Role Playing Games (RPGs) have a bad reputation as being for geeks and losers. This was still being perpetuated on The Big Bang Theory, a sitcom about very intelligent people. At least it actually showed people paying Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).
In the late 70s and the early 80s there were really no TV fantasy shows. There were a few science fictions shows, but the view persisted that the only respectable Science Fiction was things like John Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids. Fantasy was even worse treated. There really was nothing to watch, in the mid 80s the BBC did The Chronicles of Narnia, but CS Lewis came from the “respectable” end of literary work and it was a children’s program, as was The Box of Delights. Partly this was because special effects were really not up to it at prices that television could afford but iut was mainly an attitude from those in charge of television.
For those of us who loved fictional worlds there was nothing beyond the books. The Hobbit was usually the gateway book, followed by The Lord of the Rings (LOTR). There were many more books beyond this, but by some quirk many of them were out of print in that era. Being out of print for three or four years may not seem much, but when you are twelve that four years is a huge period. There is also the point that some books are right for you at a particular stage of your life, so coming back into print later in life means that you are past appreciating them.
D&D is widely perceived to be based on LOTR, there are elements from that and they did have to change Hobbits to Halflings to avoid copyright issues. It is more than that though. There are elements from Robert E Howard’s Conan the Barbarian series (luckily this was reprinted in 1980 with completion of unfinished works by Lin Carter and L Sprague De Camp). Conan was popular as he was the antithesis of most players – physically strong and a womanising warrior. Red Sonja, who was actually created for the comics in the 1970s had other appeal to teenage boys. I found Conan through a British Marvel comic reprint. The art was very different and there were topless women, I was 11 and scared anyone would find out what I had inadvertently bought.
(Conan and Red Sonja in the infamous chainmail bikini, though Conan is not overdressed either).
There were the Fritz Leiber stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.
Michael Moorcock had written a huge number of books about various heroes, linked in a cycle saying they were all facets of an Eternal Champion. The most famous is Elric, an albino Prince of very dubious ethics. The twist was that he was very weak unless he had his evil sword, Stormbringer. My favourite was Dorian Hawkmoon, one of my earlier D&D characters was named after him.
(Elric)
D&D had multiple long and detailed rulebooks, starting with The Players Handbook. This gave you rules on generating your character and their abilities. As you killed monsters and found treasure you would increase levels and gain more abilities.
Characters have six attributes – Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution and Charisma. The idea was that you rolled three six sided die and got a score for each and then decided what king of character to be. Fighter, Paladin (like a Knight), Ranger (think Aragorn in LOTR), Cleric, Druid, Thief, Magic User, Illusionist or Assassin. In reality most people wanted to be some kind of warrior. Given that the chance of rolling 18 was one in 186 it was amazing how many characters had scores at that level. Magazines proposed official ways to cheat – like rolling five die and taking the best three or even rolling 30 times, picking the best 18 and assigning them as you wanted to a category.
The handbook contained hundreds of spell descriptions. Tables for fighting with a huge variety of weapons. How much damage weapons could do and prices for basic equipment. There were also details on alignment (moral outlook, of which nine categories were available).
One person actually has to run play – a Dungeon Master. There was an even longer book of rules for them to use. Plus another book of monsters called The Monster Manual (plus its sequels).
This amounted to over 400 pages of densely packed rules. Yet game play was also surprisingly free form. You bought (or the Dungeon Master would write) a scenario for players to take part in. These could be exploring underground dungeons or exploring wildernesses, temples or fighting slavers. Later on there more and more set in cities. These would require characters to treat it like a story where they role played their way though, choosing whether to fight or talk. Investigating and extracting information. The Dungeon Master would be in control and run all the characters in the scenario who were not players. This was a mix of acting and war gaming.
Different die were used. Six sided die generate a range of probabilities, but the more you use the more it is on a probability curve. D&D required 4, 6, 8, 12 and 20 sided die to generate probabilities and damage scores.
Scenarios (or modules) could least a few hours or days on end – depending on how big they were. The first I played, run by Graham, The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, took several days and a weekend. Probably around 24 hours all told. It was the best thing we could do without TV or films to watch and much more pro-active.
Looking back on it this was actually good preparation for life skills. Confidence, decision making, problem solving, imagination and planning. Plus, with all those different dice, our probability understanding was great.
D&D is just one of the games that were available – Traveller, Runequest and The Call of Cthulhu were other good ones.
Classix Nouveau should have been big in 1981. They did have one single a bit later – Is It A Dream? This is their best track.
Inside Outside
Five Miles Out 