Mahadlika: A Philippine RPG (Kinda Old & Never Released)

I think this was done as a thesis, or something.

Time to read through it, for kicks. :)

RPG Nostalgia (Part II): I was a TSR Zombie

The TSR Monopoly on RPGs

Because TSR was responsible for D&D (Basic, Expert, Advanced), I was fairly certain they were the only company putting this stuff out. But thank goodness they were covering various genres (a word that I didn't even comprehend at that age). Shopping at such magical -- and difficult to get to places (again: Grade School, Kid, Philippines, 1970s) -- like Nova Fontana, Gold Crest, Lil's Hobby Shop, and Squadron Shoppe, and National Book Store (okay, there were many of these, but not all of them carried D&D) I eventually discovered two other RPGs: Top Secret and Star Frontiers.

Top Secret was my first non-D&D purchase, as a classmate had already purchased Star Frontiers. Why waste the money? Eventually, after exhausting the limited genre fiction understandable and available to a grade school student growing up in Martial Law Philippines, I began expanding the boundaries of an ongoing hobby: reading RPGs. I picked up Alpha Dawn, and began collecting whatever available modules there were for my three RPG rulesets.

The obsession never left me. Even when I failed to run those rare game sessions properly. Even when I was waylaid by various gamebook series (Choose Your Own Adventure, Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks back when only Warlock of Firetop Mountain was out, and Be An Interplanetary Spy!).

When I got to high school, I heard rumors about a non-TSR RPG about superheroes. Champions, it was called. I was intrigued, but never actually got to see it (except as an ad in someone's oh-so-rare Dragon magazine) until I got to the U.S.

Of course by then it was Champions 3rd Edition, since I fell in with other gaming groups with other preferences. I often wonder what my reaction would have been if I'd been able to experience a 1st Edition Champions game in the Philippines in  my formative gaming years.

But that's okay. I learned about gods from various pantheons, practiced pronouncing words like Yazirian, Vrusk, and Dralasite, and became familiar with the game superiority of a 9mm Browning High-Powered Self-Load pistol.

How old is old school?

Well, it's a relative matter of course. Watching my 2+ year old son struggle with a TV that won't react the same way to his touch the way his mom's iPhone does drives home that point every day.

So what does that mean in terms of my sense of "old school"? It means it's relative -- my old school will be older than those who started gaming later than I did, and will be newer than those who started back when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

What's my old school then?

Does the period when I wanted to game -- but couldn't because my grade school years were spent in the Philippines -- count? There were many reasons why (only saw a game run once, couldn't find all the books, 700 Club said it was evil, couldn't find enough players, etc.)

I only bought RPGs and had bad attempts at running these games back then. But I did pick up not only T1: The Village of Hommlet, but the AD&D rulebooks and the Basic & Expert Set and a variety of early modules and things like Geomorphs available in different places known to Philippine gamers for this rare hobby (National Bookstore, Lil's Hobbies, Squadron Shoppe, Nova Fontana).

I rolled up characters that I'd never play, and I randomly generated dungeons that no one would ever see. And because of the strength of the TSR brand, I picked up Top Secret (not S.I.) and Star Frontiers as well.

And picked up those damn minigames (which I actually played when I strongarmed some friends and relatives into trying them out)!

Or is my real old school my exposure to the U.S. gaming scene in high school? AD&D in Bill Homeyer's "World of the Wheel" campaign, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, and -- as a San Mateo gamer -- classics of the Hero System: Champions, Danger International, Justice Inc. and Robot Warriors?

What about Car Wars and Autoduel -- are they old school?

Does being able to put together the classic Champions stat block from memory give me old school cred, as much as knowing who Black Dougal and Morgan Ironwolf were?

Or am I considered a newer breed because I collected TSR's attempt at the "Choose Your Own Adventure" market -- the Endless Quest series of books? Is there an issue with filling in some idle gaming time with the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and the Lone Wolf series of adventures?

And is there any value if I am considered old school?

My understanding of the use of the term Old School Revival / Revolution / Renaissance is that it is a reclaiming of a much maligned style of game design and gameplay. It is an assertion that there is value in these old games beyond mere nostalgia, that there is -- beneath the in-jokes and the deathtrap dungeons -- something of value that more modern games have lost or turned their backs on in search of newer horizons, subtler story techniques, and novel RPG goals.

But it need not be centered on the fantasy genre, though much of it was (and still is) dominated by it.

Is there something for old school superhero gamers? The popularity of games like BASH and G-Core suggest there is. Can new school power mechanics and old school superheroic flavor intermingle and create new offspring? ICONS seems to be something very much like it.

If so, can we expect similar developments in the horror genre? Or the science fiction genre? Or perhaps an explosion in the western and romance genres?

I hope so. And I hope it comes from someone like you -- because whatever future this hobby has rests in the minds and hard work of gamers trying to make something better for that next generation. Perhaps -- if my son feels so inclined -- he'll be part of that future generation.

We'll just have to see.

RPG History Links for December (partial)

Been trying to find more articles on RPG history, but only found this one so far. Good one though:

Experience in Generic Role-Playing Games

This give a good rundown on how experience in RPGs progressed (beyond the well-known D&D iterations of experience tables and classes).

