have to go explain to whomever it was that we were busy playing D&D.

Suffice to say that this was never a good answer as to why I wouldn’t join the neighborhood pals in some 70’s standard fare fun and games. After much ridicule, I realized then that playing D&D was just not acceptable. This was ingrained in me during those very first few months of playing. It was later underlined and high-lighted once I started playing at the after school D&D Club in high school. I told absolutely no one that I was a member of said club. After all, I had an ‘image’ to preserve.

I managed to preserve this image through high school, and hone the skills needed there to blend in with various cliques and become a fairly well-rounded semi-popular guy. The majority of my friends were regular, NON D&D Joes.

However, one particular instance truly justified why I had been toeing this line all those years, and not mixing my gaming geek side with my normal social side. Back then, there were no girls in the club, none playing D&D that I knew of. It was Senior year, and I was good friends with a particular gal named Christine. I had a big teenage crush on her, she was cool and into field hockey and girls lacrosse.
Anyway, I decided I would ask her to the Prom. She gushed and said “Yes“, and all was well in the world.

Fast forward a few more weeks, and Christine confronts me with some lame ass excuse about not being able to afford a dress, and that her parents were mad because she had messed up their Saab and it was going to cost a bunch to get it fixed, and they were not going to buy her a dress because of this…and stupid me wanted to believe this. How lame was I? Very lame in retrospect.

Now, I’m never afraid to admit that I wasn’t really girl-centric at that point in my life. That happened a couple years later in college, and in spades, so it’s all good now looking back at those earlier days of viewing girls as alien life forms. Anyway, I bought that line of Bull, and decided I would now have to scramble to find another date. Another gal pal of mine told me what REALLY happened. As it turns out, Christine had caught a lot of flak from the other popular gals, and the quote that got back to me was “You’re going with HIM? He plays D&D….Ha ha ha ha ha!” And with great shame said target of my teenage crush turned around and crushed me.

I got over it quickly, and it wasn’t a big deal. But it was just another straw on the camel’s back. It really hit home once again that my hobby was positively not cool. I haven’t even thought about this for decades, but the topic at hand made me think back to examples of why I have always tried to maintain a super secret alter-ego. It’s quite comical actually.

So although I was lucky enough to make great life long friends with other ‘just regular Joes’ who happened to share my love of D&D, I’ve never been able to meet other players since that old D&D Club in high school due to the fact that I don’t share my interest with anyone other than those I know ahead of time are also gamers. For this reason, I sit here trying to figure out how to get my old gaming group back together and relive those great memories from the 80’s. I’ve managed to defeat my own efforts at pursuing my favorite hobby by being a secret D&D player.

I guess I’m still pretty lame, even now.

~Sham

Just So Much Road Kill

My Gamma World post got me thinking about the measuring stick for what our gaming group considered a ‘good game’. We were so busy playing D&D and it’s variants, supplements and home brewed campaigns that anything else was normally just cannon fodder for the fantasy behemoth unleashed upon the world half a dozen years earlier by Gygax and Arneson. Everyone in my immediate gaming group, and really in our school D&D Club, had limited funds. I’m sure there were adults out there at that time that could just buy pretty much everything that hit the hobby shop shelves, we really had to pick and choose (and I made a lot of bad choices back then, I have plenty of games that are really just space wasters in my gaming collection, such as it is). This led to the majority of available funds going to the ‘sure thing’, that which we were all playing, D&D.

Nevertheless, someone would always show up, either at the Club, or at the Saturday Gaming Group, with some new fancy sounding game. There were so many that sounded fun, looked good, and were presented in a very professional manner…but just didn’t stick (with us anyway). Other than D&D, there were constant debates about what was good, and what was bad. Many of the Club members hated Arduin, that much I do remember. My Saturday Gaming Group loved it, though. I think that series of craziness by Hargrave was one of the dividing lines between the ‘fun’ camp and the ‘serious’ camp. The serious camp seemed to be more into wargames in general, turn based hex map table top games filled with hundred of tables and thousands of tiny cardboard chits that were impossible to not loose or find years later semi-mutilated under a sofa cushion. The fun camp were the guys who spent several sessions playing The Mansion of Mad Professor Ludlow, or talking about how great Booty and the Beast was.

Regardless, fellow gamers would inevitably end up touting some new title which they had invested their hard earned gaming money into. We played them all, at least once. Most were played once, and then forgotten, placed on a shelf, and are probably to this day in some middle aged former gamers musty basement, or like so many of mine, lost somewhere at a parents house, in a box in the attic. Some of those games, though, resonated with us. Perhaps it was the owner investing enough of his own time in making the game fun and playable, or perhaps it was a game like Titan, a classic that you just couldn’t NOT enjoy if given the time to play. Provided you didn’t lose the chits it came with.

Here then are the games I actually remember playing more than once, games that we enjoyed, whether it was twice, or a dozen times, these games seemed to capture our gaming sensibilities long enough that we could set aside D&D for more than a single sitting.

Champions - Tom ran a fun campaign, Some of the players got sick of it, though. I never did.
Dragon Quest - an old SPI D&D type game. Tom ran it for us a handful of times.
Elric/Stormbringer - we were all HUGE Moorcock fans. John ran a nice series of games for us.
Top Secret - we always ended up ruining the plot with Walthers and Uzis blazing. Larry ran this one for us.
Call of Cthulhu - one of my personal favorites. I ran this one and had a never finished campaign.
Gamma World - as mentioned before. I love this one.
Arduin - mainly as a D&D supplement, but I did have a mini campaign for it.
Titan - ‘nuff said. Dave C was infamous for his Titan gaming.
Diplomacy - an evil game, my first wargame ever. My older brother was goooood.
Illuminati - I never really played a full game of this, but it was very popular. Chris planned to run it PBEM.
Car Wars - I ended up making this into a campaign, ended up taking too long to play this way, though.
Traveller - nice game, ahead of it’s time. Too sci fi for me, but I have a ton of the mini books. Mike ran this.
Rolemaster - those tables, those tables!
The Fantasy Trip - very early, old school, played it with Lee a lot.
Talisman - Tom and Mike loved this one.
Warhammer 40K Epic - We really got into miniatures for a long while.

There were others that I’m probably forgetting now, unfortunately.

Ones that got away that I always wanted to try, and never did:

Paranoia - don’t hear much about this one. I always liked the look of it on the hobby shop shelves.
Tunnels and Trolls - looked like a well supported game with a good fan base.
Rune quest - I’m told it’s a great game.
Metamorphosis Alpha - went with Gamma World instead
Boot Hill - I don’t know anyone who played this.
Empire of the Petal Throne - just sounded so cool.
Squad Leader - probably best that I didn’t get into this one. I’d still be finding chits in the basement.
Harn - I actually own this one.
Skyrealms of Jorune - just based on the ads in The Dragon.
Space Opera - again, I don’t know anyone who played this.

Much later we got stuck, thanks to me, in a CCG rut. I was a MtG addict. Never again! More on that in a later post, though.

The moral of the story is then that there are simply TOO many good games, and not enough time.

I think I’ll stick to D&D, and just remember fondly most of this cannon fodder for the fantasy behemoth unleashed upon the world thirty years ago by Gygax and Arneson.

~Sham