It was a perusal of the gaming blog Grognardia that prompted me to get back into writing about my experiences in gaming over the years. And it is fully my intention to write a retrospective view of those early years. What I find particularly interesting in hindsight is the idea that, despite knowing jack-all about the Pulp Fantasy that gave birth to the phenomenon that was D and D, I nevertheless had a feel for it early on.
IT all began in the Summer of 1994 with the inauguration of the Tales of Hale and Reso. The campaign was even somewhat Vancian on its own, though I'd never heard of Vance at the time. It took place in a far future Empire of Sol, in our own star system, but with a bizarro twist. Earth was some kind of bleak hive land populated by Cityspeaking Cape Coloureds by this time, mostly reduced to slavery and idiocy by advanced peoples. Mythical races and high sword and sorcery lived side-by-side with interstellar exploration and superhi technology.
This first campaign was not at all "high fantasy". It was gritty pulp fantasy with scifi elements, as all such works originally were. There were quests for power and glory and wealth and adventure mainly. The enemies were not moral scourges, but beings who stood in the way of the hero and his goals. Hale defeated many dangerous foes, including a giant lord in black mail and a mad god-king on the edge of the kuiper belt bent on destroying all remaining civilization. Ultimately, Hale and his sidekick Reso gained control of the Empire of Sol.
It's interesting to think back on this first campaign and how advanced in creativity it was for a couple of youngsters to come up with. But that's really what RPGs ought to be about: High improvisation as opposed to the newer approach of HF with its high moral themes and world-building. Don't get me wrong, I think those approaches have their places, and I pursued them post-2000 for a good while myself, but ultimately there is great fun in leaving so much to chance and invention.
I would say that my nineties influences in RPGs came from a number of early influences. MYthology, Rifts, Star Wars/Trek (TNG naturally), Quest for Glory and King's Quest games, Bungie's Marathon, the comic Elfquest and suchlike, all of these just as much and more as from D and D, which I was only introduced to seriously comparatively late (c. 1996 or so). Actually my first serious introduction to the whole thing was thru Planescape, and reading it while on a vacation in the snowy taiga c. March 96.
I'll be writing more about this in the times to come. I fare from the Upper Midwest, not far from where D and D was born, but the same kind of land prevails here as there, and there's something about this forest land, with its four defined seasons, that gives ferment to the imagination, not to mention its long and cold winter nights are excellent motivators for fantastic escapism. That gives me hope that this is a hobby and genre that isn't ruined just yet!
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