Interview from the Society

There's an interview of Scott Aniolowski -- a longtime contributor to much Call of Cthulhu material -- over at the Society of Torch, Pole and Rope. Read!

Roleplaying in the Worlds of Star Trek -- Part I

So, the new Star Trek movie was a hit and will probably spawn more sequels that are hopefully of the same caliber or better.

It's only natural that gamers will turn their thoughts to gaming in the Star Trek universe. What games and resources are out there for the gamer seeking to play in the universe of the Federation?

Licensed Star Trek Role-Playing Games

Surely there's been a Star Trek RPG out there? Why not just go out and buy it?

Well, there have been several Star Trek RPGs. The first one was by FASA -- no, wait!

The first Star Trek RPG was published in 1978 by Heritage Models, if Wikipedia is to be believed. It was called Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier and covered under its license the original series and the animated series.

The next Star Trek RPG was FASA's, and it came out between 1982 to 1989. It was based on the Star Trek universe as defined by the original series, the animated series, some fan fiction, and the novels of noted Star Trek novelist John M. Ford (particularly his rationale for the two apparently wildly different looking Klingons in the series). Non-gamers actually welcomed this RPG and assumed that the source material found in it was canon. They were disabused of this notion when Star Trek: The Next Generation came out in 1987 and eliminated the concepts of "Imperial" Klingons, "human-fusion" Klingons, and "Romulan-fusion" klingons, replacing them with the Viking Samurai Klingons who had joined the Federation.

Then came Last Unicorn Games' Star Trek RPG, which was called Star Trek: The Next Generation Role-playing game. It received the 1998 Origins Award for Best Role-playing Game and came out with a lot of source material. In fact, they intended on coming out with a core rulebook for each of the Star Trek TV series, and nearly succeeded (they came out with a Deep Space 9 core book, and an Original Series corebook) but lost the license to Decipher before they could finish. It's rumored that they intended to come out with a Voyager core book, but it's doubtful that they would have ever considered the other, always forgotten Star Trek TV series (Star Trek: the Animated Series).

Decipher's Star Trek RPG came out in 2002. It was called the Star Trek Roleplaying Game. They came out with several books, including:

• Book 1: Star Trek Roleplaying Game Player's Guide (2002)
• Book 2: Star Trek Roleplaying Game Narrator's Guide (2002)
• Book 3: Starfleet Operations Manual (2003)
• Book 4: Starships (2003)
• Book 5: Aliens (2003)
• Book 6: Creatures (2003)

and several others, but ceased publishing and producing the RPG in 2007. And that's where that road ends.

Fortunately, there are alternate roads.

There was an RPG published by Task Force Games in 1993 (!) called Prime Directive. It is set in the Star Fleet Universe - a Paramount-sanctioned spin-off intellectual property that is essentially the original series + the animated series but never mentions certain things, like "Trek" or "Kirk" or "Spock", but does include Klingons, and Romulans, and Constitution-class ships... For old-school wargamers, yes, this is the same universe that the war games Federation Commander and the vernerable Star Fleet Battles are set in. Interestingly enough, that the author of the original Heritage Games Star Trek RPG has a connection to Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc., the long-time publishers of Star Fleet Battles.

When Task Force Games folded, the game was ported into two other systems: GURPS Prime Directive and D20 Prime Directive.

Of course, if neither of these appeal to you, there are non-licensed RPGs that can deliver a similar Star Trek feel...

continued in Part II

Piecemeal History of Gaming #2

Well, there's an interesting site that I must recommend: Greg Stafford's Chaosium Page. What's this page about? Here's what he says it's about:

Chaosium, Inc. is one of my proudest accomplishments. 

Chaosium was one of the original companies for the Hobby Game Industry, and was famous for its innovative and professionally produced product. 

I founded it in 1975 and ran it, as president, from then until 1998. 

Here is a collection of articles, reminiscences and other stories about my time there.

It's not complete, but it's got a bunch of interesting articles. Here are the most interesting to me:

• Founding of Chaosium [link]
• All about RuneQuest, especially three separate articles by Greg Stafford, Ray Turney and Steve Perrin [link]
• How Call of Cthulhu came to be [link]
• The Histories of the Chaosium RPGs [link]

Piecemeal History of Gaming #1

I keep running into great resources on the behind-the-DM's-screen, back-in-my-day, secret history of RPGs, but in short, though not always bite-size pieces.

Here's the first set of links in my attempt to collect them all.

Various Links

• James Maliszewski's excellent series of 'retrospectives' on his blog [link]
• Jeff Grubb's "Secret Origin" of TSR's Marvel Super-heroes RPG [link]
• Jeff Grubb's Secret History of the Forgotten Realms [link]
• An RPG.net thread with newsclippings showing how the D&D/Satanism hoopla played out back in the 70s and 80s [link]
• All eighteen (18) articles from Shannon Appelcline's "A Brief History of Game" [link]

From Escapist Magazine

• An article on D&D and its relatively recent Old School Renaissance [link]
• A Brief History of Champions and the HERO System [link]
• An article on non-Tolkien fiction that inspired D&D [link]
• An article on Larry DiTillo -- the guy who wrote Masks of Nyarlathotep [link]
• An article on Steve Long -- the man behind the rebirth of HERO games [link]
• An article on Marc Miller -- the man behind the first successful science fiction RPG: Traveller [link]