Some Autobiographical Thoughts on Gaming (part 2)

      In the first installment, I reflected on the beginning of 29 years of Gaming, and my first encounters with Dungeons and Dragons and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (1st edition). Continuing from that point, I wanted to write a bit about the next decade of gaming: AD&D 2nd edition and branching out into other RPGs.

      In 1989, at which time I still lived in North Smithfield, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the second edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons was released. I was an early adopter. I know a lot of Old School purists who insist that the 2nd edition ruined the game. But at the time, it was everything I wanted in a fantasy RPG. It took a system that had grown by accretion into a monstrosity of inconsistent rules, and transformed them into something of an organic whole. The rules were clearer, and better written. No, it wasn't as "Gygaxian" . . . but I loved it anyway.

      AD&D 2nd Edition was a big step forward in design and marketing. On the other hand, it did lose something in the transition, something that might be thought of as "Old School" flavor, "Appendix N" flavor, or even "Gygaxian" flavor. But flavor ought not to be dependent on rules and systems. Any Game Master (in D&D they're called "Dungeon Masters") worth his or her salt ought to be capable of evoking any flavor he or she wishes with almost any rule set. On the other hand, newer systems that make the "flavor" an integral part of the rules (most notably the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG) have demonstrated the importance of considering the feeling that one is trying to evoke from participants.

     In 1989 I began my first real campaign using the AD&D 2nd Edition rules, though I still used a lot of 1st edition rules and mixed systems somewhat freely and with growing skill over time. I didn't have a big group: mostly my friend Timmy, his friend Mike, and my brother Eric. Occasionally we would have "guest stars" game with us, but this was so infrequent, it scarcely bears mentioning. I was 14 years old when I designed my first fantasy campaign setting. I continued to use that setting through 3rd edition and 3.5, up until the year 2011, although it had changed significantly over the years . . .

     In a way, the second edition of AD&D fell victim to precisely what it had been intended to correct - the creeping accretion of extra "optional" rules that did not always fit together well. AD&D 2nd Edition had what I then considered some brilliant options, including the "Complete Handbooks" for various character classes full of great ideas and optional rules, including a feature called "kits" that could give a character built-in backgrounds and story hooks. This is precisely what some "Old School" Gamers dislike about 2nd edition - it moved things like character backgrounds and story hooks from the realm of pure role-playing into the realm of rules. But I knew no one at the time who didn't enjoy and use those optional rules. I liked that it allowed me as Dungeon Master to quantify such things and keep them from unbalancing and disrupting my game. Yes, I know that "Old Schoolers" might say that I wasn't a very good DM if character backgrounds without rules could disrupt my game. Maybe I wasn't. I was only 14.

      In early January of 1991, I moved rather unexpectedly and abruptly from North Smithfield to South Kingstown, in the great state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The reasons for this move are not important to my autobiographical thoughts on Gaming (it had to do with the divorce of my parents and moving from my father's house to my mother's home at the other end of the state), but what was significant was the impact it had on my Gaming.

     At first, it meant my Gaming world fell apart. I couldn't play with Timmy and Mike any longer. I only had my brother, and he and I didn't enjoy playing one-on-one anymore. So I retreated into myself a bit. It's depressing to look back on it. I continued to expand my campaign world - lovingly writing notebook after notebook full of details about my world - but I had no games to play there.

      But in September of 1992, I met David P., who has been my good friend ever since. We met in Chemistry class - "Chemsitry in the Community" - at South Kingstown High School. We were both being antisocial and refusing to work with anyone in chemistry lab, so our teacher put us together as lab partners. Surprisingly, that worked. And David lived less than half a mile down the road from me. So we became friends. We hung out. We studied for Chemistry together (badly). And one day, when David was hanging out at my house, he saw my D&D books. What follows is my best recollection of how the conversation went:

     "You play D&D?" he asked.
      "Not anymore," I said, "I don't have a gaming group here."
      "What are these?" he asked, looking at the huge pile of notebooks in which I was lovingly fleshing out my campaign world.
     "That's my world," I answered, and explained how my only outlet for fantasy role-playing was writing about the world I had invented. I had immense details of the history, linguistics, cultures, religions, and so forth.
      "You're still putting in all this time and work creating a world, and you don't even play? What the heck?" David's expression was pure disbelief. Then he said, "My friends and I used to play D&D. Kind of. My friend Harry used to make dungeons and run us through. But there wasn't really a world. Just a bunch of dungeons. It was kind of fun. But I bet it would be better with a world and a story behind it. Maybe we could play with you?"
     "Uhhhhh . . . maybe. I guess. But . . . well, I don't know. I don't know your friends . . ." You have no idea how shy I used to be. The fact that I had David for a friend was a minor miracle. The thought of making a bunch of new friends was terrifying. I hoped that would be the end of it. How sick is that? I actually hoped I wouldn't make any new friends or have to participate in social activity, even if it meant participating in my favorite hobby.

