1984: A Year in RPGs Ep75 Pt2

Summary

The GROGNARD Files Podcast – Episode 75, Part 2: "1984: A Year in RPGs"
Date: December 18, 2024
Host: Dirk the Dice

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Overview

This episode is a vibrant, reflective deep-dive into the year 1984 as experienced by two lifelong tabletop gamers, focused through the lens of their own memories, group dynamics, and the then-pivotal White Dwarf magazine. Blending group reminiscence, personal highlights, and contributions from "Daily Dwarf," the hosts look back at games played, formative campaigns, and the changing landscape of RPGs as seen from the UK. The episode is both a tribute to a formative period of British gaming culture and a call for listeners to help them rediscover overlooked gems from that era.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

[00:17] - Setting the Scene: A Clip Show of 1984 Gaming Memories

• Dirk notes this episode's structure as akin to a television "clip show," a parade of nostalgia and highlights from 1984, framed by their own gaming experiences.
• Emphasis that understanding this episode is helped by hearing Part 1.

[02:00] - Daily Dwarf’s “White Dwarf 1984 and All That” Retrospective

• White Dwarf issues 49–60 are spotlighted, covering a "Golden Era" with standout adventures and the magazine's expansion to more mainstream newsagents thanks to the Games Workshop and the fighting fantasy boom.
• Departments and columns expanded:
  • Fiend Factory, Starbase, Rune Rights
  • New entries: Crash Course (Car Wars), Lose Views (Dr. Pulsifer), Tabletop Heroes (miniatures), Counterpoint (board games), Micro View (microcomputers, then-new tech)
  • Critical Mass review column joined by these new departments.

“Was the magazine becoming hidebound by this rigid structure? Was the room to innovate limited? Was the Golden Era coming to an end?” – DailyDwarf [03:30]

Daily Dwarf’s 1D6 Retrospective (Five Highlights & One Fumble)

1. The Black Brew of Dieskund adventure (RuneQuest scenario, issue 51)

• Praised for adding environmental challenge ("squeeze" passages) and danger, beyond just monster bashing.
• Map described by fan as: "Looking like a mad woman's knitting." – [05:00]

2. Mark Harrison’s ‘The Travellers’ Comic Strip

• Divisive Traveller-themed humor, laden with inside jokes, sci-fi references, and frenetic art.
• Harrison’s later fame with 2000 AD noted; his art style described as “a bit fuzzy at the edges.” – [07:00]

3. OpenBox Reviews: Time-Rich, Cash-Poor

• A year when new RPGs like Daredevils and Espionage! appeared alongside big expansions for Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, and the first Dragonlance module.
• The hosts recall longing for new games but lacking resources:
  “While I had plenty of time to play RPGs... I was not at home to Mr. Disposable Cash. Now of course that ratio is reversed.” – DailyDwarf [09:00]

4. “To Live Forever” (Traveller, issue 52)

• Andy Slack’s article on character immortality—exploring not just mechanics (drugs, clones, surgery), but philosophical and societal impact.
• Provided food for thought far from the usual “amoral piracy fare.” – [10:40]

5. “It’s a Trap!” (Issue 58)

• Practical design philosophy for traps, focused on fairness and gameplay over instant death.
• Memorable advice: “A trap should not leave too much mince.” – Stephen Dudley [12:00]
• Nod to modern game Electric Bastionland for carrying on this legacy.

Fumble: The Mid-Year Wobble

• DailyDwarf confesses to having become "jaded" after years of AD&D and other mainstays — even skipping purchase of issue 56, though loyalty soon returned.
• White Dwarf in 1984 wasn’t as good as previous years, but still a UK RPG cornerstone.
  “If I'm honest, I don't think it hit the heights of the previous two years... There’s still some gems.” [14:40]
• Concludes with a tongue-in-cheek Orwellian warning:
  “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a space marine's boot stamping on your wallet. Forever.” [16:00]

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The GROGGY Awards & Reminiscences

Messianic Megalomaniac Award – Best Games Master of 1984 ([17:31]–[27:49])

• Two nominees debated:

  • Simon: Noted for narrative-heavy, low-interaction AD&D games ("just had to listen to NPCs talk to each other"), an "early adopter" with new ideas and a CD player, but with a megalomaniacal streak.
  • Herbs: Transformed their games with imaginative scenarios, over-the-top encounters, and generosity with loot (e.g., “room full of power storage crystals”), but also highly improvisational (famously using random Traveller supplements as adventure inspiration).

  “He wasn’t afraid to have proper powered-up characters and allow characters to be… I mean, we mentioned before the infamous Java Blast.” – Dirk [21:31]
  “But he also brought epic battles... 15 brew all with weird and wonderful appearances.” – Dirk [22:00]

• Anecdote: Orchestrated (perhaps unfairly) a "character assassination" to deal with a power-gaming, rules-lawyering player.

  “There was an element of megalomania about it because it was about the story rather than about players influencing things.” – B [19:56]
  “I think Herbs deserves to be…” – Dirk [27:46]

Random Roll on an Encounter Table – New Friends and the Arrival of Eddie ([27:58]–[29:56])

• Meeting Eddie in 1984, who introduced them to Call of Cthulhu, marked a seismic shift—his proximity and like-mindedness cemented him as a core member, versus fleeting, more distant players.

  “Eddie’s the one who stuck, isn’t it? …Eddie was more like us… he lived right around the back of my house.” – B [28:26]

• Call of Cthulhu scenario "Fungi from Yogurt(h)" especially remembered.

• Remembrance of "Olive Kingsburg," a notable character who died in that scenario, giving her name to an award.

Players Playing and Character Attachment ([29:56]–[36:44])

• 1984 marked a period of relentless character churn; few memorable PCs because characters died quickly and were optimized for survival rather than depth.

• Contrast with modern play: Greater variety and trust between GMs and players now, leading to more distinct, memorable characters.

  “You couldn't get a close association with them because they didn’t last very long.” – Dirk [34:02] “Nowadays we’re very different, aren’t we?” – B [35:16]

• Notable: Creation and later revival (decades on) of the island setting "Rash" for a play-by-mail game, and reflections on how returning to it as adults changed not just the tone, but the experience of play.

New Kids on the Top Tabletop – 1984’s New Games & Missed Opportunities ([43:10]–[47:51])

• The hosts reflect on their resistance to new, oddball games (Toon, Indiana Jones RPG, Advanced Fighting Fantasy), noting a preference for familiar territory due to a small, cautious gaming group and limited finances.

