When tiny squares of cardboard ruled the world

The other day, I was "chasing the rabbit" in wikipedia, and stumbled across something that made a slice of my youth come flooding back to me. For whatever reason, I seem to be having these melancholy trips down memory lane lately. Typically, they're imbued with a sentimentality that I tend to resist, cynical hard candy shell and all, and they are easily repressed with a bottle of whiskey and the warm comfort of a Law and Order repeat I've seen six times (wait -- here's Lenny's quip! Clang, Clang. Fuck. It's a Serena episode. Drink more). Rarely do I get all misty on this blog (though I occasionally did on my other myspace entries), but this catalog entry from days gone by is harmless enough, though probably pretty geeky.

Before sharing, I feel obligated to put forth a few disclaimers.

I drove a hot rod muscle car.
I played sports.
I got laid. A Lot.
I had a vivid and active social life.
I dressed like a total stylish prep, and there were no pocket protectors in my wardrobe.
I had friends.
Despite deep rooted psychosis and mental instability that would only manifest itself much later, I was considered fairly normal. Friends' parents and girlfriends' parents adored me.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's totally geek out, shall we?

I forgot how I got there, but I suddenly found myself on the Dungeons and Dragons wikipedia page. There was a time in junior high that I first became introduced to the game, probably at a "modeling" shop. Sam and Bettye and I were model freaks. Most kids of that generation built model cars, but my family was hard core. We built cars. We built spaceships. We built every manner of tank, plane, ship, jeep and craft of war. Typically from WWII, but from other eras as well. We obsessed over every detail. Depending on the theatre of war, we added the proper paint schemes in minute detail. We used hot wires to reproduce "bullet holes" on the bodies. We painted dust and mud and exhaust stains. We used magnifying glasses and one "hair" brushes to put the right shoelaces on the tiny soldiers. We did all this without even sniffing the glue, believe it or not. Anyway, there were certain "game and toy" shops (not like the big box "ToysRUs" monstrosities of today), but more mom and pop stores that focused on Japanese imports known for their historical accuracy, like Tamiya. These stores also carried the relatively new and "underground" accessories for RPGs. In those days, those were "role playing games," and not "rocket propelled grenades." While model shopping, I picked up a copy of the original D and D (I hate that blogger won't accept ampersands. Makes this, and talking about Law and Order, difficult, dammit).

How cool was this? As an only child, I had long had a vivid imagination, and "invented" ways to play board games with only one player, or to create elaborate scenarios with GI Joes, Major Matt, Big Jim and other action figures. I bought the game, took it home and read it, and was soon eager to create an elaborate world, and play games that didn't involve building the damned mouse trap, acquiring multi-colored pieces of property or sinking a damned battleship. How difficult would it be to create a "character" and play out scenarios? After all, when we played wiffleball in the backyard, we'd develop elaborate rules, keep statistics in spiral notebooks and bat right or left handed depending on what "character" was at the plate. I soon found a group of friends that was similarly inclined, and we'd have long weekend sessions sacking castles, slaying dragons, plundering villages and rescuing innocents. Oddly enough, my character was a "paladin," a bad ass warrior with a noble, moral and spiritual calling (rather ironic now, but hey, it was a fantasy world). We would occasionally make use of miniatures, where my artistic bent and obsession with detail came in handy. From a Tolkien like fantasy world, we also expanded into other genres of RPGs: The old west with Boot Hill. Outer space and other galaxies, with Universe and Traveller. We even roped Sam into playing occasionally, when the game was set in a Bond like world of secret agents.

While I brought the world of RPGs to my fellow geeks, they in turn introduced me to something else: the elaborate wargame simulation. These were complex, multifaceted games that allowed you to "recreate" famous battles in military history from any era. The boards and maps featured the standard hexagonal pattern and the rule books were often as thick as one "letter" of the encyclopedia (Wow, remember those? They'd be really hard to link to in a blog). One of the central components of every game was the tiny cardboard "counter," which showed a multiplicity of information on each one about your ship, your troops, your artillery, etc. In each game there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these little things. (of course, I used a combination of tackle boxes and my junkie grandmother's old pill bottles to keep them all organized and neatly assembled). Games weren't so much "roll the dice and move" (though dice were involved occasionally) as they were strategic exercises taking into account a variety of "real life" factors. Like RPGs, one "game" could last for days, and keeping the cats from eating your counters was always a challenge. (Once, my cat Vader wiped out Patton and the US Third Army at Normandy. Old "Blood and Guts" my ass if he couldn't handle a single housecat). The great thing was, you could win battles that had been historically "unwinnable." You got to see how much luck actually went into each scenario, and the significant impact of your decisions (and your opponent's) as a commander was far, far greater than in something like "Risk."

There were a host of great games that my friends and I owned, from a variety of military eras. Gettysburg. The Eastern Front of WWII. 18th century seafaring battles. WWII infantry battles. Waterloo. The Western Front of WWI. Hell, you could even dispatch some Klingons or go on a "bug hunt."

Given that it was a game, someone always had to be the "bad guy." Generally, I was happy to take the German side of the games. For the most part, they had better equipment, cooler looking weapons and snazzier uniforms. To me, it was more like being the Yankees in wiffleball, or the Raiders in nerf or electric football. Even though I had blonde hair and blue eyes, I had no designs on a master race nor a desire to throw the Jews down a well. Hell, I didn't even learn the "meaning" of True Evil until last year. When it came to the Civil War games, I almost always wound up being the North. I was born in the South, mind you, a good Georgia boy. But at that time, I had live in Wisconsin for a majority of my life (and I hated sweet tea) so I took the Union forces. Again, superior firepower didn't suck. To balance it out, I usually got to be the US in the Pacific theatre battles and the Federation in the 23rd century.

Eventually, we got drivers licenses and cars and the wars happened more infrequently. (Which caused a little consternation with some of my more dedicated comrades in arms. I prioritized, and they weren't getting laid).

Being a spoiled only child, I had whole freakin' library of these games. Several years ago, when the last vestiges of family passed on, I had to clear out the house and settle all the affairs in a few days. I made some emotional and practical decisions at the time to just get rid of all this stuff. Being in one of my whiny sentimental moods now, I wish that I hadn't. Though I have no idea what I'd do with them, my little sojourn through the wiki made me want to take them out for some reason.

I'm sure kids today have no idea what any of this stuff is. Looking through several websites, it seems like wargames and RPGs are a tiny niche industry today, and people are more interested in "killing" your buddy's forces on screen while getting carpal tunnel. Can't say that I blame them, with the advances in technology and the multi-sense stimulation today's gaming systems provide. Perhaps I'm just being nostalgic, but it seems like these games of yore challenged your imagination and thinking more. But I'm sure Sam thought that about my cardboard counters and tiny metal elves, too, when he was reminiscing about his plastic green army men and tape balls batted around with a broomstick handle.

Maybe there are no more worlds to conquer. Or old "soldiers" don't die, but just fade away.