Of Steam Tunnels and LARPing

[fanboy2000]

So I just got finished reading The Dungeon Master. It's a book about the the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III.

For those of you who don't know, Dallas' disappearance made national headlines in 1979, in the early days of D&D's popularity. It was reported that Dallas may have disappeared into the steam tunnels he played D&D in. If you've never heard of the case before, there's a good summery here.

Long story short, the family hired a priviate investigator, William Dear, to find Dallas, and Dear did. Then he wrote a book about it a few years later.

What interested me in the book was the look at the early years of D&D and roleplaying from an outsider's perspective. The case had zero leads, so Dear tried to get into Dallas' head. Since Dallas played D&D, Dear bought the game and payed a guy and his friend $50 to run a session for him (it's unclear at first if he bought the basic boxed set or the 1e AD&D PHB, but the chapter where he plays a game strongly suggests that's it AD&D).

Because the events happened in 1979 and the book was written in 1984 none of the stereotypes have really set in. Dear paints himself as an openminded guy. At the time, D&D was just one of the many things college kids did. You know how college kids are.

For example, Dear sends a couple of guys to a science fiction convention because the few friends Dallas had said that he really wanted to go to it. They worked with the convention staff and checked out everything, including D&D games. They reported seeing lots of people at the games, including professionals like lawyers. (There's also a subtle dig on furies, which is hilarious because it's just about the only group that gets made fun of. They just can't catch a break.)

But here's the interesting part. I know, I should have gotten to it earlier. By all accounts students really did play a live action version of D&D (house ruled, obviously) in MSU's steam tunnels. And there were reports of this going on at other colleges. (E.g., Southern Methodist University.) No one in the book utters the phrase "live action roleplaying" let alone the acronym "LARP".

I associate LARPing with WW's Mind's Eye Theater, because when I started playing RPGs, that was popular. In fact, I haven't heard a lot about medieval LARPs, though I know they exist, I've seem people make props for them.

So, I wonder if maybe this incident is part of the reason TSR never developed a live-action game, D&D or otherwise. What rule system to medieval LARPers use? Or do most of them just join the SCA?

 

[Umbran]

So, I wonder if maybe this incident is part of the reason TSR never developed a live-action game, D&D or otherwise.

I couldn't say, of course. I think it may just have been that in the TSR days, the designers were really still close to the wargamer mindset, such that runnign around in costume just didn't appeal to them.

What rule system to medieval LARPers use? Or do most of them just join the SCA?

The SCA is not really a place for larping, as such. Sure, you can fight, but in the SCA it is more like an organized sport than role-play. And there are no "adventures" to speak of.

There are a whole stack of live action organizations out there, and each one has a rule-set of its own.

 

[Stormonu]

So, I wonder if maybe this incident is part of the reason TSR never developed a live-action game, D&D or otherwise. What rule system to medieval LARPers use? Or do most of them just join the SCA?

There is a serious disdain, if not outright prejudice, among those in the SCA (or at least, there used to be back when I attended events with my wife in the 90's) for those who enjoy D&D.

The first I remember hearing about LARP was an article in Dragon about NERO. I can't remember the issue, but I seem to recall the TSR staff having some serious reservations about putting forth a LARP in the responses to letters about the article. My guess is they thought it would be just one big lawsuit reminiscent of the Egbert case.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There is a serious disdain, if not outright prejudice, among those in the SCA (or at least, there used to be back when I attended events with my wife in the 90's) for those who enjoy D&D.

Funny, I used to play D&D with SCAers (and orher LARPers) in the 1999s.

The first I remember hearing about LARP was an article in Dragon about NERO.

I did some NERO sparring back in the 1990s as well...fun!

 

[haakon1]

By all accounts students really did play a live action version of D&D (house ruled, obviously) in MSU's steam tunnels. And there were reports of this going on at other colleges. (E.g., Southern Methodist University.)

We used to do tunneling in college (sneaking to steam tunnels and other tunnels).

One our favorite places to play D&D was a subbasement in an early 19th century dorm. We found a way to open a "secret" door panel, get down some wooden stairs, and into a dirt floored room with tunnels off it in the dark to who knows where (too short to stand up in, and not used for any kind of piping or power lines -- we figured maybe underground railroad?).

