D&D 5E The D&D Multiverse Part 2- The Remix Culture of the Gygaxian Multiverse

[see]

In connection with this, I've been wondering how the change from D&D (and TTRPGs) as a Midwest thing to a fairly significant Pacific Northwest thing (e.g., WotC, Paizo, Green Ronin, Monte Cook Games, etc.) has also affected D&D and the wider TTRPG hobby.

Having lived through the acquisition and geographic move of TSR, I don't recall any obvious "regional" effects.

(Similarly, when the World of Darkness hit the hobby as a major phenomenon published out of the Atlanta area, I didn't notice anything that suggested it marked a particularly "Southeastern" influence on gaming.)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Having lived through the acquisition and geographic move of TSR, I don't recall any obvious "regional" effects.

(Similarly, when the World of Darkness hit the hobby as a major phenomenon published out of the Atlanta area, I didn't notice anything that suggested it marked a particularly "Southeastern" influence on gaming.)

Well, I was hopeful that we could find something similar to an East Coast/West Coast rap feud!

You are now about to witness the strength of game knowledge

Straight outta Lake Geneva, crazy wargamer named Gygax
From the gang called Tactical Study Rules
When I read off, players should be warned off
Roll the dice, and characters are hauled off
You too, boy, if ya enter the Tomb with me
Acererak is gonna go off on a killing spree

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Similarly, when the World of Darkness hit the hobby as a major phenomenon published out of the Atlanta area, I didn't notice anything that suggested it marked a particularly "Southeastern" influence on gaming

Had it originated in the north east, might it not have been more Stephen King and less Ann Rice/Charlaine Harris?

 

[Bolares]

Well, I was hopeful that we could find something similar to an East Coast/West Coast rap feud!

You are now about to witness the strength of game knowledge

Straight outta Lake Geneva, crazy wargamer named Gygax
From the gang called Tactical Study Rules
When I read off, players should be warned off
Roll the dice, and characters are hauled off
You too, boy, if ya enter the Tomb with me
Acererak is gonna go off on a killing spree

Yeah, you are totally not a bard...

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yeah, you are totally not a bard...

Look
If you had
One shot
Or one opportunity
To end every bard in every edition
In one moment
Would you capture it
Or just let it slip?

 

[Fenris-77]

I think that a lot of the gonzo we see in various OSR properties is, in a lot of ways, a celebration of some of this original weirdness. Some people love it, some people don't. I like that D&D (and adjacent games) can do both.

 

[Mannahnin]

I think that a lot of the gonzo we see in various OSR properties is, in a lot of ways, a celebration of some of this original weirdness. Some people love it, some people don't. I like that D&D (and adjacent games) can do both.

Definitely.

I think there was, and to some extent still is, a movement in the OSR to be all about the dungeons and classic Orcs and modules and such. But there's also been a strand going back to the mid to late 2000s birth of that movement which has also been all about the Weird and the Gonzo. Anomalous Subsurface Environment 1 came out in 2012, but there were earlier writers digging into the Weird stuff earlier. Geoffrey McKinney's "Supplement V: Carcosa" came out in 2008. And of course there were folks blogging the weird stuff before people were publishing it.

 

[Fenris-77]

Definitely.

I think there was, and to some extent still is, a movement in the OSR to be all about the dungeons and classic Orcs and modules and such. But there's also been a strand going back to the mid to late 2000s birth of that movement which has also been all about the Weird and the Gonzo. Anomalous Subsurface Environment 1 came out in 2012, but there were earlier writers digging into the Weird stuff earlier. Geoffrey McKinney's "Supplement V: Carcosa" came out in 2008. And of course there were folks blogging the weird stuff before people were publishing it.

ASE is awesome. Into the Odd and Troika spring immediately to mind for me. Some LL stuff too, especially Slumbering Ursine Dunes and Fever Dreaming Marlinko, and a bunch of the DCC stuff. LotFP does a bunch of pretty gonzo stuff too, but their gonzo isn't really my gonzo in most cases, although there are some gems in there. My OSR collection has a significant percentage of gonzo generally, a lot of it at least somewhat Spelljammer indexed.

Edit: How could I forget Electric Bastionland?

 

[Mannahnin]

Yup. I think the gonzo strain has gotten more prominent and widespread in recent years.

Which only makes sense, given that the really creative folks who want to publish their own original ideas were/are only going to get so much juice out of the Gygaxian Vernacular.

Troika digs into a different mine (the Fighting Fantasy books from England and related fantasy).

DCC has been mining Lankhmar and Wellman's Silver John stories, and The Dying Earth (among others) directly. Which, to be fair, has been part of their mission for years- draw from and build on the old Appendix N stuff directly, not as filtered through Gary's interpretations.

They started out doing Old School modules for 3E ("Remember the good old days, when adventures were underground, NPCs were there to be killed, and the finale of every dungeon was the dragon on the 20th level? Those days are back. Dungeon Crawl Classics don't waste your time with long-winded speeches, weird campaign settings, or NPCs who aren't meant to be killed. Each adventure is 100% good, solid dungeon crawl, with the monsters you know, the traps you fear, and the secret doors you know are there somewhere."), and then they embraced the weird full-throttle. Robots and ape-men and mutants and laser guns and aliens galore.

Now we've got all sorts of folks publishing stuff like Slumbering Ursine Dunes, Fever Drinking Marlinko, Electric Bastionland, Yoon-Suin, Ultraviolet Grasslands, Veins of the Earth... All sorts of cool projects have taken us into weirder and newer terrain as the movement has progressed.

 

[see]

Well, I was hopeful that we could find something similar to an East Coast/West Coast rap feud!

As the tale was later told to me by older gamers, in the late 1970s, there was tendency for Arduin to be associated with West Coast gaming groups. I won't swear to the accuracy of those tales, but the existence of the tale itself is a sort of evidence.