  “We were very earnest, weren’t we?” – Dirk [44:14] “There was a reluctance to go for anything a bit crazy… there was an element of that we were kind of isolated.” – B [45:40]

• MERP (Middle-Earth Role Playing) was the only one bought and played: "hard work and complicated, but back in the day, we tolerated a level of complexity.” – B [45:05]

• Dirk’s pick: Mercenary Spies and Private Eyes, a rare foray into a genuinely different genre for them.

• Acknowledgment they’d barely scratched the surface of what was out there.

Call to Listeners: Advocate for Overlooked 80s Games ([50:28]–[53:14])

• The duo now seeks to fill these gaps:

  “I think we should lay the challenge down for people to advocate their game... We play it with them... and have a fight club to say whether it’s any good or not.” – Dirk [51:02]

• Reflection that their "golden era" of RPG discovery was shorter and narrower than they'd remembered, missing swathes of now-classic games.

• Warm acknowledgment that gaming has underpinned and maintained their long friendship.

  "Even just looking at one year, it’s proven we know even less… We’ve always admitted to knowing not very much, but we know even less now. There’s no point listening to us anymore." – B [52:35] (tongue-in-cheek)

• Ends with philosophy and a Taylor Swift joke:

  “As the philosopher T. Swift said, you need to calm down. You’re being too loud.” – Dirk [53:14]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On nostalgia and discovery:

  “I think what I've come to realize is that I'm enjoying playing games now much more than I ever did then. Even though we've got this kind of nostalgic affection… I'm getting more value from it because back then I was only really scratching the surface and not very good at it.” – Dirk [47:51]

• Character mortality and old-school play:

  “If you created some character, it was weak and interesting but not particularly combat orientated… Be dead within a week because the games were quite brutal.” – B [35:59]

• Campaign improvisation folklore:

  “He reached into his bag without looking and pulled out a Traveller Zhodani spaceship supplement...and that’s where we were going to be. Didn’t matter where—that’s where we were.” – B [22:59]

• A self-aware podcast moment:

  "If anything, what this podcast has been about is like a journey of discovery, isn’t it?” – Dirk [53:00]

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Important Timestamps

• [00:17] – Introduction, 1984 as “clip show,” importance of listening to Part 1
• [02:00] – DailyDwarf’s White Dwarf 1984 overview essay begins
• [05:00] – The Black Brew of Dieskund, RuneQuest scenario highlight
• [07:00] – Mark Harrison’s “The Travellers” comic strip discussed
• [10:40] – To Live Forever, immortality for Traveller characters article
• [12:00] – “It’s A Trap!”—trap design philosophies
• [14:40] – DailyDwarf’s “fumble”: losing faith in White Dwarf, then regaining it
• [17:31] – Messianic Megalomaniac GM Award – Simon vs. Herbs debate
• [27:58] – Random Encounter Award: The meeting of Eddie, Call of Cthulhu impact
• [29:56] – Attachment (or lack thereof) to characters; campaign and character churn
• [36:44] – Creation, legacy, and revival of "Rash," their PBM island setting
• [43:10] – New games in 1984; hesitance, missed explorations
• [47:51] – On enjoying gaming more now than then; effects of adult friendships and nostalgia
• [50:28] – Call for listeners to pitch their favorite overlooked games
• [53:14] – Philosophical wrap-up, Taylor Swift joke

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Listener Challenge & Call to Action

The hosts invite listeners to share their own formative RPGs from 1984—especially lesser-known games that escaped their notice. They are determined to experience these classics (or oddities) with their advocates, then report back in future episodes.

“Invite people to proselyte—about games that they loved. Convince us that we missed out.” – Dirk [52:25]

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Tone and Style

• Warm, self-deprecating, and frequently humorous, with a strong “old friends reminiscing” vibe.
• Pop culture references and in-jokes abound; the hosts balance affection for the past with sharp awareness of their own youthful blind spots and modern perspectives.
• Despite the nostalgia, they prize discovery and inclusion—enthusing about their own continuing journey in the hobby.

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Summary prepared by The GROGNARD Files Podcast Summarizer

Transcript

[A]

Have you seen me Dice Bag?

[B]

The Grognard Files?

[A]

