Variety Was The Spice Of Gaming

It is genuinely difficult to get across just what variety there was back in the early through mid-80s. We think we have a lot now, and we do, but it's a lot of the same. 

But, what do I know? I know I only spent 46 years of my life gaming at the expense of everything and several years running a bricks and mortar game store,  putting games even befoe my grandfather's funeral.

So, I guess that makes me a fair weather gamer, but I'll put me neck on the line and say that categorically, there was not only more variety, but there was more being put out by gamers themselves, who, as Jon Peterson also repeatedly makes clear, if my opinion is inavlid to you , were pleased if somone played or used something they typed up and Xeroxed, doubly so if they made a little money to support their hobby.

Now, the amateur press such as it is, is geared towards making the next big thing, and that's all that matters. The simple joy of sharing their enthusiasm is not enough. 

I confess, I have stopped watching gaming content on YouTube as a new generation claim ro have 'discovered' something, that the Grognards have known (and shared for decades) but, because they didn't have the internet and the bane of monetisation, they are simply disregarded.

The joy I had of actually sitting with someone and learning from the original source, is something which adds a real texture to the hobby. Seeing and listening to someone's passion, is priceless. 

At the start of this year, I set up a Patreon page, with the concept of producing exclusive models for those who were part of my Patreon group, for zero profit. It was my way of sharing the love and enthusiasm, having conversations with other gamers and having those converrsations bear fruit for those involved. 

These models will NEVER see the light of day as commercial items, and those who own them will, iwn some of the rarest models in the history of gaming. And I think that's great. I won't be making a penny of profit from it, but the sculptor, mould maker and caster will be earning money, thereby, I and those who are in the Patreon group directly expand the hobby, particularly the traditional skill sets on which it was formed.

 Find out more here: https://www.patreon.com/cw/SatanicPanicMiniatures

But getting back to 'back in the day'; there seemed to be no 'magic combination' or 'special sauce' (we call them algorithms today) at the start; It was rather that people had ideas, that they came up with and typed them up, got a mate mith modest artistic ability to create a cover, and away they went, maybe selling a few in local game stores, or doing this at a large scale as in the case of Judges Guild who, produced third party supplements and adventures printed on that U.S comic pulp paper. They felt and looked cheap, but by god they had some great stuff in them.

Now apropos of that company, a word on humour in games. We liked injecting humour, but not at the expense of a serious and crunchy rule set, until Paranoia came along - more on Paranoia at a later date, because that was a dangerous game -  but JG produced a two book RPG system which included as a monster Intercontinental Ballistic Carrots. I bought the game and immediately threw it to one side (actually, I palmed it off on Pete W with some slick spiel, for a couple of quid) because it committed the crime of trying to be funny rather than waiting for players to screw about with it - a big 'NOPE'.

Obviously, at the time there were the big four rules systems of D&D, AD&D, Runequest and Traveller, but at the same time there were others like Chivalry and Sorcery, Bushido and Dragonquest, some of which were so crunchy, you could skip your breakfast Weetabix and get your roughage from two or three pages of one of these systems.

Games Workshop had rudimentary shop fittings, because frankly, that was all they needed due to the fact that there was just so much stuff. I modelled my own store in the mid-90s on the early GW model with the addition of a gaming area which was originally intended for my own use, but which was much better when filled with coffee fuelled students on a dank Tuesday morning. I was well ahead of the curve over 30 years ago... 

Every inch of shelf space in GW was rammed with stock, and Sheffield store was not a small space, let me tell you. On top of that, there were plastic tubs on the floor, underneath the shelves, equally rammed with stock. Where GW didn't cheap out, was on the counters and glass cabinets where theu displayed their computer games, early consoles and of course the pre-blister pack figuree.

Ask anyone of a certain age, and they will, I guarantee, get moist eyed at the mention of having to use a pencil and paper to list the code numbers of every model they wanted to buy after perusing them in the display cabinets. 

