Film of Early Gamers?

[Wm. Earle Wheeler]

I'd like to make a special video from some players of mine, and maybe for the internet in general.

I'd like to have some old footage of gamers in the earliest days possible. Plaid shirts, big beards, man-perms and thick glasses.

Sadly, I haven't been able to find any. So I turn to you guys.

Help me OD&DD. You're my only hope.

[makofan]

I assume this is a joke post?

[redpriest]

wearlewheeler said:

I'd like to make a special video from some players of mine, and maybe for the internet in general.

I'd like to have some old footage of gamers in the earliest days possible. Led Zeppelin t-shirts, long hair, smoking joints and talking about the evening's gaming session over rum & Cokes and blaringly loud hard rock at The Dungeon*.

Sadly, I haven't been able to find any. So I turn to you guys.

Help me OD&DD. You're my only hope.

Fixed if for ya.

* The lame college crowd & goth bar that passes itself off today as The Dungeon is not the biker bar of the '70s and early '80s.

[Wm. Earle Wheeler]

Apr 7, 2008 20:43:50 GMT -6 makofan said:

I assume this is a joke post?

Um... no?

[howandwhy99]

Search Youtube for "geddy lee" or "rush". You should find something.

[jdrakeh]

Given the fact that most home movies of that time were typically filmed on the relatively expensive Super 8 medium and that gamer culture at the time didn't support filming game sessions for any reason other than personal amusement (there were no Super 8 Home Movie trading networks, after all), I supect that you will be hard pressed to find such footage. In the unlikely event that somebody was filming game sessions at the time, the possibility that those 8mm or Super 8 movies made it to an easily accessible digital medium is even less likely. Still, I suppose it is a possibility. Good luck with your search!

[wulfgar]

jdrakeh is most likely correct in all of his points, which means only one solution.......REENACTMENT!!!

[Deleted]

I think there was a documentary or recreation of this subject. Its pretty old now, but I believe it was called Mazes and Monsters. Really quite an interesting examination of how role playing games were played back in the early days.

[Stonegiant]

Apr 9, 2008 23:07:56 GMT -6 greathierophant said:

I think there was a documentary or recreation of this subject. Its pretty old now, but I believe it was called Mazes and Monsters. Really quite an interesting examination of how role playing games were played back in the early days.

Do you mean the Tom Hanks movie that was slanted against gaming and tried to pin the urban myth of gaming drives you to the occult on RPGs. Other than watching that as a comedy I wouldn't even waste my time.

[gsvenson]

Dave Arneson has been working on a documentary video called Dragons in the Basement for years. I hear that it is supposed to be released sometime this summer.

[redpriest]

Apr 9, 2008 15:34:51 GMT -6 wulfgar said:

jdrakeh is most likely correct in all of his points, which means only one solution.......REENACTMENT!!!

If this,

Apr 7, 2008 19:50:28 GMT -6 Wm. Earle Wheeler said:

I'd like to have some old footage of gamers in the earliest days possible. Plaid shirts, big beards, man-perms and thick glasses.

becomes the re-enactment, however, then it's just a foolish misrepresentation of the '70s and early '80s D&D players. A misrepresentation used most recently by WoTC advertising to discredit OOP D&D and promote 4e.

As the hobby is today, so was it also bitd. Gamers came in all shapes, sizes, hair styles, gradations of eyesight, ages and of both genders.

It's a mistake to attempt to promote OOP D&D by perpetuating a false, but perhaps popular, gamer effigy.

[jdrakeh]

Apr 9, 2008 23:23:52 GMT -6 Stonegiant said:

Do you mean the Tom Hanks movie that was slanted against gaming and tried to pin the urban myth of gaming drives you to the occult on RPGs. Other than watching that as a comedy I wouldn't even waste my time.

Ironically, there was a place in Merry Ol' England during the early 1980s that ran dungeon fantasy adventures in a manner almost identical to the live action play depicted in the Tom Hanks film. But instead of mines, they used the ruins of a real castle.

Unlike the game group depicted in Mazes & Monsters, the real life organization was a financial enterprise (i.e., you had to sign a waiver and pay a fee to play). The company was advertised in older issues of Dragon for a bit.

