WEG Memoirs/Gaming Artifacts: Star Wars Battle Book & Dueling Pack

Imagine a simpler time, before personal computers, smart cell phones, e-readers, tablets, electronic games with state-of-the-art graphics, and even the internet became ubiquitous elements of our society. It was during this time, the mid-1980s, that West End Games capitalized on the niche popularity of Alfred Leonardi’s innovative Lost Worlds and Ace of Aces “combat picture book games.” In 1988 West End released the Lightsaber Dueling Pack, enabling players to fight a battle between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker (like the one at the climax of Return of the Jedi); in 1989 the company published the Starfighter Battle Book: X-wing vs. TIE Interceptor, putting players in the cockpits of those ships for a head-to-head dogfight. They represent innovative game formats of their time that have since passed from practicality and popularity.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

I recently discovered a resource of adventure gaming historiography at the regional used bookstore that – besides providing an interesting and critical glimpse into the state of the hobby in 1980 – struck me by its relative lack of acknowledgment to individual game designers for their creations. I’m thankful that over the hobby’s more than 40 year history giving designers their due credit has become more the rule rather than the exception in today’s hobby gaming community.

Every few months I make a pilgrimage to the regional used bookstore with some (often futile) hope I’ll find a few books or even games catering to my varied interests at affordable prices. In the past few years the store has thankfully included a section for used games, ranging from vapid party games and kids fare to hardcore chit-and-board wargames and Eurogames. I also check out the hobby gaming shelves to look for adventures and supplements for games I’ve enjoyed in the past, newer fare to help me explore more recent games, and books about gaming in general. Alas, most of the choice roleplaying or wargame books and most of the interesting boxed games come with prices more suitable for exclusive collectors on ebay than average people browsing the shelves in used bookstores. I chuckle sadly to myself when I see a “Free RPG Day” release marked at $10.

Thoughts on the “War” on D&D

I’m not sure why a lot of “War on D&D” blips were flitting over my internet radar the past week or two, but they’ve shown up for some reason and attracted my interest. From my earliest days playing roleplaying games D&D has had controversy surrounding it, though for me it was thankfully playing out in the distant background and hardly affected me directly. Certainly it was unlike any other game the general public had ever seen, let alone understood. When combined with fear-driven sensationalist associations with suicide and Satanic rituals, D&D passed beyond mere curiosity and became a controversy. The reaction in public communities and private families varied from zealous opposition to quiet acceptance. Whether one might call it a “war” on D&D or simply society’s growing pains in understanding and accepting this creative phenomenon remains open for debate.

I never would have considered my experience in the “Golden Age of Roleplaying” (the early 1980s) anything like a war, though I was aware of a certain degree of controversy about D&D and kept my head down for the most part. I was fortunate to have parents who – though they might have had concerns about the effects of the game on young minds – encouraged my various interests, including roleplaying games. After my initial exposure to some neighborhood kids playing D&D I devised my own game, what later became the extremely basic Creatures & Caverns. After observing this interest my parents bought me the Moldvay edition Basic D&D boxed set...as an Easter gift in 1982. I played with neighborhood kids and school friends frequently throughout that year and into high school. Through these activities I made a few close, lifelong gaming friends who continued their enthusiasm for roleplaying games well into adulthood.

A Hobby of Tinkers

Gamers of all stripes tend to fiddle with their material to some degree. Tinkering only seems natural in a hobby with such imaginative games and numerous rules systems for achieving different play experiences. After running some games by-the-book, gamers start taking rules into their own hands to customize the experience to their play styles, audience, and personal vision for a game.

Merriam-Webster defines the verb form of “tinker” as, “To repair, adjust, or work with something in an unskilled or experimental manner,” with the noun form of “tinker” being one who engages in such activity.

The adventure gaming hobby not only relies on some imaginative game mechanics and themes across its various forms, but attracts creative, intelligent, and critical individuals who have no qualms about imposing their own adjustments on existing games. Some gamers customize existing settings and scenarios for their own gaming table, while others completely rework rules and campaign worlds, adding their own imaginative interpretations on published material to craft games emphasizing a particular style of play or thematic elements. Some games offer optional or advanced rules individual gamers decide upon using right at the game table. Others tinker with existing rules after extended p lay reveals deficiencies in procedures or more efficient ways of resolving conflicting game elements. Really ambitious gamers take a much-played game and decide to run with their own visions for its design, in the process creating an entirely new game inspired by but quite different from the original.