Hey yo, say goodbye to "The Bad guy"

 

Wrestler Scott Hall died this week at the age of 63.

Being surprised that a wrestler died seems kind of odd. They drop like flies, to this day. This post won't mean much to somebody who never really followed wrestling. But if they at least saw the movie "The Wrestler," they have a good idea of what the life is like for the performers. It should be no Suprise.

A grueling life on the road, with no off seasons. Getting to a town after a several hours drive. Hitting the gym. Then hitting the bar. Maybe some legal and not so legal substances consumed. Iffy women cavorted with. Maybe a violent encounter in that bar.  ("hey, aren't you one of those fake wrestlers?"). Get up the next morning and go to the arena.  Do a show that night. Hit the road. Rinse repeat. 

Scott Hall experienced the classic progression of a self-destructive wrestler. He started out clean enough, working in the smaller promotions before moving on to fame in the WWE. Becoming popular ("over") with the fans. Becoming part of a group of hard partying travelling friends. More and more fame. Dealing with the fame, the injuries, the pain in the body and often the heart. 

Scott had his demons. Prior to his career he was a young man working as a bouncer (like many wresters do before the big time). He was confronted in a strip club parking lot by a jealous boyfriend of some girl or another, and had a gun pulled on him. He ended up getting the gun and killing the guy. The court declared it self-defense. 

But Scott Hall was left with demons. For the rest of his life he was haunted by demons of that fateful night. Tortured in his dreams; never being able to get over taking a life and almost losing his. Classic PTSD. So the substance abuse began, and often ran rampant. 

Didn't stop him from becoming a star though. In WWE he rose to fame, got "over," by creating what I think is an amazing character, or "gimmick" as they say. A fan of the movie Scarface, he imagined a muscle-bound, six and a half foot Tony Montana. His original promos, videos showing the character doing gimmick things prior to debuting in the ring, were awesome. Fans ate it up. They were over like Rover. 

So Scotts career as an endless bad guy was born. 

I was in and out of wrestling fandom. I first bought into it with the "Rock and Wrestling" connection. Appearances of celebs like Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper brought big media attention. I would watch for a year or two, get bored, and come back with peaked interest at some point. Many gimmicks sucked. Wrestling clowns, garbage men, and even dentists were common. It was for kids. But the coming of Razor Ramon was a new angle. Something for the adults. Out of my teens, I finally discovered the movie, Scarface, loved it; and I loved Razor Ramon. 

In his early time in WWE, Scott became part of the Kliq. A name his road buddies were given. They were made up of new wrestlers who would one day go on to be huge stars. Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash, Triple H, Sean "1 2 3 Kid" Waltman. They rode for hours talking business.  Each supporting the other in the cutthroat business, in the meeting room and the locker rooms. The Kliq grew in power as time marched on, gaining the ear of owner Vince McMahon. The locker room boys hated them for their loyalty to each other. But they were becoming huge stars, and that is all that mattered. 

Scott Hall was an agitator. He loved to rile up the locker room. By all accounts he liked to "stir it up" in not always nice or even fair ways. But he was also said to be a help to lesser non-Kliq guys. Guys struggling to make it he barely knew. He was clearly a man of two sides, as those with demons often are. 

Scott Hall eventually ended up going to WCW, Ted Turners rival promotion, with his best friend Kevin Nash.

They teamed up with a newly bad guy Hulk Hogun for the NWO (New World Order) and took the promotion by storm, while Shawn Michaels and Triple H got huge in WWE. The Kliq was mastering two promotions, become more hated by others in the back as they grew and grew in power. They were practically running the business.  They were literally changing the business. Thing unheard of in wrestling, like guaranteed contracts and creative control, were becoming reality thanks to them.

Scott's abuse of substances grew as well. In and out of rehab, he was often a mess, even wrestling drunk. 

When WCW lost the "Monday Night Wars" and was bought out by Vince McMahon around 2000 or so, Scott and his buddy Kevin Nash more or less retired from the ring outside the occasional appearance. But free time let the demons in more, and Scott did what he did to fight them more and more. His life was going down the tubes chop chop. 

