Showing posts with label wizards of the coast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wizards of the coast. Show all posts

Saturday, December 26, 2020

Dawn Of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS

 

A couple or so years ago I wrote a series of articles on RPG related things for an online pop culture website. This site was created mostly by talkbackers on Aint It CoolS New who jumped ship from there when AICN creator Harry Knowles got sucked into the #metoo morass. Below is one of the first items I wrote for them. 

The website asked for content featuring fairly raw humor, so I accommodated as best I could. Also a certain amount of artistic license was used here where salient details were somewhat lacking. Please excuse the formatting as this was copied directly from the for mentioned website.



At first Mary Jo Gygax had no reason to believe her young husband Gary was anything but a hard-working family man, who committed much of his spare time to his kids and political volunteerism.

But mysterious late nights with sketchy friends and missed family dinners led her to believe her hubby just might be slipping some Wisconsin salami to some Lake Geneva hussy.

Creeping down the basement steps of one of Gary’s best pals, she steeled herself for the sight of a sexual liaison, but instead found something potentially more terrifying; Gaz and his pals stooped over a table laden with maps and miniatures, recreating some Napoleonic combat or other.

Gary wasn’t a cheating bastard; he was a wargame god.

“this will get me sooooo laid one day”

The Fresh Prince of Lake Geneva

Gary spent his earliest years on the mean streets of Chicago, but when he started showing a childhood proclivity towards gang warfare, the family up and moved Fresh Prince style, but instead of hightailing for Belle Aire, they went for rural Wisconsin.

A high school drop-out, and an uninspired sometimes-college student, Gygax built his strong, professor-like vocabulary by indulging in science fiction and pulp fantasy while working a variety of low-end office jobs. Conan The Barbarian, Lovecraft heroes, and John Carter of Mars were his muses.

Continuing his interest in table top gaming as years rolled by, Gary remained active in the wargaming community, and wrote many articles for wargaming magazines and coming up with his own games. Always yearning for new ways to approach his games, Gary was an early adopter of multi-sided dice, discovered in math teacher supply catalogues. In 1967 he founded GenCon, a yearly meeting of wargame wonks in Wisconsin. Not long after he would produce Chainmail, a warfare simulation with fantasy elements, which would become an early template for Dungeons and Dragons.

A Dork Named Dave

“Me? Not so much”

Along came Dave Arneson, a Minnesota University history student who also loved wargames. Dave had, for the time, unique ideas about his wargame sessions. Not satisfied with merely simulating exact history, Dave liked to explore alternate histories and outcomes. He was also a proponent of “Braunsteins,” an unpublished wargame notion were non-combat goals were introduced into the rigid wargame rules.

This quickly evolved into the idea of players actually taking on the roles of individuals in the game (commanders, town mayors, community leaders and businessmen) and making non-military decisions outside of game task resolution, almost entirely based on whim. Role-playing, to put it simply.

You might remember playing Monopoly as a kid, and your friends or older siblings wheeling and dealing and negotiating outside the rules. Yep, we were all role-playing landlords and train barons. We were Braunsteining.

Dave expanded upon these games by inventing his game world,  Blackmoor (widely recognized as the first true fantasy role-playing setting), and his sessions deviated heavily from the stodgy, popular wargames of the time. He injected fantasy elements, quests for gold and monster killing, and scenarios lifted from fantasy literature.

You Got Your Dave In My Gary Butter

Dave and Gary came together like chocolate and peanut butter at GenCon 2, bonding over a mutual love of naval-based games.

Not long after, Arneson would adopt Gygax’s Chainmail rules for his games for his personal home campaigns, but also addended it with what would later be recognized as the Dungeons and Dragons tropes that game is known for, including the improving hit points concept, character development from session to session, and most importantly dungeon crawling.

His players tiring of simple castle sieges, Dave filled the basement levels with traps, magic, and monsters, and had them delve beneath rather than breech the upper walls.

