A Geek History of Time - Episode 276 - Paladium Games Part I

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

Okay, so there's there there are two possibilities going on here. One you're bringing up a term that I have never heard before. The other possibility is that this is a term I've heard before but it involves a language that uses pronunciation That's different from Latin it and so you have no idea how to say it properly an intensely 80s post-apocalyptic Schlock film and schlong film, you know, it's been over 20 years, but spoilers Okay, so so the Resident Catholic thinking about that. We're going for low Earth orbit. There is no rational. Blame it on me after.

And you know I will. They mean it is two o'clock in the fucking morning. Where I am. I don't think you can get very much more homosexual panic than that. No. Which I don't know if that's better. I mean, you guys are Catholics. You tell me. I'm just kind of excited that like you and producer George will have something to talk about

That basically just means that I can show up and get fed This is a Geek History of Time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. And since our last recording session, I have started the process of getting my master's degree. Um, yeah. Um, and it is thrilling on a certain level and really intimidating on another. It's been a very, very long time since I had to do reading at this density of material and this amount

of reading in, in the amount of time that I have between, between assignments. I'm, I'm getting to the place where I'm enjoying it, but it's, it's, it's going to, it's a bit of a, it's, it's a bit of a, bit of a battle right now. I'm, I'm getting, I'm getting to a place where the actual sources that we're reading are pretty cool. I'm getting my master's in history. I don't know if I said that it was in history.

I think I just said it was my master's, but the first course is in historiography, was my masters, but the first course is in historiography, which is fascinating. And it's basically what we do here in a kind of a way. And, but doing it in a really genuinely scholarly fashion is a lot more demanding. So I'm actually having to put in a significant level of my own effort Instead of just writing on the coattails of you and your your obsessive research Habits you're finding where I got them. So yeah

Yes, this is this is certainly true. The difference is I don't think I'm ever going to be quite the researcher You are just because I think I'm better at spinning bullshit in the format of an essay. You know, whereas you, as you have said before, need to have, you know, sources and stuff to rely on. I'm much more comfortable just going, you know what, I'm just gonna riff on this and go with it. So what I'm saying is I'm lazy. So. And gaslit by your own intelligence.

Wow. No moment of clarity for you. Yeah. Nope. Certainly not. And who are you, sir? Well, I'm Damian Harmony. I am a US history teacher up here

in northern California. At the yeah, the high school level. And so I'm used to dealing with people who think they can spin bullshit. And turns out they just give me shit. Could be that I'm a little more

triggered by the fact that my respected partner is Saying that sounding like a junior whose whose parents gave him a car So oh wow Okay, maybe maybe I need to go if the ask on reflect If the yacht hat fits So if the yacht hat fits No, I think honestly, um you will fall back in love with doing the actual work

Yeah, because you literally will get out of this degree what you put into it And if all you want are the letters after your name, that's not you Then yeah bullshit away Um Then yeah bullshit away I don't know this would be so much easier of course it would I don't know how is Curse my overdeveloped sense of responsibility and mm-hmm, so I'm just gonna be pulling on that string for a while Right thing yeah, so no uh so let's see this week I I So, let's see. This week I had the, there's a thing called a transitional IEP. So I am dating this episode a little bit because by the time this airs actually, the school

year may have started already. But the transitional IEP means that my son's IEP team from middle school met with his soon to be IEP team at the high school level. And I was in on that meeting. And in that meeting, they said to me, well, you know what, your son doesn't have a single tardy. And I'm like, yeah, I know, he follows rules. So what, let's move on.

They're like, no, no, no, no, no. He doesn't have a single tardy in the whole school year. I'm like, well, yeah, of course he knows to get to class on time. I don't, yeah, look, I get that that's cool, but like, I don't expect any different to be perfectly honest. So I'm not really sitting here celebrating it. And they're like, you realize that like, you know, no tardies by this point in the year. I said, look, I teach high school.

I completely understand how rare it is that a kid has no tardies. And they're like, we have kids who have 150 tardies in the middle school. I'm like, yeah, no, I know. And you only have 160 days. But the thing is, I'm going to point out that like we only have a hundred and I don't I don't even know if it's 160 150 something days In our in our calendar and I know I know on my campus we have kids who have over 200 tardys Yeah, because like yeah, cuz six periods a day But yeah, so then they hit me with you know, well, we think that's a really cool thing I said, I'm not taking away from it. I just you know, it's cool cool

It's it is to be expected though, you know And then they said met my son right and then they said and he's also missed zero assignments I said now that I am proud of because he and I had a talk about work ethic and yeah I said, you know your grades are not a perfect representation of your capabilities, but they will let me know which way the wind's blowing, and that only works if you do all your assignments. So I need you to do all your assignments so that if I see your grade dipping, I'll know to address what you're missing or not understanding, instead of like, is this a work issue or is this a brain issue?

Yeah. And so he has literally done all of the assignments. I said now that's really freaking cool. So he came home that day and I hugged him right when he got in the door and kissed him and told him how proud I was of him. I was like you you did all the assignments like they told me that you know how proud that makes me in a meeting to hear that my son has done every single assignment given to him by every single teacher is and his response Was as William as it gets he says well. I didn't do all the optional ones I know and the key word there it is optional like just the fact that he he

Did not want me thinking that he had done every assignment that was available Yeah, you know he he wants that praise to be earned He is not going to bullshit Yeah, yeah, no you never you know so yeah So it was a really proud moment like there there are so many layers to how proud I was of him for that Yeah, so no that's that's that is genuinely awesome. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. I, I, I wish I had more kids with his level of, you know, work ethic. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I have, I have way too many kids who are the exact opposite. Like I'll, I'll get a request from, from a

special education teacher. Like, you know, request from a special education teacher like, you know, what do you think is so-and-so's capacity to do the work? I have to say, well, he has an F in my class, but I can't say whether it's because he doesn't know it or not because he has an F because he hasn't turned a goddamn thing in. Right. I don't know if he hasn't turned it in because he doesn't get it or if he doesn't get it because he hasn't turned it in turn Anything in or if he gets it, and he's just not doing shit like I don't know yeah, but I can't give them No, I can't I can't answer any of your you know very important meaningful questions about his cognitive level because I don't have anything

to measure it on mm-hmm, so maybe Maybe we need to have a conversation about that issue before we go into anything else. Right. Oh, as I tell students regularly, what can I do to bring my grade up? I'm like, well, you've tried nothing and that didn't work. So let's aim for the bare minimum

and come back to me in two weeks. Well, but Mr. Harmony, I've done nothing and I'm all out of ideas. Right. Oh, I did have these, what extra work can my child do? I'm like, there's no extra if they've done zero. Like 15 times zero is zero. Still zero.

Yeah. What I wind up having to tell my kids multiple times over the course of the school year, and I get so sick of repeating it, but I keep having to repeat it is do not come to me for extra credit. If there is a zero anywhere in my grade book. Yeah. If you, if you have a zero in the grade book, you're going to ask me, you know, what can I do for extra credit? And I'll tell you, well, you can get all of the regular credit first. Like I provide extra credit for kids who show me that they are busting their butts. Right.

And they, and they, you know, need a few points to go from a C to a B. Yeah, the extra credit is for those who want to do extra. What you're asking for is alternative, easier stuff that would stand in for the things that I, a trained professional, licensed by the state, have determined in my wisdom and my many years of experience, is necessary for you to accomplish in order to pass this class. You made your choice. Now lie in it. Yeah. Like, you found out.

