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<blockquote data-quote="Thomas Shey" data-source="post: 9087935" data-attributes="member: 7026617">Well, first let me qualify something out the gate.I can't talk about everyone who ran/played D&amp;D on the West Coast.&nbsp; There were all kinds of isolated groups, game clubs and probably things I don't know about.But there was a big, broad swath of players who had some overlapping habits, and I can pretty well point at why: Science fiction and fantasy fandom.The West Coast had a lot of interconnected fandom groups (some of whom were also wargamers or SCA folks) who had spread D&amp;D through SF clubs (such as LASFS (the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society and various others in the Bay Area or San Diego).But the thing is, even though there were wargamers and SCAers intermixed, they still approached the game with kind of a SF and fantasy lens on the whole thing, and among other things this meant even when something was gritty, it was from a kind of &quot;We're Gonna Be Big Damn Heroes&quot; perspective, and that colored how a lot of things were approached; even when you saw henchmen, they were in small numbers and utility (managing mounts and the like).&nbsp; You still saw caution and such for some things, but--avoiding fights?&nbsp; Cooking the books to make them as uneven as possible?&nbsp; Haha, no.And you'd see a lot of fictional elements creep in in people's games (in the sense of elements from specific works), and a lot of &quot;all these games are sort of interconnected&quot;, and science fiction elements, and so on.&nbsp; I mean, during this period I wrote up a Bene Gesserit class, and it wouldn't have been thought particularly unusual out here (people might have looked at it and went &quot;overpowered, dude&quot;.I mean, if you want to look into an extreme, but in its way representative, case, dig up some of the old Arduin material.&nbsp; Dave Hargrave was over-the-top, but it was in degree, not kind.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Thomas Shey, post: 9087935, member: 7026617"] Well, first let me qualify something out the gate. I can't talk about [I]everyone[/I] who ran/played D&D on the West Coast. There were all kinds of isolated groups, game clubs and probably things I don't know about. But there was a big, broad swath of players who had some overlapping habits, and I can pretty well point at why: Science fiction and fantasy fandom. The West Coast had a lot of interconnected fandom groups (some of whom were also wargamers or SCA folks) who had spread D&D through SF clubs (such as LASFS (the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society and various others in the Bay Area or San Diego). But the thing is, even though there were wargamers and SCAers intermixed, they still approached the game with kind of a SF and fantasy lens on the whole thing, and among other things this meant even when something was gritty, it was from a kind of "We're Gonna Be Big Damn Heroes" perspective, and that colored how a lot of things were approached; even when you saw henchmen, they were in small numbers and utility (managing mounts and the like). You still saw caution and such for some things, but--avoiding fights? Cooking the books to make them as uneven as possible? Haha, no. And you'd see a lot of fictional elements creep in in people's games (in the sense of elements from specific works), and a lot of "all these games are sort of interconnected", and science fiction elements, and so on. I mean, during this period I wrote up a Bene Gesserit class, and it wouldn't have been thought particularly unusual out here (people might have looked at it and went "overpowered, dude". I mean, if you want to look into an extreme, but in its way representative, case, dig up some of the old Arduin material. Dave Hargrave was over-the-top, but it was in degree, not kind. [/QUOTE]

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