Excavating My First Fantasy...

I've been a fantasy buff going way back; but my introduction to the genre came by way of a non-fantastical source: dinosaurs and prehistory. Not surprising. Kids gravitate towards dinosaurs because they're truly the stuff of wonder, the same reason they like superheroes and Saturday morning cartoons. But dinosaurs were actual things described by dry facts appealing only to those adults who research them. That said, while today's youngsters enjoy access to better information, a child of the 70s got something different...

We got fantasy dinosaurs. Humans and dinosaurs living together. Pteranodons with bat-like wings and iguanas masquerading as the real thing. We got men in obvious suits stalking astronauts on prehistoric planets and bikini-clad cavewomen, inexplicably shaven (talk about fantasy), sleeping in monstrous eggshells. It was the stuff of 1950s drive-ins and late-night screenings on black-and-white TV. In other words, a fantasized version of reality channeling all the excitement dinosaurs, in their terrifying glory, had coming.

Comic books reinforced the illusion, and the Aurora Prehistoric Scenes model kits popular at the time implied an intersection of fantasy and reality that resonates even now. And if you appreciated dinosaurs, you might also enjoy the dragons of mythology and radioactive kaiju, dragons by another name, threatening (and sometimes saving) humanity from calamities both alien and earthborn. In short, those dinosaurs were a gateway drug to an endless buffet of the fantastic. And there was no shortage of the stuff, as the following shows...   

The Lost World (movie, 1925). An early Willis O'Brien masterpiece.

King Kong (movie, 1933). More stop-motion by the incomparable O'Brien. 

One Million B.C. (movie, 1940). I don't approve of the animal cruelty.

King Dinosaur (movie, 1955). Iguanas and a surprisingly good wooly mammoth.

One Million Years B.C. (a sequel, 1966). Harryhausen's stop-motion ruled.

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (movie, 1970). Excellent stop-motion here.

Aurora Prehistoric Scenes (model kits, 1971-1978). A great implied world.

Land of the Lost (television show, 1974-1976). The smartest children's show ever.

Tor (comic book, 1975 reissued from 1955). A caveman epic by Joe Kubert.

An incomplete list, but one that shows the variety. The lizards break immersion, and I can't approve the animal cruelty involved. Thankfully, stop-motion animation and the magic of comic-book cleverness brought these worlds to reputable life. And seriously, how much of a leap is it from dinosaurs to Sokurah's fire-breather to Tolkien's Smaug? Or from primitive cavemen to talking apes ruling a post-apocalyptic world? Without a doubt, dinosaurs were my first fantasy, and the creative liberties of media a gateway to endless adventures...

Image from One Million B.C., Hal Roach Studios/United Artists

Tripping the Death-Cult OSR...

So last month (I don't remember when) I read a bog post (I don't remember which, except that it wasn't previously familiar) explaining old-school D&D in terms of its lethality and general indifference to the fate of its protagonists. Inevitably, this led one reader to suggest that old-school gaming was (apparently) a grimdark country populated by psychopathic juveniles in service to a death-cult hobby. Their sentiment, my words. And while I took the time to reassure them (and will again), this reputation is somewhat earned...

Maybe. Stay with me. But first, the reassurances. I started playing in 1978; and while character death was absolutely a feature of the landscape, it was never the point and never emphasized or marketed that way. Bad luck (and/or poor decisions) had consequences, which counseled good strategy and motivated our actions. But mortality was never the point so much as a potential, if unwelcomed, outcome. No, the sales pitch, and core experience being offered, was fantastic adventures we'd (probably) live to see.

Never mind the Satanic Panic (which would have had a field day with Mork Borg); early D&D, however combat-oriented, wasn't marketed as some futile experience because, seriously, who would buy such a thing? I can fail in real life, thank you very much. Sure, this happened despite every precaution sometimes; but it wasn't the product's defining objective. And the campaigns which resulted were upbeat affairs and heroic. We laughed, joked, and generally lived to tell of our experiences, and never because we were doing it wrong...

Alright, so why the bad reputation? First off, because certain modern games are objectively more forgiving, being made for detailed backstories and cherished characters who return unscathed through continuing adventures. The mere fact that professional character portraits, some quite good, are even a thing suggests this implied longevity. Those only drawn to the pastime because of this aren't likely to enjoy dying at the hands of capricious fate because to them, the alternative is a senseless grind they'd never willingly choose.