But Scott was saved. Daimond Dallas Page, a former wrestler and now life coach who was most famous for saving Jake the Snake Roberts from the demons eating his body and soul. Scott cleaned up (mostly), devoting himself to staying alive. He got into holistic living. Organic food. He sometimes fell. But that is part of the process of those with demons who go on living. Tumbling down and getting back up is part of the process. 

Scott and Page

Scott apparently had multiple hip replacements, and in his latest one a blood clot got the better of him.

Fame is a bitch, but it may well have been what saved Scott from his demons. If he had just continued as a bouncer, would that work have occupied him enough to keep him from swift self-destruction?   It can be said that the busy life of a popular wrestler, long hours travelling and many drinks in bars, is not conducive to living clean. But many do it clean. Kliq member Triple H was asked to join the group of hard partyers because he didn't drink, and they needed a designated driver while they pounded the drinks and the drugs. But for someone like Scott it probably had two sides of a coin. Partying with your pals, but also needing to get up for a big show the next day. Wreslemania's and Survivor Series. Moving moving moving. A non-stop roller coaster. You need to kind of have your shit together. Sometimes, anyway. 

The life or a wrestler can be hard on those who choose it. But to come out of the life Scott Hall was living, to reach the age of 63 with all the damage he caused himself; The chair shots, the body slams, the pain killers, the harder drugs, the booze, the wild women, the likely steroids. 

You can look down on that life. But there is cause for admiration there. Scott lived longer than many who lived like him. Hell, I only have a few drinks on the weekend, and I wonder if I'll manage to hit that age. But if I do, then and beyond, I will always be a Scott Hall fan. As the NWO liked to say...

Note: Scott did many "shoot" interviews over the year where he talks a lot about the old times and great stories. Go to youtube and search "scott hall shoot interview"

Player Appreciation and Beyond

 

(note: for most of my gaming life my groups were made up of friends I already had. This post is about experiences with mostly strangers that made up a new group)

I've probably mentioned in a lot of my posts over the years that my main pet peeve as a GM was to feel like running a game was a job that didn't pay. It has been a few years since I actually felt that way. But during my 10 years run for a group in Santa Monica (my first group that was mostly made up of strangers) from around 2008 to 2018 I felt like that fairly often. Now, it's not a TOTAL buzzkill. Sometimes it was even fun. At first. Kind of "pretend player vs. DM." One of the long-time players was a guy we called The Power Game man. A big white South African guy, he would create a character that seemed interesting and layered, and you would soon realize he was just min-maxing. Using stats, race, and class in combination to create especially powerful characters. 

Now on the face of it that isn't so bad. That is kind of baked into current D&D.  Lots of players do it, and it's part of their process. It's part of their fun. But where I get frustrated is when that kind of play treads on not just the other players fun, but especially mine. A couple of these "power game types" came along during that group's existence. And don't get me started on our long-time host then, who was not just a min maxer to a degree, but also one of these guys who liked to live vicariously through his characters getting laid and seemed to think I was his PC's pimp. So while Power Game Man was busy treating every NPC as an enemy (a power gamer trait I have always noticed), the host was always trying to fuck them. 

Look Andy, I'm not going to role-play the
process out for you; just roll your charisma
and we'll leave it at that...

As a DM you are in a unique situation where you have the power to pretty much come up with a sneaky way to kill any character that bothers you. But I was never like that. I was never an "enemy" DM who was out to get characters. Quite the opposite. I was fair to a fault, even in my earliest childhood games. And the worst players, like Power Game Man and some others, could tell that and use it as an advantage. And Therin is where the worst of my frustrations come in. I don't usually have some well-crafted story written up, or a way things have to go in game in order for me to have fun with it. I just try to make it a fair and interesting setting for the characters to romp around in and look for hooks. If I get into a players vs. DM situation, its because I got dragged into it. I'm not really into that mess and I resent it when I feel I've been put in that situation. I just want us to all have fun together.

