by Kevin Melka

September 23rd, 2003

I’ve been gaming for a long time. I bought my first Dungeons & Dragons product in 1981, had formed a small gaming group by 1982, and attended my first Gen Con that very same year. In 1983 I wrote my first RPGA Network tournament event, and beginning in 1985 my gaming group were either volunteers or staff at Gen Con for the next 11 years. Along the way I’ve seen just about every shape and size of gamer, and have so many near unbelievable stories both hilarious and tragic that I’ve begun to forget them. While I don’t profess to know the entire history of gaming, I know enough to remember the differences between roleplaying games and the industry today and what was around a mere two decades ago.

A couple of months ago a member of my gaming group, a pimply-faced youth we’ll call Bradley, asked me what “THAC0”¹ was. For a moment I was stunned, and my brain suddenly scrambled as I frantically tried to recall the classic acronym I had memorized from every character class a mere decade before. The answer came after a moment, but not until an explosion in my mind, caused a flood of statistics and long forgotten equations to rush to the forefront. Suddenly I remembered the Hit Dice of an ogre, the treasure type of a gelatinous cube, and how many experience points a 5^th level fighter needed to pop a level. Along with those memories came the realization that, like Bradley, many newcomers to Dungeons & Dragons are ignorant of the history of not only D&D, but likely gaming in general.

Were I to mention once infamous pre-3E games such as Torg², Synnibar³, or Cyborg Commando⁴ those new to gaming in the past few years would likely be clueless. Questions such as: Where was Gen Con held before moving to Milwaukee in 1985⁵? What horror RPG is the defunct gaming company Pacesetter famous for creating⁶? Who was the first official coordinator of the RPGA Network⁷? What is the favorite food of a Phentari⁸? Or what former TSR Vice President⁹ got slapped in the face in the Dragonstrike¹⁰ video?

While some may think such historical RPG tidbits are inconsequential, I believe that much can be learned today from the history of roleplaying games and can also be applied to its future. Like tie-dyed shirts and bell-bottoms, today’s creative and innovative d20 publishers should not discount what is now considered to be archaic role-playing games, styles, and ideas. Some of the best ideas for new and original d20 products can be gleaned from what had been done in the years prior to the inception of Wizards of the Coast, and what has not been done since then.

The Fairer Sex

As I walked the through the exhibit hall at Gen Con this year there was much to compare with the first time I attended roleplaying’s greatest show. With Bradley’s question still drilling holes in the back of my mind, the initial day of Gen Con Indy renewed a realization I had been noticing for awhile now: The number of female gamers has grown in leaps and bounds over the past 20 years. I am cursed with remembering a time when you could count the number of female gamers at Gen Con on one hand, and “booth babes” were a scandalous marketing ploy that was more popular than a Gary Gygax book signing.

Much like a Saturday Night Live skit, the stereotypical gamer used to be a pimple-face male toting a pocket protector, a first printing of the Player’s Handbook, and a fist full of #2 pencils. This typecast still exists, which is unfortunate, but the bright light at the end of this uphill tunnel is the now presence of lovely ladies in our hobby. Not only does it add an entirely new dimension to roleplaying, but it adds to the industry a component that was for the most part absent at its inception. To reiterate for the narrow minded, who I did encounter at Gen Con this year, this is a good thing.

The Young and Old

Not all gamers are weathered curmudgeons like me. I think it is incredibly important to remember that the young gamers of yesterday are the business owners, fathers, and d20 publishers of today. There are endless stories of how each of us got involved in gaming, and for most of us this likely happened when we were teenagers or younger. If history follows suit, then the young people of today are the future of our industry tomorrow. The bad news, however, is I fear the sponsorship of this idea is sorely lacking in this new d20 era.

In the past a more user-friendly RPGA Network, of which I was an influential part of for many years, was mandated by TSR to bring as many young people into the hobby as possible. We succeeded to some degree, but there was always room for improvement. Also in years past some retailers would go out of their way to try and bring more young people into the hobby. Lastly, in the early years, game publishers (mostly TSR, but there were a few others) would put out products specifically targeting the gaming beginner, in hopes that they would continue to support the hobby later in life.