Hello, my name is Dirt the Dice, and this is the Grognard Files podcast, where we talk bobbins about tabletop RPGs from back in the day and today. This is the second part of episode 75, which is all about 1984. It's not a supplement as such. It's like, you know, when you're looking for a television program late on a Friday night, perhaps something enriching like Mary Beard talking about Romans, and you stumble across one of those clip shows, you know, one of those that's showing things from the past with talking heads chatting about them. You feel like you might watch one of them and before you know it, you're there for an hour and you're watching Anthea Turner fall out the back of a van. You know, it's a bit like that. Well, I've been working hard getting ready for Grog Meet, which takes place in January 2025, a few weeks after this podcast is released. And this part of the episode, hot on the heels of the previous one. It's not all beer and hobnobs here in the den. It only really makes sense, this episode, if you listen to the first one. First. Yes, it's us reminiscing about 1984 and some of the games that we played and coming to the realization that we had a very narrow palette to draw from. Indeed, in this episode, we issue a challenge to you, the listener. What were your enthusiasms back in 1984 and would you want to introduce them to us? Anyway, more about that later. Also, in this part of the episode, we have the triumphant return of the Daily Dwarf, who has written an overview of how 1984 looked in the great magazine White Dwarf. Because everything comes back to White Dwarf. It's an essay that he's written that I'll read. I'll be back at the end with some shout outs for new patrons. Until then, ramblers, let's get rumbling. The white dwarf, 1984 and all that. 1984, the year of Big Brother. War is peace and the clock's striking 13. Not to mention the tensions and fears we all felt at the height of the Cold War. But never mind Orwell's warnings of totalitarian dystopia or the threat of imminent nuclear annihilation war. More importantly, what was happening on the pages of White Dwarf magazine? Well, it had exited the previous year on a bit of a roll with Khazad Dum, Irillion and dealing with Demons, all having been published. Could Gaines Workshop maintain this level of excellence and continue the Golden Era into another year? The issues with 1984 cover dates run from 49 to number 60. If you want to play along at home, from Shuttle Scuttle to the Bleeding Stone of Iptar from Character classes in Runequest, what much heresy, very anger to an introduction to superhero gaming. This run included the landmark 50th issue as well as the launch of the magazine into High Street Newsagents Project. John Menzies, as I've no doubt no one in Games Workshop called it, an attempt to consolidate White Dwarf's position in expanding the RPG market and to take advantage of the interest generated from the fighting fantasy juggernaut. Departments still ruled the roost in the pages of the magazine alongside the long running stalwarts like Fiend Factory, Starbase and Rune Rights. New departments appeared Crash Course for Car Wars, Lose Views for The good old Dr. Pulsifer's ruminations on all things ad and D and tabletop heroes. Everything you wanted to know about lead figures from Mesa's Dever & Chalk. The book review column Critical Mass was joined by Counterpoint for board games and Micro View for those new fangled microcomputers. Whatever they were departments everywhere you looked. But with more and more games appearing on the market, was the magazine becoming hidebound by the this rigid structure? Was the room to Innovate limited? Was the Golden Era coming to an end? Well, delving back into these 12 issues I found that there is still a good deal of gaming goodness for the discerning role player. Now I have covered several scenarios and articles from this run in previous bits of the podcast and not wanting to repeat myself, I've decided to steal Dirk's 1D6 format from his blog and look at five highlights and one fumble. So here we go. Trouble brewing Everyone remember the hashtag scenarioslam back in 2016? Anyone? No? Well, check out that era defining contest on the Daily Dwarf blog, sports fans. While Curse of the Bone was the winner, the runner up was the Black Brew of Dieskund from issue 51. Reading it again, it's an absolute belter from the pen of Rockstar Games designer Ken Rolston. It was described as a Runequest cavern crawl and delivered exactly what it said on the tin. For me, what I want from a game of RuneQuest. I don't care who the God of kite flying is or who the play character's grandparents are. I just want the PCs to pit their wits and their fighting skills against the worst creatures that Glorian Panther can throw at them. This scenario wasn't just a zoo Dungeon, though. The PCs had to deal with both a formidable nest of chaos cultists, including, of course, the obligatory brew, as well as the environment itself. This was a particularly clever touch from Ken Rolson, I think. He introduced the concept of squeezes areas around the caverns where passages were so small and restricted that the PCs could become trapped. A simple enough idea, but one that brought an extra level of threat to the characters as they delved deeper into the complex. After all, no one wants to get stuck fast in a tight squeeze when there's a scorpion man bearing down on them. The cavern map itself, though, was pretty complicated. Armchair adventurer Eddie described it on Twitter as looking like a mad woman's knitting, and he wasn't wrong. Hell, it's the pigs ah yes, Mark Harrison's comic strip the Travellers divided the crowd back in 1984, and I think it still does today. It didn't have the same immediate appeal as the knockabout slapstick of Thrud, but really, how could you not love a strip that featured the Atari Death Squadron? Mark Harrison was clearly a player of the Traveller rpg, peppering the strip with terms from the game mixed in with references and jokes inspired by Star Wars, Alien, Dune and the like. Admit it, that's what all our Traveller campaigns were like in 1984. Yes, well, not every gag landed. They came in thick and fast, and I enjoyed reading the strip all over again. If there's a particular strip of note, it'd be the one from issue 58, a collaboration with Nick Weeks, who provides many outstanding scenarios maps in White Dwarf maybe it's just me by thinking it's two page layout, I detected a homage to the venerable White Dwarf Traveller scenario, the Sable Rose Affair. A lovely touch. Mark's art style was occasionally frenetic, with little sight gags, sometimes lost in the maelstrom. This also made the strip a little hard to follow at times, leaving me to wonder how the dialogue flowed and which panel came next. Mark has of course gone on to bigger things in the intervening years, and now a regular artist for 2000 AD, but I still describe his art as being a bit fuzzy at the edges. What really comes into its own is when he's depicting alien worlds and cultures. Check out his recent work with writer Dan Abner for the strip the out in the galaxy's greatest comic, while with some artists, alien worlds just look like a Buzz Depot in Basingstoke, with a bit of extra chrome and a few banks of flashing lights tacked on the beautiful vistas painted by Mark in the out look genuinely alien. Time rich, cash poor. Remember that time before the Internet when surprises were still possible? When you could turn to Openbox and read a review of a game that you'd never heard of before? There were a whole host of desirable Items reviewed in 1984. Reading through all the columns again, it felt like a giant wants list with some tasty supplements and scenarios for established games like Call of Cthulhu and Traveller, plus a few new RPGs like daredevils and Espionage. Marcus Rowlands particularly sold me on espionage. Fast, easy to learn rules for playing CIA agents engaged in covert shenanigans. Sounds great. Anyone play this Back in the day, Marcus only complaint was the lack of rules for silencers. We also saw the dawn of the Dragonlance module series for AD&D. Graham Staplehurst, finding similarities between DL1, Dragons of Despair and a chunky book by a certain Professor Tolkien. Nowhere was the expansion of the RPG market more evident than the run up to Christmas. In the final four issues of 1984, OpenBox reviewed the James Bond 007 RPG Middle Earth, role playing, Fassa's version of Star Trek, and both Ringworld and Elfquest from Chaoseum. The only problem back in 84 was that while I had plenty of time to play RPGs, all level revision. What's that? I was not at home to Mr. Disposable Cash and now of course that ratio is reversed. While I might have a bit more money to spend time for gaming, feels like sand running through my fingers. Ah well, it's still fun to dream. I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying. Dying during character creation. Pah. With Andy Slack's Traveller article To Live Forever from issue 52, your characters could achieve immortality. This was a great thought provoking article. As you'd expect from the pen of Andy Slack, he looked not just at the means to achieve immortality at various tech levels. Drugs, surgery, bionics, clones and more were all examined, but also the impact of characters living forever, both on an individual level and on societies at large. It asked some really interesting existential questions for player characters to explore, and provided plenty of ideas for Traveller adventures away from the usual amoral piracy fare that my group typically indulged in back in the day. The scenario outline at the end of the article left me scratching my head a bit though, even after reading the referee's information, but still recommended. What did Fish Head just say? I've always been a bit of a sucker for a good trap, particularly if it's an elaborate construction with an accompanying cross sectional diagram. In issue 58, it's a trap, though Stephen Dudley eschewed the Heath Robinson style excess, preferring to focus on the practicalities of traps, why they were there, who sets them, how long they can be circumvented, etc. I enjoyed reading this article over again in just a couple of pages. Stephen gave Games Masters a lot of useful advice on designing and locating traps. His comment that a trap should not leave too much mince made me chuckle. Nothing alerts player characters to a trap like suspicious lumps of viscera strewn about the dungeon corridor. The emphasis of the article was very much on avoiding Tomb of Horror style instant death traps, giving players agency in avoiding disarming traps instead while still allowing foolish and unwary characters to get their comeuppance. Great advice then, great advice now. And if you can't lay your hands on a copy of White Dwarf 58, check out Chris McDowell's excellent Electric Bastion Land instead for more quality trap talk. A personal fumble okay, confession time. By the time 1984 rolled around, I'd been playing RPGs for several years solidly, mainly AD&D, with some travel and gamma world, plus a sprinkling of runequests for good measure. Too much of a good thing. Well, with all that non stop gaming, I'd become a little, well, jaded with my group and role playing games in general. So much so that I can barely bring myself to say it. When White Dwarf 56 was published, I decided. I decided, I decided not to buy it. I know, I know. I can only hang my head in shame. When issue 57 hit the shops a month later, I had a rush of remorse and started buying the magazine again, and managed to buy a copy of that missing issue from a mate at school. I'd learned my lesson and my loyalty remained steadfast. From then on, nobody tell Ian Livingstone. Yeah, so that was 1984 in the Dwarf. If I'm honest, I don't think it hit the heights of the previous two years. Maybe that accounted for my wobble, but there's still some gems to be found and the magazine remained an absolute cornerstone of the UK RPG scene and nothing else. We knew we could all rely on Games Workshop, right? Little did we know what was to come in the years ahead. But always do not forget this, Winston. The wars be the intoxication of miniature figures constantly increasing in number and constantly needing painting. Always, at every moment there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a space marine's boot stamping on your wallet. Forever the Groggies, 1984 Part 2. Right, let's do the awards. I hope that you've got your nominees. As I get the categories, I've got the envelopes here. They're not gold envelopes. These. These are DL envelopes. So the first up is the Messianic Megalomaniac Award. This is our Games Master Award that we present each year to Games master. So in 1984, play there. Who are you going to give your Games Master Award to?