Honest. You found out. That's good. I'm going with that. You you found out You found out that's good. I'm gonna I'm going with that you have found out. Yes. Yeah. Oh my god Anyway, okay, two bitter teachers talking about the profession that we continue to choose to go to yeah Do you have anything positive to talk about? I well I do okay good one of us, I, yeah. Um, so I want to ask you, okay. Um, cause we've, we've talked about this before, but it just as, as an opening for this and, you know, for anybody who, for whatever reason, has not heard this from you previously, you know,

they've jumped in to our, our journey in a different place in the in the proverbial river When did you start playing RPGs when did you start playing role-playing games how old were you? So 6 was my first foray and then there was a long gap until I got to fifth grade And then there was a long gap until I got to fifth grade Okay, so at six I was playing I believe a D&D. Okay my parents Like once or twice. Okay, and then then that stopped. Okay, and then When I got to fifth grade

Yeah, which is great you were ten going on 11? Yeah, something like that. Or 11 going on 12? No. Okay, 10 going on 11. Yeah, 10 going on 11. I'm on the older end of the grade. Yeah, okay. But anyway, fifth grade,

the kids in Florida were playing two different games. They were playing the DC role-playing game, and they were playing the TSR Marvel role-playing game. Okay. And then when I moved back from Florida, I had also bought those myself. Saved up, paid for them. I bought them myself, came back to the Bay Area. And so in sixth grade, seventh grade, the fellows that I kind of hooked up with,

you know, just you vibe with. Yeah, the tribe you fell in with. Yeah, they were playing, did a little bit of Marvel, but largely they were interested in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the role-playing game. Which we've talked about.

Yep. And Robotech. When you were covering, okay. Yeah, when I was covering the Four Humors. And Robotech, the role-playing game. And they talked about GURPS, but I never got into it. And I kind of fell away from interest until I was an adult Okay, and then somebody turned me on to the West End Game Star Wars

Okay, all right Yeah, yeah, yeah, so so yeah, that was that was it I don't remember the name of the company that gave us the TMNT. I think it was a Paladin The name of the company that gave us the TMNT. I think it was a Paladin Eladium eladium that lady like the metal. Yes. I didn't know that was metal. Yeah. Yeah, it's an element. Okay so and it's it's meaningful that Your exposure to Palladium as a publisher is as early in your journey as it is. Um, my own, my own path, I guess.

Um, I've been playing tabletop RPGs since I was about nine. Okay. Um, AD&D was my first in 1984. Okay. Uh, you'll be unsurprised to find out the first character I rolled up was a Paladin. Hmm. You'll be unsurprised to find out the first character I rolled up was a paladin named for the paladin Character who showed up as a background character in the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon

strong heart Is that that's not Eric is it no no no no no no no not one of the kids the show No, it wasn't fat he had he had a really great curly mustache and a big plume coming out the top of his helmet and In the episode that I remember him most clearly in There was a hammer of thunderbolts. That was a that was a magic item that he had Yeah, I don't remember that but I but I had I had the action figure for him out of the out of the action figure line Sure sure and so my

very first character that was that was what I played nice um and then in junior high school I met Bishop O'Connell of friend of the show fame and Bobby and Scott whose last names I won't give cuz you know and we wound up spending every Friday and or Saturday night We could at one another's houses Playing some kind of role-playing game until two o'clock in the morning We spent time in our local favorite friendly local gaming store a Very quick shout out our rest in peace Rigel games and books

Yes, it terribly And we would play games there too. AD&D took up the lion's share of our time. But we were all kind of magpies when it came to games. Like we'd be in the store and we'd see something shiny and new. And we'd pick the book up off the shelf and flip through and be like, oh, whoa, this is awesome. And we'd all get caught up in how awesome it is. And you know, one of us, because, you know, we were in the environment we were in, one of us usually, if we didn't have the money right then within a couple of weeks, one of

us would and somebody, somebody would pick up the book and we'd start playing the game and as a result we didn't get into playing in a real campaign for a very long time for us to sample flattering it yeah and kind of yeah the evening Friday night or Saturday night always we'd get together at whoever's house and after you know pizza had been ordered or whatever we'd wind up going around the table going well all right What did everybody bring? He's well they're running who wants to run. I was like that was the other it was the other question was alright Who wants to run? And that usually turned into a game of not it you know

But then you know one of us be like alright now I can run, but if I'm gonna run I only want to do cyberpunk or Something else A couple of cyberpunk characters we can do that, you know, we'd make up we'd figure some out, you know, right, right and By the middle of high school rifts from palladium books Wound up being a common thing that we could all agree on It was never anybody's real like favorite none of us would have ranked rifts as like our top number one favorite like no

No, this is what I want to do right? But we all knew we could have fun with it And I think it's also historically important within the medium of role-playing games and so that's what I'm gonna talk about rifts yes specifically is from palladium games okay and rifts is I I would argue You know the the the game that Brought palladium into into the realm of Publishing you're being a been a relatively big name. Mm-hmm was probably TMNT

But rift is the game that became Palladium's Bread and Butter since then for a very very very long time. TMNT was a big enough name that it put them on the map and then they're like hey if you like that you'll like this and sure enough a lot of people like this. Yeah and I'm gonna get into the kind of the history of how how they gained Okay properties and what have you so but first I want to talk a little bit about the history of the medium all right? so box set D&D Mm-hmm came out in 1974 a D&D came out in 1977 through 79 and I say it that way because

The players handbook was published in 77 The very first edition printing of the AD&D DMG was 78 and then the Monster Manual was in 79 Okay, being being being when I okay? So what did people these between those times you get the players handbook and then are there monsters in the back or what? In the first edition player's handbook, you could, with the player's handbook, figure out kind of how to play the game. And most everybody who was an early adopter of AD&D had already been playing D&D. Like the basic set

You know so you knew You very likely knew you know what in work was and like how it would stack up and all that kind of stuff the differences between D&D and a D&D were noticeable Spelling wasn't it? Not in, well. AD&D had a vowel.

Well, one. But so D&D, the box set D&D only had three alignments, lawful, neutral, and chaotic, which we talked briefly about in the episodes on Stormbringer and Michael Moorcock because of the ties to that right basic D&D lawful neutral and chaotic and in base basic D&D if you were playing a dwarf you were just that that was what you were playing you were playing a dwarf right you weren't playing a dwarf fighter you know if you were a fighter that meant you were human if you were a rogue you are a thief

Human D&D you were human if you were a halfling you were a halfling and that looked an awful lot like being a thief But it looked a little bit like being a fighter too Right and being an elf meant you were kind of part fighter and part wizard sure You know and dwarf meant you were a fighter with some additional abilities because they didn't, didn't give dwarfs really anything else, which sucked. But anyway, AD and D introduced what, what now we all know from the internet as the, you know,

nine point alignment system and also introduced the idea that you could have a class and a race. So you could be an elf who was just a fighter or an elf who was just a wizard. You could be a dwarf who was a fighter or a dwarf who was a thief or a dwarf who was a cleric. Right. Couldn't be a dwarf who was a wizard because they don't do that. Oh wow.

In first edition ad and II If you were a halfling or a yeah halfling You could be a halfling fighter halfling thief you could be a multi clay if you were not human you could be a multi-class character So like if you were an elf you could play in a D&D an elf who was a fighter mage or fighter magic user Which would look an awful lot like what an elf looked like in base box D&D Okay But you know calculating your hit points worked differently and it was it was more advanced It was it was it took a little bit more math. It took a little bit more, you know

there was more crunch to the rule set. And this is, this is really, this is really a massive reflection of the personalities of the two creators involved. Cause basic DND is Dave Arneson's baby. Right. And Dave Arneson was about like, okay, you know what I want to, I want to create a, a rule set where you can learn how to play it play it and have fun playing it

Without having a massive learning curve and without having to worry about the difference in length between an all pike and a glaive design Which is my own dig Gary Gygax Gygax meanwhile was like no. No, I I want to have a system that is more detailed and more granular And I want to involve a lot more charts. I want I want all all the charts. Let's just Let's just turn this into a spreadsheet wet dream. Oh Which is funny because spreadsheets hadn't been invented yet, but you get what I mean. Oh, absolutely. I think I looked up the AD&D DMG, I think it was.

And the amount of charts that was in it was... Oh, the number of D100 tables. God damn insane. Yeah Oh, yeah, just oh my gosh. It was it was It was quite something Yeah, I Don't remember exactly how many it was but the amount of pages that were in it. It was just Like oh, yes. Yeah, like crazy cuz they had an appendix where it just listed how many pages the charts were

on. Yeah. And it was, it was Legion. Like, oh yeah. No, the, the, just the appendices to the DMG, you know, before we started recording, we were talking about, okay, so like what are, what, what ideas have you got in the pipeline? Whatever. I might just take a look at the different appendices of the DMG and, and talk about that for an episode because there's so much, the thing is like on the one hand, I found it. I actually, I cataloged it.

