The incredible austerity of D&D in 1980

oh and in a weird update, all my old ICE stuff (2 boxes including some other games) was stolen out of my house's basement sometime in the last 3-4 years, best guess is that a junkie former renter (long story) found someone to sell the stuff to. my only satisfaction was that altho all the original Squad Leader boards etc. were in the boxes, the counters were all in a little file cabinet type thing. and I still have my battered old copy of Cosmic Encounter with all the expansions, plus a couple other boardgames.

That photo is like all the people who get interviewed in Mindhunter all in one room.

I could Photoshop in a photo of my dad from that era and he'd fit right in except he had long hair, he was a wargamer (Napoleonics primarily, later American Civil War), somewhere I have a copy of a game he wrote that Avalon Hill printed.

Thinking about this stuff brings back so many memories for me of that late-70s early-80s interregnum period before what we think of the 80s really got going. The only thing I can compare it to is the early days of the Internet/WWW where things were unprofessional and clunky but hadn't ossified so there was a sweetness and openness as well. Like just the questions and answers at the top of this thread speak to this quality - people hadn't thought through all the possibilities, so anything seemed possible.

I was introduced to gaming by neighborhood friends with older siblings. I still remember this first session: we all played halflings named after the LOTR hobbits and were all thieves with an NPC ranger with us. We fought a hill giant and kept trying to backstab him to little effect. It didn't matter: I was hooked. I reluctantly came home because I had to get ready for church (Tuesday night service), but I kept trying to explain to my five year old sister this amazing experience I just had.

We didn't have much money and my parents were basically evangelicals at the time and weren't too keen on D&D, so they wouldn't buy it for me. They didn't like polyhedral dice either initially so I made my own set out of folded paper and glue. But I would try to go down to my friends to play when I could. While we played, their father made sandwiches with Miracle Whip, which my family never used, so the sandwiches seemed so exotic. They played Jackson 5's Greatest Hits on the turntable during a break in the action. I remember we all died playing the Hall of the Fire Giants.

I think by 4th grade, I had annoyed my parents until they let me buy a set of dice from a Waldenbooks in the mall. More to the title of the thread, I would ride my bike to the local game store and spend hours looking at weird, shoddy books for the hundreds of games that sprang up in the wake of D&D: TSR's other games (Boot Hill, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, and especially, Gangbusters!), so many unauthorized D&D modules, but also Tunnels and Trolls, early Champions supplements, dozens of Car Wars/Ogre plastic box sets and books (man, Steve Jackson just pumped shit out), Traveller, etc. I didn't buy any of these until later, but I would get ideas and then spend hours making up my own shoddy RPGs in spiral notebooks, long since gone.

I met Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman at a Waldenbooks when I was a kid, they were doing a signing and no one was there. I was totally starstruck (and also very surprised that Tracy Hickman was a man).

incredible post, PBKR

Waiting for the UPS guy to bring me Caesar's Legions is still burned in my brain.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1722/caesars-legions

I think by 4th grade, I had annoyed my parents until they let me buy a set of dice from a Waldenbooks in the mall. More to the title of the thread, I would ride my bike to the local game store and spend hours looking at weird, shoddy books for the hundreds of games that sprang up in the wake of D&D: TSR's other games (Boot Hill, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, and especially, Gangbusters!), so many unauthorized D&D modules, but also Tunnels and Trolls, early Champions supplements, dozens of Car Wars/Ogre plastic box sets and books (man, Steve Jackson just pumped shit out), Traveller, etc. I didn't buy any of these until later, but I would get ideas and then spend hours making up my own shoddy RPGs in spiral notebooks, long since gone.

Tracer, thanks.

Ulysses, pleased to meet . . . er, me.

I made my own set out of folded paper and glue

<3

I once made a "bag of holding" out of a chivas regal sack, a funnel and a tube up my sleeve into a pocket.

