Do I even want to be considered “Old School” anymore?

That is what I have been thinking this week after seeing reactions to the Dwimmermount project over at Grognardia the last few months (and a wide variety of other old school blogs and web pages), and especially this week.

I did not seek out much in the way of online info about gaming until recent years. In the 90’s during a heavy gaming period, I checked-out some forums briefly on AOL, but by around 1999 or so I had gone into a retirement period from gaming that would last several years. I was getting so involved in the world music community in California, and was spending much more time with people to whom gaming was not even on the radar of, I pretty much quit (I always had a busy life outside games, but at that point I knew nobody who gamed or wanted to. And when I would be dating a girl around then I certainly never brought up gaming to them). It was getting hard to get people together on a weekend (then the preferred time to play) for several hours on a Saturday or Sunday, and it did not seem worth it anymore. I for sure was not going to start gaming as an adult at game shops and cons. I was done. I thought for good.

Then three years ago I got contacted by current group host Andy off of Meetup.com where I had sort of off-handedly started a profile, and *bam!* we had a group together and have been gaming regularly since. On a weeknight actually, because regular weekend gaming again was still a pipe dream and would probably always be so with rare exceptions. So this OSR thing was at full steam as I discovered. I saw an advert for some D&D podcast that appealed to me so I listened and James from Grognardia was the guest (they described him as a blogger who did not always have the most fascinating posts, but by sheer virtue of the amount of posts he had a big following). After that I checked out James blog, and was ultimately inspired to start my own, as I had my own old school stories to tell.

After three years of checking out the OSR, I’m getting pretty tired of old school-style artwork when it had previously been nice and nostalgic (, I will always revere Trampier and others from the past for pure nostalgia value) currently being produced. Same-old same-old adventurers cautiously approaching a dungeon doorway. So little of it inspires me now. Case in point, James and his proudly displayed art samples for Dwimmermount.

The artist is excellent, but I’m sorry, the standard knight dude and the old broad who runs the leather mug booth at the Ren Faire somehow schlepping into a mountain top dungeon in the wilderness not only is uninspiring to me, but seems to me not to be very far from the realm of a parody drawing of old school D&D. I’m fine with people liking it, but Jesus Christ, words like “Outstanding” and “amazing” on the comment thread is giving me a serious douche-chill. Most of James readers are at the point where they are pre-sold on anything he does, it seems.

Now, James as usual is a little touchy when it comes to his work and fan club. Differing opinions on his work is often met with a “you can go read other blogs” type of stuff. Fair enough. But although I have rarely kissed his ass (I think James feels mostly burned by me in the past for my hearty defending of the 80's Conan film that he bashes constantly and obssesively), I feel I have chimed in with plenty of thumbs-up on ideas and reviews over the years, and try to offer my own experiences of the old school that is perhaps a bit more visceral and from the viewpoint of an outgoing personality (i.e. I was on the football team in high school as opposed to the chess club).

So far on that thread the only other dissenting opinion is of young gamer grrrl Rachel of Rach’s Reflections (the only girl on the thread agrees with me. A win is a win), who is for sure a smart cookie. She had some very contemplative comments on how changes to the old, silly styles can be cool and keep what was good while having a bit more umph!:



“... It may just be my late entry into the hobby, but the whole "ren-faire" look that seems to be in vogue to the old-school community just looks... silly to me, particularly in conjunction with the idea that old-school play is a little grittier and more mercenary. A certain amount of stylization to make adventurers look cool is a good thing. I'm not saying full dungeonpunk, but...

“…Well... look at Johnny Weismuller in a pair of brown trunks, Errol Flynn in a green unitard and felt jerkin, or Burt Ward in elf booties and green underwear.
Now look at Tarzan as drawn by Disney, Jonas Armstrong with a cowl and leather armor, or Robin as drawn throughout the 90s and oughts.
Which one looks more like a reject from a panto, and which one looks like someone that knows how to throw down? Keep in mind I'm not asking what's more accurate to the text (Tarzan) or the period (Robin Hood), I'm just saying that they look more like they might be taken seriously, without being excessive at that…”

I like this lass. Smart is so sexy. Anyway, there is bad updating (dungeonpunk with bald heads, tattoos, and giant hoop earrings; black leather in X-Men film costumes, Spider-Man in a costume that would cost 100 times his freelance salary, etc), then there is good updating like the stuff Rachel mentioned. Truly, Disney Tarzan (I think the best Tarzan so far, and the closest to the books outside of DC comics 1970’s series) and 90's Robin looked like they could realistically kick ass, but were still Tarzan and still Robin.

But going too far into the past to search out fuzzy feelings really only goes so far to me (anymore). I think you can tap into that past without same-old same-old. Not that I'm the guy to do it (real job, interests besides gaming, mid-life crisis, etc etc etc), but I will tell you this; I was not immediately taken with James R’s LOTFP, or Goeff’s Carcosa, but the more I see of what old school Grog’s who are trying to maintain the old school look and feel are doing, the more I am attracted to those truly unique works that actually think outside the box while still being basically, at heart, old school fantasy gaming. Shit, they certainly are not boring.