I may complain (a lot), but I can see silver linings on any cloud. In the case of our old host, though in a lot of ways he was a pain, he was very supportive of my desire to run things other than D&D. It was in large part due to his support that I had successful campaigns of Champions, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, and even Metamorphosis Alpha. I will always be grateful for that.  Power Game man? Naw, I have nothing to be grateful for there. Just an ass in a seat at best. 

But hell, for any player at my table who isn't a total annoying wack job, I'm grateful for them giving their time and putting their gaming fun in my hands. But every now and again I have to appreciate the players who, without even trying, seem to value what you are doing as a DM, and in turn are valuable themselves. 

So I'll mention two "points of light" in my player pools. First is my old Friend "T." She has been in a majority of my gaming groups since the early 90's. She doesn't exactly go out of her way to make my experience better. But her mellow and consistent play style jibes well with my styles. She just...plays her characters. There isn't a power gamer bone in her body. Oh sure, she wants strong characters. But its usually just enjoying the life path that unfolds for her many characters in my campaigns that motivates her. She accepts the good and the bad that happens in the game. She is patient as hell. She gets along with other players. She quietly and steadily just role plays her characters. Even the very infrequent evil character she runs isn't a pain in the ass. But she is the anti-power gamer. In my Night Below campaign years ago her fighter character got a wish from a Deck of Many Things. Of all the things she could have wished for, she wished for an NPC her character fancied to propose marriage to her! Some would call that a wasted wish, but that was her just role-playing her character. Outstanding. T still lives in my old town, but we get to play here and there through Roll20, and she remains reliable and dependable player. 

In most recent times there is "B and L," who I mention a lot in my board game postings. Its thanks to them I got my first group together in my new town. L had no experience with gaming, but B played 1st Ed. in the service (D&D in Afghanistan, ya'll!). They were looking for a DM through the local shops Facebook page, and we hit it off right away. They are not the most outgoing players, they certainly are not there for community theater. But I specialize in somewhat introverted players, and they have come out of that shell pretty well. Quiet players much like "T," but they come up with some interesting moments. L, a woman straight as the day is long, had her female half orc fighter end up in a same sex relationship with an NPC. It was a situation that I certainly did not push, but the fact that it happened organically in the course of the games points very much to a role-playing frame of mind. 

Anyway, not just getting me as a DM and putting a group together, B and L would bring me a six pack of expensive beer or ale every damn game just for me. Even now, a couple of years later when we have a board game day, they bring me the same. Even during the times they are on health kicks and not drinking. I'd be like "look guys, if you aren't even drinking its not right to being me drinks." But deaf ears. Any time they come over they bring it to me. And me being raised on not showing up at a house with empty hands means I very much appreciate it. Its not the main reason we became so close so quickly (I'd take a bullet for them, meanwhile my oldest friends I've known for decades can go take their own bullets). That is mainly because this younger couple sort of adopted me at a time I didn't know anybody in my new town. Had me over for Xmas day only knowing me a brief time, when I would otherwise probably have spent it watching TV and eating Jack in the Box tacos (or maybe in a casino). I have been in a couple of relationships (with non-gamers) since coming to town, but most of my time with B and L is just me and them (and sometimes with some of their local pals). Dinner, drinks, local theater..I love being a third wheel with them. 

Now, you aren't always going to get close to people you met through gaming. As a matter of fact, they are the only case where it happened to me. We are already like brothers and sister. I appreciate the hell out of them in games or otherwise. They are my besties. And as I get older, in gaming or otherwise, I try more and more to focus away from the pain-in-the-ass players (or whoever) of the past, and put more of it, more positivity, into those who truly deserve it. People being positive towards you should make you want to be a better person. For them and for yourself. 

But we should all go through life doing that.

 

Voices and sound FX part 2 - Sci Fi etc.

 In the last post I bleeped and blooped about occasional amateur voice "acting" in D&D games. I wanted to follow-up with a short post on my somewhat minimal experience with Roll20 and its Jukebox function. But because a comment was left mentioning Sci Fi games I thought I'd touch on that a bit (who would have thought I'd get multiple posts out of this daffy subject).

