When I had more time and fewer children, I used to play a lot of RPGs. Table-top kind, pen and paper, Old School RPGs, I’m talking about. Like so many, I started with the Brown Box when I was too young to have a handle on it, switched up to the Basic Set, and then berated, harassed, and otherwise begged my parents to acquire for me the AD&D hardcovers, the First Edition. They bought them for me, too, then tried to hide them from me to use as a birthday present. I found where they’d hidden them and would sneak them out to read and play, then return them. My surprise when I unwrapped them was decidedly unconvincing, I’m sure.
By the time I reached high school, I’d fallen in with a group of Marvel Zombies, and not unsurprisingly, all of them were gamers, too. They introduced me to Traveller, RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu… the list goes on and on. Already a fan of espionage, I discovered Top Secret all on my own.
(I could have totally link-spammed the hell out of that above paragraph, for the record. You got off lucky.)
There’s a tangental discussion to be had – another post perhaps – where I’ll wax philosophical about the connection between writing and playing RPGs, but that’s for later. What’s for now is the RPG I discovered one day shortly after college, when I wandered into one of the few games stores in my home town.
This one:
And I bought it on the spot because, simply, I thought it was cool.
Much like Rick, I didn’t have a word for the appeal, I couldn’t Name the Power, and I certainly wouldn’t have thought of “steampunk” as a descriptor, despite my familiarity and love for cyberpunk, at the time. But that cover told me everything I wanted to know, told me that this was a world where I could take a lifelong love for The Great Detective, for H.G. Wells, for Jules Verne, for Poe, and smash them together in something that would be a hell of a lot of fun to play.
If memory serves, I think Jen and I played the game…twice. Maybe less. I’ve no idea why. I’ve no idea if I found the rules incomprehensible or if life got in the way or what, but all I know is, I can’t find the book any more, and I can’t remember the rules system to save my life.
Doesn’t matter. What matters is this. What I love about RPGs is that it’s about telling a story. And that was the appeal of the game, that was the promise of the cover. The stories that could be told within. The stories that could be told and shared. Digging around for reference as I wrote this, I came upon a site that mentioned the game and “Aether” in the same sentence. Up until that moment, I’d been 100% certain that my decision to use “Ineffable Aether” had stemmed from reading Brian Greene discussing the fabric of the cosmos, the term once used to describe that which space is made up of (because Aether sounds cooler to me than “we don’t know” and “dark matter” has been used to death lately). Now I have to wonder if it wasn’t slumbering in my backbrain, if it didn’t offer itself up in association with “steampunk.” If it hadn’t been waiting the whole time.
I read a small piece by Bruce Sterling about the nature of Steampunk just the other day. It’s excerpted from a larger piece, you can read here. But the immediate relevance is as follows:
We are a technological society. When we trifle, in our sly, Gothic, grave-robbing fashion, with archaic and eclipsed technologies, we are secretly preparing ourselves for the death of our own tech. Steampunk is popular now because people are unconsciously realizing that the way that we live has already died. We are sleepwalking. We are ruled by rapacious, dogmatic, heavily-armed fossil-moguls who rob us and force us to live like corpses. Steampunk is a pretty way of coping with this truth.
There’s something to this, without question; at least, there is to me. It’s the analysis of one of the finest literary minds of our time, in my opinion, so I’m inclined to give it fair due. He could be right. He probably is right.
Doesn’t matter.
I loved Holmes so much as a child, I remember the delight I had in discovering that other authors had taken up the gauntlet, had written stories. I remember, vividly, lying on a bunk during summer camp, and tearing through Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes, by the amazing Loren D. Estleman, followed by a chaser of Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula. Writing this now, I think I may have tried to write one myself, and I think I couldn’t have been more than 13 at the time, and no, you can’t read it, and I wouldn’t let you read it even if I could find it which I don’t think I can so don’t ask.
Some things you love intuitively; some things call to you young. This had me from the get-go. This had me from the start.
Still does.
Hold fast!
Greg
Funny you should mention you-know-who. I’ve been catching up on some Holmesiana this month while multitasking, including finally watching the Cumberbatch/Freeman series, revisiting Brett & Burke in the Granada version of “The Final Problem,” and watching The Zero Effect (I believe you were the first to point out this film’s existence to me) for the first time….
I don’t think you had a choice about The Zero Effect. If I remember correctly, the movie poster loomed over you as you slept in our guest room.
Did you ever see/play Castle Falkenstein, from R Talsorian (the Cyberpunk2020 guys)? That was one of those games where I loved reading the rulebook but never actually got round to playing…!
I remember seeing Falkenstein, and hearing friends talk about how much they loved the game, but I never sampled that particular fare myself. I look at my shelves, and the number of books and supplements that I bought on a whim and then never actually played is somewhat embarrassing….