GW also sold novels and more traditional games, so we could literally get everything we needed in one place. We didn't of course because we had 5 places at least in the city where we could buy games, figures and books, but GW was where we would meet on a Saturday morning, widening our social circle and indeed social skills.

In Sheffield, the mighty Pete 'Greblord' Armstrong ('friends didn't call him Stretch' - well they did actually, but that was his schtick and we respected that when he was within earshot) painted the vast majority of the hundreds of models in the cabinet, and did so in a style and with a degree of skill, given the limited paint options available that had us handing over our pocket money even faster than the average, game obsessed youth.

Let me tell you unequivocally, many a teenager in Sheffield (and beyond) owes a debt of gratitude to Stretch, because he wrote the painting bible and for those of us lucky enough to live in reach of GW Sheffield, were able to learn at the very feet of a god.

 Most of the people from that gumbo of Sheffield's game obsessed youth,  who down the decades have become professors in pop culture, renowned video game artists or comic illustrators, prop makers in the Hollywood film industry and humble miniature painters. All of them link back to the talented and largely forgotten (I would go so far as to say, erased from the gaming record) Pete Armstrong.

If you believe everything gaming happened in Nottingham... You are wrong. These were different times. 

But as we have seen, there were a lot of other pockets of gaming fanaticism across the country and some excellent shops and clubs. Ah yes, clubs...

The wargames club was an important part of the whole hobby, in a time before people went into shops to play games. Clubs were populated at that time by a high proportion of older gamers,  Beer Monsters from the very first blossoming of the hobby, battle hardened bastards who knew their way around the use of wine corks, needles, candles and banana gum and at the highest echelons could take today's 'easy fix, slap-chop,-drown-everything-in-a wash-and-expect-to-be-respected-for-it' generation to the cleaners in a painting competition; and a fairly judged one at that.

It was a hard apprenticeship in those days, but as well as learning about a period or periods in detail from people who were genuinely knowledgeable on their subject, we also learned how to interact with adults, thus meaning that whilst we did eventually become Beer Monsters, we learned to  play by the rules of life, and those who didn't were not coddled.

Those who knuckled down and learned to read the room, found a whole new and excitiong world, of weekends away at conventions all over the country or at other clubs playing massive two days games, with Saturday nights out on the town, ending with a massed exodus at the end of the night for a curry or Chinese meal and the fun which could come from that.

Until you have seen a pissed up and pissed off wargamer of 'a certain generation' - a man who was by day a respected historian and archaeologist  - square up to the entire staff of a Chinese restaurant who have decided to serve up a cold meal, you have not my son, truly experienced life.

These things were not done for 'likes' or 'hypes' and were recorded in the oral history of wargaming.

The photographic record of the exploits of Sheffield Wargames Society is a gem, for those who know where to find it, and the shots of the Triples show, reinforce all the things I have ranted about in the past.

The really interesting thing was that beyond gaming in all it's myriad forms, nobody cared what you did in your own time, your private life, or what you tho believed. Gaming spaces were for gaming and that was that. This in my opinion is something we need to remember and stick to. Take down banners and declarations which are not about gaming, because inclusivity is so often exclusivity. 

But I digress.

The last two decades have seen display games at shows become formulaic, with show organisers for the most part, booking the same few games/groups which all look largely the same in terms of construction and style.

One of the joys for me was to walk around a show and see different degrees of skill and style, all coming together to create a varied visual banquet.

There would be exuisitely detailed, model railway grade games, such as the 15mm fantasy massed battle I saw at Triples one year, put on by a university gaming group, the Falkenburg Castle 15mm 7YW game put on by the late Ian Smith and Mick Rothenburg with its towering cliff which rose above the table, topped by a German schloss, and of course the awe inspiring games put on by the Player's Guild, which were on close inspection quite rough around the edges, but with their scratchbuilt ships, mega cities, Orc ballons and Dwarf hang gliders, drew us in and inspired your correspondent to build the massive armies which now fill my games room.

