They say that just about any event can be life changing, "they" being the invisible philosophers who continuously comment on such things. In real life, the truth of the matter is that one single event can send you off in an entirely different direction from the pathway you are currently trudging on. Whether that is a good or a bad thing is seldom evident at the time, and is best viewed in retrospect.
For me, the single most life-altering event of my life was Tunnels and Trolls, the Fantasy Adventure Game authored by Ken St Andre, play tested by The Phoenix Cosmic Circle, and published by Flying Buffalo's Rick Loomis.
Most folks, when the words "Fantasy Adventure Game" is bandied about, immediately think of "Dungeons and Dragons" and the Wizards of the North in Lake Geneva Wisconsin. Indeed, the runaway train that has been D&D for the last 30 years is the poster child for role playing games, having earned that title through sheer talent, tenacity and creative firepower.
T&T, as it is affectionately known, was in 1976 and is still today, the redheaded stepchild of gaming. While not without its supporters, who point out ease of play and simplicity of rules, T&T never attained the overall financial success and national recognition that D&D achieved. No movies were ever made about "Grimtooth's Traps" or "City Of Terrors." Conversely, T&T never saw headlines linking its players to the rise in satanic worship or teen suicide rate either, so that actually worked out pretty well.
Prior to the winter of 1976, I was blissfully unaware of role-playing games. I had a love of Science Fiction and a deep yearning to be a writer that dated all the way back to my childhood and wrote short stories that went unpublished as most do, written by wannabees and everyday dreamers. Back then, I owned a CB Radio store in a small Ohio town and that was my world, the world of 10-4 good buddy and CB Jamborees. In attending the latter, the seeds of my future hucksterism were already being sewn, but I simply had no experience to do what I really wanted to do which was write. All that changed due in large part to my friend, Jack Powers.
Jack was a family man, a young Mormon father with a growing brood of bright, delightful children and a beautiful, patient wife who made better macaroni and cheese than my own mom. This alone was a powerful incentive for me to accept an invitation to a small party; a gathering of game enthusiasts (and cheese lovers) to play this new game called Tunnels and Trolls. To help my decision along, snow was predicted to fall over Southeastern Ohio that Friday night and TV reception in my apartment was really bad. So, T&T it would be, whatever that was.
They say that you always remember your first kiss, your first love, your first car and your first dungeon character. They are right. As the snow began to fall in late afternoon and the smell of popcorn wafted through Jack's house, we players sat around his dining room table rolling six-sided dice to determine the Prime Requisites for the characters who were about to journey into the depths of Jack Powers' imagination (with a little help from Ken St Andre).
His name was Damian The Dangerous, that first character. He had unusually high Charisma and luck, fairly ordinary strength, enough dexterity to handle a sword, and the constitution of a full sized luxury Ford. He was, what was to be categorized later by vastly more experienced gamers, fortuitously rolled.
The game began where every game I have ever played start off - in the tavern on the edge of town among a gaggle of suspicious, nefarious, vociferous and colorfully necessary non-player-characters, come forever after to be known as "bar denizens." Questions were asked, gold changed hands, maps were acquired and a cocky virgin gamer got his first taste of combat in a 6-sided dice shoot-out with a loudmouthed bully. I didn't kill him, but I damn sure taught him a lesson in T&T fisticuffs. In the process, I also learned that life (or death) is as fickle as a single dice roll.
Our little party, under the guidance of Gamemaster Jack, who had a genuine sense of terrain and detail, headed out from the tavern and onto "The Road," that universal highway upon which all new gamers tread for the first time as they seek gold, glory and those all-important Experience Points that allow advancement, improvement and a better chance at surviving the sudden charge of a rabid cave bear.
Any gamer who reads this has traveled "The Road," so there is no need to go into detail. Suffice it to say that the number of monsters encountered was proportionate to the amount of Dr. Pepper and popcorn consumed. It was a bloodbath. Had that game ever been produced as a module (as so many play-tested games have) it could easily have been entitled, "Die, Monster, Die."
At that time in my life I had yet to encounter Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit and had no clue what an "orc" was or for that matter why there were a blue million of them hiding behind every tree and bend in the road. All I (and Damien by proxy) knew was that each dead Orc added EP’s (experience points) and that their weapons were consistently better than the one carried by me.
By the time our group arrived at the dungeon, we had slain so many Orcs that the odds of finding one of the loathsome creatures with a really good sword had finally caught up with me. Though it came within a chicken’s whisker of killing me, the last Orc gave up a Kris (sword of meteoric iron with magic absorption properties) that rolled extra dice in combat and just had a really cool name.
Damien The Dangerous was on his way to immortality.
Back in the "real" world, the weather was out of control. Snow was falling so thickly outside Jack’s house that one could easily have mistaken the storm for the beginning of the next ice age. The wind gusted from time to time hard enough to literally rattle the windows. Inside, in Jack’s dining room though, it was warm and toasty. Except for an occasional chagrined whistle at an unusually aggressive wind gust, we were pretty much oblivious to any world except the one where Damien and party struggled with a door - the door that stood between them and the seriously large chest of gold coins some wizard had left laying around as bait to entice foolish adventurers to enter his underground lair where he would kill them all for fun and profit.