      Little did I know, but David had no intention of letting it go. He nagged me about it over the next couple of weeks. I tried to give noncommittal answers. Then one day he asked me how many players I needed. I said, "Well, really, like 3 or 4 would be good, I guess, but I don't really want . . ."
      "Great!" said David, "I'm going to play, and I've got 2 friends that want to play. What about your brother? Would he play?"
     "He probably would," I said, "if I were going to run a campaign. But I'm not, really. It might be fun, but I'm not really ready . . ."
     "You do nothing in your spare time but read books and write your game," he said, "so I think you're ready."
      "Well, maybe someday . . ." I said.

      A couple of days later, during a pouring rainstorm, there was a knock on my door. I opened it and found David P. and his friend Ray F. standing there, soaked. "What are you guys doing here?"
     "We're here to make characters for the game! Ray wants to play!"

      And so, due to my friend David's persistence, I was back in Gaming. David wanted to play a Wizard named Thor Zenglar. Ray wanted to play a Fighter, and using The Complete Fighter's Handbook, created one with the Berserker kit, named Vic Destiny. A few days later, their other friend Harry E. created his Thief character, Rade (pronounced "Rad") Jackson. My brother started with a couple of characters, but the one he settled on was a Paladin, Nolverio Siroval. The names didn't really fit the campaign world - I later retconned them a bit to explain them as nicknames or translations of their actual names in the world. But thus began my longest running campaign for most of my life (1992-1998 with the same characters and setting, played on-and-off), and a group that lasted from autumn of 1992 to summer 2011. We ran those original characters a long time. When they started to get high in level, and others wanted to join, we ran another campaign to get new characters up to the same level, and gave them the chance to join up with the other characters. David C. and Bob B. joined as regular players. David P., the founder of our group in many ways, left in later 1993 when he joined the Army after we graduated from high school. My brother left in 1995 when he graduated high school and joined the Marines.

     I ran lots of D&D 2nd Edition campaigns in those years. All connected to that same main campaign and setting, eventually. It created an expanded setting that grew in ways I never expected. It was awesome.

      In addition, we began to branch out and try other games. Harry E. ran a Marvel Superheroes RPG campaign (known as the FASERIP system for the main attributes of the characters). It wasn't a very serious campaign - it was mostly slugfests of super-powered heroes smashing each other and villains. But eventually, a real storyline developed. I enjoyed it because I got to play instead of just being Game Master.

     In early 1993 was also tried the relatively young Storytelling game of Vampire: the Masquerade. This game was based much more on deep role-playing and telling a compelling story rather than fantasy adventure. Players took on the role of vampires - cursed, doomed monsters - and were meant to confront the paradox of the monstrous things they would have to do in order to avoid becoming worse monsters - "A Beast I am lest a Beast I become" was the riddle of the vampire. But as a 17 year old schooled in fantasy RPG adventure, I found it hard to get in the proper spirit as Storyteller, and my players treated it much like D&D or, more accurately, like Marvel. They ran vampire characters with super powers. Yes, it was very sad that they had to hunt humans and drink blood to fuel those powers - so sad, really - but look at all the cool stuff they could do! It was years before we had a really good Vampire campaign, or "chronicle" as that game termed it.

      But the Storyteller system also produced one of my absolute favorite RPGs of all time, which we picked up in autumn of 1993 - Mage: The Ascension. I enjoyed this both as player (David C. ran it) and as Storyteller. I can't get too much into how and why I love this - I would gush - but check it out. The 20th Anniversary Edition of Mage (which was due out for 2013) is getting finished up at the end of 2014. Check it out. Seriously. Do it.

      We tried other games, too. I ran Call of Cthulhu one-shots. I ran Tales from the Floating Vagabond one-shots. We tried all the Storyeller games (besides Vampire and Mage, there was Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Wraith: The Oblivion, and Changeling: The Dreaming). There were even spin-offs, some of which spawned fondly remembered chronicles, like "the X-Files Campaign" (a chronicle using the World of Darkness setting of Storyteller games and a supplement called Project: Twilight which focused on characters who were government agents who delved into the supernatural threats facing the world).

     I finally ran a truly great Vampire: The Masquerade chronicle we just called "the Chicago Game" because it ended up in the Chicago By Night setting. It featured a vampiric detective (inspired somewhat by the TV show Forever Knight) named Radford I. Jackson played by Harry E., who was seeking to become human again. He was opposed by another player character, a demonic Baali vampire known as Johnathan Brisby, played by David C. Just thinking about how David C. played Brisby still gives me chills after all these years. He was truly evil, and trying to drag Chicago down into Hell - literally. Bob B. played an elder vampire named Terrex, who was caught up in the city's vampiric politics, and ultimately became the city's vampire Prince. Others played with us on occasion. I think we ran precursor campaigns in 1994, but it became a campaign of its own in 1995 or early 1996, and we ran it through 1998 or so. It really ended in the early 2000s, finally.

      But through it all, D&D remained my first love. We always came back to that. I always came back to that.

      In 1993, I graduated from high school and went to college at the University of Rhode Island. Most of my friends went to Community College of Rhode Island. We kept gaming together, but as I mentioned, we lost founding member David P., who joined the Army.
      In 1995, my brother joined the Marines, as I mentioned. We kept gaming.
      In 1998, I graduated from URI. We continued to game, but I went to graduate school at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. This made it harder to game, but we still got together and played whenever I was back in town. Talk about a dedicated gaming group!