Joe Dever was the 'Daddy' of the epic fantasy game of course, and it was not the artistic skill which carried you, but the imagination and scope of his games, with Airfix dinosaur kits pressed into service as beasts of war for Orcish hordes, and cardboard tubes forming the turrets of fantasy castles and city walls. It was the sheer imagination at a time before widely available ready to roll terrain.

South London Warlords always (and still do) pleased the crowd, be it a 1/24th scale Ma.K inspired battle between exquisitely modelled power armoured suits, or space battles involving large starships made from junk and kitchen utensils on 4 foot high flying stands, the 'table' being the floor of the venue itself.

Selly Oak & District club were renowned for their stunning (even by any of today's standards) 25mm Napoleonic display games, which I can reliably state, brought many a youth into Napoleonic wargaming in the grand manner and a life of penury.

SWS specialised in basic but large 15mm ACW games, where the modelling was not the point, but rather the ability to get several thousand, well researched ACW 15mm figures onto a table.

Sheffield Runelords wowed the crowds one year with a 2 foot square recreation of a walled farm, using the Linka plaster of Paris casting kits, stunningly painted by Andy Ritson (which I heard, ebnded up in a skip several years ago) depicting a raid by Trollkin on a human farmstead, the Trollkin painstakingly converted and painted. This used the Runequest RPG rules and showed what was possible in a small area.

Equally, a couple of years earlier they made a rudimentary cave system using the GW/TSR 'Dungeon Floorplans' and papier mache, which whilst simple, had the feel of the floorplans from an adventure module, thereby giving the sense of a page from a said module 'coming to life'. It was every bit as stimulating as the finest detailed model.

Terry Wise, created a game of Polynesian tribal warfare using converted Airfix and Atlantic soft plastic figures, mounted on 'Subbuteo' style bases made from beer bottle tops and weighted, providing a wonderful 'flick football' style wargaming where dexterity was every bit crucial as the roll of the dice. It was simple yet elegant and it was a joy to have Terry explain it all to me in great detail early doors on Saturday morning at Triples in the Octagon (praise be to that venue). 

There was so much to do, and many conventions were two day affairs. Today we are told that people don't have time for two day events because they are so busy.  Well pardon my use of the Anglo Saxon, but fuck off...

In those days, I remember people working 5 hard - really hard days - in steel works, coming off shift, having a couple of hours sleep and then spending two days a couple of hundred miles away, indulging in their hobby.

A two day show, particularly a large one, gives gamers time to take everything in. The modern trend for '6 hours and done, now sod off home' events has diluted the whole convention experience, as has the trend towards encouraging sometimes unconnected businesses and factors into shows. 

What is wrong with a 'pure' wargaming/roleplaying show? Absolutely nothing. By all means, merge in model railways and scale modelling - that should have been done years ago, but cosplay and video games are a different creature for different times and are not directly related to tabletop gaming, no matter what some think.

(We live in a time when it's OK to dress as a giant cuddly animal at a convention but not a WW2 German officer - go figure.)

 There are still shows out there which stay true to the roots of the hobby. They don't have the massive footfall or finacial turnover, but they are the genuine article, run for the simple joy of sharing the hobby, without indulgung in the circle jerk of putting on a show, and then having friends of members writing glowing 'reviews' in the press, generating more footfall and money which does not - despite what you think - generate more money for the hobby at large.

One of the best shows I went to was at Carlton Le Willows school in the early 90s, where the school kitchens were open and where some really good 'school dinners' were served for a pittance, instead of the usual convention fayre, and where the show itself was a sheer joy.

I think we need some smaller shows, properly curated; the games and traders carefully selected for their variety, and third party resellers placed firmly at the bottom of the list. Bragging that you have 90 traders but 40 of them being resellers of this or that 'big box' company is pointless and does not add anything of quality to the hobby experience.

PLEASE: take the time to go back and look at the articles on shows in magazines from the 70s, 80s and 90s and look at the crowds, displays and traders. They tended to have one thing in common - people were smiling and not just gurning into the lens of a passing social media influencer.

 

TTFN