In short, modern survivability makes it a different game. And modern OSR publishers, ever eager to differentiate their products, play up these distinctions, which is how we get the bloodied mascot of Lamentations and the Die! Die! Die! aesthetic of the aforementioned Mork Borg. Add a (not insignificant) network of grognards waxing nostalgic about TPKs, and it's obvious from whence this reputation proceeds. If you're a young person who would only ever play the modern interpretation, all of this can seem off-putting in the extreme...

Basic Fantasy isn't doing this. And while, in fairness to Lamentations and Mork Borg, these products are tapping a certain niche, they're nonetheless a sharp deviation from OD&D's self-image even in its most wargamish moods. Sadly, the internet's bred a certain type of moral philosopher convinced (I'm not sure this isn't hyperbole) that one's choice in games indicates their character as a person. Danger is the only acceptable way to play, the only experience capable of delivering fun, and the only choice of any right-minded person.

Again, this is (I hope) hyperbolic. But it reinforces the notion that old-school gaming (name the system) was a death-worshipping cult. All jokes aside, the heightened probability of death inherent to old-school games feels like masochism to those who only began playing for the collaborative storytelling approach on offer. But the extreme element of the OSR is marketing to a (totally legitimate) subgenre, while the earliest hobby wasn't grimdark, but heroic, with danger and the threat of death punctuating fun adventures we lived to experience...

A Surprising Look at Murderhobos...

So I asked a question on Facebook this week. What did people do with the humanoid women and children in the Caves of Chaos, among similar adventures, persumably? This was a controversial question, given that killing non-combatants is genocide and a war crime in the civilized world, and that (hopefully) players have a functioning moral compass precluding even simulated atrocities, at least not without certain disclaimers...

The answers ran the gamut, although some were obviously tongue-in-cheek: 

40% chose to treat such non-combatants humanely in various ways.

30% modified the encounter(s) to remove the very presence of said innocents.

20% chose slaughter, some citing variations of the Nuremberg Defense.

10% enslaved these helpless survivors, marching them to the Keep in chains. 

This data is current as of this morning, and I filtered out the nonsense replies and Full Metal Jacket references (humerous as they might otherwise be) to get the meat...

And the meat, consistent with my own experience (starting in 1978), is that most players choose a humane response, likely in deference to their personal morality, opting for Lawful or Good characters for similar reasons. Those who chose attrocities were generally younger, meaning less mature, or older and able to skillfully roleplay. Regardless, it's a compelling look into old-schoolers, proving that people are still people, age or edition be damned.

Nine Questions: A Retrospective...

So there's not much to offer this month. Real life is intruding, as it often does, and we haven't found the time to do much of anything worth reading. And since we've had better months, overflowing with interesting and insightful content, maybe it's time to look backwards at better days. Call it a refresher course for longtime readers and a quick primer for our newcomers, presented as Nine Questions Gamers Want to Ask, awaiting your attention...

(1) Are character levels as important as we think they are?

(2) Exactly how many classes are needed, and can we have too many?

(3) Is sophistication good or bad for the roleplaying hobby?

(4) How did gaming's early rivalries impact the hobby's development?

(5) Rolling dice is a big deal; but just how important are they? 

(6) How have current fashions affected how characters are depicted? 

(7) Nostalgia gets a bad reputation; but could it be important?

(8) Are inherently evil orcs always racist? Or is there more to the story?

(9) When did D&D's amateur age end, and where was its last stand?

Thanks for reading. These posts ran from 2018 through 2020 and represent the obscure questions we sometimes contemplate. Our hobby is a bottomless well of lore, and because it offers a vast universe of ideas and approaches, gaming might just be the most interesting conversation we can have (an exaggeration, but I like the comparison). Here's wishing us all a lifetime of conversations worth having and endless hours of games worth playing...

The Three Prongs of Art's Dilemma...

Okay, so the title's a bit misleading. There's lots of great artwork in the gaming hobby, with something good for everyone, whether old school's amateur simplicity (a personal favorite) to the modern era's many excellent offerings. You can't go wrong. But the best our hobby can offer, regardless of visual style, lands on three prongs. Now much of this is subjective, being ultimately the province of personal tastes, which wander far afield. But setting this aside, a truly universal thread runs through the legendary art like veins...