"Going to the well one too many times"
as a wise man (probably) once said. 

I think there is something about D&D, no matter how you approach it as a DM, that lends itself to be a bit silly with the sounds of things happening in game (see the Don Martin examples that I have cherished for most of my life in my last post). As I've mentioned before I'm sure most of the anti-community theater in games folk have at least done a "thunk" as an arrow hits a body, and a "splurt" as it's pulled out.

 I mean, in most games but especially D&D there is a certain humorous irony that lurks around every corner. Behind every door. The whimsical nature of the game along with the various actions of players and the consequences of such as dictated by random number generation leads to a certain amount of suspense mixed with surprise, a great recipe for laughs. So the "spladaps" and "sizafitz's" just kind of grooves along with that. How often do we enter a session with a mind towards seriousness, and it devolves into slapstick? 

Don't even ask me to bring up that one Toon session so long ago. The voices. We all...did...voices. 😬

I ran Champions (or very early on Superhero 2044 and Supergame as a literal kid) on and off for decades, and you know the deal there. With superpowers it's kind of a no brainer; fire blast ("swoosh"), lasers ("zark!), explosions ("booosh!"). But Nothing all that silly. Uh, unless you aren't a comic book nerd, and do consider those examples silly.  Where it got real dorky was when characters with powers similar to famous characters described their stuff with those familiar sounds. Hence "snikt," "bamf" and "thwip." But hey, if it made them enjoy things more I would not complain (out loud). 

Call of Cthulhu? Ran great, long campaigns (and one or two short ones) on and off for decades. I probably voiced some scary moan, the rattling around of a skeleton in a basement before the party sees it, maybe a gurgling sound for any number of things. But really, I was pretty much about the verbal description of the dark goings-on. Trying to give voice to, say, Wilbur Watley's brother would probably just elicit laughs, which is great for D&D but not so much for CoC. 

 I laugh so I won't cry.

Let's see. What else? Well, I did a classic Traveller campaign a few short years ago, dipping into the original rules set. Not a lot of meat on that bone to go all Michael Winslow from Spaceballs. 

Ship to ship combat was silent, though somebody probably imitated various guns during firefights. But since they weren't "blasters" it would be your basic rifle or machine gun thing. "Pow pow" is so just banal. But I relied on appropriate music cue's more than anything (with CD's, so I was slapping them in and out of the player like a Free Trader computer operator would be slapping computer "tapes" in and out of the computer tower). Classical music, the 1984 Dune movie soundtrack, The Sci Fi Channel Children of Dune soundtrack, etc. 

I mean, have the right music on for a ship battle, or a Free Trader bravely skimming a gas giant, and you don't need to make cutesy sounds. 

This is Free Trader Beowulf...
mayday, mayday...iiiiiiieeeeee!!! Skidooooosh!!!

The moral of this tale is that in D&D you can't really go wrong going overboard in D&D with this stuff, but in many other games it's like wasabi. A little goes a long way. 

RPG's - NPC voices and sound FX part 1

 

Since its earliest days, the GM's job was to portray the world along with adjudicating the action. He was in control of the world's NPC's and intelligent creatures. It does not matter how old school neck-bearded wargamey, how Braunstieny, the GM was being in the earliest games. He was acting to a degree. OK, many then, and even now, more describe what an NPC might say over doing a full personal portrayal. But for those of us who kind of inhabit the role of almost all NPC's, you cannot help but it being a little like acting. 

Weeell, I sort of fall in between. In a hurry, or using a very minor NPC walk-on, walk-off role, I might just blow through the info he gives. "He comes in and says the high priest will meet you at 1AM at the Whirligar idol in the Park of Statures. He bids you well and leaves." But in extreme cases where an NPC mostly becomes part of the group, I like to have a way of speaking for him. Run him like a character. 

This is NOT community theater (though it could be). Its portraying somebody. I'm acting. You run a character with a personality, and you are acting. 