So far, I had trudged Damien down roads, across fields, through villages and hamlets and up to farmhouse doors on a fascinating, time consuming, humorous and detailed journey toward a mythical cache of gold coins and experience points awaiting just around the next bend. Now though, the real work lay ahead - but first, somebody had to open that stupid door!
In later years I faced some of the best gamemasters in the country, in Albany New York, and on Long Island, Salt lake City, Dallas, and GenCon in Milwaukee under the guidance of the incredible Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weiss of Dragonlance fame (Tower of High Sorcery). Those games were tough, but that stormy Ohio night in the mid-1970’s we spent two hours opening a single door and by the time we got the lock picked and the magical password figured out, every player in the room was ready to take a real-time sword to our gamemaster.
More than 100 angry orcs, armed to the teeth and hungry for blood, were approaching from the road. With time running out, the door finally sprung open, only to slam noisily shut behind us after we had scrambled through, trapping us. A room by room search ensued. Hall monster combat, narrow escapes, tragic and sudden death of a rogue carelessly played by a sleepy 14 year old preluded the discovery of exotic sometimes magical treasure items and objects od rarity, beauty and usefulness. It was a classic game played at one time or another by every role player who ever opened a book.
Damian the Dangerous collected a fair haul of loot that night. In addition to the kris, he found a "Dagger Of Knowing" which vibrated in its scabbard whenever orcs were within a hundred yards proximity, and a "carrysack" that could magically stash up to 300 pounds of "stuff," while weighing no more than 10 pounds to the person carrying it.
That snowy night in Ohio, all those years ago was a grand introduction to the world of 'what if," an imaginary adventure of the first order. Jack was, and still is, a meticulous game master, who missed his calling by never taking up fiction writing.
Looking back on that first game, I would have to say that we wrote a complete fantasy short story with our interaction that would have been publishable at the time. I know, most "game fiction" is pretty awful, but the story that game told would have sold. I am certain of it!
By the end of the night, I was hooked on gaming, hooked on fantasy and my life became, forever after and inexorably intertwined with the world of fantasy role playing.
Now, 34 years later, as I put finger to keyboard to recall these events, it seems like only yesterday that I gulped a handfull of popcorn, grabbed 4 6 sided dice and said to an expectant gamemaster, "I attack the first orc with my Kris," and threw a blood spattering combat roll that sent the creature straight to the netherhells.
For me, the single most life-altering event of my life was Tunnels and Trolls, the Fantasy Adventure Game authored by Ken St Andre, play tested by The Phoenix Cosmic Circle, and published by Flying Buffalo's Rick Loomis.
Most folks, when the words "Fantasy Adventure Game" is bandied about, immediately think of "Dungeons and Dragons" and the Wizards of the North in Lake Geneva Wisconsin. Indeed, the runaway train that has been D&D for the last 30 years is the poster child for role playing games, having earned that title through sheer talent, tenacity and creative firepower.
T&T, as it is affectionately known, was in 1976 and is still today, the redheaded stepchild of gaming. While not without its supporters, who point out ease of play and simplicity of rules, T&T never attained the overall financial success and national recognition that D&D achieved. No movies were ever made about "Grimtooth's Traps" or "City Of Terrors." Conversely, T&T never saw headlines linking its players to the rise in satanic worship or teen suicide rate either, so that actually worked out pretty well.
Prior to the winter of 1976, I was blissfully unaware of role-playing games. I had a love of Science Fiction and a deep yearning to be a writer that dated all the way back to my childhood and wrote short stories that went unpublished as most do, written by wannabees and everyday dreamers. Back then, I owned a CB Radio store in a small Ohio town and that was my world, the world of 10-4 good buddy and CB Jamborees. In attending the latter, the seeds of my future hucksterism were already being sewn, but I simply had no experience to do what I really wanted to do which was write. All that changed due in large part to my friend, Jack Powers.
Jack was a family man, a young Mormon father with a growing brood of bright, delightful children and a beautiful, patient wife who made better macaroni and cheese than my own mom. This alone was a powerful incentive for me to accept an invitation to a small party; a gathering of game enthusiasts (and cheese lovers) to play this new game called Tunnels and Trolls. To help my decision along, snow was predicted to fall over Southeastern Ohio that Friday night and TV reception in my apartment was really bad. So, T&T it would be, whatever that was.
They say that you always remember your first kiss, your first love, your first car and your first dungeon character. They are right. As the snow began to fall in late afternoon and the smell of popcorn wafted through Jack's house, we players sat around his dining room table rolling six-sided dice to determine the Prime Requisites for the characters who were about to journey into the depths of Jack Powers' imagination (with a little help from Ken St Andre).