D&D is Coming Together

Gary must have loved the Blackmoor games, because he quickly invented his own setting, Greyhawk. Gary and Dave began to collaborate on a unique game combining their games and rules, and Gary wanted to hustle on it as there were other wargamers with similar publishing aspirations.

Unable to find publishers, Gary and pal Don Kaye tapped friend Brian Blume (one of two brothers who would eventually lead to the downfall of Gary’s version of the company) for the moolah, and they were off and running with a first run of 1000 copies. Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) and Dungeons and Dragons were born. It was 1974.

Arneson was not a partner, and most of his rules were not incorporated into that first version of D&D (though the tropes he invented would be), but he contributed a supplement, Blackmoor, and would briefly work for TSR. But he would soon leave to pursue a separate career in game design.

Dave would receive co-writer credit for a brief time, but that was removed with the publication of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, a somewhat different game. Still, it’s main concepts were all Arneson, and he filed several lawsuits, breaking up the friendship. In 1981 they settled, and Dave received co-creator credit and a royalty sum. This soothed the seething tensions between Gary and Dave, and the old school dorks were friends once more.

The Band is Breaking Up

Dave moved on anyway, and eventually landed a prestigious position at Full Sail University, teaching game design for many years. But he continued his home Blackmoor games, sessions that for decades gamers would beg to participate in. At conventions they often got the chance.

Before long, due to the death of TSR partner Kaye, and a buying of more shares by Brian Blume and his brother, Gary found himself the minority shareholder of the company, effectively more an employee than partner in the company that was fast becoming a huge success despite a variety of negatives.

For one thing, stories both true and false about the game in the media (gamers gone missing and suicides) caused a certain amount of eyebrow-raising scrutiny for the hobby, along with religious tongue clicking (Gygax and his wife actually left the Jehovah’s Witnesses due to pressure within their local chapter).

Also, Gary had become obsessed with playing D&D, and it occupied all of his free time. His longtime love of marijuana, the lure of young snizz his new celebrity afforded him, as well as a growing cocaine devotion, helped finish off that marriage, and Gary and Mary Jo divorced in 1983.

“I can’t believe you’re taking half the dungeon!”

Gary continued to be the face of the popular game. While the Blume family continued to run the game aspect of TSR, Gaz was sent off to Hollywood to get the entertainment division off the ground. In gamer circles, tales of Gary doing copious amounts of blow off of young gals’ tatas while cavorting in hot tubs were legendary. He co-produced the popular D&D cartoon, and worked hard (as hard as you can work while playing D&D 15 hours a day with a coke straw glued to your schnozz) to get a D&D movie off the ground.

Villainy Most Foul

The Blumes were back in Lake Geneva having their own party, buying up a fleet of company cars, overstocking the supply cabinets, overstaffing the offices, and believe it or not using company funds to hunt real treasure at the bottom of the sea. Before long, under the leadership of Tweedledumb Blume and Tweedledumber Blume, the three hundy million dollar a year company was several million in debt. Gary, who was close to locking in Orson Wells and John Boorman into his D&D film project, was informed of the Blume’s intention to sell off his beloved company to nix their debt. Spitting out his doobie, and knocking Traci Lords off his junk, Gary boogie-nighted out of his rented Hollywood mansion and hightailed back to the hearth fire in Wisconsin for a little aggressive TCB.

Captain Gygax: Civil War

His tussles with the Blumes and attempts to restructure the company could fill a library’s worth of books, but the long and short of it is Gary got things back on track. He helped hire a Hollywood friend’s sister as a business manager for TSR in 1984, perhaps the greatest mistake of his career. Her name was Lorraine Williams, and that name may as well be “Hitler” to many old school D&D fans.

Gary soon learned that Lorraine, though an excellent manager, held D&D players in low regard, and actually belittled Gary about it. Gary tried a Machiavellian move or two, but it was to no avail. The Blumes sold their shares to Williams, and with a cackle and flash of brimstone, she became the true power behind TSR.

