Loving the Dungeon Bummers...

Something I love about old-school gaming is how character centric everything is. Dungeons exist because the players need someplace cool to explore; and monsters, especially of a certain variety, were made exclusively to challenge the party. We can retroactively provide an ecological justification; but really, these monsters (original creations and not derived from mythology) exist solely because characters exist. I call them dungeon bummers, and these made-up baddies remain close to my heart, especially the following creatures:   

Gelatinous cubes are virtually invisible and fill a corridor; i.e., the very open space in a dungeon becomes dangerous and requires special care to safely navigate.

Lurkers above drop on the unwary, punishing those who fail to look in all directions.

Mimics make virtually any stone or wooden object potentially dangerous, almost as much as all the mimic memes on Facebook. This is the mother of dungeon bummers...

Ochre jellies slip through cracks in the walls, meaning danger lurks in the ordinary crevices abundant underground. They only exist to endanger the unwary adventuring party.

Piercers are the spawn of an asshole god. Now all those stalactites are potential monsters, ensuring paranoia and yet another excuse to prod stuff with your 10-foot pole.

Now I get that any monster presents challenges to a party, however realistic. Bears are terrifying adversaries; and we get those in New Jersey. But monsters specifically created to exploit some common occurrence are a whole other ballgame. These character-centric encounters only exist because the characters exist and interact with the campaign setting, a delightful love letter to the players. It says the game exists for them; dungeons were made with them in mind; and a good DM labors with love to challenge and amaze them...    

I Was an 80s Gaming/Metal Nerd...

Around 1982, I discovered that everything I liked was Satanic. Dungeons and Dragons, obviously (hence the blog), but also metal music (to be clear, its better specimens and not the questionable hair-metal variety). You'd think I was holding a daily black mass to hear the hysterical rumblings from certain quarters. Youth was under assault; Satan was pulling dark strings using every tool in his arsenal - music and, apparently, imagination... 

I'm sure some of those who never came to their senses would be horrified at my secular humanism; but this isn't a religious thing. Some of the best and brightest hobbyists, people I like and respect immensely, were - and remain - people of faith. And I saw firsthand how moral panics, unmoored from reality or evidence, hurt these early gamers as well-meaning parents locked away their rulebooks, convinced they were saving souls.

Demons, magic; things prohibited by the Good Book featured prominently. And just like rock and roll and cars (yes, cars), gaming took kids to places adults couldn't follow (barring the superior sort who took the time to ask or actually participate). I suffered articles in supposedly respectable media claiming things objectively - and demonstrably - false, which made me appreciate the value of evidence while showing that my elders could still be wrong.

It was a volatile mix. We were young and newly rebellious; and here's this sweet new thing that allowed us to experience another world - and to be another self. It wasn't about rebellion, per se (our Chess Club was dubbed The Mild Bunch); but it became a subversive act once everyone began freaking out. More than anything we'd seen, gaming was awesome because fantasy was awesome. Dragons and wizards and magic swords are awesome...

And then one day your buddy plays some Dio - or Ozzy, or whatever, and it speaks to that fantasy loving part of you. The driving guitars marched us into battle even as the solos taught us that a person could do more than play chords behind a singer. And its lyrics, running the gauntlet from horror to magic to samurai warriors, was the wizard painted on the side of your neighbor's van. With matching imagery, heavy metal was gaming music made flesh.

And you saw this speciation; the drama nerds, obviously, but also some pure metalheads (think Eddie from Stranger Things) who may not have even graduated but loved fantasy, because it's awesome, and saw their aspirations in dice and dragons. This didn't help polish gaming's image to a hysterical public - be we understood. And the cross pollination won metal some unlikely devotees - and elevated a genre to the status of nerd rock.

I steered a middle course. My friends called me a Mingler because I moved through many circles (steadfastly avoiding certain ones), including the metalheads. In my experience, roleplaying showcased their criminally overlooked talent and intelligence, and this went both ways. Metal friends made us more worldly and open to experiences beyond our relatively sheltered existence. The benefits to both factions was definitely not a stranger thing...    

Gaming's Non-Gaming Seeds...

Games inspire games, especially fifty years on. There's a whole industry catering to the hobbyist's every potential need; but no one's born a gamer, however enthusiastic they become a few delves in (going by my experience). No, it all begins with any number of non-gaming influences seeding our beautifully fertile ground. Feeling nostalgic, here are mine, ranked in rough order and all from the 1970s when the hobby was born:

(1) Rankin/Bass Hobbit. Here was a colorful look at a world of dwarves, elves, and humans unlike anything I'd seen before. I have no regrets that this was my first Tolkien...