There were 56 pages of appendices and 124 different tables in the DMG for AD&D. And by the way, that includes a table on parasitic infestations. Because again, Gygax wanted to have something to cover any eventuality right right? God forbid you wing anything God forbid you improv Anything at all right? Precisely yeah, which which is is I think one of the things that's that's interesting When you look at the generational differences between like you you know, serious

grognar gen X or game and like the new generation of people playing fifth edition D and D or any number of other role playing games out there. Generationally, there is a very different outlook. Yes. And anyway, so that's that's that could be a whole conversation on its own. Yeah But I like to think that Dave Arneson is looking down from someplace very pleasant on on the new Newer generation of gamers going yeah. Mm-hmm. That's right. That's the idea You guys figured it out. Yeah, and I won't talk about Gary Because a very a very dear departed friend of mine and I had very very different opinions Of him and and out of respect for my departed friend. I won't align the dead

But so both games as relatively freewheeling and improv requiring, as basic D&D is and as granular and detailed and obsessive compulsive as a D&D is Both games are very combat centric. They're very much focused on exploration There's a lot of emphasis in D&D and especially first edition a D&D of Avoiding or escaping traps like you go into a dungeon Right pit traps. There's gonna be darts coming out of the walls that like that was that was an atmospheric thing It was just kind of built into This is what this game is about right all right I remember there was an illustration of a rope trap where the rope just looks like a rope

But then it's like a zoomed in cutaway What do you call it where you like show a cross section of something? Yeah, you know a cross section diagram Yeah And and it showed that there were, like, micro hooks and razor wire inside it. So you'll have to roll on that. And then, because that'll make you fall. Yeah.

And it's just like, Jesus Christ. See, now, the thing is, I think what you are remembering isn't actually out of one of the basic AD&D rule books. Oh, is it from, dungeon magazine or some shit? It's from a supplement from flying Buffalo games called grim tooth straps. And okay. Yeah. The conceit of it was that grim tooth was this terrible ogre troll, something demon, you never really sure what, uh, who,

who cataloged all of these horrible, like I am the DM. So I am the enemy of my players. I, as the DM, I win if I get, you know, every time a PC dies, I have one right. That, that kind of mentality. And it was, it was these sadistic awful examples of all this stuff like, Oh, hey, you know, if you do this thing. Um, and, and I think that's, that's out of one of those supplements. And that's another thing that's indicative of the very early generation of, of tabletop role playing with AD and D, uh, and to,

and D and D depending on who your, your DM was. Right DM was, there was this kind of cultural idea that, well, no, my job is to make it difficult for the players. I've got to give them a challenge, and that means some of their characters are going to die. Yeah, and there was this like all, it was save or die kind of mentality because it was either I go all in against the players and try to kill them Or I'm being too soft on them. Yeah, like there was nothing in between Yeah, and that's a very Gygaxian kind of kind of outlook and And then you know if you don't like the way the players are doing things you find ways to punish them

Right, right And that whole that whole kind of adversarial kind of relationship was a thing within their culture that Thankfully in my opinion gradually kind of died out Although it still does exist in some corners of the OSR community, old school role playing. But the, so yeah, so the first games were very much focused on exploration. You're going into the unknown, you're going into this place down, down in the dark, all kinds of Freudian stuff you could get into about like you're going in exploring a hole in the ground dungeon kind of thing

Or it could just be Jungian. Well, yeah, you know you are heroes missing it. Yeah, you know yeah and the emphasis was on finding monsters fighting monsters and taking their stuff, right? You know and It makes sense that this generation of role-playing games You know the granddaddy of all of them would be this way because they're they're born out of war gaming Right, they come from tabletop war game, which is a whole lot older

And at some point I think that deserves its own analysis I agree and it's very very adversarial because you are literally one side against the other Yes, and I would say the environment matters a lot less other than to get in your way So there's the avoidance of traps or the traps can fuck you and Death is the goal on the other side because in some ways that cleans up the table You literally putting shit away. Yeah the game the game moves a lot faster as my pieces die Yes, all of those things fed into oh, yeah, you know the game moves a lot faster as my pieces die. Yes

All of those things fed into oh, yeah, you know the D&D. Oh, yeah in a big way. Mm-hmm. So Other writers and publishers started getting in on this this medium almost immediately tunnels and trolls came out in 1975 and It was designed to be a more accessible alternative to D&D Which I have not looked at the rules for tunnels and trolls, but I have played Basics at D&D and I'm like man if you made that more accessible what? How does that work? Right?

Like good Lord. Um, I don't know. I don't know how you can simplify that anymore, but that's just me. And I started out playing a D and D. So my experiences with, you know, box set D and D were coming from that viewpoints. Maybe that, that might bias me somehow. Right. But the Petal Throne came out the same year 1975 very rapidly got bought by TSR at all as in thing on a bike or pedal That's all okay as in Lotus as in gigantic Tecumel was the setting for Empire of the Petal Throne and it was a very, very,

that's what I'm looking for. It was, it was taking the idea of fantasy role-playing and instead of making it all this Tolkien stuff, I'm going to introduce more Asiatic, but not like Chinese Japanese, more like Persian and, and the stuff that Southwest Asian. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and, and I'm going to introduce these, these kinds of concepts and these ideas. And it's this very, very rich, very kind of over the top setting, but it's, it's this very very rich very kind of over-the-top setting but it's it's still basic it's a fantasy real playing it so anyway TSR TSR looked at it went this is really awesome and the world building here is a lot better than Greyhawk so we need to buy this like right now because this is competition and we need to own it. So they did and and it I won't say it completely got buried but they they they managed to keep it from from outdoing Greyhawk. I was wondering if it was gonna be a catch and kill or if it was oh no we're gonna fold this into what we do. They didn't

really fold it into what they did D&D would look very different today if they had They it was it was a catch and place on a lower shelf where you're not gonna see it. They didn't quite kill it But they made sure it stayed pretty niche gotcha And then the Ardwin Grimoire arrived in 1977 Which was originally published as a set of add-ons for basic D&D Where it's like, okay basic D&D doesn't do the things that we want it to do

but a D&D is too much of a pain in the ass and And the things that we want our game to do don't match up with what ad with what Gary Gygax Figured he wanted to fix so this is a this is a different set of things that you can add on your D&D game and it had a Grimmer I'm gonna say sexier, but sexier from the point of view of like a 15 year old boy Now written buyer aimed at Yes, okay

So the lots of boobs some lots of lots of lots of boobs lots of midriff not much else not yeah But eventually Ardyn and Grimmoire actually broke off and they said you know what screw this We're not gonna we're not gonna keep trying to publish it as a supplement for D&D We're gonna we're gonna tweak the rules and come up with our own basic system that our stuff will work with that's still reflective of D&D But it's but it doesn't use the same It's not it's not based on the same engine like it's still it's still a d20 and you still roll other dice for other stuff But the way things are gonna we're gonna change the way things work. Okay, so as a genre

Fantasy has dominated Tabletop role-playing games forever. Yeah, like the jump since the jump the overwhelming majority of published material for for role-playing games is Somehow, you know, fantasy-oriented. Yes. And specifically like medieval European fantasy-oriented. Yes. Very, very much. Very heavily. And as the first game to make it into wide distribution, all of the various permutations of D&D have remained the 500 pound gorilla of gaming and

part of How we get from the beginning to rifts is we kind of have to look at the way that the genre broadened Okay, the genre footprints because we're looking at games as a medium here the the genre footprint of RPGs changed And kind of the expansion of the publishing environment for them overall So the very earliest non-tsr

Science fiction RPG to find a wide audience. There's a lot of qualifiers in that sentence. Yeah, they really are is traveler To find a wide audience. There's a lot of qualifiers in that sense. Yeah, there really are Is traveler and it came out in 1977 from game designers workshop Now TSR had put out a game entitled metamorphosis alpha in 1976 Mm-hmm, and also in 1976 flying Buffalo games who I mentioned when I was talking about grim-toothed traps, right? They had put out a game entitled Star Faireng Star Faireng never managed to take off it it for whatever reason Yeah, I didn't even mean for that to be a pun, but there you go died on the pad. Yeah, it crashed and burned and

you know, I don't know if it was just because and you know, I don't know if it was just because The particular setting they developed didn't light people up whether it was that flying Buffalo just didn't have the oomph To get the game out Distributed broadly enough to to form critical mass with an audience. I could see that I I mean, when did Star Ferry come out? 76. 76. Okay, so this is before the Star Trek movie. Yes.