     The real big leap came in 2000 when I graduated from the M.A.T. program in Latin and Classical Humanities from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. I had overcome that youthful shyness and was ready to go out into the world as a teacher. I took a job as a Latin teacher in Plymouth, Massachusetts. I was going to move away - permanently. Could my gaming group survive? We would be about 2 hours of driving apart, in a region of the country where people don't drive more than 20 minutes if they can help it.
     Worse, it was announced that AD&D 2nd Edition was coming to an end. The new owners (D&D was originally Gygax's company, TSR, but they were acquired by Wizards of the Coast) had decided to release a 3rd edition of the beloved game. And they were dropping "Advanced" from the title. The third edition would not be Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition - it would be simply D&D (or so they hoped - in reality, everyone I knew called it "3rd edition," and when they later released an update, "3.5"). Would I adapt to the new edition, or stick with the 2nd edition? I couldn't fathom the amount of work it would take to revise my entire campaign world into a new rule set.

      More thoughts on this when I have time . . .

   

Some Autobiographical Thoughts on Gaming (part 1)

     I'm a Gamer. A REAL Gamer, an RPG Gamer, not those video-game n00bs who dare call themselves "gamers." I sometimes use the capital letter to indicate the difference between (video) gamers ("Dude! I just got a PS4! I'm a gamer!") and (RPG) Gamers ("Dude, last night I lost the 13th level fighter that I've been playing in my friend's Greyhawk campaign for like 5 years!").

     The point is, I'm a Gamer. And I have been for some time. This is on my mind because I just celebrated my 39th birthday on September 10th. And I remember that my love of RPG gaming began with a birthday in the 1980s.

     Oddly enough, I cannot now be 100% certain what year that was. My recollection now is that it was September 10th, 1985, but my recollection may be flawed. It might have been 1986. I know that by 1987 I was already a fledgling Gamer, so it had to be before then.

     So this birthday marked 39 years on this planet, roughly 29 of which I have been involved in RPGs. It is a significant year to consider these things - the RPG hobby began with the first publication of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974, so this year (2014) marks the 40th anniversary of the hobby. My hobby has been around just one year longer than I have, and for nearly three quarters of its existence, I've been involved.

     I had been playing those adventure books that let you choose your own adventure. My family couldn't keep up with my demand, so I used to get them from the public library (in Woonsocket, in the great state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations). I remember first seeing AD&D (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) books there. So I became aware of the existence of RPG games by about the time I was 9.

     So, my birthday in about 1985. I knew of the existence of D&D. I didn't know how it worked, but I knew it existed. I was entranced by the idea. So when we went to the local Waldenbooks at the Lincoln Mall (a now sadly defunct bookstore and, last I checked, largely defunct mall), and my family asked me to pick out something I wanted for my birthday from the bookstore, I picked a D&D box.

     At this point I knew nothing about RPG gaming, really. I remember wondering if the box had a board in it like other boxed game sets (like Monopoly or something). I wondered how the game was played. I couldn't wait. I did not realize I had picked out the wrong box - I picked up the black box because it looked cool. This was the "Master Set" for ultra-high-level D&D. I probably should have gone for the red one - the "Basic" set. I also didn't realize that this basic D&D was different from the Advanced D&D books I had seen at the library. I remember being a bit disappointed when I finally opened the box and started looking through the contents . . . and quickly figuring out my mistake. I couldn't play D&D for my birthday with only the Master Box.

     This did not deter me. I took out books from the library. I eventually picked up the Basic Box. I slowly figured out that there was a difference between D&D and AD&D, although I (and every other Gamer I met in those years) mixed the two systems somewhat freely. I taught myself the rules. I started making dungeons - using massive amounts of paper making wonderfully illogical dungeons. Eventually, I started playing by making solo dungeons for my little brother Eric and running his characters through them. My friend Billy used to play with his own group (he went to a private school, and I went to a public school, and I think his group was friends from his school, but I could be wrong). So Billy and I rarely played together, but we shared stories and ideas and swapped modules and such.

      Humble beginnings. I would be years before I had a full table of Gamers. In the beginning it was just me as Dungeon Master and my brother, and maybe a friend. On a couple of memorable and fun occasions, my brother and two friends.

      I remember how hard it was making sense of all the rules. The original editions of D&D and AD&D I played had evolved organically over a decade. New rules were just tacked on every so often. It could take a lot of cross-referencing to figure out how things were "supposed" to work . . . but we were young kids, and rarely played the games strictly by the Rules As Written . . . we took to heart the refrain found in many D&D books that the game was meant to be played however it was most fun for all concerned. Even so, I dearly wished someone would publish a version of the game which had  been planned from the ground up, not just allowed to sprout in all directions organically without any plan behind it. Bring a little order to the chaos.

     My wish was granted with the advent of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition (2nd Edition AD&D). Many people in the Old School Renaissance (OSR) now look back with horror on the coming of 2nd edition, but I welcomed it at the time. It was just what I had thought the hobby needed . . .

More thoughts to follow when I have time . . .