[B]

I know I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it to Simon.

[A]

Right, okay.

[B]

In his ad and D games, he couldn't really do anything, could you, as a player character? You weren't really allowed to do it. He's one of the. He'd had his ideas, didn't he? And you would kind of participate to some extent, but you weren't allowed to. To do much really, to influence the game.

[A]

I remember this point as well because we used to play a lot more with him while we were at school and this summer start of the breakup, wasn't it? Because unlike us, he wasn't going to college, he was going to work.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And he started work and so he had quite a bit. He got a CD player, didn't he?

[B]

He did get a CD player.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It's quite remarkable, wasn't it now at the time. Yeah.

[A]

An early adopter.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He also also elevated his games to the point where they were a sort of narrative approach because he never really had a lot of rules or any. Well, really anything in his game other than a story or a premise. I particularly remember that year that. That was the year that he did. The one where paper was scarce and we had to fine paper. Do you remember this one?

[B]

Go on, keep going. It might rings a vague distant bell somewhere.

[A]

Yeah. We were. We had these patrons who were trying to get us to rob a paper mill because there were bureaucrats who wanted to have. Break into this paper mill and steal the paper. And I think this is the one where I encountered a ghost that turned my hair white.

[B]

I do remember that. Yeah, yeah. But it wasn't like we could really influence the story particularly. That was the thing, wasn't it?

[A]

No, we just had to listen to the. The NPCs talking to each other.

[B]

Yeah. Story gaming, the. The beginnings of story gaming, you know. Yeah, yeah. That's why I never liked it.

[A]

I'm. It's dramatic and edge lording. I don't know. I'm not sure what edge lodging is.

[B]

We're not sure what it is but maybe it is. Maybe it is. Seems harsh. Seems harsh now to criticize someone. We were 16. This, this whole conversation comes with that caveat, doesn't it?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Some of 84. We were 15, weren't we? He's a bit old. He was.

[A]

He was.

[B]

He was sort of 16 in October. The October wasn't his time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Of 83 but we. We were still. We became 16 let middle that year or later on that year, didn't we? So yeah. Seems harsh but if it is megalomania, there was an element of megalomania about it because it was about the story rather than about players influencing things.

[A]

So yeah, I really being able to do anything.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Who would your nomination be?

[A]

Well no, my. My nomination because you're right to point out that up until 1984 we would had only played with Simon ourselves and a couple of people that we'd kind of recruited and lost after one game. But in February of that year the response to our advert that we put in the previous year had come true. So I am saying blithey that the messianic Megalomaniac Award for 1984 should go to Herbs who came. And he brought a whole new dimension to games mastering because remember we'd only played the way that we played. But he was not afraid to have proper powered up characters and allow characters to be. I mean we mentioned before, haven't we the infamous Java blast. So one of the characters was. Had a crossbow that could fire javelins. It's like impossible. Nobody could imagine it, could we? But he also brought was like epic battles. He wasn't afraid to have cruiser brews. Like we would have like one or two brews and if I. In case the character. Because characters always died, didn't they? But he's had like what, like 15 of them. All of them with like weird and wonderful appearances because he was very imaginative. Herbs as well. He brought his imagination to bear on a number of things because he was very. He was quite well read, wasn't he in terms of science fiction and fantasy.

[B]

Yeah, you're right there. Yeah. Because I can remember once finding it. Finding a room full of power storage crystals and we, we, we. When you ran room question were they stingy with things like that? Understandably so I think but I think that probably the way to do it. Don't, don't Give people a room full of power storage crystals. They found a room full of them. I think we all. We all took some, but we took about three each because we thought seems a bit much to just take 20 each. That seems like a bit of it, like cheating almost. But yeah, he did. Yeah, they. I think as well. I mean, everyone who runs a game has free wheels. It a bit to some extent. I mean, you used to do that quite a bit. But he's. He's someone who definitely up the ante when it came to what you say, improvise. Is improvising the right word? I'm not so sure. The famous bit where, you know, we were teleported somewhere and he reached into his bag. I can see him doing it now. He reached into his bag without looking. That was. This was the thing. The bag had quite a lot of stuff in it. He reached into the bag without looking and pulled out a traveler. Zadani spaceship supplement by. I don't know if it was by Fassa or somebody. And that's where Zidane spaceship as treasure in Quest characters. Did you plan this or did you just reach into your bag? And the first thing that came out, that's where we were going to be. Didn't matter where. That's where we were.

[A]

I. I think that's where we encountered the room full of power storage. The engine room of the spacecraft. Yeah.

[B]

They were like dilithium crystals in Star Trek. But, yeah, they were. They worked as power storage crystals. And we. Yeah, I think Eddie had a go. Eddie kept having a bit of a go at him and saying, what are you making this nonsense up?