This is, I think, during the Star Trek cartoon. Mm-hmm. This is before Star Wars. Mm-hmm. So space has not really captured the broad imagination. Space is very niche. So space has not really captured the broad imagination. Space is very niche. Remember, Star Trek was canceled in 69 after three seasons.

It was deemed unsuccessful in a lot of ways. Yes, it was. It was not yet syndicated, or if it was, it was only still niche. And so it was not reaching a broad audience, right? The fandom of it had not yet, right Spaceship was still ghettoized with sci-fi Yeah, yeah, definitely and Yeah, so there's there's there's several factors. I think that's involved in it

But then in 1977 GDW puts out Traveler. You know, real quick, Starfarer, was that in color at all? Starfaring. Starfaring. Was that in color at all or was it black and white? No, it was black and white. That's the other thing. At this point in role-playing publishing, you don't see, other than the front covers of books, you don't see any color. It's all black and white. None don't see, other than the front covers of books, you don't see any color. It's all black and white. None of them, none of them are making the kind of money.

Yeah, to justify. To justify, you know, color printing or glossy pages. It was hugely expensive back then. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. And so, so just walk with me through this. Yeah.

What is the defining feature of space? Vast emptiness, huge distances, vacuum. findings feature of space Vast emptiness huge distances vacuum with a lack of light and the Light is pinprick. So how fucking exciting can you make a black and white? Considering the convention of art at the time. That's true. You know, whereas fantasy You can do movement. Oh, yeah, you can do Momentum you can do you know, yeah birth and strength and vascularity and all this kind of stuff. Yeah space is fairly

Teppid face space is is cold static, you know, okay, yeah, and Yeah, so just the artwork is it's gonna be working against them given what art Fantasy and sci-fi art looked like at that time It's just not gonna be that exciting because I mean you don't really see like think of like the flying saucers Attacking towns. It still just looks like dinner plates being held up on many tables Yeah over a model of a town like yeah, you know, yeah fire doesn't look that exciting honestly Whereas somebody swinging an axe across his midline

Yeah, you know that kind of shit even the one of people having hanged a worm Or a wormling rather. I'm sure you remember. Oh, yeah Well, that's, that's we're, we're not there yet. Right. But I'm saying like that, that same kind of work. Yeah. That tells a story. There is a detail in the armor and all kinds of shit. Space is just like, yeah. And now the thing is I don't, I, I was not able Space is the lover who is has just convinced himself that having a big dick is all you need He just unfroze it. It's like alright. There you go. Yeah, it's like you gonna do something with that I'm gonna like right. Yeah

Yeah, yeah The the example of the art that I that you mentioned somebody swinging an axe across their midline And I want to get this out of my system when I talked about Ardouin Grimoire Being you know darker and sexier in a you know 15 year old boy kind of way one of the notable like historic Images that comes to us out of Ardouin Grimoire is of a female fighter With a battle axe that she's holding yes down down with her arms down You know around her around her her waistline and and she has no shirt on right

So like yeah You can do that in a fancy game and what do you got planets? We have boobs right and and who's the target demographic for all of this at this point in the development of the genre right yeah older well ways not teenage boys I would say actually well I'm gonna get into that a little okay good second I'm just there's a there's a fineness of point yeah there are the people that are doing the majority of the publishing There are the there are the people who are the majority of the founding game masters and then as time goes on There's the generation that's coming up and buying the games and playing them

Yeah, but that's that's a few years after yes. That's not what's getting them afloat. That's what yeah them afloat. Yeah. Yeah, so It just you've been to my house You see the picture that I got signed by Colin Cantwell, right? The yes the original concept art of the Tantive four battle. Yeah, I mean if you look at it, it's it's The fact that we know that that's the fit the case. Yeah, what makes it exciting. It is not Yeah, there's there's not not it's not very propulsive. Yeah, there's that there's there's no yeah There's no visible dynamism. Yes like because because of the nature of

space space It's difficult unless you unless you draw it in a very comic book way to show motion lines and zoomies. But you need color for that in a lot of ways, as we see in comic books. That's true. Which were color at that time. Yeah. And they would come out with a book a month. So... Yeah. Yeah. This is true. Okay. so I'm sorry I derailed all of this Meaningful, you know, it's a meaningful conversation but traveler Traveler managed to form an audience and I do think part of the reason for it is because along with a game system and

And you know, hey, you're gonna be be playing games in space. Traveler had a very specific setting. The Imperium of traveler is, is a fully realized galaxy that has several thousand years of future history involved in it. And so certainly find its hooks and a niche yeah, and and the The stereotype of the way traveler games went was

Inevitably whatever whatever you planned on a traveler campaign being mm-hmm Within four game sessions, your players were either going to wind up being interstellar mercenaries or pirates. And there was really just because like, you know, oh, hey, no, we're going to be, we're going to be free traders and we're going to be, you know, moving around and, and, you know, moving between planets and all this kind of stuff. And like inevitably because role because, because RPG players or RPG players, like, okay, no, we're, we're going to be, we're going to be a band of wandering gunmen or, you know, we're, we're,

we're going to wind up engaging in piracy, whether we're, you know, quote unquote pirates or not. Right. But, um, you know, there was, there was a fleshed out world in which that, that all was going to happen Mm-hmm, and it was this wonderfully It's it's this this really great Relatively hard science fiction setting mm-hmm. I think I've talked before about hard SF versus versus soft SF But it's hard to restate. Yeah, go ahead hard SF versus soft SF, but to restate.

Yeah, go ahead. Hard SF is closer to, okay, no, seriously, if we actually built spaceships, what would we need to worry about? Right. Like, you know. Hard SF will have manifests for cargo. Yes. Yes.

And in Traveler games, manifests for cargo could wind up being very important plot points. Yeah, no. And I could see early RPGs absolutely going hard. Yeah. Like you know, because oh, very this D&D one has charts. So all all good role playing games have charts. Yes. Hard SF. Our papers must be an order. Yes You know just as a subconscious kind of thread within the yeah, you know, yeah and Traveler itself now is a beloved property That has all kinds of spin-offs of its own. There have been multiple editions of the game that have come out There's another game that design a game designers workshop came out with entitled traveler 2300. Okay. Which may or may not be a prequel to the traveler universe. Because the traveler universe takes place the setting of

traveler the present of that universe is a couple of thousand years in the future from us traveler 2300 is several centuries in the future from us Yeah, and so the tech level is lower and alien races are different and Like it's it's its own setting and I think we've we've come to a place where the designers of the game have basically said no It's it's a parallel universe. It's not, it's not the same, but it carries the same name. And in a lot of ways it feels very similar because again, it's a,

it's a relatively hard SF kind of game where, where many of the kind of underpinnings of this is how the, the, the galaxy works kind of work the same way. And so traveler is a really important signpost in the RPG landscape because of what it represents in terms of the broadening of genres within the medium. Sure. Um, worth noting while we're talking about science fiction games, Star Trek adventure gaming in the final frontier, came out in 1978.

Ahead of the movie. Yes. Okay. And it was the earliest example I could find of a tabletop RPG using an established franchise universe as a basis. Oh yeah. Now was it licensed or did they just get away with? Similar to how the freebirds got away with using Leonard Skinner for their entrance music like I Was not able to find that out for sure I would I would have to look that up But anyway, it's it's this is the first time let me say hey you can play role-playing game in this specific universe right mm-hmm Now that's gonna be important later. Okay that point Now the first superhero genre RPG. I can find mm-hmm is superhero

2044 by Donald Saxman published in 1977 Villains 1977 villains and villains and vigilantes came out in 2024 no 2044 okay, yeah and And the setting you know when it was when it came out in 77 It's you know 37 years in the future a generation removed. You know there was there was some kind of semi sci-fi stuff involved in it Almost kind of proto cyberpunk elements, but it was it was a superhero RPG, right? And villains and vigilantes came out from fantasy games unlimited in 1979 And it has a small but dedicated fandom to this day

the biggest and most broadly known superhero RPG champions came out in 19 came out in 1981 from hero games and the champions system Has gone on to be used in a bunch of other stuff. Mm-hmm Marvel superheroes came out from TSR in 1984 to the consternation and dismay of game designers worldwide. Because yeah, because any opportunity to to rag on that system, I will I will take.