First, there's the characters, the ones going on the adventure. The best art, especially cover artwork, captures these heroes at work, just before, during, and after their struggles with fearsome foes. Whether the original Dungeon Master's Guide, with its battle in the fabled City of Brass, or the first Player's Handbook (my favorite) in the aftermath of hostilities against endless hordes of demon-worshipping lizard men, nothing communicates the game's focus and ultimate intent quite like these icons of adventure plying their trade.

Next, we have the adversaries, the monsters. Shown alive or dead, these are the flip side of gaming art's metaphorical coinage, for what would the aforementioned D&D rulebooks be, really, without their flaming-red efreeti or recently slain lizard men? It's heroes against deadly opponents, so the best artwork, the stuff we call exemplars, has to include these terrifying foes. Now this isn't always possible, especially with interior illustrations; but if possible, these complete an all-encompasing picture of what our hobby's about...

Finally, there's the treasure (or reward, system dependant). What else would motivate the characters to tackle those deadliest of adversaries? Risk needs reward, making treasure, in all its many forms, an essential ingredient of iconic gaming artwork, giving AD&D's classic Player's Handbook, with its enormous gemstone eye, a definite edge. Holmes Basic checks the same boxes, among others. That said, your mileage will doubtless vary; but the above trifecta can certainly help to navigate the prongs of iconic artwork's non-dilemma. 

Musk and the Moral Homebrew...

Our hobby is essentially homebrewed. But it's also an industry eager to appropriate that which its players inevitably do themselves, whether through deliberate houserules or passive misunderstanding. Trust me, I'm the guy who wrote a homebrew after all of three sessions back in 1978 (a system swallowed by time). And it's not just mechanics either. Even a game's ethical foundations are largely homebrewed despite a system's ambitions.

Case in point, a certain billionaire wants to buy D&D to bulwark his version of its history because money's the final arbiter of truth; and seriously, what's the point of being a billionaire if you can't do this sort of thing? All sarcasm aside, it's pointless (words fail me) to suggest anyone can own the truth or the human imagination. The fact that I could homebrew a game after three sessions I barely understood speaks to the futility of trying...  

No, the hobby's progenitors weren't perfect, and how absurd to demand fealty to such a whitewashed version of history. They weren't perfect. Mere realism demands this assessment from us. But they did some good things as well, and gaming's one of them, even if its early vision was (sometimes) similarly imperfect. Anyway, it's not at all disloyal to suggest that our creative heroes were imperfect and shaped by their respective backgrounds.

Part of the problem is that Hasbro (and certain online tribalists) state the obvious without a shred of humility or self-awareness. Indeed, Hasbro shows all the sincerity of a gun-shy corporation shilling virtue while avoiding trouble. All while failing to admit the products they're deriding are (quite literally) paying the bills. Of course, some sins are unforgivable (way to sully a legacy, Professor Barker; Nazis can piss right off immediately)...

But who's left when our moral purges silence literally everyone not born after a certain year, especially since we'll all be judged (and rightly so) by future generations? Yes, the 1970s were sexist by modern, thankfully mainstream, standards. And yes, this had to influence the earliest pastime in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. But while it's right to acknowledge such things and do better, we didn't exactly earn the advantage of living in our time.

More importantly, and here's where the homebrewing comes in, such displays, whether the disclaimers of Hasbro or the performative outrage of Musk, accomplish very little beyond covering backsides (Legal insisted) or circling the proverbial wagons. No rulebook will ever play for us or be decent for us. We bring our intuitions to the gaming table, homebrewing mechanics and morality alike despite whatever rulebook(s) we're using*...

We own that. It's ours. No company, no rulebook can change it. We can homebrew original systems, giving commercial products only what power we grant them through time and/or money (an empowering thought if ever there was), and the same applies to our moral values as filtered through our actions. Thoughtful and welcoming rulebooks are great, but come to nothing without people of genuine goodwill honest and humble enough to engage.

*Within limits, obviously. Redeeming F.A.T.A.L. isn't worth the time or effort...