[A]

What are you doing?

[B]

Are you doing herbs with this? And we was politely playing along with it. Yeah.

[A]

But it stuck in our minds. And the reason why I think he qualified for the role of messianic megalomania is I think you collaborated in this. I wasn't part of the. The character assassination.

[B]

Oh, the character assassination. Yeah. Well, they had this guy, didn't they? Can't remember his name. He played in their games separate. I don't know if he'd been to.

[A]

Their school or what it was when he wanted it. It was winning, wasn't it, Winnie?

[B]

No, it wasn't Winnie. No, not Winnie. Winnie. With his support your local hooker T shirt. Yeah. Remember we turned up with my mom and dad's.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

My dad thought, who are these people coming to my house? No, it wasn't Winnie. Now, Winnie, he was all right. No, it wasn't. I can't remember his name. Dressed in Like a jacket and trousers, you know, like, he's like outrage, but dressed, like, in a slightly formal way. And I remember Eddie saying, he said, oh, Herbs is running the game. All right, so do you want to. Do you want to come to it? So, yeah, so it was in Eddie's bedroom and he said, oh, such and such is coming. But he said, Herbs is going to kill his character off. I said, what? What do you mean? He said, well, he's going to kill. He's going to bump his character off this session. Because his character is a real problem. He's like a po. He's like a power gamer, this guy. So he had like, like, say this supreme character with his Java Blast and all this kind of stuff. He become a very problematic character. So what they decided to do.

[A]

Well, I'm sure what they decided to do was have a chat about it and make no.

[B]

Because we were 16. No, that's not what they decided to do, is it? You know what?

[A]

You know, that. Make sure that the players are kind of consented to everything.

[B]

Planning a murder, you know. Yeah, it was an Herbs. I remember feeling slightly, slightly uncomfortable about it. But then when this. When we started playing, I kind of came round to their way of thinking because this lad was the ultimate power gamer and he had like an excuse for everything. So he's one of these people, you know, those kind of players kind of starts unpacking the game a bit so that every time he hits someone with a sword, he starts going, oh, yeah, well, look, they've taken. They've taken so much damage that they're going to be in shock, aren't they? And you say, well, yeah, but that's not in the rules. That's not in the rules. And RuneQuest, you know, it's. Yeah, it might be stupid saying RuneQuest second edition, that you've had an arm locked off, but you're carrying on fighting. Yeah, we know in the real world if you get an arm locked off, you are going to go into shock, blood loss. But the rules of the game are the rules of the game. That's what we do. But he would kind of dispute everything. And I think that was the problem really with him, that they thought it's just a problem player. But he could have just said, we don't want to play with you anymore. But anyway, he ended up, this character falling. This kind of exemplifies what he was like. He ended up falling off a huge cliff to his death. His character not. Not the reason, to be clear, not the real person. His Character just says people are listening. People suddenly start listening to his podcast at this point, it's his character.

[A]

And start tracking the missing persons reports in Bolton in 1984.

[B]

Yeah. And herbs, Herb said, oh, there you go, you're dead. And he went, oh, no, I'm not, no, I'm not. Terminal velocity. What? Terminal velocity. He said, but there's a point. You only reach a certain speed when you fall a great height and you. It was this long argument then about terminal velocity off a 200 foot cliff and what kind of damage you would take. And Herb, I think Herb said, oh, he's 200D6 damage. And he said, oh, no, it wouldn't be. No, it wouldn't be. It would be like 30D6. That's all it would be. And Eddie said, you're still dead. He said, no, I'm not. I might roll all ones and I've got armor, you know. And it was like this. They kind of plotted to. To do him in for that reason.

[A]

I think Herbs deserves to be.

[B]

Yeah, I think you're right when you point that out. Yeah, they're definitely a bit of megalomania there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Ignore this. It's a rug covering a hole. I'm going to go next for the random role on an encounter table. This is where we talk about conventions or meeting new people. And mentioning 1984 is when we first met Eddie. That's a tommy. There can be no other nominees, really, because that kind of changed the way we've played role playing games ever since, hasn't it?

[B]

It did, it did, yeah. I mean, I suppose it could be other nominees in the resurbs. And there was Martin and there was Winnie. Support your local hooker, Winnie. But Eddie's the one who stuck, isn't it? Eddie's. Eddie was. Eddie was. Of the four of them, Eddie was more like us. I think that's the thing, isn't it? He was more like us and we were more like him. Martin and Winnie just turned up for games. They didn't really socialize with us, I suppose to some extent. Herbs didn't. They all lived quite a distance from us, apart from Eddie, who Eddie just lived around the back of my house, didn't he? He'd been there all this time playing role playing games. And that was what was strange about it, wasn't it, that he was so close in proximity to us, whereas the rest of them did live in other parts of Bolton, which again, these days doesn't seem like a big deal. But of course, when you do not have a car. That. It is a big deal, isn't it? Because you've got to get the balls and everything. So.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I say that it probably has to be Eddie, doesn't it can't be.

[A]

Anyone else, can there, when you bring Eddie into it. The thing that I think Eddie brought was Call of Cthulhu and we started playing that a lot more to reflect. That was Fungi from Yogurt. It's one I remember at that time. And so we should go next to the Olive Kingsburg players playing and people who play because obviously Olive Kingsburg died in. When we played Fungi from Yogurt a couple of years, a few years ago. So in honor of her, we should remember Fungi from Yogurth. But yeah.

[B]

So who.

[A]

Who've you got for players playing and people that you play and characters, etc? It's a bit of a loose. All of these categories are loose.

[B]

I might know now myself for this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because I think at the time I did. I didn't. I did run some things, but at that time, 1984, I think I was more of a player than running things. I've been running. I've been running stuff at school. AD N, I suppose, been running basic D and D that went into 1984, the beginning part of 1984. So I was doing a lot of that. But then I think I did a lot of. A lot of playing because I think like with Traveler, I kind of given up the Ghost with Traveler a little bit because Simon was. Was difficult in it. And of course I discovered Basic D and D and expert D and D and had a great time running that. You know, it's my fondest. To be fair, some of my fondest memories of running games, I suppose, were the early part of 84, when we were still at school and I was running that lunchtime for you and you and Moggy, wasn't it? I was running. Yeah, but. But when we left school, I don't remember running a huge amount of us. I did run things, but I was more. I did more playing because Traveler had kind of stopped a little bit then because. And we were playing. I was playing in Herb's games. I was playing in yours. Played a bit of Eddie, played a bit of Simon. I was more of a player.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

In 84.