Certain aspects of "that late-70s early-80s interregnum period" really are glorious and underappreciated. There is a room in my house whose decor I am trying to dedicate to them. Sometimes I just put on the theme song from "Arthur" or an early episode of "Cheers" or look at period images of Pizza Hut dining rooms while shopping for the perfect lamp. I can't remember if this started when I was reading about fern bars or during the first season of "Halt & Catch Fire" but it happened. I'd like to watch a version of "Mindhunter" where there are no serial killers and it's just the parts where they're going to shoe stores or sitting in bars where they're still playing "I Love a Rainy Night." (I was going to include "sitting in rattan furniture" but I have noticed that is actually making a huge comeback right now and I actually disapprove.)

quality comeback post tbrr

altho having just watched a bunch of early Cheers recently I would recommend shying away from buying any Cigar Store Indians

nabisco otm!!!

There is a bar here in Chicago called The Heavy Feather explicitly meant to invoke fern bars (hence the name). First place I had a Harvey Wallbanger.

I think I lost an entire day trying to dig and read the fanzines from those LA roleplayers. All that proto-LARPing!

The documentary Secrets of Blackmoor is a serious deep dive. Give it a look when you get the chance.

Secrets of Blackmoor

Never dipped into D&D, came of age in the NES era and feel like video games satiated that area of need. Could see myself totally falling for it at the right time/age/place.

Love reading thru this thread and that PBKR post is all time.

The Carter Interregnum sounds like a Top Secret module

Man, I wish I had friends so I could play RPGs again.

RPGS are something I've had immense interest in but never been able to play. When I was in middle school/junior high, I had stacks of Call of Cthulhu and World of Darkness supplements, but no one to play with, so had to settle for dreaming up all these campaigns and settings I never had the chance to implement. I'm sure are plenty of tools for virtual roleplaying now, but I recall it being cumbersome in 1997; some java chat rooms with dice rollers built in, maybe. I remember trying to program my own MUD but to no avail as well...

over the last year or so I've been running a D&D campaign with my wife, a few friends, and my daughter. It's super-silly but it's cool to have this communal time that doesn't involve technology at all and is just about this imaginary thing that's completely divorced from modern reality/life for a few hours.

A friend here is going to DM a campaign with a rules set I've never heard of in a fantasy book world I've never read (Dragaera), this group of friends were super nerdy in college apparently and basically continually invented their own mashup rules sets of different RPGs, like a Shadowrun would somehow morph into Middle Earth.

When I was in middle school/junior high, I had stacks of Call of Cthulhu and World of Darkness supplements, but no one to play with, so had to settle for dreaming up all these campaigns and settings I never had the chance to implement

Now this was me

I would totally play RPGs again if I could find the right group, which is tough imo.

A couple years ago I parachuted into a game held at a game store and I didn’t feel it went so well and I never went back. I was a geek in my younger days, but . . . . Plus there are some obvious age gap issues. When I was age 17-21 I played in a couple groups with guys in their early 30s, which was awkward to me, but no where near as awkward as me at 46 now would be with a bunch of teens.

Shakey’s situation sounds wonderful.

it's a little unbalanced since my daughter (11yo) is in a room full of adults in their 40s. A few of us played when we were kids, the rest were new to it. We get together about once a month, it's a cool social thing. We included my daughter cuz she's way into fantasy stuff and was curious about it and I know she gets a huge kick out of staying up with the adults. At some point she's gonna have to get her own game tho lol (I've heard rumors that the science teacher at her middle school runs RPG campaigns during lunch)

our local game store is great and all but yeah I would def not go there to play w randos. I would probably let my daughter go to play w other kids tho.

Yeah, totally different when you are a kid.

i find myself strangely intimidated by hobby shops

I did eventually find some semi-nerdy friends to go to Gen Con with (back when it was in Milwaukee), and my most successful RPG experience was play-testing someone's new sci-fi game. Because they (adults with a vested interest) ran the game, it was the first time that it didn't spiral off into chaos because some kids were bored and wanting to go play video games/try to find weed/whatever.

Then we got to see the first year when Magic: The Gathering was the new sensation, and the following year when it had completely taken over the convention (and our hangouts).

I played a lot of D&D-derived computer RPGs back in the late 90s and early 00s (Baldur's Gate I & II, Icewind Dale I & II, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights I & II) and never really felt the urge to try tabletop, mostly because I prefer single-player games.