Funny you should mention Space: 1889, but that game is still available and new supplements are being written. Check out http://www.heliograph.com/space1889/
I’d also recommend checking out the Ennie Awards-winning Savage Worlds’ version, available here: http://www.peginc.com/Art/Articles/Space1889/Space1889.html. If you’re not familiar with Savage Worlds, you can find a free copy of the Test Drive rules off that site. It’s perfect for the “mature gamer” (meaning “old-guys-who-want-to-play-RPGs-but-don’t-have-that-much-time-any-more”
)
BTW, your comic got a big mention in the forums on the PEG site. Lotsa fans over there…
I had no idea that the game was still an ongoing concern, honestly. I’d somehow thought it had gone the way of many others. Nice to know it’s still out there – a dose of common sense would’ve told me the same, I guess. I’ll definitely check out the Savage Worlds version. Nice to hear about the affection at PEG, too! Thanks for passing that on!
You are very welcome! Keep up the great work!
I have an author friend, Juliet E McKenna, who began her writing career by writing for table-top RPGs. She’s just published the first book in her fourth fantasy series.
See? Proof! Table-top RPGs make you a better writer!
I loved Space 1889. Almost as much as Skyrealms of Jorune. I desperately need to make more time for TT gaming again. We’ve got a D&D/Runequest game on the go, but I yearn for the heady days where we were wiling to play anything from the left field. Even Toon.
OK, now it’s getting scary, because I remember Jorune, too. Had a friend who bought the book, fell in love with the world, and tried to get the rest of us to play. Another game where, I think, we managed all of three or four sessions. The art in that book – in memory at least – was stunning.
Not to mention that you basically had to learn another language to play the game…
I’m not a gamer, but I played a little D&D back in the day. However, my friends and I loved “Top Secret”. Just the mention of it brings a smile to my face thinking of the countless hours we played that game. First, with the basic module, then moving on to creating our own missions. Since we also comic fans, each of our characters had an alias/codename, as well.
Thanks for the quick trip down memory lane.
My early Top Secret stuff was so heavily influenced by this bizarre collision of Bond and Le Carre. Looking back at it, that may have had as much to do with Q&C as The Sandbaggers.
Ironically enough, I swiped a bit of Q&C for a tabletop game I ran a couple years ago.
How’d that work out, by the way?
Kind of a mess, but more due to the mix of players than the ideas involved.
Haha. This is great. I remember when I was a straigh-laced 9 year old, I would walk passed the gaming store and say to my Mom, “I never be like that.” RPG’s, collectible miniature strategy games, Magic the Gathering, yes even comic books: I would deny even knowing them before the rooster crowed. But now look at me. My life is filled with fantasy. Haha.
You just blew my mind by mentioning Traveller and Top Secret. My brother and I used to play those too. Oh, and Bushido.
Great post – always enjoy hearing the inner tickings.
Ahhh! I remember Bushido! Tried that in high school. Another RPG that was sampled and then lost for various reasons.
G!! I didn’t know you were a fan of Loren Estleman! Have you read any of his Westerns? Bloody Season is especially dandy. Separated at birth by 20 years, indeed. Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt. Carry on.
I’m less up on his Westerns than I am on his PI stuff. Been a fan of his Amos Walker work for years.
And yes, now I’m going to have to read Bloody Season.
I gamed a bit when I was in a college. One group was all D&D all the time, one was Rolemaster heavy, and the SCA crowd tried a little of everything from Champions to Shadowrun. The closest I came to the steampunk genre was a few years ago when a group tried out Terra Incognita. I played a female gadgeteer that kept having her toys destroyed or misused.
I unfortunately do remember an exchange at an anime convention where someone saw the notice for table top games. And they said “What’s that? Board games?” I might have cried a little.
We are legion.
Indeed. Is this now the longest thread so far?
Without doubt.
Go figure
Man. So many games, so little time. I love RPGs. I grew up watching my dad play D&D with his buddies (one of the few consistancies about growing up as a Navy brat) and, of course, had to play myself. GURPS, White Wolf, Paranoia, D&D, AD&D and then D&D again, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, Bushido, Traveller… So many different places to go and wander around in with friends.
Never really did get any good covert ops/spy/detective stuff going. It wasn’t ever anyone’s strong point among my friends, much to my regret. It is always interesting to see where the seeds for later ideas and preferences come from.
Great article. I look forward to that tangental discussion/post.
Since it’s already getting enormous, I might as well contribute to the Giant Thread. It took me a fair bit longer to get into tabletop than any of you (The NES and unlicensed JRPGs on the SNES, now…) but I ended up playing tons and tons of Star Wars D6.
There are few games that give me more ideas than Mage and Exalted the Dragonblooded, too. The settings in those books boggle my mind.
My comics roots are buried in ’70′s Marvel and DC. My RPG experience didn’t kick off until the early ’80′s, with a long-forgotten gem called Superhero 2044.
Now, I write and I teach. Thanks to this post, I’m going to try out running an in-class RPG this fall to illustrate what makes for good storytelling. Thanks, Greg!
Got into a discussion a while back when Gygax died — with my friends and I, spinning the tales collaboratively generally wound up being secondary to the rules and modules.
One of my favorite memories was playing Top Secret, my friend and I, and it was really just him leading me through Silver Streak, which I had never seen. The two of us acting it out in the basement ….