[A]

I. I remember you. We used to run a couple of games of Stormbringer over the summer of 84 with that group, this new group that we'd. Yeah, but as you say, I can't remember playing other games. We. We did play A lot at that time. I remember the start of the year playing. Basic role playing. The start of the year as well should. Should mark 1984. It's quite significant because I was off school for the beginning of January. I don't even remember this. Well, that was the point where I fell whilst on a country run at school. I fell on a brick that had been cemented with the corner exposed and I fell on the brick. And my left leg, of course.

[B]

Left leg, of course. Yeah. Took a D6 damage.

[A]

D6 damage on the. I had this like pyramid shape embedded into my leg that I've got to this day from 40 years ago.

[B]

Yeah, I do remember that. And I also remember the English project on the unexplained that we had to all hand in. And yours got top marks and a lot of it. He copied out of the Goodies at the Goodies annuals. I remember sitting in English. This is. So you'd be waking this up. Shouldn't do this. Shouldn't bring these things up. I remembered. I remember doing it. Did a project and I. I copied things. We both just copied things out of the unexplained magazine thinking, there we go. This is projects about the unexplained is a bit on near the UFOS. Here's a bit on Bigfoot, etc. It's quite good. And I can remember our T English teacher show. You were back at school and you'd had all this time off and you'd done this huge project but in half of it was nothing to do with the unexplained. She just thought it was funny. It was just stuff. I thought, you need to listen to Goodies book. Look what she's playing at. And she thought it was great. I remember thinking with nothing to do with the unexplained.

[A]

Starburst magazine.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You bring that up.

[A]

40 years, you've not let that lie.

[B]

I will not let it lie. It seemed unjust.

[A]

Are you sure? It's my round. You know, this is something that we've observed before is I could. I could not remember many of the characters that I played at that time. I couldn't name them. There's a handful of them. But you think we went through so many characters and we played those characters, yet none of them were distinctive.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think it reflects the fact that we churned through them so you couldn't get kind of a close association with them because they didn't last very long. But I can't remember. I think when Herbs his games I was playing like Eagle Eye. Dejani came with Griffin Mountain.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I, I think you're right. I can't remember many. I can remember Lashmar, who was my room Stoneball, Rune Lord in Runequest. I can remember him, but it's hard to remember them. I think part of the reason you can't remember them is they were all the same. One of the interesting things then when we were that age is a lot of our characters were the. Were the same kind of characters for two, two reasons. One, because it was an element. Maybe we were starting to grow out of it then in 84. But prior to that there's an element of wish fulfillment in it and that you wanted to be the hero so you played heroic characters who ended up being the same. And also you tended to maximize characters for survival purposes. So they were all very similar, weren't they? Because if you could engineer it so that they had good constitution, carried a bastard sword, medium shield, player armor, those kind of things, you knew you had a better chance of survival. Nowadays we're very different, aren't we? In that you play different types of character and there's an element of trust with the GM that the fact I'm playing someone who's not very combat orientated in your game means you're not going to put me facing down a Balrog because that's not what my character's about. But back in those days they did wasn't like that. If you created some character, it was weak and interesting but not particularly combat orientated or whatever. Be dead within a week because. Because the games were quite brutal.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I remember Runequest going through carriage after carriage.

[A]

You know, they were.

[B]

It's a brutal thing. If you were dead, you were dead. That's it was. Nowadays not quite the same. There's more of a trust thing between you and the GM that you know, if you want to play Runequest and play a bunch of merchants, for example, who aren't really fighty characters going across Praxis selling things, the games master's not going to go, oh well, you can do that. But you know, if you meet a bunch of a hoard of brew, well, you know, you'll need more than that quartz staff. The GM just wouldn't throw that against you would. But in those days that wasn't the case, was it? It was. It was far more brutal than. And that. That's why I think you didn't have an attachment to characters because as you say, they weren't around long, most of them. And they all tended to be very similar.

[A]

So I want to make a nomination. In this period I was introduced to at least 30, nearly 40 other players because in the autumn of that year, 1984 is when the PBM started playing by mail game. And I'm not going to rehash that. If people want to hear that, go to episode 14. However, I think it's worth us talking about rash because 40 years later, this island that was originally created by darkness and light to fight the battle on, we've revived it, We've. We've run a campaign, a 10 second campaign in RA class. My question to you is, did it bring back any memories of playing in that campaign world back then or did it feel completely different? Or what, what, how did it feel returning to that place that we, we created collectively in my bedroom on a Sunday afternoon back in 1984? What was it like going back to that 40 years later?

[B]

Honest, I don't. I didn't. It didn't. I didn't. It didn't bring my memories of playing it because I'm not sure it could. I couldn't brought back some memories of playing in it. But I think the interesting thing was that the world itself, because I do remember, I have a more vivid memory of creating it, the three of us creating it. And as I think you said a few weeks ago to me, you could look at bits of it and you know who created it, you know which of us created it. You can say, well, that was your. That's the name you came up with. That's the name Eddie came up with. That's the name I came up with that was kind of quite interesting. Oh yeah, yeah, it was, you know, definitely was. Because there's something about the bits of it that you can probably to other people you'd part tell, but I can tell which bits I create and which bits you created. Which bits Eddie create without, without remembering that just off the way it looks and the names and that kind of thing. So yeah, but it was strange. It was strange to go back to it. But I suppose what was also strange about it was although it was like a familiar world that we created a long time ago, I think the style of adventuring in it was different. And I think that's something you can't really escape. The passage of time and the way you've matured as a player or as a games master in the way you run things. Rather than when you think back to how we used to do things when we were a lot younger, it was a familiar world. But I think the way it was run just. There was a different tone to it, I think.

[A]

Yeah, I think, obviously. And I think on reflection, going back to it, it kind of exemplifies what we've been trying to do with the podcast, isn't it? That this thing that we hastily scribbled down, this map that we did 40 years ago and bringing it back to life now people call it old school Renaissance or old school role playing. And in a sense, it's probably the closest I've done to old school role playing, because some of the situations or something, but it. It's also mixed with other things that we've picked up along the way.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Over the past 14 years are coming back to playing. Inevitably, it's infused with that. So we're not. We're not playing the same way. Of course not. Because we were kids then and we're adults, we're getting different things from it. But you're right, it shapes the way that those adventures go, doesn't it? And your relationship with your characters, you probably got a deeper and closer relationship to your characters that you played in the more recent game than you ever did in any of the games that you played by then.