I know she gets a huge kick out of staying up with the adults.

this was a huge perk when my dad was taking me to the HSS and ICE sessions during middle school, we stayed up hella late

I remember our parents being deeply suspicious of our dungeon master who was in his mid-20s when we were all like 13-15, but in retrospect he was in fact just a dude who loved tabletop gaming and we were enthusiastic players it was easy to schedule gaming sessions with.

adults hanging out w teenagers in a social setting is always going to look suspicious, and for good reason

Then we got to see the first year when Magic: The Gathering was the new sensation, and the following year when it had completely taken over the convention (and our hangouts).

Ha, legendary! I remember reading about that Gen Con in a magazine a few months later and it was the first time I heard of MtG. We got started in the early stages.

Yeah, these days things would be very different wrt kids and older players.

Ah, yes, Magic was the closest I got to real world gaming experience, back when they released the basic version of it, Portal. I managed to organize a little tournament with the few nerds in my school, with the prize being the large sized cards that were made to promote some expansion (Weatherlight, I think). Don't recall where I got them, probably InQuest magazine, my pre-internet source for any gaming news. Sadly, that was not the gateway drug to RPGs I hoped it would be. (Though probably doomed to fail anyway; I can hardly understand why I thought I could get a bunch of 8th graders into something as esoteric as a Mage or Ars Magica game!)

there is currently a moderately interesting doc on the history of D&D art on Amazon Prime, a pretty deep dive into specific artists and styles, history of TSR etc. The woman who's tried to plastic surgery herself into an actual elf is a bit much though.

Vin Diesel taught Judi Dench how to play Dungeons & Dragons on the set of THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK and she went on to become DM for her grandchildren https://t.co/k5mdwB9cAf

— Ben Mekler (@benmekler) November 13, 2019

Hey y’all.
No time to write an article about my personal history with d&d but my question for you all is — do you fuck with retro-clones or other old-school style RPG’s? Talking about thinks like White Box (clones original d&d) and Basic Fantasy (clones the Basic/Expert rules) and OSRIC (clones first edition AD&D) which seek to re-edit/re-organize various old rules systems and make them easier to understand and play for modern gamers.

I’ve picked up a few of these games as physical print-on-demand books and many are available for free as pdf’s. There are loads of these games.: some seek to clone old editions of the game, some mix & match, and some use modern mechanics (ascending AC for example). I’m hoping to find some folks to play with sooner or later. I do play a 5e game with friends but I’m kind of into visiting a world where clerics don’t get any spells at first level, all weapons do d6 damage and there’s much less to keep track of.

I do what's easiest for the people I'm playing, ie what's most widely available which at this point means 5th edition.

Well that’s half the point of these games is the accessibility— the basic fantasy books are sold at cost, and many games are available digitally for free too. Whereas the 5e players guide is $50. And the other half of the point is wanting to post something simpler and more open than 5e where everyone is a superhero by 3rd or 4th level. The austerity is the appeal to me, too.

This is 100% me retreating from the brutal reality of our present moment.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1503334945/ref=ox_sc_act_image_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1545516480/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

https://goodman-games.com/dungeon-crawl-classics-rpg/

I’ve looked into DCC — a fella I follow on Instagram plays it and reps it pretty hard. The weird necessity if buying extra dice sets is annoying, and there’s something about the vibe that isn’t quite there for me. Too gonzo? Idk. I did pick up the cheap quick start booklet but after looking through it, it didn’t seem quite what I was looking for.

whenever i want to do something homebrew i look at GURPs but it's so dense at this pt it fails what i need from a system which is almost zero fiddliness and just a couple of easy mechanics for storytelling. but maybe you'd find it useful?

I’m not even particularly looking to make an exciting homebrew system, I just want to play something sandboxy that makes me feel the way I did when I was 12. I’m pretty fascinated by the genre of games though.

oh i think i can help you bc i have been playing loads of tt roleplaying games over the last decadeish trying to recapture the way i felt when i was 12 and despite lots of cool stuff being out there i am happy to report that feeling is ephemeral and tied directly to the powerlessness, imagination, time, and friendship that was only available at 12yo, it can never be recaptured alas.

5e is fun enough tho. i get together with mostly dads once a week to play for about 3 hours. it really is nothing like when we were all 12 and could play long afternoons of shadowrun or star wars or cyberpunk 2020 or 2nd edition but it still has its pleasures and feels prosocial.