Now I will say this. The the original one, I believe it showed up in a yellow box. I never played that one. I played the advanced version. Oh yes. Which I don't know how you could... I don't know, like okay having played the advanced version it's like what did you make better? Like, what was so bad? What exactly was wrong with the first one? That this is an improvement.

What a shit show, that must have been, yeah. But the advanced version came in a blue box, right? Blackish, it was because it was, yeah, because it was, you know, they were running through space. Oh, right, okay. I might be thinking of the DC Super Heroes box. Yes, the DC Super Heroes one came in a powder blue box. Right, okay, that's the one might be thinking of the DC superheroes box. Yes, the DC superheroes one came in a powder blue box, right? Okay, that's the one I'm thinking of then. Yeah

That came out later The DC superheroes one the DC superheroes one. I didn't actually find the release date for that one. Okay Because it was late enough that that like my chronology moved on before. Yeah, I ran into both in late enough that that like my chronology moved on before. Yeah I ran into both in 88. Okay yeah that sounds about right so I'd be willing to bet DC Superheroes was probably in 86 or 87. Yeah. And I'm totally unfamiliar with anything about how that system worked like I don't know. It didn't work well I mean it was largely I don't I don't remember the mechanics at all I do remember the values on the backs of the cards of superhero cards and It was I mean at least it was true to the nature of the characters, okay

In that Superman had like I don't know what the rankings were but he had a rank 45 in ventriloquism I didn't see anybody even with that power and like his strength was similar and No one was near it, you know, like it was it was yeah I do remember though they talked about almost like alignment because again, you know you you play in the sandbox Yeah, you're even if you create your own sandbox. You're gonna come with sand and you're gonna come up with a squarish shape. Yeah And some kind of containment you might have a right sandbox

Maybe some kind of a border maybe but let's be real the first like four sandboxes after the first one We're probably we're all square. Yeah. Yeah, I mean so this one the DC one they had kind of an alignment system and it was Superman and Batman, and I don't remember others, but essentially Superman is the goodness of, he's Boy Scout, right? So like awful good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, big blue Boy Scout, yeah. And then Batman, as explaining what your motivation is,

if you're that character, that type of character was, Superman's got it all wrong. Like, it's straight up reaction. And you know, he means well, but he's off. And he basically says, the quote he has is like, you either cut out the bad part of the apple or you throw the whole apple away. And that has stuck with me.

Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I kind of want to talk to that writer. Right. Thank you. Let's, let's discuss that for a minute. Okay. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and I'm going to get to, to the idea of alignment here in a little bit It has as part of this whole development so now Sure I'm sorry to interrupt you yeah, the DC game came out in 85 its first edition did okay all right? Yeah, so just shortly after carl mm-hmm all right, so

Horror as a genre took a while interestingly enough to show up on the tabletop and the very first tabletop horror game Was call of Cthulhu Okay, I find which I find interesting call of Cthulhu. Okay. I find, which I find interesting because as the name suggests, it is a licensed property that is specifically tied to the HP Lovecraft

mythos. And you know, so the first horror game, uh, was not just a, Hey, I really like horror movies. Let's come up with a way to do that on a role-play it was no no I really like HP Lovecraft okay that that eldritch weird fiction kind of universe and we're gonna we're gonna do something with this and that's the that's the hook mm-hmm, for the horror genre starts with that on the tabletop. And, um, it, it immediately took off because you know,

HP Lovecraft is a, is a, you know, well known author and people who are fans of his work are, you know, there's a significant overlap on the Venn diagram between, you know, HP Lovecraft fans and people who are going to be into role playing games. Sure. Sure. Like, Oh, Hey, yeah, no, I can role play the horror at Innsmouth. Like, for me, I listened to that. I'm like, why do you want to? But, you know, I'm not a horror fan. So I'm biased there but The next horror game that I could that I could find was stalking the night fantastic

in 1983 and then the more widely known chill in 1984 and and these two games brought into the experience out of musty old libraries and Victorian houses old by old racist cultists and brought more modern horror Tropes onto the tabletop So Really really niche listeners might recognize a bureau 13 as the game stalking the night fantastic eventually grew into And I'm I'm willing to bet money that at least one of the people behind supernatural was a player of either stalking the night fantastic or

Bureau 13 because the idea of stalking the night fantastic is no no you're a hunter There are vampires out there. There are werewolves. There's all these monsters in the night and you have a Remington, you know, semi-automatic rifle and silver bullets. And by God, you're going to go out there and kill the shit out of those monsters. Right. But you need to be very careful because they're faster, stronger than you. And you know, if you don't watch out, they're going to, they're going to make you die ugly. Right. You know, um,

and then chill, um, really played on the atmosphere and the feeling of specifically like seventies were films. And there's a mechanic in Chill that like a couple of times I played it, I really like, my friends were like, oh, this is great, this is awesome. But they were all horror film fans.

And I was like, this is not at all fun for me. This is triggering for me. I don't like being scared. Like, fuck this. Like you guys want to play that? That's fine. I'll be over in a corner on, on Gabe's Sega. Like cool, but I don't want to be part of it. Um, there was a, there's a mechanic in chill that, you know, supernatural evil, supernatural beings actually have a chill aura that, that, you know, uh, does things to the environment, literally,

physically causes lights to be dimmer causes, you know, electricity, electrical stuff to not work. And, and can if you fail the right kind of, or the wrong kind of save effectively, uh, it has, it has negative impact on your character and the longer you're around it, the harder it gets. Right. So like, you know, it's, it is genuinely spooky.

Like it's, it is. It really, really very, very effectively reflects the dread of, of watching, particularly some about the, the, the kind of stuff that was done in horror in the seventies. Sure. Like that, that, that sense of dread is really very well reflected in game mechanic. And so I had no fun, no fun. I preferred Call of Cthulhu frankly, um,

then partly had to do with the people we were playing COC with. Sure. Um, No, I preferred call of Cthulhu frankly, um, then partly had to do with the people we were playing C O C with. Sure. Um, no C O C has the sanity thing. Yes. Oh yes. Call of Cthulhu has a sanity mechanic where, uh, when you see, you know, the, the, when you recognize that, Oh my God, that man actually has fish eyes in his head, right? You know, the, when you recognize that, oh my God, that man actually has fish eyes in his head. Right. You know, you, you have to make a sand check and the higher your sand is, the easier it

is to make the check. So so when you make a check, you might lose two points of sanity. If you fail the check, you might six points of sanity. Right. If you fail the check, you might six points of sanity. And the lower your sanity gets, the harder it is for you to pass sanity checks. And if your sanity gets low enough, there's actually specific mental issues you can develop. You become obsessive compulsive in a way connected to whatever it is that has traumatized you, you know, and eventually if your sanity goes low enough, you go mad and become the property of the game master. Your, your character actually becomes a cultist or, or some other gibbering

lunatic. Right. It's effective character death. Yeah. Yeah. Except, except it's worse than that because he can actually throw your character back at the rest of the party right So yeah, and and like I looked at that and that was always you know, anytime I made a sand check That was always like oh shit, man But because it was based on this very specific kind of horror story That that happens in a very specific kind of meal you and reflects a very specific kind of horror story that that happens in a very specific kind of milieu and reflects a very specific kind of thing that didn't fuck with me the

way chill did the couple of times I played it like okay oh man so also while I'm talking about Call of Cthulhu, Chaosium, the company that published it, also published Stormbringer in the same year, which is another licensed property this time based on, of course, Stormbringer by Mark Warcock. Now, over the course of the 1980s, the RPG marketplace mushroomed. Hundreds of games went to press. Systems of all different kinds proliferated. After about 1984, most of the expansion within role playing had less to do with genre than

it did with specific settings properties. Okay. So Steve Jackson games came out with GURPS in 1985 as a setting agnostic set of rules that could be adapted to anything from fantasy and science fiction, action adventure, using one consistent set of rules. It was based on 2D6. You had skills. So if you were playing in a fantasy setting, you were playing a fighter, you'd have your melee combat skill and your archery skill. And the higher the skill was, the better because in combat you would roll your 2 die 6 and you would need to roll under your skill number. Right. So the higher the number, the easier it was to attain that, right?