[B]

Yeah, no, definitely. Yeah. Because you think more about your character. And all our characters, Mind Marks and Steve's characters and Eddie's, all felt different from each other. Whereas I think back in the day, there was a. They all felt a bit the same for that reason, and that's why they're not as memorable. And Lashmar, in a way, my. My Runelord Lashmar, he's memorable because he survived. Yeah. But as a character, he was pretty much the same as all the other characters. He was just the one who survived and managed to get to a certain tipping point as a Runequest character where he was pretty good with things. You know, he ended up like 190 out with his sword and shield. And you think, oh, yeah, he's. He's a survivor. But he wasn't notable in any way from all the other characters. He just managed to survive and become a Runel. That was the difference, wasn't it? But I think that. I think that's a big part of it.

[A]

What amused me about playing this campaign is that, in my head, created this city state where there is a point of collapse because the king is about to die, and there are all these warlords, these factions who are ready to maneuver. As soon as the king dies, they maneuver into place. And I assumed that it was going to be, you know, a political Intrigue and, you know, playing the factions off against each other. But I made a big mistake by giving one of you a map. And what you decided was, let's not hang around in this city anymore. Let's go and find out where this map leads to.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Does all your plans don't survive contact with the players, do they? That's the phrase, isn't it? Never survives your contact with the players. We're up. We're off. Didn't stay in there. Let's enjoy that.

[A]

Perhaps we can talk a little bit more about that campaign when we come to reviewing this year, but for 1984, what did you nominate for this?

[B]

I haven't nominated anything yet. I don't know. Can't remember. Find it. He said, what's up? We're making this up. The Kinneysburg players. Player. Me. Oh, you. I know when that's what I can't remember it.

[A]

It's you.

[B]

All right. Yeah. Because I'm forgettable.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I can't remember my own name.

[A]

Yeah, me.

[B]

I know it'd be me. Oh, you win.

[A]

Blither. You wish.

[B]

Thanks. Thanks, Lee. I'll ask. I've got a groggy for some them.

[A]

Oh, no, they sat in our chairs. Next up is New kids on the top, the tabletop. So what nomination have you got for this?

[B]

There's a definite sense a lot of them hit a bit of a nerve. As in that you think, oof. I mean, elfQuest1 in there, you think, oh, but another a famous. I mean there's a few here that, as I said earlier, we would win sacks. Adventures of Indiana Jones role playing game. Yeah. Remember that being one where we were very sniffy about because I think the reviews, we say you should never trust a reviewer, but we did trust a reviewer said, oh, and Indiana Jones can't die. You play Indiana Jones and you can't die. What is ridiculous. Because again, seems funny now because we played Tales from the Loop and you can't die in Tales in the Loop. But I remember being very sniffy about that. Advanced fighting Fantasy. It came out as well, didn't it?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I remember being sniffy about that, even though now I think it's not a bad game, actually. Yeah, it's quite a good little game in it.

[A]

But, you know, we were very earnest, weren't we? I think.

[B]

Yeah. Tomb came out sniffy about that.

[A]

Yeah, I got that, actually. And I remember reading them and just not understanding them because I was seeing it through the prism of this is nothing like Runequest. This is not what I've done before. That's part of the consequence of us not having a wide set of players to engage with. We were very open to new ideas at all. Every. Everything that would. That came up that was new, we scared. I mean the couple years later when GIRPS came out, that just sounded boring and ridiculous. It's a very utilitarian and paranoia in it.

[B]

I remember that and I bought Paranoia. I think it was a year or two later didn't really click with me at all, but really a very influential game. Really?

[A]

Yeah, but.

[B]

But it didn't click with me. But if I had to nominate one from 84. Drum roll. Dave Patterson. I hope you're listening. I'd probably have to say merp. I bought it. We did play it. About some of the supplements, I. I did so I like it. I think it was hard work and complicated but again, back in the day I think we tolerated a level of complexity. When I look at it now, I think it's a bit over complicated.

[A]

I've got memories of us playing that.

[B]

But I think it's. I. I think it's interesting though, going back to what we've just been saying, that the one game I bought of. Of all this list was merp, which really just replicates to some extent D and D, doesn't it? It just replicates a sword and sorcery fantasy game. And I had dnd, you know, I had basic expert D and D, I had Stormbringer, we played Runequest. But I went and bought Merc. I look at all these games now. I think maybe that's the last one I would buy of this list really because it's just another fantasy game. But that was the one I went for because it felt. I suppose it felt looking at this list now felt comfortable and, and I think you're right, having so few players to play with you was really you and Eddie some extent Simon. Although like you said, he'd drifted off the scene a bit. I think there was a reluctance to go for anything a bit crazy because you were worried that the only two people you could play with might roll their eyes and not want to play it. Yeah. So even though I looked at Toon or Indiana Jones and I did, I was, I was sniffy about them. But if I'd got those games, it seemed like a big gamble to buy a game in knowing that there are only two people who play this with me and they might just both go, this is rubbish. You don't like this, you've wasted your money. So you kind of default to MERP because you think, well look, it's Lord of the Rings. It's swords and sorcery, Elves and dwarves, we do that anyway. So that's a safe bet. There was an element of that we kind of isolated. Aren't you? If you had a big gaming club where there was 20 people turning up every Thursday night. Well, you could take a gamble, couldn't you? But you couldn't. You didn't feel like you could take a gamble.

[A]

My nomination is one we didn't play a lot, but I bought and I was kind of obsessed about for. For a while. And it was following a review that appeared in White Dwarf and that's Mercenary Spies and Private Eyes.

[B]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Quite a good game.

[A]

Which may. May have come out the year before. It might have been late 83, but nevertheless I got it in 84. And that was like the closest thing to a completely different game than everything else that we were. We. We ran through it a couple of times but then again some of the concepts that were in that I just couldn't grow, couldn't get my head around at all. I think, I think the conclusion of this nostalgia, when you go back to this nostalgia bl. Is this realization that we're idiots. We're idiots, yeah, but that's a given, isn't it? Well, I think what I've come to realize is that I'm enjoying playing games now much more than I ever did then. And even though we've got this kind of nostalgic affection because maintained our friendship, didn't it, when we were teenagers. It's one of the reasons why we were stay together, I guess. And you know, and all through our lives it's been like a touch point name more than ever. You think? Yeah, well actually I'm getting more value from it because back then I was only really scratching the surface and not very good at it.