(2) Famous Monsters of Filmland. A great magazine! You got deep dives into pretty much everything from Bela Lugosi to Harryhausen. Fandom began in its pages.

(3) DC Horror Comics. House of Mystery, House of Secrets; this was usually modern horror stuff with trademark ironic endings, which nonetheless delivered a fantasy feeling.

(4) Marvel Monster Titles. Think Where Creatures Roam - or Monsters Dwell. The emphasis was on Jack Kirby monsters enough to stock a modern gaming sourcebook.

(5) Star Wars (Chapter 4, exclusively). Forget the tech; this was a fantasy film. 

(6) Planet of the Apes (original films and comics/merchandise). A sci-fi future where humans and non-humans shared a tense coexistence. Another early fandom.

(7) Aurora Movie Monster Models. Dracula, The Salem Witch; these glow-in-the-dark kits instilled a love of (and expectation for) hands-on customization of my own monsters.

(8) Land of the Lost (the 1970s series). Marshall, Will and Holly...and a world of Sleestaks, dinosaurs, and proto-humans I swear was inspired by someone's D&D game.

(9) My Grandfather's Encyclopedias. Pre-internet, this was how you looked information up; and I delighted in its mythology. A perfect fit for gaming's pseudo-academic methods.    

(10) Late-Night/Weekend Creature Features. Damn I'm old! Before cable, you bought TV Guide and waited days on end for these goodies to hit your local UHF station.

All I can suggest is to look this stuff up. Some is timeless (Star Wars, anyone), with modern relevance while others are quite obscure in an age where the "big two" comic publishers cater to superheroes and the internet's gobbled up the magazines. Google's gateway to porn likewise opens to some (not-quite-forgotten) remnants worth the effort to excavate.

I started gaming on the cusp of its breakout success (1978), where it quickly became self-referential and internally driven. But the seeds of interest in this stuff were planted as I painted models (doubtless huffing a little glue in the process) and poured over an assortment of comics and magazine articles carefully curated by yours truly. It was a golden age of storybook innocence and a growing community - and budding fandom - looking for a voice.

Alignment As Moral Shorthand...

Character alignments are surprisingly controversial in some corners of the hobby, although hardly a universal complaint. I've come to the conclusion that they're pretty much essential for a certain kind of fantasy to operate, and for reasons obvious and sometimes obscure: 

I know; there's the usual stuff about good and evil being palpable forces. I know this because I've used it to defend the idea of alignment in the past - and because having your magical longsword dedicated to (and exclusively useable by) good seems altogether appropriate to a world of actual gods and working magic. It really depends on what kind of campaign you're running. Ditching alignment is fine; but you're not getting anything like the above, and maybe that's your point. But if you do, it has an ease of use it seldom gets credit for... 

Alignment is a convenient shorthand. Each one or two-word descriptor stands for a range of moral behaviors and motivations, clumsy to describe without them. You could spend a bloated paragraph explaining how Thorvin is compassionate and oathbound - or you could just write lawful good (LG or lawful, system dependent) instead. I agree that major NPCs deserve a well-written entry; but LG is elegant and immediately translatable into meaningful information. Think of it as a condensed profile, just add water and a little creativity.

Now the naysayers insist that alignment's limiting. Really? So characters are all over the place, becoming cruel enforcers at the drop of a hat and returning whole to kindly altruism in the name of personal freedom? Fine; but there's already an alignment for that guy: chaotic neutral depending on how far they go down the rabbit hole in a pinch. But most are far more consistent; and each falls somewhere on the line. Again, it depends on the campaign; but every good concept maps to some designation even when they aren't used...

And I'll dispense with the notion that alignments are inordinately (or even necessarily) limiting. When your player hands you their ten-page backstory and it screams chaotic evil, they've limited themselves well in advance. Concepts are limiting. Form too, even while welcoming new possibilities. Good characters can be petty and vengeful. They just have a noisy conscience that pumps the breaks, averting disaster. Evil characters can show love and compassion, albeit for selfish reasons. Anyway, plenty of variety within alignments. 

Now I can hear some scribbling their ALIGNMENT HAS TO GO essays already. Just bear in mind that most our projects outright reject the concept, and for reasons the most diehard contrarian would doubtless agree with. This isn't about being wrong. I could write a heartfelt defense for the opposing position - and probably will someday. If the world's governed by moral imperatives radiating from the mind of god(s), alignment works. Otherwise, naturalistic free will has its place, and let none say you're wrong if you choose that path...

Historically, people have been good to their own and horrendous to those they deemed outsiders, so I understand a certain strain of realistic fantasy. But voices calling for an end to moral labels insist that some ideas shouldn't be explored, which feels, well, immoral.*

*Hyperbole; no one's Hitler for disagreeing with me. Have a nice day dear reader...