Bottom line, and please excuse my French, but how the fuck many more basic, old school dungeons and drawings of knights at the dungeon doorway do we still need to see at this point? Is there a bottomless need and desire for this stuff out there?

When it comes to me and “old school,” I think I am at a crossroads, folks. While I think I will still run me some ol’ school D&D here and there, I think I’m done looking at new scenarios, settings, art, and writing for it unless it has something new to say and something that inspires me more than just looking like art from back in the day (or looking like a parody of it).

What say you?

"Danger! Danger!"

(photo above: Dr. Smith proving that it’s not only little boys he likes to hang out with)

After a long period of being able to post about an ongoing campaign, I find that now it is over with I can go back to making some posts about pop culture things that appeal to me. Comic books, childhood TV favorites, films, books, etc. all had some influence on me and my gaming. Its one reason having a variety of gaming genres to experience has always been appealing to me.

Having said that, I can’t say Lost in Space added anything to my gaming life, anymore than Adam West’s Batman added anything to my Champions games (unless you count it as an example of what not to do). Still, as a child I loved this show. It didn’t matter that it quickly went from decent and fairly hard Sci Fi to a Dr. Smith mince-fest in short order.

It was a big plus for me that when I was a very young child my dad worked on the show as a set painter. Right now I actually have a listing on Ebay of a beat up copy of a script dad nicked from the set. Not only that, but I visited the set and met both my heroes from the show; Billy Mumy and Jonathan “Dr. Smith” Harris. My memory of it is very sketchy, but according to mom Billy was really nice to me, and chased me around with a ray guy. And Harris actually commented on the sweater I was wearing; I loved the show so much that mom bought me (and my next oldest brother) these long sleeve sweater-like shirts with a plunging ‘V’ neckline like the crew of the Jupiter 2 wore.

As an adult of course I can now laugh at the idiocy of the last couple of seasons. Giant talking carrots, space pirates on motorcycles, space hippies, etc. All the things that Star Trek actually portrayed intelligently.

And after reading William Shatner’s autobiography a few years ago, I got a pretty bad attitude about Lost in Space. He talked about how Gene Rodenberry was trying to do a serious, philosophical Sci Fi show on a limited budget, and at the same time the producers of Lost in Space were stealing leftover props from Star Trek dumpsters to save money on their own big-budget show. It was a time when viewer much preferred to be pandered too than be made to do any hard thinking (reminds you of today a bit, eh?).

But finding the above photo, of Dr. Smith seeming to give a little girl an inappropriately sensual kiss (on first glance I actually thought it was Billy Mumy!), really made me think about the show a bit, and how much fun I had with it despite how horrible it quickly became.

About 20 years ago, backstage at the Southern California Ren Faire, a buddy and me were drinking and goofing around, and for some reason we were doing these very gay impressions of Charles Nelson Reily and Jonathan Harris, and it turned out that a mutual friends of ours there, a girl names Jessie, was the niece of Harris. It blew our mind and we grilled her hard on info about one of our favorite mincing actors of the 60’s and 70’s. she seemed to think of him as being somewhat gay (not that there is anything wrong with it if true), but the fact is that Harris was married for many many years and still was at the time of his death several years ago. I think he had kids too. Harris famously said "I'm not British, just affected". But even though straight, he played an obviously gay character so well and flamboyantly that I still love Doc Smith.

Smith started out as an evil secret agent who tried to sabotage the Jupiter 2 (in the process murdering women and children), but they quickly turned him into a swishing coward who would often hide behind young Will Robinson when there was trouble. Good thing they always sent the robot, probably more to protect the boy from Smith than from alien hippies and android go-go girls.

A Family Guy parody had Will Robinson’s dad telling his son “Why don’t you go for a long walk on this uncharted, hostile alien planet. And take this mincing, child-loving pedophile with you.” But it was actually Harris who created the newer, less evil Dr. Smith from whole cloth. The other actors apparently had great resentment because Harris, Mumy, and the robot were getting all the screen time by the second season.

Not long before his death, Harris appeared on Conan O’Brien around the time when the crappy Lost in Space film came out (Harris refused to do a cameo because he didn’t get to play Smith) in a hilarious bit where he makes fun of Conan’s “Pimpbot” like he had done with his old robot pal decades before. Conan was apparently a huge fan of the show growing up, and it meant the world to him for Harris to insult his Pimpbot. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jydgPW1buhc

If I’m not mistaken, that’s Cheech Marin next to Harris on the couch. Talk about pop culture clash!

Apparently working with Harris was a great experience for Bill Mumy, who stayed close friends right up to Harris’ death. I understand that Mumy was one of the only non-family members present when Harris passed away.

You see Harris pop up in the craziest places. He has done cameos on Sanford and Son, All in the Family, and all kinds of 70’s and 80’s sitcoms. He did a ton of voice work, including one of the Three Musketeers on The Banana Splits. His final role was the voice of the Mantis in A Bug’s Life.

“Danger! Danger! Dr. Smith, step away from the boy!”