His name was Damian The Dangerous, that first character. He had unusually high Charisma and luck, fairly ordinary strength, enough dexterity to handle a sword, and the constitution of a full sized luxury Ford. He was, what was to be categorized later by vastly more experienced gamers, fortuitously rolled.
The game began where every game I have ever played start off - in the tavern on the edge of town among a gaggle of suspicious, nefarious, vociferous and colorfully necessary non-player-characters, come forever after to be known as "bar denizens." Questions were asked, gold changed hands, maps were acquired and a cocky virgin gamer got his first taste of combat in a 6-sided dice shoot-out with a loudmouthed bully. I didn't kill him, but I damn sure taught him a lesson in T&T fisticuffs. In the process, I also learned that life (or death) is as fickle as a single dice roll.
Our little party, under the guidance of Gamemaster Jack, who had a genuine sense of terrain and detail, headed out from the tavern and onto "The Road," that universal highway upon which all new gamers tread for the first time as they seek gold, glory and those all-important Experience Points that allow advancement, improvement and a better chance at surviving the sudden charge of a rabid cave bear.
Any gamer who reads this has traveled "The Road," so there is no need to go into detail. Suffice it to say that the number of monsters encountered was proportionate to the amount of Dr. Pepper and popcorn consumed. It was a bloodbath. Had that game ever been produced as a module (as so many play-tested games have) it could easily have been entitled, "Die, Monster, Die."
At that time in my life I had yet to encounter Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit and had no clue what an "orc" was or for that matter why there were a blue million of them hiding behind every tree and bend in the road. All I (and Damien by proxy) knew was that each dead Orc added EP’s (experience points) and that their weapons were consistently better than the one carried by me.
By the time our group arrived at the dungeon, we had slain so many Orcs that the odds of finding one of the loathsome creatures with a really good sword had finally caught up with me. Though it came within a chicken’s whisker of killing me, the last Orc gave up a Kris (sword of meteoric iron with magic absorption properties) that rolled extra dice in combat and just had a really cool name.
Damien The Dangerous was on his way to immortality.
Back in the "real" world, the weather was out of control. Snow was falling so thickly outside Jack’s house that one could easily have mistaken the storm for the beginning of the next ice age. The wind gusted from time to time hard enough to literally rattle the windows. Inside, in Jack’s dining room though, it was warm and toasty. Except for an occasional chagrined whistle at an unusually aggressive wind gust, we were pretty much oblivious to any world except the one where Damien and party struggled with a door - the door that stood between them and the seriously large chest of gold coins some wizard had left laying around as bait to entice foolish adventurers to enter his underground lair where he would kill them all for fun and profit.
So far, I had trudged Damien down roads, across fields, through villages and hamlets and up to farmhouse doors on a fascinating, time consuming, humorous and detailed journey toward a mythical cache of gold coins and experience points awaiting just around the next bend. Now though, the real work lay ahead - but first, somebody had to open that stupid door!
In later years I faced some of the best gamemasters in the country, in Albany New York, and on Long Island, Salt lake City, Dallas, and GenCon in Milwaukee under the guidance of the incredible Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weiss of Dragonlance fame (Tower of High Sorcery). Those games were tough, but that stormy Ohio night in the mid-1970’s we spent two hours opening a single door and by the time we got the lock picked and the magical password figured out, every player in the room was ready to take a real-time sword to our gamemaster.
More than 100 angry orcs, armed to the teeth and hungry for blood, were approaching from the road. With time running out, the door finally sprung open, only to slam noisily shut behind us after we had scrambled through, trapping us. A room by room search ensued. Hall monster combat, narrow escapes, tragic and sudden death of a rogue carelessly played by a sleepy 14 year old preluded the discovery of exotic sometimes magical treasure items and objects od rarity, beauty and usefulness. It was a classic game played at one time or another by every role player who ever opened a book.
Damian the Dangerous collected a fair haul of loot that night. In addition to the kris, he found a "Dagger Of Knowing" which vibrated in its scabbard whenever orcs were within a hundred yards proximity, and a "carrysack" that could magically stash up to 300 pounds of "stuff," while weighing no more than 10 pounds to the person carrying it.
That snowy night in Ohio, all those years ago was a grand introduction to the world of 'what if," an imaginary adventure of the first order. Jack was, and still is, a meticulous game master, who missed his calling by never taking up fiction writing.
Looking back on that first game, I would have to say that we wrote a complete fantasy short story with our interaction that would have been publishable at the time. I know, most "game fiction" is pretty awful, but the story that game told would have sold. I am certain of it!
By the end of the night, I was hooked on gaming, hooked on fantasy and my life became, forever after and inexorably intertwined with the world of fantasy role playing.
Now, 34 years later, as I put finger to keyboard to recall these events, it seems like only yesterday that I gulped a handfull of popcorn, grabbed 4 6 sided dice and said to an expectant gamemaster, "I attack the first orc with my Kris," and threw a blood spattering combat roll that sent the creature straight to the netherhells.
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