WotC's re-release of Gary Gygax's Advanced D+D's Dungeon Master's
Guide has psychologically shifted my focus back to my early days of gaming. Do I have one word to sum up the
bizarre, (yet strangely inventive), days over summer vacations and long
Christmas Holidays, spent knee deep in dice throwing mind games ? No, not
really. Nostalgic doesn't cut it. A while back, I went to a convention for pop
culture artifacts: classic toys, collector cards, action figures, board games,
movie posters, and display shelves filled with memorabilia from my childhood. It
was like time traveling, but through the power of memories, instead of a time
machine. Although one name comes to mind every so often: Christopher
Livingston.*
I'm the notorious middle child of five in my family, and, growing
up, we usually moved into neighborhoods with other large families; each with
wildly different family values. So, we'd blend in with our various counterparts
in ages. Middle kids "teaming up" together has always come with a
weird price (vandalism, pyromania, shop lifting, and ill conceived romances,
that went spectacularly bad, to name a few). I should say it was also some of
the most exhilarating and action-packed times in my life (re-enacting scenes
from the summer movies of 1975 to 1983: The Godfather, Jaws, Star Wars, Raiders
of the Lost Ark, and Martial Art action flicks etc).
Dressed as rebel pilot, or as Han Solo, (depending on the day) with Patricia, an old friend of the family.
It wasn't long before I was involved with the older kids, and
their crazy life experiences. Somebody was always 'lip synching', singing, or
playing stuff off of the radio (ACDC to the Beatles, to Led Zepplin to Queen,
to Tchaikovsky to Verdi). And, through my older sibling's connections, I spent
many summer nights watching and playing with the older girls (chasing each
other around the nearby fields, woods, and basketball courts). I heard the
early Steve Martin and George Carlin albums on my friend's older brother's
record player. If it sounds like a wonderful life, it's because I'm editing out
all the humiliating and ambivalent hours I wasted. Those terrible details and
bad decisions are for the novel, I'll write in the next life.
In ninth grade I met up with Chris. His family lived in 'the nice
part' of the neighborhood- you'd have to hike up four long hilly streets to get
there-where doctors and lawyers lived in large houses around lush arboreal cul
de sacs. He was in the 11th grade and we were both in the chess club. We played
a few games (he knew my older brother), but I lost interest and dropped out a
month later.
That fall, I was invited to play a D+D game, up at Chris' house,
(held down in the basement, which had been converted into a carpeted covered
'game room' with comfortable chairs, and a 10' long wooden table, with eight to
ten kids sitting around it, from ages 10 to 17 years old). The room was loaded
to the brim with board games, and D+D paraphernalia, (miniatures, models, and
RPG magazines, sitting on "built in wall shelves" and inside wooden
cabinets) next to a ping pong table, a TV set with an Atari console, a stereo
counter, and more. There was a set of stairs that lead up to the outside
backyard, where everybody would park their bikes.
The intrepid (yet camera shy) players gather before the game begins.
I discovered the Basic and Expert sets back in the seventh grade
(1978). So did a lot of the boys I knew (Monsters and half naked ladies. What's
not to like?) Chris had been around for the first wave with Dr. Holmes and the
early low print runs of mini adventures. By 1981 he had all of the TSR modules
and supplemental books, and he would sit at the head of the table and run the
games like a tournament
match. He'd set up the situation, (from behind the module's cover),
and point to each person around the table and say, "You have 10 seconds to
tell me what you're doing. Go!" Then he'd roll some fake dice, and start
down the line: "You hear this…” and “You spot that...” and “You think you
see something, but it's really just…You,
when you stubbed your foot on a loose stone...” and “You are hungry,” and “you
are..." etc. The older kids would have a comical reaction moment, usually
brought on by the younger kid's shock, surprise, or disappointment (oh the
disappointment) at the turn of events.
Chris had to be a referee first
and a story teller second.
He'd move you through a game that didn't last more than 2 hours (the intrusion
factor in larger families is pretty high). I could only make it to a half a
dozen gaming sessions, but they were fun. Unfortunately, three feet of snow
made the hikes less appealing, and more treacherous. He was one of the few guys
I knew who could actually play the game.
He went off to college, and by that time, I was running my own
games, with a couple of friends after school and kids closer to home (expanding
into Boot Hill, Gamma World, and Top Secret- we played A LOT of Top Secret). I
hope to bring some of that quirky, unpredictable energy back when you get one
of our games in the mail. Time travel via memory banks. Let's call it "Shockstalgia".