I'm no actor. I don't try to be. I dabbled in high school (an important part in West Side Story - here's a hint "got a rocket in your pocket, keep cooly cool boy!). Took some improv in college. Did partly improvised stage shows at Ren Faire for decades and sometimes still do. But no, for gaming I try not to make it about that, and it helps to let new players know there is no pressure for such. For the most part I put a little elbow grease into interesting characters. Old men voices, demon voices, etc. Softer speech pattern for female NPC's. I can do a great Scottish or Irish accent if I have a couple adult beverages (or more) in me. In all honesty I probably could have been a success in Voice acting if I had started early and took lesson. With the success of Critical Role, I can only wish I had. Rolling into a booth in a jogging suit. Knock out some lines then go be a guest at ComicCon. Oh well.😢

OK, so no actor here. But since I first started D&D I got heavy into sound effects. A spear piercing an abdomen. A sword getting stuck in a head. A character falling 100 feet and going splat. It is often greeted with great hilarity, even by the guy losing his character. What has been my secret? What got me started? Well, not Adam West Batman. It was reading Mad Magazine as a kid. Specifically, the works of the immortal Don Martin. I still have the issue with his sound effects spread. 

By my second year of DM'ing I probably used each and every one of these (besides the more modern things like the DeWalt "bzzownt" or the hand saw. But these particular sounds are violence gold. I mean, if a character gets hit with a bottle in a tavern brawl neglecting to use the "doont" is a crime against god. I think in one of my rare con games, where the characters were slipping and sliding on floor-poop in a goblin latrine, I used "glitch " and "ga-shpluct" maybe a dozen times. And man, that "sizafitz" is perfect for multiple magic missiles. And yes, I have uttered that sound the one time a dwarf character put a cigar into an elf characters eye. And of course, a GM should look for inspiration anywhere he can. One of my personal faves is the sound of a bad guy dying on the old Johnny Quest show "iiieeeee!!!!"

These are true crowd pleasers. If they don't get a laugh, I don't know what will. And as my second favorite cartoon rabbit once said...

We are living in trying times. We need laughs baked into our escapism. Cheer your players up by dipping generously into these "die laughing" gems. 

Cheers

Games - to Display or not to Display?

 My geek cred is pretty strong. It started around age 8 or 9 when my parents, avid swap meet and garage sale patrons (like a lot of immigrant types), would occasionally bring me stacks of comics. That started a collection that by adulthood had grown into several long boxes of mostly silver age stuff. 

My next intro to things geeky was probably an old copy of The Hobbit one of my older bros (non-geeks to be sure; oldest brother was a local biker-like badass, and my next oldest was all-city in several sports) left lying around. By the time I discovered D&D around age 13 I had read the LOTR trilogy a couple of times (plus a little Conan and others). So things comics, and things D&D were my main hobbies (besides playing sports myself - a local sports hero's younger brother is going to be forced to dabble). I surfed from around age 14-21, but as I grew up on the beach that was more of a lifestyle than sport or hobby. Comics and RPGS were the lifelong loves, though I pretty much stopped buying comics on the reg by age 25 or so. 

When you are young you love to display things you like. But for me coming up in a time when D&D and other games were more or less underground despite TSR's soon marketing to the general teeming masses, I treated it like a secret society. When I went to the secretive D&D club ("The Fantasy Role Playing Association" - sheesh) after football practice I snuck there with the James Gunn theme playing in the background so as not to be seen by my non-geek friends.

 It was an odd hobby, and I kind of dug the furtive nature of it then. I always stashed my gaming stuff away in drawers and closets in case my sports pals came over (or my earliest girlfriends - though by around 17 years old or so some girls I met were into D&D). Things I displayed were the usual rock posters and such. My D&D buddies were less furtive; they had minis and books and all kinds of stuff all over their rooms. 