My personal opinion of these points is that today the RPGA community is a shadow of its former self in this respect, retailers are more business than customer orientated, and only one or two d20 publishers have put out products that specifically target gamers under the age of 21. There are exceptions to this rule to be sure, but in my eyes it is not enough. While I noticed the advent of more female gamers at this year’s Gen Con, what I saw less of were young people, perhaps with a parent in tow, walking wide-eyed through the convention. I will concede the later may have been a result of a change in the convention’s local attendance, but in my mind it is still something to be concerned about.

I am firmly convinced that the current hierarchy of the D&D/d20/RPG world needs to make more of an effort to bring the young gamer into the fold. Even the recent controversy over the change in the d20 license, whether it is right or wrong, fails to take into account how it effects the introduction of the young people into the RPG hobby. I can only hope my sentiments are heard, for without the young people of today the gamer population over the next decade will decline.

What’s Old is New

The influx of d20 products on the market every month is staggering compared to what the D&D community used to see back in the days of TSR. However, the 3/3.5 community tends to forget that Dungeons & Dragons has been around for over two decades. How many gamers out there today have even heard of the Giants or Slavers series? What about the City-State of the Invincible Overlord, or Dwellers of the Forbidden City? There are those of us that remember buying the original Unearthed Arcana when it was released, and then there are those that patiently await the next one.

Believe it or not, there is just as much gaming material out there prior to 3^rd Edition than afterwards, though I’m sure there’ll come a time when that is no longer true. I’m convinced there is a value in looking back upon what has been done before when looking for something new to do in the D&D hobby. Some products have been converted by the Internet faithful, but most have slipped into obscurity and can only be found on eBay or ESD. This is a shame, since many of these products were the titans of their time, and in years past it was unheard of if your gaming group had not traveled to The Demonweb Pits or The Palace of the Silver Princess.

In a perfect world all D&D players should have a chance to fight Iuz the Evil in his temple, topple Jarl the Frost Giant, or play a character with 18(00) Strength. While outdated, these things are the roots of the gaming community and should not be forgotten. Since it is unlikely Wizards will be converting or reprinting the majority of the classics, those wanting to experience these adventures must do so on their own accord. While I happily explained to my young friend Bradley what “THAC0” meant, if time allowed I much rather would have preferred to show him by rolling up 1^st or 2^nd Edition characters and running him through something like Keep on the Borderlands or The Isle of Dread. I may still do that very thing.

In conclusion I’ll admit that I’m more of a traditionalist when it comes to gaming. I started gaming as my hobby, then my job, then hobby again—and now a freelance amalgamation of the two. I don’t claim to be the oldest and wisest in the RPG world, nor have I experienced everything there is to play in the past 20 years of gaming. There is just so much out there in the RPG world, from D&D to Gurps to Rifts to classic Deadlands, and I haven’t even touched on miniatures, board games, or even the dreaded collectable craze.

To gamers coming into the hobby in the past few years I have one piece of advice: Try not limit yourself too much to 3E or any of its incarnations−even if it only means expanding your nighttime reading. No matter what the case, if you can’t have fun sitting down at any gaming table with any roleplaying system, then perhaps you need to take up knitting.

Reference

¹ To Hit Armor Class Zero

² Torg, The Possibility Wars was published by West End Games in the 1980’s. It was one of the first games to use both dice and cards to resolve combat.

³ Synnibar has been touted as one of the worst RPGs ever published. The name of the publisher escapes me, but they didn’t produce another product to my knowledge.

⁴ Cyborg Commando was a game by New Infinities, Inc., a company founded by Gary Gygax after he left TSR.

⁵ Gen Con was held at the University of Wisconsin-Kenosha collage campus prior to moving to Milwaukee.

⁶ Pacesetter created the classic horror game Chill, Adventures Into the Unknown, which is supposed to be republished this year as d20.

⁷ The first coordinator of the RPGA Network was Penny Petticord, known today as Penny Williams, wife to Skip “The Sage” Williams.

⁸ The favorite food of the Phentari, a squid-like race from the sci-fi RPG BattleLords of the 23^rd Century, was human.

⁹ James M. Ward got his face slapped by a saucy wench.

¹⁰ Dragonstrike was a highly publicized mass market board/roleplaying game from TSR that included a video on how to play D&D.

You can view all of the previous columns by clicking here.