Gary eventually said “screw it” and went on to try his hand at new gaming ventures, but like a modern Moriarty, Lorraine stymied him at every turn, eventually owning (through lawsuits most foul) and shelving his promising Dangerous Journeys game system.  Though he would always have his name linked to D&D, Gary would never replicate his original game’s success.

“I rolled a natural 20!”

Moving On

TSR sallied forth without it’s founders. To quell outspoken media critics, new editions of D&D purged Christian and demonic elements, and each such edition grew further towards glossy mainstream fantasy and away from the beloved old pulp novels beloved by Gary. Dungeon crawls became passé. Video games would have a bigger influence on D&D gameplay than dusty old fantasy tales.

Through the late 80’s and into the 90’s, and to Lorraine’s credit, TSR actually thrived despite many poor ideas, such as a Rocky and Bullwinkle RPG that included the use of hand puppets (can you imagine?). D&D remained strong, and expansions into comic books and novels were a success. But it would not last.

TSR over extended itself, and poor sales of things such as an attempt to enter the collectable card market doomed the company.

In short, Lorraine eventually sold out to Wizards of the Coast, makers of Magic: The Gathering, who themselves soon sold out to Hasbro. Dungeons and Dragons, once an underground playground for overgrown Conan fans, was in the hands of the owners of Transformers and My Little Pony. For good or bad.

Wrapping Up

Both Gary and Dave never lost their love of gaming, and the hobby continued to be the major force in their lives. Dave continued running his coveted weekly home games all the way up to when he died. Over the years many fans would live their dreams of getting to play at the tables of Gary and Dave at various gaming conventions. Gary passed away in 2008, and his old pal Dave died in 2009.

Lorraine Williams still stalks the Earth, laughing her last laughs at Gary, Dave, and their gamer ilk.

"...and your little dog Toto too!"

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Gygax Memorial - Raiding pocketbooks of the Faithful?




Only recently found out they are trying to get it together to get a memorial built representing Gygax and D&D. Although it seems to be more about Gary himself, I guess it is going to be a dragon with an inscription (yawn). I can see the children in the park now “Oh mommy, look! Skyrim!”

So there is this website you can go to for the information on this. Also, I understand the widow of Gary, Gail Gygax, shows up on convention floors with a money jar looking for contributions to this project. I can understand her wanting something like a memorial to Gary’s works, but the cash jar strikes me as kind of sad. I can’t say if Gail was left a hefty estate when Gary passed. It’s not like Gary produced a bunch of films or something. Royalties from the old D&D cartoon, and his books, can’t really be supporting a South Fork Ranch type lifestyle, could they? But anyway, the very wife of the man roaming game rooms looking for fivers from gamers just seems kind of cruddy. Are things that bad?

See, I think the memorial will be in part an ad for the current producers of D&D and their product whether they mean it to or not (plus the new reprints being sold by WOTC are tied in with this). Why is that bad? Well, I think the makers of the game, with their storied history and all, pretty much abandoned their own fanbase. That is what a lot of the voices of the OSR are about. There are a lot of older folk who stuck with the product throughout it’s various incarnations. I'm thinking the people who are the most passionate about this are the people who supported the game and it's companies, decade in and decade out, both monetarily and by bringing new people into it. I feel these are the people who have a right to ask that their voices be heard. It's a niche hobby where people come and go, but many seemed to have been buying the product for a good part of their lives. The product no longer seems to represent the game people have loved. I mean, even modern players of 3rd edition were gob smacked by 4th edition, which was just a head scratching departure from 3rd much in the way 3rd was from older editions. They don’t just want entirely new task resolution – they want support for the game they love. Many supported 3rd despite it’s differences from the old. They had faith in the company and the game, and then the company once again changed the entire game on them. You can see how the faithful would take issue with them.
Me? I'm not one of the faithful. I don't give a rats ass. I haven't bought a new TSR product brand new off the shelves of the local game jobber since around 1987. Despite ol' Gaz telling me since the earliest days of D&D that the "other" product out there was inferior and should be avoided, I started giving my money to other companies product that interested me. Hero Systems and Chaosium seemed to reward their fans by giving them what they wanted - for hearing their voices and actually having an understanding of their fanbase. I still play 1st edition, using my tore up old books. And I have props for Gary. But as far as I'm concearned I'd have more interest in Sandy Peterson or Greg Stafford getting a statue when they pass. They represented a company and product that DELIVERED.