I wish that I could recall the name. This will now drive me crazy all day long

[bigjackbrass]

Apr 10, 2008 9:23:00 GMT -6 @jdrakeh said:

I wish that I could recall the name. This will now drive me crazy all day long

Would that be Treasure Trap you're thinking of?

[jjarvis]

Apr 10, 2008 9:23:00 GMT -6 @jdrakeh said:

[Unlike the game group depicted in Mazes & Monsters, the real life organization was a financial enterprise (i.e., you had to sign a waiver and pay a fee to play). The company was advertised in older issues of Dragon for a bit.

Yup Treasure Trap. I saw the ads in whitedwarf never noticed any in Dragon. You had to sign a waiver becasue the castle they used was fallign apart and was more likely to harm you if a pice fell on yuo or you walked off a poorly recognized edge soemwhere.

Modern LARP groups exsist in all different styles of live play, I'm sure one is lurking near almost every large metro region in the U.S.


We video and audio taped play sessions every now and then but i have no idea where any of it went and the earliest was probably from 1980. I'd give them up for goen forever but i'll poke abotu next tiem i visit my folks.

[jdrakeh]

Apr 10, 2008 10:55:01 GMT -6 bigjackbrass said:

Would that be Treasure Trap you're thinking of?

Yes!

[thorswulf]

Being an active gamer in the early 80's, I don't think the stereotype of the 70's gamer fits me very well for one good reason: I was 10 years old in 1980! Seriously if you want a fair reenactment you could set in a Junior High classroom during lunch. Van halen T-shirts, Camo BDU pants, hightop sneakers and other things would look more like my early gaming days. Just my spin on things!

[Stonegiant]

Apr 10, 2008 14:11:10 GMT -6 thorswulf said:

Being an active gamer in the early 80's, I don't think the stereotype of the 70's gamer fits me very well for one good reason: I was 10 years old in 1980! Seriously if you want a fair reenactment you could set in a Junior High classroom during lunch. Van halen T-shirts, Camo BDU pants, hightop sneakers and other things would look more like my early gaming days. Just my spin on things!

I was 11 in 1980 so I would fall in this category. Are gaming area was the rec yard after lunch(D&D B/X and AD&D) and in the back of science class (Gamma World). I remember in the 8th grade running an ad on the afternoon announcements offering to teach D&D to anyone who was interested.

[Wm. Earle Wheeler]

OK, so some of you are taking a tiny detail and blowing it way out of proportion -- this isn't enworld is it? ;D

Listen, most of the very few black and white photos I've seen of adult RPGers and wargamers from the late 70s and early 80s fit this stereotype. It's not meant to be insulting, just an observation.

I'm sure that every gamer not caught in a photo from a convention was a non-white female with great cutting edge fashion sense.

As for Mazes & Monsters... well, that wonderful DVD can be picked up at your local Wal-Mart now for $5. I have the DVD, the book, and the original book both were "based" on, "The Dungeon Master." If you've never read it, it's quite interesting, even though it is exploitive.

[Stonegiant]

Well, being that I am not a gamer from the 70's and have never seen photo's of gamers from the 70's (except for the few I saw in SR and Dragon), I am out of the running. The Red Priest however is from that era and I would take his word as an eyewitness.

[Wm. Earle Wheeler]

Apr 9, 2008 7:33:32 GMT -6 @jdrakeh said:

Given the fact that most home movies of that time were typically filmed on the relatively expensive Super 8 medium and that gamer culture at the time didn't support filming game sessions for any reason other than personal amusement (there were no Super 8 Home Movie trading networks, after all), I supect that you will be hard pressed to find such footage. In the unlikely event that somebody was filming game sessions at the time, the possibility that those 8mm or Super 8 movies made it to an easily accessible digital medium is even less likely. Still, I suppose it is a possibility. Good luck with your search!

Thanks man. It is for exactly the reasons you've mentioned that it has been impossible to find any movies of gamers from the late 70s or early 80s -- be they of the rock T-shirt or plaid shirt variety. :-)