Yes. Yes. You know, anytime if you wanted to climb, your climb skill would be like an eight and you needed to roll under an eight. And if the wall was slippery, that'd give me a minus one to your skill. It was, it's really a very basic system. It's remarkably elegant in a lot of ways. There are some places where it relies on some not very intuitive charts, right? Like, like if you're going to have a gunfight between two characters who are at some range and they are moving, there's a whole chart that you have to

figure out how to translate into what is, what is the bonus or penalty that each one of them has to hit each other. And like, I always had a hard time wrapping my head around that one. And there's a couple of other charts like that But generally speaking the system was pretty good. Mm-hmm and that's that's that's the first a Real serious attempt anybody made to be like, okay. No look You can do anything with this

We're gonna we're gonna create the system that you can you can build whatever the hell you want to build with it And they came out with supplements that was like, okay, if you're playing in a fantasy game, you need a magic system. Here's a magic system. Right. If you want to play in the far future, here's a book about how you can do star ships. Right. Like here's, here's how you apply that basic set of rules to do star ships and power armor and whatever. And so, you know, this was a big kind of intellectual kind of leap in the development of the medium. In a lot of cases, though, with the exception of Steve Jackson games having this kind of,

you know, real big brain moment with GURPS. A lot of RPG publishers focused on one particular game or one particular genre, because in many cases, the whole company would be based around one person or group's idea. Like you can see all kinds of ideas that was like, okay, this is a group of people at a table who said we want to play this game. This is the setting we want to do. Our DM has come up with this really great setting and we want to do this thing. Sky Realms of Jorunn is one of my favorite examples of this. world with this wonderful history that is Wonderfully weird

And and It it got big enough that they made enough money on it to have advertisements all the time in Dragon magazine To try to sell the game. Mm-hmm What I don't think it ever became, it never became a big game, if that makes sense. And being the collector that I am, I was finally able to find a copy of it, a used copy of it in a game store when I was in my 30s.

I was like, okay, I'm never going to find people to play this with, but I need it for my collection. Because, you know, and yeah, and, and lots, there were just so many games that came out that were like that. Other more established companies branched out a lot more. TSR had all the money in the world in terms of this, this, you know, medium. And so they published gamma world, which was a post-apocalyptic science fiction game, a top secret, which was spies, sure.

Marvel superheroes, which we already talked about and boot Hill, which was one of only a very few Western themed role playing games. Uh, and they came out with that alongside D and D and AD and D chaosium published several different games based around the eternal champion series by Michael Moorcock. So there was, they published games that were about the Hawk Moon series and Hawk Moon is the only one I can think of right now. But there were a couple of other of the eternal champions from Michael Borkach that they went okay now We're gonna take this one. We're gonna license this too, and we're gonna do a game about it. Mm-hmm and

Steve Jackson games was mostly known for car wars and ogre Which were both strategy games, okay? Yeah rather than RPGs But just under the group's umbrella Rather than RPGs, but just under the group's umbrella they could be considered as having a very large genre footprint because They put out source books for they got licensing they got permission To do source books from a bunch of different settings and different properties

And and so they were able to they were able to put out supplements, right? They didn't have to build a whole game around it They could just you know publish a book, you know, right, right and So to zoom out even further For a little bit of context. I want to revisit some things that we've touched on before about this time period. Mm-hmm So right now at this point we're talking about from 74 into 84. This is Jimmy Carter into Ronald Reagan. We have the recession of the late 70s that worsened into like at the beginning of

Reagan's administration and now we're moving into Reagan's second administration and we have the economic growth that followed that. His Administration and now we're moving into Reagan's second administration And we have the economic growth that followed that right his later first administration into his second administration Right the flattening of ways in terms. Well, yeah. Yes Yes, we have to point that out because yes, but yeah now this economic upturn Ties into a growth in comic book stores Which ties in with the general growth of fandom and independent comics, mm-hmm And these trends all reinforced each other

okay, and and there's also part of this is also the syndication of Star Trek and the Coalescing of of that there's also part of this is also the syndication of Star Trek and the Coalescing of of that fandom and the broadening of science fiction fandom from there Star Wars becoming a huge big deal and they're now being You know a a greater What's what I'm looking for greater greater pop culture footprint for science fiction and fantasy fandom Being a thing this is something that you can find it's not cool yet to be into these things Right, but you can find a community of other people who are yeah in a local community not this is not the days of the internet where

you have to get on a discord server or something like that yeah yeah um and so that that's feeding into this that's creating an audience for this and also by this time the specter of nuclear annihilation which is a lovely line to just throw out there, had been normalized as a source of background anxiety, which we've mentioned. I don't even know any number of times before. So many times. And our culture was saturated with visions of the apocalypse and post-apocalypse. And there was the then pushback of well, no, that's not how the future has to be

So you you have science fiction writers and game designers and people responding to that sure I mean you have that in influencing the making of fantasy movies like there were drafts of Conan the Barbarian that were Going to be set in the far-flung future of yes Like like that was a feature of them going in for a little while. Yeah. Yeah, and you have fantasy as escapism You know as it was a way to get away from that background anxiety fantasy as escapism, you know, as a way to get away from that background in society. You have fantasy being used as a way to comment on that. I mean, like science fiction and

fantasy are, are, are dealing with and reflecting this and they are a way for our collective unconscious to to cope by going in one direction or another with that right now Latchkey kids mentioned in episodes 209 to 212 Were kids that were left to their own devices for entertainment Now had another outlet for their creativity in a way to form a community Now had another outlet for their creativity in a way to form a community Right, you know RPGs required you to get together with other people and sit around a table Right you and and even today

The campaign that I that I play in monthly right now we're not in the same room But we're on a a zoom call and we were all, we're all, you know, it's, it's a communal thing. Um, and so this, this was a way to form community. This was a way for those aforementioned science fiction, fantasy fans to share in an experience and build relationships with each other. And RPGs also were an activity that boomer parents of gen Xers had a lot of reasons to love. Yeah.

You kept your kids inside after dark. I was going to say, do you know where your kids are? Yeah, they're in the garage. That's exactly the very next slide in my notes. It's 10 PM. Do you know where your children are? Yes. They're in the dining room drinking Mountain Dew and casting magic missile at the darkness, right? Because how can I talk about this and not make a dead alewives reference, right? At this point in the development of role-playing games didn't involve TV screens Which like We were raised with TVs as babysitters like we were and our

parents had conflicting feelings about that the same way that parents nowadays have conflicting feelings about iPads and and other devices right and so you know oh no they're doing something it doesn't involve a TV, right? They're, it's built around reading and math. You could be a gamer and not a strong reader, but it wasn't a very common combination. Well, and not only that, but I know many people who their vocabulary was greatly enhanced by RPGs. Like the amount of unique words, you know, you would never read a textbook or a novel in school that would talk about something being insourceled.

That's true. But you know exactly what that is. And when your teacher is teaching like grammar and shit, you are able to make connections back to, oh, that's what a participle is. Like, because it would be like, oh yeah, that's like, in my mind, it does this, you know? Yeah.

So absolutely. Yeah. And as far as basic math concepts go, we can just say that I can still calculate a hit based on THACO without really having to think about it. 37 years after being introduced to the concept. Sure. Like you tell me what is your Faco number? What did you roll? And I can tell you what armor class you hit. Right. Like without it's,

at this point it's reflexive because I did it so many times. Right. Sure. Um, so, so they could, they could look at it and go, well, it's educational. They're reading, right? Right. It's self directed. The kids were busy with each other, which meant the parents didn't have to, you know, parent interact for the hours that their kids were playing. Um, and I, I am going to say this and before I say it on the off chance that my parents ever listened to this show, which they probably won't, but I w I want to get this out of the way. I am in many ways the exception to the statement I'm about to make.