Actually, no knock at Gary by any means, but if a memorial was going to in part represent the D&D that I play, then that memorial would be for Dave Arneson. He most represents the game I love, even though when I was young I had no idea of his contribution. When I was a little kid eagerly buying the first Blackmoor book, I had no idea who the man was or what he meant. Gary was the face of the game. I didn’t know there was this heart and soul named “Dave Arneson.”

Hey, skip the dragon and make it statues of both Gary and Dave doing a fist bump and I’ll crack open my dusty wallet in a heartbeat. But you can keep your 120 dollar memorial set, WOTC. My tore-ass old books are still workable for my games.

Friday, January 7, 2011

WOTC I do not wish you well

In a recent post over at Cyclopeatron. Cyclo talks about a new trading card element for D&D from WOTC, and of course it is just a lame move by this company to try and recapture a collectable card fad that had its heyday over a decade ago; plugging it into a game with a name that has serious geek zeitgeist. This was the first I heard of it, and I still do not know all the details, but jeez, what utter shit this once mysterious and wonderful game has been made into by these modern marketeers. No wonder so many of us hold on to the retro.

But what strikes me even odder is the commentary you hear from blog followers who do not play current WOTC products, but “wish them well.” What kind of “happy happy joy joy” mentality does somebody have to have to wish this corporate crapola well? Who that does not play with current WOTC merchandise would give a flying rats ass about WOTC and it’s chickenshit schemes for its product. These well-wishers are more Pollyanna than the chipper gay policemen from Demolition Man.

OK, you say “it’s good to get new people into the hobby.” Why? Because you can’t get/keep a group together? Do you hope D&D will take off gigantically like the mid-80’s again when groups were too full and closed to new players, starting a soup line of hungry players wanting to play at your table? Or is it so it becomes more mainstream and therefore you no longer have to have some weird guilt/shame thing in your gut when you are around people who are talking about wine and cars and The LA Lakers and who think this kind of activity is for the proverbial geektards?

I mean, when I started D&D the late 70’s, you talked about it in school in whispers. Just like comic books and being into Sci Fi movies instead of cars, it was like we were part of this little secret society. “We” watched Star Trek and Dark Shadows reruns, “They” watched C.H.I.P.S and Movin’ on (you may not remember it, but it was an action drama featuring truckers that all the dipshits in “special” classes watched in the early 80’s). Even in elementary school I remember the class voting on it's favorite TV show, with "That's My Momma"( a piece of junk Sanford and Son rip-off) getting the winning nod, and me being jeered for voting for Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

By high school, I would sneak away after football practice to run Tegal Manor for the Fantasy Role Playing Association meeting in some unlocked classroom. If word got out to my teammates what I was doing, I’d have probably gotten goofed on relentlessly in the locker room, and the cheerleader dates would have dried up. I loved that this was a small, underground, niche hobby. That was half the fun for me.

Patton Oswalt, D&D playing geek comedian, puts how I feel well here in one of his rants about underground geek culture:

“…Admittedly, there’s a chilly thrill in moving with the herd while quietly being tuned in to something dark, complicated, and unknown just beneath the topsoil of popularity. Something about which, while we moved with the herd, we could share a wink and a nod with two or three other similarly connected herdlings.