[B]

Yeah, it has. And you're right, it has kept us. It's kept us together. It's kept us together through those shaky moments like. Like the time you got top marks for your unexplained project, which was Nick from the Goodies. But things like that, things like that. It's kept us together. You're right, but no, I agree with you. Actually it is interesting to reflect on it because on the one hand you could say what was great was back in the very early 80s when we got into role playing games, we were right at the beginnings of it in a strange way. By 84, mid to late 80s, we were like stuck in the mud a bit with it. We didn't know many people who played it. New games were coming out. They might have been for us because of course we didn't buy a lot of these games. And most of these games on this list I've either not heard of or I did hear of them, but I never played them. I never bought them. But you're right, we were kind of out of touch with it. We were out of touch with it sooner than we realized. I think. We, we, we always, in our own personal mythology, we came out of touch, got out of touch with new games in the 90s, but I would say some extent by, even by 84, we were out of touch with some of these games. Definitely weren't playing them.

[A]

Probably only in touch with it for a very short period of time. Very short period of time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you know what we've done over recent years, we've kind of looked at the 90s and we say, right, we missed the 90s. What was going on in the 90s. We've explored that. We've picked up new games that have come along since we've started playing again back in 2010. 11. Do you know what I think we should do next? Our next thing is that there were games out there that we didn't touch. And yet there are passionate advocates in our listeners.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Who love it. Like Palladium games. There'll be people out there. Yeah, we've never, we never, we never played any of the Palladium games. There were people like that. So I think we should lay the challenge down for people to advocate their game. We play it with them, we get it, we understand it, and we'll do a podcast on it and have a fight club to say whether it's any good or not. Any good or not.

[B]

I agree, I agree. Yeah. Because that's a kind of the interesting thing, isn't it? That to some extent there's an element of fate to the, to what games you're into in that if my mum and dad had bought me one of these games for Christmas, we might have fond memories of it. But it is going back to that thing. We didn't have. We didn't have the money. Yeah, didn't have the money and didn't have the players and GMs that required to experiment a bit. So it, it was quite a narrow circle, but there was an element of money as well to it, wasn't it? So again, going back to Mercury, that wasn't cheap, but it felt like a safe bet because of what it was. Whereas if you spent money on something. Yeah, some of these games, if they're expense expensive, you'd think, oh well now it's a bit of a gamble. But yeah, I think we should invite.

[A]

Invite people to proselyte. Is that the word about games that they loved Convince us that we missed out.

[B]

I think we're in thinking the worrying thing about this discussion though is we have kind of proved we know even less than we started out. We did not even like we're doing some podcasts. I role play authoritative wear. Just looking at one year has proven you know even less. We've always admitted to knowing not very much, but we know even last night there's no point listening to us anymore. We talk nothing about anything.

[A]

You know, if anything, what this podcast has been about is like a journey of discovery, isn't it?

[B]

Is this, is this podcast supposed to be fun? There you go. That's it. One star.

[A]

And is. As the philosopher T. Swift said, you need to calm down. You're being too loud.

[B]

Wise words. You need to calm down. It does. It doesn't. Where does she. Where does it come from? Where does she get this wisdom? It's unnatural, isn't it? Yeah.

[A]

I mean, I'd go on, but she goes on to rhyme downward down and it doesn't kind of work. Oh, that's the trouble with Taylor Swift is that her rhyming schemes, when you get to a certain point, she kind of exhausts this exhaust.

[B]

Yeah, Runs out of options.

[A]

Cheers, Blythe. Thanks.

[B]

Goodbye.

[C]

Do you like to peek behind the curtain? Tabletop talk from 3rd Floor wars takes you behind the scenes. We interview designers and discover how they make their games. What was the first spark, that first idea? How did that idea develop into a game thousands of people love and play? These are the questions we ask designers. So if you want in depth interviews with people like Shane Helmsley, John Wick, Ed Greenwood and John Harper, check out tabletop talk from third floor wars on.

[A]

Your favorite podcatcher 1984. What an incredible year for gaming. We've only really scratched the surface. We're really serious when we say to you, the listener, to get in touch with us about your enthusiasm from that era, the games that you played that were released in that time. And let's get together and see what we can do for future episodes. Contact me dirt the dicemail.com really good to have that piece from DailyDwarf again. He's pretty active again on Blue sky, so follow him there hopefully we'll hear more from him in 2025. I've got a few shout outs to thank new patrons. There's been some comings and goings over the last couple of months and I just wanted to recognize the people who contribute to make this possible. You can support this podcast in many ways by passing on and sharing and making sure that people are aware of it. The patrons throw a tip into the tip jar every month and make sure that this show is kept on the road. It also encourages the other projects that are associated with the podcast, including Grog Meet and all the other things like the book club. And it pays for boosts of the Discord server. So joining Fancy Poof level Joe, Yon Finch, Nathan Smith, Christian Fluker, and Jim Jupp. Hi, Jim. That's Bob's friend from Ghostbox. Okay, when it comes to the sofa, so good level. I like to give a virtual gift. And this time I'm going to draw from the games that were released in 1984 to try and inspire you to contact us with those games that you used to play. First up is Simon Buescher, who's been waiting patiently for a shout out. Really? If you think I've missed you or have mangled your name in the past, then please get in touch and I'll make sure that I put it right. Simon, you've been waiting a long time for this. So sorry about that, but thank you. Here we go. You get Sky Realms of Jaroon. Next is AJS. I'm going to give him powers and perils. I bought a copy of that a few years ago. It has such a reputation. At the time, P and P was going to change everything. Avalon Hill's contribution to the world of role playing games. It's not that great, but I'd love to hear from anybody who actually played it. Next up, Colin Richardson. Ah, one of my favorites, Cyworld. And we've covered that a bit in the podcast. Next is Alan Wakefield. Oh, chill. The Horror Game. I'd like to know more about that. Next is Phil, AKA Dafto Fart. And he's got flashing blades, which we covered in the last episode. We don't just throw this thing together, you know. Next up is Sam Kelly and he's got Time Master. There you go. And without further ado, we are out of time for this episode. I might be able to squeeze another one in 2025. We'll just have to see over the next couple of days, but be coming soon anyway. And we're gonna go to that there fancy London. Until then. Adios, amigos. London calling to the faraway towns now war is declared and battle come down London calling to the underworld Come out.

[B]

Of the cupboard, you boys and girls.