I'm still not much of a hobby-displayer. I'm always kind of trying to minimize my life. When I left my hometown for a new city a few short years ago I pretty much tossed out about half my life. Clothes, furniture, and a lot of collectibles. Some action figures, fandom books (including things like my decades old Star Trek technical manual) and other things that were not exactly mint on card. I currently own exactly ONE small bookshelf, and its more for holding a few favored books and gifts from friends. Well, not exactly displayed. More like just tossed on there to keep them off the living room table...

My D&D stuff still stays stashed in a closet, more to get it out of the way than out of embarrassment. But with my current main hobby (outside of video gaming, playing music, and a couple other things) is boardgames. 

Above: me indulging in other things with non-gamer pals 

in Northern Cali...

As I mentioned in other posts, my board gaming passion only started around 3 years ago. My only real boardgame love for decades was Talisman. But I discovered Will Wheaton's Tabletop show and was dazzled by the incredible games being played there. I moved to a new town where I didn't know anybody. I made some friends at the local comic/game shop, but then I found some of the personalities in the local gaming community, especially that of board gaming, kind of boring, outside of my soon to be besties B and L and some of their local friends.

We teamed up to turn non-gamers
into gamers. Nice, eh?

 So with good friends eager to play I started collecting games I had seen on that show (or just saw at a store and had to have). My collection grew exponentially in the last couple years...

Have a couple of editions, but the one with
the phallic standee is a classic.

I'm probably leaving one or two out, but it doesn't take a lot of boardgames to make quite a pile. They outgrew the couple of lower shelves, and I pretty much had them stacked on the living room floor. But with my best friends being out of town for a few months in the earlier parts of the year (they travel to warmer climes to avoid the snow and such we get here near the Sierras), this is kind of my board gaming downtime. So, with pre-spring cleaning they go from the living room into some boxes in the office upstairs until such time as boardgame "season" comes back around.

My board game collection as currently displayed.

In some ways it's kind of a shame. These modern boardgame boxes are beautiful to look at.  I've seen some huge collections of boardgames displayed, and they look amazing. The hosts of my latest D&D campaign must have a hundred boardgames, and they are displayed around the house on a half dozen shelves. And there is a brew pub in town that had hundreds of games available to play. I've played a few games there with B & L, or other local friends, and it's a great atmosphere. I've even gone in there by myself on a quiet Sunday to have a couple ales and just stare at the walls...

So lonely...but fuck, look at all those games!

But honestly, in the spirit of minimalization, I have to resist the shelf thing. As I have for years, I get my artsy display ya-ya's out by hanging stuff on the walls. Mostly things with some personal importance.

More of a religious thing really, 
but counts as a display

Given to me over a decade ago
when Pearl Jam was a client 
at my office. 

Both an art and activity. I like to 
switch different comics in and out
of the frames from time to time.

Just as an aside, there can be a great display out of the box. I gave my pals a beautiful little game that they like to play (it's a two-player game so I don't have it) on their travels, but also keep it out as a nice model display...

OK, so as for my collection of board games, I am going to try and keep it down to the three boxes. But these boxes are pretty much full. There are at least a couple more games I'd like to own, so to fit I will need to eliminate a couple. The most likely choices for elimination are...

Really loving that box art.

OK, well, Munchkin can be fun, but honestly two things turn me off from playing it after the first couple tries. Basically, for what you get out of it, it takes too long. It can take over an hour. Both times we played it was closer to an hour and a half. For a game that is almost all whimsy, it should really be like other whimsical games I like such as King of Tokyo and Epic Spell Wars. A game should take a half hour or less. To me this is the big turnoff. A game that takes upwards of an hour and a half should have a bit more real meat on it. 

As for the Gloomhaven spin-off, well, I have some reasons there that I will save for a later post as the reasons I got it are quite specific. 

But long and short here and to wrap this post up, I will for the time being be keeping the games in the boxes, and my artsy side will just have to stay up on the walls. Out of the way. 

Bugbears. Jack-O-Bears. Same Same?

