California 1970s fantasy culture?

[stonetoflesh]

Please forgive me if there's a more appropriate section for this... In the now-deceased "Naked Went the Gamer" thread (in the Fight On! subforum) there were several references made to "Seventies fantasy culture in California." As a Californian who didn't really experience the Seventies (born in '75), I find the idea of a geographically-distinct "native" fantasy culture fascinating... Can anyone shed more light on how this strain of fantasy culture was different from that in the rest of the U.S., if in fact it really was that different?

I know that Arduin and Runequest/Glorantha are two games people will point to as examples, but can anyone suggest others? Are there writers or stories that embody this particular geographical flavor? Thanks for any illumination you can provide!

[calithena]

Gnombient,

If you drop me an email I'll send you an article (big file) that might shed more light on the subject.

calithena at gmail dot com.

[stonetoflesh]

Thanks for the article Cal, have an exalt!

[wheggi]

Personally I don't buy into the "California Gaming Culture" hooey. I think that whoever is pushing this concept is just trying to inflate their own personal gaming experience into something more grand than it actually was. I'm sure that my 70's Cali gaming experience was different (and no less relevent) than the guy who is promoting this concept, or yours for that matter. To claim that one's personal gaming experience was the de facto culture for the region is not only arrogant but incredibly myopic.

Truth of the matter is that gaming in California in the 70's/early 80's was a varied experience from group to group, from campus to game room to head shop back room to Ren Faire tent to hobby shop to groovy stoner van. Just like everywhere in the country.

Just had to get that off my chest.

- Wheggi

[Finarvyn]

Wheggi, while I agree with your basic sentiment there is no denying the fact that certain game systems came out of certain locations, and that these systems probably reflected a style of play that at least many gamers probably had. Not to say that one game rules set defines an entire region, but it might show a pattern because in those days things were likely more regional since communication was done a lot by snail mail or people directly teaching others. (No internet back then, so no message boards, etc.) The first GenCon I attended was in a small building and seemed really regional -- not the kind of diverse folks you see in GenCon attendance today.

For example, Ken St.Andre's Tunnels & Trolls were origionally marketed as a "D&D variant" and might reflect the way RPGs were played in the 1970's because it was more local. The fact that both Arduin and Warlock came out of California certainly might tell us that many gamers played with those styles simply because that's what they were exposed to. Here in the midwest I think we had closer ties to Lake Geneva and so probably followed Gary's vision more closely.

Again, this doesn't mean that every gamer in a certain region played with a particular style, but I can certainly "buy" the argument that many folks did so.

[James Maliszewski]

Not being a Californian myself, I can only say that I've heard quite a few people who did get their start gaming there in the 70s claim that there was a unique local gaming culture. Of course, I've also heard from several others who also got their start there that there was nothing unique about it, or at least no more unique than any other location in the world.

I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle. As an outsider, I can definitely say that stuff like Arduin and Glorantha always felt very different to me than other game settings. In fact, guys I knew back in the day dismissed RuneQuest as a "hippy Californian game." Whether what made those settings/games different had anything to do with California, I can't really say, but, even if they didn't, I can certainly see why someone might think they had.

[jjarvis]

People always like to aggrandize "the good old days" and discussion of regional subcultures of subcultures is very prone to nostalgia. BUT, it's easy for us to disregard the impact of regionalism these days when we have the internet and all it brings to fandom culture communication. Once upon a time every region in the U.S. was not identical and we didn't have as many universal experiences as we may now have. The availability of books, magazines and music varied very much from region to region because of local mores and the much more diverse (but limited) distribution chain of goods that existed in the good old days.
People exposed to these different goods or even just a different flow of goods were going to end up with different ideas and different means of expression.

[thorswulf]

Relative islolation had a lot to do with what and how we gamed as well. I grew up in Coos Bay, Oregon. Up until 1987 I could get any AD&D, or B/X stuff, or TSR product from a local book store, or toy shop. Going to Eugene was a two and half hour drive, but they had several excellent (now long gone) game stores that carried everything. Or at leat ten times more stuff than we had acess to at home. About once a year we could get to Portland and hit some of the older shops that had what seemed like a hundred times more stuff. Again this is relative to what we had at home.

We get more than our share of greyness throughout the year up in Olympia where I live these days. Maybe that's why all that vampire crap from White Wolf is so popular to so many gamers up here, I don't know. I don't care for it myself as you can tell. But I do tend to like darker Swords and Sorcery stuff ala Elric or Warhamer. So if gaming experience is regional I guess that perpetual gloom has crept into my mine.... Or perhaps that's just the kind of person I am....