Okay. But Generation X is widely regarded by sociologists and Gen Xers ourselves as being the least nurtured, least parented generation possibly ever. It's during this time period that two-hundred households became more prevalent, at the same time that single- parent households also increased. Talked about that a lot in the GI Joe. And so a whole lot about that. Uh, plenty of Boomer parents did their best, but based on the zip

geist of extras 40 years on from this time period, there was all, there were also a lot who didn't. Right. Or that their best it's you didn't do the best you did your best. Yeah, like yeah and And yeah, and and we're we're all We're all in one way or another dealing with the with the fallout from that 40 years after the fact, right? Yeah, and you could have boomer parents who? Did their level best but they were raised by silence who were so traumatized that they were

Dad was at the bar until eight or nine at night Mom was harried and haggard from You know Doing everything on her own. Yeah doing everything around on our own and working because that that single income thing only applied to a Certain stripe of the population. Yeah, you know and so there there was that and and then the the cultural insistence on perfection and all that and so like there are so many reasons why

People who were ill-equipped to be parents raised children who then parented us Yeah, you know yeah, no definitely 100% So like for all of these reasons Role-playing games were were this thing that As as time went on like the very first the very first authors of these games the very first players of these games were boomers right Mm-hmm

but by the time we're talking about 84 85 You're starting to talk about The people who are buying the games at this point are you know? people who are buying the games at this point are, you know, 14, 15, 18 year olds. Sure. So they're born after 65. They're Xers, they're early Xers. And like everything I'm talking about here is a part of this.

And there was the fantasy movie boom of the early 80s, which I did a whole episode on. Mm-hmm. This fed into and possibly slightly fed on the blooming of the RPG community at this time. Right. The desperately schlocky 1980 film Hawk the Slayer, which I mentioned in that episode because if I didn't mention it, Bishop O'Connell would find me and hit me over the head with a rolled up newspaper. That movie is clearly

borrowing from tabletop tropes in its narrative and characterizations. Like so much. From who the characters are, the fact that you can look at them and go, Oh, this is the D and D party. Right. The, Oh, hey, the main character has bonus powers out of the psionics tables at the back of the DMG or actually PHP. Like, you know, Jack Palance is, you know, Darth Vader in fantasy drag and he's chewing on all of the scenery. Right. All of it. All of it. So hard. fantasy drag. Um, and he's chewing on all of the scenery, right? All of it, all of it's so hard.

And clearly at the same time, he's just there for a paycheck. He's the one big name they have. Right. Right. And he's, he's, he's done. Like, um, he's not having any fun. It's really clear and So you know at the same time tSR mage made absolutely certain that they grabbed the licensing rights to the Conan movies Right there there were adventures and and supplements that were like oh hey Conan the barbarian in a D&D Here you are. This is what you're there was a Conan role-playing game The Conan RPG actually came later and that was after TSR lost the license

Okay, cuz I remember the house. I was playing it in okay still in San Francisco says before this this was after I did D and D and before I did Marvel. Now that's interesting because that might've been, I might have to look that up. That might've been a case where whoever did that role playing game got the rights from the Robert E Howard, um, estate. Whereas TSR got the rights from the people who made the movie. That may have been one of those kind of licensing situations. Oh yeah.

I could see what you're saying there. Like, or, or it could be that the Robert E Howard estate went, okay, well you can do your thing and at the same time you all have more money And since all you're doing is a supplement for game you already have yeah sure go nuts Yeah, you know yes are had it in 85 Okay, yeah, okay And you know while I'm talking about that I challenge you to find a dedicated D&D player from this era Whose group didn't have somebody who came up with some kind of home-brewed stats

For the glaive from Krull oh Or the ridiculous three-bladed sword from the sword in the sorcerer is that the one that shot blades yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, like like if you if you tell me oh yeah no we were playing we were playing ad and d and like you know 82 i'm gonna be like yeah okay what were the stats in your game for the three bladed sword for the sorcerer that's funny like that's that's that's one of the few ways i'm gonna gatekeep isn't like i I need to know that because I want to know I want to know how nerdy you all actually were Because we had you know Our our particular group of nerds we we had stats for all of that stuff

We had competing rules for that stuff And of course there was the cartoon of Dungeons and Dragons right at a Dugan's and Dragons ride. Yeah, and Again if your D&D group did not include stats for the power bow Like how serious really were you I give you if you didn't have a Ranger in your game who had that Like come on So, I mean these these are the things that were going on that were that were affecting The the medium that were affecting really all of the genres that we're that we're seeing on the tabletop

These are the things that were fueling the horror tabletop these are the things that were fueling the horror movies These are the things that were fueling The fantasy films the science fiction films that were being made So At this point, mm-hmm, we're gonna talk about Palladium books and I think This is probably a point where we can pause because I've set the background for everything Yeah, yeah, and before we dive into specifically palladium and their role

As as we always do what's what's your takeaway? What are you? What are you thinking right now as we talk about this? set of development, so it occurs to me that as these things are developing, as all of this stuff is unfolding, and I've read a good amount of, I think it's called Slaying the Dragon or something like that. The like bio-book. The history of the Chronicle of the development of the game. Yeah, and I'm just trying to think of there's there's other things that I've also seen

The yeah, actually as I'm reading the MCU book as well the the The the the amount of influence that licensing has on what we've been allowed to do in terms of games is so mundane. and it's infuriatingly like just money grabby. Like it's- Oh, well it's late stage capitalism, yeah. Right, like, you know, it's that whole we could have had Star Trek, but y'all want capitalism thing.

Like we could have had really cool fucking games, but this dipshit over here held the licensing rights in perpetuity, but he sold a stake of them off to this guy over here who only wanted to use them to leverage this guy over here, and it's just like, and that's why we never got a Dirty Dozen role-playing game? Like, what the fuck? Like, I didn't want a Dirty Dozen role-playing game, but I do. Sure, you do, because you're old enough to remember it, but I, you know, couldn't want a dirty dozen-ball playing game, but... I do. Sure, you do, because you're old enough to remember it. But I, you know, couldn't give a shit less.

Wow. But so the amount of stuff that has come through. Man. The amount of under the live fire exercise. The amount of, that's why there's 12. But the amount of stuff that has come through that has managed to have any flavor at all Mmm, it boggles the mind and it's almost like if that's all that's been allowed to come through We have been so ripped off because there is a wide

Like is dearth like when you have a lot of it No dearth is a wide, like is dearth like when you have a lot of it? No, dearth is a lack. There is the opposite of a dearth. Yeah. Panoply. Yeah. Of, of things that we have. Yeah. And we should have so much more. Well, you know, I think part of it is there, there is the,

there is the kind of financial gatekeeping that's involved in like, okay, look, this is a really great fantasy property or a really great science fiction property. I want to do something with it. Okay, how much money do you have? There's that level of gatekeeping involved in licensing. But beyond that, there's, there's the issue that I don't know. You know, I would hope that, um, internet 4.0 or 5.0 might, might help with this somehow democratize this process. I mean, right now capitalism has a stranglehold on all of it. So that's like wishful thinking, but,

that's like wishful thinking, but right. You know, there, there is a, there's a, there's financial gatekeeping involved just in the way the system works. Like when I talked about sky realms of Jorun, for example, um, it, the guy, the guy that came up with that setting and his friends Had to find the seed money to to Find a way to publish the book or they had to go to a publisher

Right and say here is this idea and the publishers gonna say well, okay How much money is this gonna make right? Right So you either you either have you either have to rely on late stage capitalism and somebody's seeing that they can make a buck off of something right out the gate, right or You have to get the resources together To put enough copies of the thing out into the public to create a critical mass Kind of like I talked about with with starfaring that it right it never it never formed a critical mass where traveler managed to

And how much of that was well just doesn't have a compelling setting and how much of that was we just weren't able to put Out enough copies of it for enough people to get it in their hands You know is is an issue and I would hope you know the the the the great shining promise of is an issue. And I would hope, you know, the, the, the, the great shining promise of the internet democratizing information and everything, you know, what would lead me to hope that maybe that would be a barrier that would be reduced or eliminated, but probably not.

I mean, Kickstarter does that, but it is still limited by what's licensed, right? So there are people who camp on certain licenses. For instance, I backed Ace of Aces. Oh yeah. That was a game that came out, and apparently the license for that has gone away or what I mean We saw the the website cracked to do this right?