But it was pure AD&D we were playing, nothing LARP about it. This was 1988-1991.

From my college's wiki site, that dorm is currently famous for being a hangout for the role playing group we founded which is apparently still active, and it mentions LARPers practicing the basement ballroom, but they're apparently unaware of the subbasement or it's uses 2 decades ago . . . so I'm not posting the college or building it's in. Me to know and a later generation to find out.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Luther4
has no status.

Registered User

Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 14
Novice (Lvl 1)

Reported

 

[ComradeGnull]

well, I have one or two data point to supply:

I clearly remember seeing people playing D&D with some LARP-ish elements at some event- I think an academic team or model UN tourney- around 1984-85. The kids involved were probably junior high age. They played D&D with multiple physical locations in the school that players would move between in response to players breaking off on their own or joining a different party. Some of the kids had some really basic weapon and costume elements made from art room-type supplies. There was some in-character interaction, but it wasn't a major focus.

That would have been contemporary, roughly, with the description that the author was writing. I remember the 'D&D is Satanic' stuff coming along around the same time or slightly later, but it was still remote enough that kids from a rural county in the Bible Belt were openly running around with cardboard swords and dice at a school sponsored event without anyone blinking.

I would imagine that an outsider observing that would have called it something like 'live action' D&D, given that people were sneaking off to the boiler room to 'explore the Caverns of Central Heating', or whatever, but there wasn't a lot of 'system' to it beyond regular D&D rules. It wouldn't surprise me if, prior to the general parent/authority figure freak-out regarding RPGs, this kind of thing wasn't a little more common.

Also worth noting that the late 70's was probably an early high-water mark for the campus culture of roof and tunnel hacking- security wasn't as complex, and schools weren't cracking down on the practice yet. Geek-ish D&D players taking advantage of their access to unauthorized places to game in an unusual or atmospheric setting might easily be distorted by the campus grapevine into 'the D&D nerds sneak into the tunnels to play D&D for real'.

As to TSR and live action- I think the Satanism scare frightened TSR away from anything that might involve 'props' because anything that might go with a medieval-theme game could also likely be described as 'occult' (candles, mock weapons, costumes, etc.). They went to great lengths to make it clear you were just describing what a character was doing, rather than actually acting it out yourself. To this day, people who think D&D is 'black magic' (I know a few) think that there are 'spells' in the books that people recite and actual instructions for rituals- TSR was bending over backwards to fight that perception, and creating LARP rules would have shot their efforts in the foot.

 

[Lwaxy]

I integrate LARP with some groups. Doesn't work for every adventure/scene or every group though.

 

[Nytmare]

I know that I saw live action elements inside of other games in the 80s, people who would wear a bit of costume or bring a prop for a tabletop game, bits where particularly theatrical groups would stand up from the table and block or act out scenes around some kind of set piece, games like Assassin where the mechanics were built around real physical action; but I didn't see full on LARPs till I got to college, and even then they didn't seem to really take of until Mind's Eye first took to the stage, and then again once WoW made the idea of fantasy gaming more publicly acceptable.

As for the inter-group warfare and trash talking, you'll always get that, and it'll be different city to city. Here in Pittsburgh, there was a very serious overlap between the gamers and the SCAdians. The real disdain always seemed to be between the SCAdian fighters, and the two or three boffer groups, PRO (a NERO offshoot), Circle of Swords, and Dagorhir. The point of contention tended to boil down to the SCAdians accusing the LARPers of being wimps who used foam weapons, and the LARPers accusing the SCAdians of being brutish gorillas who just stood around in the sun hitting each other all day.

Not only do I agree that TSR would have stayed away from the concept with a 10 foot pole, and the fact that they were probably still fairly rooted in their war game origins; but I'm not sure that there would have really even been a large enough target audience for them to make the attempt.

For anyone interested in a history lesson: Live action role-playing game - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Lwaxy]

When we dressed up as kids (with lots of improvised costumes and cheap self made props) I guess no one had ever heard of LARP either. We were just playing with weird toys, and actually got complimented for our creativity at the time. But that was all Star Trek.

LARP here gets made fun of for the foam weapons a lot. I don't quite get why, as people would complain a lot more would they use real swords.