When our coworkers nodded along to Springsteen and Madonna songs at the local Bennigan’s, my select friends and I would quietly trade out-of-context lines from Monty Python sketches—a thieves’ cant, a code language used for identification. We needed it, too, because the essence of our culture—our “escape hatch” culture—would begin to change in 1987…”

I don’t think anybody needs to hate WOTC, and if they actually play their products then more power to them. But if you don’t, you at least wish them well? Do you actually know the people who work there? The top brass all the way down to the lowest goof-off file clerk who after hours pisses in the office coffee pot? Fuck them. I don’t wish them anymore well than I do any other souless corporation in this country. That they are in the game-making business holds no mystique for me, and does not for sure automatically garner my well-wishes. James Raggi I wish well. Geoffry McKinney I wish well. Goodman I wish goddamn well! WOTC I wish them all a jolly springtime standing in the goddamn unemployment line.

Wizards of the Coast, please fail horribly and die a miserable bankruptcy court death. I still have my copies of OD&D and 1st edition, and it is all I will ever need for my D&D.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Kerfuffle?






Check out this interesting post at Grognardia, because as far as all the philosophical and political themes bandied about in the old school community – well, I’m the village idiot so don’t ask me what I think. Although I love some things that have come along in the OSR, especially awesome (and free) ones like the Old School Encounter Reference, I really would have been OK plugging away with my games these days just like I did in the old days. Making do with my own adventures in my own game world, occasionally dipping into published adventures.


I got back into gaming two years ago not even aware there was a renaissance going on, but that was just icing on the cake. I love talking about games and sharing my experience, but I have no need to buy lots of the current popular items like Carcosa, or James Raggi’s inspiring efforts of self-publishing. They interest me, but I already have such a huge backlog of my own gaming material I may never get around to everything I want to gamewise. And I’m trying to have less things I own cluttering my life. I ain’t getting any younger, you know? If I don’t need something I don’t really want it.


The new stuff is exciting and inspiring, but I don’t really need it. That is selfish and not really helpful to the community, but that is just how it is. I have plenty of game stuff to last me a lifetime, and if I do buy something new to use that will be once in a blue moon, and is more likely to be something from back in the day, like Tegal Manor or something from Ebay, over something written ,produced, and published by a blogger.


So some scrubs have decided to self-publish, and they are using a copyrighted logo. There are those who are worried this will bring bad attention from WOTC, and they have a point. But I don’t know how much it would affect me personally. I don’t really buy the new material from the OSR, nor do I buy anything from WOTC. Besides the occasional miniature, I don’t go into game shops and buy games. I have not paid money for a new item from the makers of D&D since probably the late 80’s. Something like The Night Below or Dark Sun I have I got from Ebay or something like that. I guess I’m not really supporting anyone. I’m just running my damn games.


Anyway, wherever I stand, I have to say I most admired the words of Will Mistretta on the Grognardia post. Will is a rabble rouser and I don’t often agree with what he has to say, but these are bold words, especially when you consider that most of the self-publishers who actually have something to be worried about read Grognardia. Here, without paraphrasing but not necessarily in order, are some of the comments Will had to make on the thread. Viva le revolution!





"..No, because in many cases Legal Code is shaped and part of the Moral and Ethical values of a culture. I'm not sure how you can sit there and say trying to link the two together is 'immoral', as you try to imply Will…"


“…All I can say is that I'm glad the men who forced the Magna Carta, the American revolutionaries, the conductors on the Underground Railroad, Ghandi, Rosa Parks, and many more weren't of your ilk…”


“…An uncritical "the law's the law" attitude is a lazy cop-out that aids and abets the worst kinds of corruption and tyranny. The idea, if you can call it that, that legality and illegality map directly to ethical right and wrong respectively is as dangerous as it is inane. And that's saying a lot…”


“…The only two men with a rightful claim of ownership over the game or its name are dead and so I don't care what the law says in this case. D&D belongs to gamers everywhere now. I applaud these guys for having the guts to tell Hasbro where to shove it…”

“…You think it's possible to separate the two. I don't. I see some brave (or foolhardy, the only difference is often in the results) individuals challenging the supposed "right" of a faceless corporate entity to exert arbitrary control over a great game loved by millions that they had no part in creating. Good for them. D&D should belong to the world, just like chess, poker, baseball, and all the other great games...”