Yeah, Jack What's his face the the guy who it's a really mundane name to like Anyways, yeah, anyway the guy who who did that? He basically saw that cracked had lost its Copyright. Yeah, and so he Jack O'Brien Yeah, so he gathered together the money and I think he bought the thing and then he launched a website And it was very successful until it got sold to a company that got sold to a company kind of thing until you know but it was very successful for a while and it's because he kind of camped on the the the life the the

Copyright right and so and I'm all for intellectual property copyright I I firmly believe that you create a thing you should be able to reap the benefits of that thing Yeah, however, we have certainly rewritten those laws to benefit a certain satanic mouse, but I take it back. It doesn't have nearly the honor code that Satan would have had. He gave up that fiddle. So he lost. He played fair and square. Or he lost, you know, and he had to agree to that at least. But more to the point, like we've redone copyright laws so many, many times that like,

some people literally just sit on them and they stay in development hell, which is infuriating because it's usually, it's not the creator that benefited from it. It's not Stan Lee who was the problem for why we couldn't get an MCU going. It was not him. It was Pearl. It was the companies or the people.

Yeah, or Pearl Mutter. It was those guys. It was Avi Arad. It was these guys who ended up running the VA and some weird shadow organization down at Mar-a-Lago. But it was, and that's actually demonstrably true. I know, I know, I wish it wasn't, but yeah. But it's those guys who literally were like, how can I use this property to leverage the debt that I have in other properties so that I can make money off of it quickly and sell pieces of it off Yeah, or in another example. It's like Harmony Gold

Figuring out how can I sit on this particular set of intellectual properties? Yes while I'm running money laundering schemes for Italian politicians Right, I mean, you know so it's a curating considering how much has gotten through that is good Yeah, it's infuriating to see how we are on the knife's edge of losing it and it going the way of red lobster or You know, I was gonna make a red lobster reference, but I was like, I don't know if I want to date this but there you go It's yeah. Yeah, um, but Or or how much stuff is still being held back, you know? Yeah. Like, we still don't have a new Warriors movie.

Yeah. So I am dating this, because it could be by the time this came out, new Warriors has come out. But, uh... Oh man, you're, I didn't realize you were a cockeyed optimist like that. Wow. Sometimes all you have is But like you know we there there are so many good things that are just not coming through and

You know like how fucking cool would it be to have a V role-playing game? You know I think I remember seeing a book on a shelf at some point, but it never went anywhere because it wasn't making enough money to stay in print. But yeah. Your honor, I rest my case. And it hasn't come out since, which means somebody somewhere has the rights to it. And it's just, you know, this reminds me actually of and I'll stop after this this reminds me of the discussion that my children and I have had surrounding the Oculus okay that we would

gladly pay twenty dollars to just walk around in the world of pick your genre right I would love to walk around in my size raw Yeah, or Gotham or? Metropolis or New York I wouldn't want to make your city Nice, but I'm gonna walk around Gotham. Thank you. No. Yeah, but like you like you know I just explore you know And you could you like you know I know I just explore you know and you could witness Batman. You know Doing vigilante shit, but like you know people people would pay 20 bucks to be able to do that or fuck I would be okay with doing a subscription You know because I could cancel it after a couple months of just walking around

Yeah, you know come back to it if I want it, but like we were like bummed that you can't walk around the world of willow Thraw which is dark crystal. Oh my god. How cool would that be several cartoon worlds like Star Wars Shire Just fucking yeah the Shire fucking anywhere in Star Wars like it's literally you could buy planets as bonus packs like if they wanted a Microtransaction you they would have all of my money like they would you know we wouldn't have time to record the podcast like sorry I'm on Dago bar I'm walking around Alderaan and I'm watching my handheld thermometer you know we're spiking yeah Like how cool would it be to like you know why is the sky flashing green yeah Take a fucking shuttle ride. You know like oh, yeah

So yeah that bothers me that we can't play in these worlds because people are just sitting on it. They're not, you know, and I'm even willing to pay money for it. I'm not saying like we should have all these things for free. But people are just sitting on it because they've done the bean counting instead of the art. And it feels like these games, these role playing games were put out while art was still the goal, and then they've disappeared and dried up because bean counting became the rule.

Yeah, so yeah, I think that's, yeah, that's a very sobering kind of set of considerations on that. So that's what I've gleaned. kind of set of considerations on that. So that's what I've gleaned. All right. So, what are you recommending people ingest in terms of media? Well, what I'm gonna recommend right now, since you actually brought it up just a minute ago,

is Slaying the Dragon, a secret history of Dungeons and Dragons by Ben Riggs, which is a very engaging bit of historical research and writing about the way that the game came to be and the way it developed over time. So I very highly recommend that. How about you? I'm going to recommend The Reign of Marvel Studios MCU

by Joanna Robinson, David Gonzalez, and Gavin Edwards. Very similar like I found out how many people tried out to be Drax and what kind of a different world we would have had if Chadwick Boseman had gotten the role of Drax. I'm sorry my brain just blue-screened. Yeah, and I'll go you one more if Chris Pratt had been Captain America. I'm glad we're living in the timeline we're in. That one point, like nothing, nothing against Chris Pratt in this moment in time as a as an as a portrayer of Star Lord he's an actor. Yeah as Star Lord is perfect. I Know I'm sorry. Yeah, no

Yeah, no, it's um and so like that but the other thing they got me was the the reason why we have an MCU that doesn't have Secret identities is largely due to the writer's strike. Really? Yeah, it's a fascinating thing. Like just the pieces that lined up. So Fabro was rushing to get the script done and finished because there was a problem with the whole fight scene with with obi with obadiah stain and all this and so like they they got that hammered out and fixed and again you know let Robbie Jani jr like adlib a lot and sure enough some of that

had to do with the fact that the writer strike like they turned in the pages right before they went to strike and that's what he was stuck with. Holy shit, seriously? Yeah. Wow. I am Iron Man as a result of labor action. Right. Fuck yeah.

So, yeah. Union thugs. Anyway, so yeah, no kidding. So yeah, I'm recommending the MCU book. It's the one where the MCU Letters look like the Hollywood Bull sign. No, okay. No, it's it's a really good book. It's very accessible Yeah, so that's what I recommend very cool. Yeah, where can you be found or? We be found because you are as always our shadow and warp. I as always am a shadow in the warp We can be found on our website at wubba wubba wubba geek history time comp

And on there you can find an archive going back 250 I don't even know the number right now off the top of my head episodes 260 something episodes and Choose some topic that catches your eye and go from there If there's a series please start at the first one in the series because we live in a society and there are rules But beyond that beyond our website you can find us on the Apple podcast app and on Spotify and on the Amazon podcast app and on Spotify and on the Amazon podcast app. And yeah, that's that wherever you have found us,

please take the time to subscribe. Give us the five star review that you know we've earned. And where can you be found, sir? You can find me at the comedy spot in Sacramento on let's see, this will come out after the September show I bet so October 4th or November 1st or December 6th you can find me at Comedy Spot slinging puns with capital punishment we have had a record number of sellouts so you should always go to that website the Sacramento Comedy Spot

and buy your tickets in advance But come on out help us to spin that wheel See who's got it who's got what it takes to pun battle and win So it's first Friday of every month at 9 p.m. At the Sacramento Comedy Spot capital punishment Okay, so if you do in fact sell out of tickets yes, what can I do to see the show in another format? Yeah, streaming option there is in fact a streaming option for half the prices of a ticket So if for some reason you can't make it out to the live show Which I always recommend for half that cost you can stay home and you can stream it live or you could pick it up later On that weekend like you you buy the ticket and then you have the streaming rights later that weekend

And nice so I can watch the show without having to get out of my pajamas. Yes Very good. Yeah, very good So I like the only downside is that you will not be able to shout out topics and have us pay attention to you. I Hardly recommend you shout out topics. You will Well, yeah, I mean obviously yes I come on but also throw things at us. I promise I won't dodge so okay. Yeah, so But yeah Sacramento comedy spots website go there go to the calendar find our show It's first Friday of every month click the link buy the tickets that work for you for that time and make sure you buy live tickets the next time.

Awesome. Cool, well, I'm excited for the next episode. For A Geek History of Time, I am Damian Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s.