 I barely manage to make a post a couple of times a month lately. Besides my very casual approach to the blog these days (I make pretty much no attempt to advertise it in any way. If I was I would comment at Grognardia and other popular old school spots on the reg). Plus I work in health care which means often 50 hour weeks on the job. But one of the handful (and yes you could count them on one hand and have change left over) folk who are kind enough to comment on the occasional post had a comment on my post earlier today, and I thought "what the hell" rather than bury my reply in comments I'd make it a short post. Go a little deeper in the weeds on Bugbears. 

Not a bugbear. More
 like a Walktapus

The thing you're calling a "Runequest bugbear" is a jack-o-bear, a Chaotic critter that looks and acts less like a D&D bugbear than the similarly chimerical owlbear does. Just because the names all include "bear" doesn't make them the same thing, or even related. Doesn't even work as an attempted joke.

I could say "Fair enough," especially when it comes to my weak (I am a gamer after all) attempts at humor. But to the because the names all include "bear" doesn't make them the same thing, or even related I feel like I have to blow a time out whistle, or at least throw out a less shrill au contraire mon frair. There is a clear connection between the D&D bugbear and the Runequest jack-o-thing. 

Here is the current D&D bugbear.

Here is the 1st edition version.

All good. Now here is the earliest known depiction of a D&D bugbear.

Dang. That thing has a pumpkin for a head! 

OK, the crux of the matter. I am no D&D historian. And I certainly care less about the historical context of gaming things than I did when I started this blog. Though it's fun to walk down memory lane now and again. And it is memory lane, seeing as I pretty much was living it in my early gaming. As an adult I really didn't follow much of what was going on in the decades between my teens and when I first noticed the OSR about 10 years ago or so. But in my early to later teens I was in the thick of it. 

My earliest gaming outside of my friends was at Aero Hobbies, one two hobby shops in Southern California that specialized in D&D stuff and every other new RPG on the scene. I was playing games there starting around 1978 or so. By then the older locals were into Runequest, Traveller, Bushido, Empire of the Petal Throne. Anything but D&D. Some of the folk there would in some OSR circles be considered minor celebrity. And the older folk there certainly had plenty to say about the industry. I mean, we were surrounded by all the new books, and a galaxy of early miniatures. 

So, on bugbears my understanding is this: The artwork of "bugbear, ghoul, and friends" bugbear was a misunderstanding of Gygax's description (an "oval head shaped like a pumpkin") or some such. So there you go. Instead of a big hairy Chewbacca wanna be, you got that monstrosity. 

Mini's were produced before Gaz could get on top of it, like so:

So sometime during the populating of Glorantha, the powers that be suggested they come up with some creatures that already existed as mini's you could find. Things like Griffons were a no-brainer. Plenty of mythical creatures from D&D getting made. And maybe Prax is filled with herds of everything BUT horses because you could find packs of other kinds of hooved animals at the 5 and dime. Antelopes and boars and so forth. 

But this mini, this pumpkin bear thing (or another like it) inspired the creation of the Jack-O-Bear, as seen on the cover of the campaign book below:

Now, bugbears aren't known as spellcasters. But pretty much everything in Runequest is a spell caster. I think Jack's had some paralyzing power or another. They are chaos creatures and therefore are part of a solid ethos/grouping in that setting. And whereas D&D bugbears are fairly oricish/ogreish in general (big thugs who crack your skull for laughs), the Gloranthan ones at least appear (modernly) more bestial in nature. 

Just because the names all include "bear" doesn't make them the same thing, or even related. Doesn't even work as an attempted joke.

Wellll..., my weak jokes aside, there is a very clear line between the creatures. More than just the word "bear." The similarity to an Owlbear things is fine, but if you look at pics like the one of the Griffin mountain cover, they weren't meant to be four legged animals. I know bears can stand on hind legs, but that thing is blocking a spear and casting a spell. They were literally using the early D&D mini, a two-legged humanoid, as the basis. And the mini does not have a bear body. It looks more to me like they used a shambling mound mold and added the pumpkin. Regardless of what they make them out to be in later edition. That old stuff does still kind of count (if you are anywhere near my age anyway). So the joke, such as it is, has some validity. 

Or not. But fair enough. 

Cheers