Swords and Sarcasm
January 8, 2018 9:35 AM   Subscribe

Comedian Ben Elton explores fantasy RPGs and LARP on the 80s documentary series South of Watford (1, 2, 3) (mlyt)

From the same era: Children's magazine program Blue Peter also does LARP
More contemporary: Comedian Dara O'Briain LARPing on Tough Gig 1, 2, 3
posted by fearfulsymmetry (13 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
Wow, Steve Jackson is there! Looking forward to watching these all later.
posted by exogenous at 10:27 AM on January 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


It took me a while to figure out if it was real or a contemporary spoof... it's interesting though, thanks!
posted by starman at 11:08 AM on January 8, 2018


Which Steve Jackson? Steve Jackson (UK) [Games Workshop/Fighting Fantasy] or Steve Jackson (US) [Metagaming/Steve Jackson Games]?
posted by fings at 11:18 AM on January 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


I’m gearing up for Cyberpunk 2020 LARP.
posted by Artw at 11:41 AM on January 8, 2018


Which Steve Jackson? Steve Jackson (UK) [Games Workshop/Fighting Fantasy] or Steve Jackson (US) [Metagaming/Steve Jackson Games]?

The one that a shoestring 80s documentary filmed by London Weekend Television* could afford: the one from the UK.

* It fascinates me that the independent TV station franchise for London is separated into separate weekday and weekend franchises. Thames, which I only know from their ident at the end of programs, was the weekday franchise from '68-'92. Since 2002 both the weekday and weekend franchises have been held by the same entity (ITV).
posted by zamboni at 12:08 PM on January 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


It's a programme for Young Adults made by Young Adults and concentratin' on all the subjects that Young Adults are into!
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 12:17 PM on January 8, 2018 [5 favorites]


I’m gearing up for Cyberpunk 2020 LARP.

Been there done that, turned it into a rather profitable & enormously fun career. Without getting busted along the way.
posted by scalefree at 12:22 PM on January 8, 2018


Which Steve Jackson? Steve Jackson (UK) [Games Workshop/Fighting Fantasy] or Steve Jackson (US) [Metagaming/Steve Jackson Games]?

GURPS: Cyberpunk was released in 1990 in the wake of the Secret Service raids on Steve Jackson Games & the home of employee Loyd Blankenship aka the Mentor of the Legion of Doom/Hackers, primary author of the game & also the now legendary text Conscience of a Hacker. The incident was the precipitating event for the creation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Just a few years too late for this show which I'll definitely be watching tonight.
posted by scalefree at 12:45 PM on January 8, 2018 [4 favorites]


It's a programme for Young Adults made by Young Adults and concentratin' on all the subjects that Young Adults are into!

Because that's what this programmes about: shock!

walks off humming 'Nosin Around'
posted by lkc at 2:06 PM on January 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


Oh my lord, there's a lot to unpack here.

The games shop at 1:08 is the basement of Games Centre on Oxford Street--not the location that later became the Virgin Games Centre and then Game (100 Oxford Street) but closer to Tottenham Court Road.

Albie Fiore: early Games Workshop employee and White Dwarf writer in the London years, though earlier he'd been editor of Games and Puzzles magazine, and later designed many of the games for the Crystal Maze, and became a noted crossword setter. Died 2009. Lovely, lovely man.

The fifth player in the D&D game at 5:00 is Jervis Johnson, who moved to Nottingham with Games Workshop after Steve and Ian sold their shares in the company to Bryan Ansell (who was head of the co-owned Citadel Miniatures) and is mostly famous as the creator of Blood Bowl. Also a splendid human being.

Tim Olsen (clip 2, 0:35) was the manager of Games Workshop's primary branch--not the largest or most central but the one that had started it all--at 1 Dalling Road in Hammersmith, though most of the early-mid 1980s. I believe he went on to do other retail operations within Games Workshop. Big stacks of Battlebikes (Battlecars expansion) date this pretty firmly to 1984.

The frother: no idea.

Transit van full of larpers: I swear I recognise some of these people, but I can't name them.

Treasure Trap: the first large-scale organised larp in the world. Ran at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire 1982-1984, and had up to 5000 members, though not all playing simultaneously. There's very little in the way of decent records--I believe there may be a documentary but I can't find it.

The weird incantation that various players chant as they fight is, I believe, "Double, double, double", indicating that each blow was doing double damage. The game mechanics were only one step removed from D&D.

Playout: "Swords of a Thousand Men" by Tenpole Tudor, a band fronted by Eddie Tudor-Pole who went on to present the Crystal Maze.
posted by Hogshead at 6:24 PM on January 8, 2018 [9 favorites]


I love those old days of RPGs, and wish I didn't live in an area back then that assumed they were all "of the devil," fully in the grip of the Satanic Panic. I have many quarrels with evangelical Christianity, but one of the biggest is denying me all that fun when I was of an age to really enjoy it. Sour bunch of spoil sports.
posted by JHarris at 7:17 PM on January 8, 2018


The UK avoided the majority of the 'Satanic Panic' that ran through the US, meaning that there was less parental resistance to early RPGs. There was a wave of articles in newspapers and magazines 1982-4 covering the games, and also two books ('Dicing with Dragons' by Ian Livingstone, and 'What Is Dungeons & Dragons?' by David Honigmann, Phil Parker and John Butterfield, who were in the year above me at school) intended mostly to teach bemused parents what their children were up to.

Compared to the home-computer boom, which was simultaneous with this, RPGs were seen by many as a better option because they were less solitary, with a cheaper buy-in, and at least somewhat comprehensible because they were games with dice, even if the dice were weird shapes. I remember my father's incredulity when I told him I'd paid 50p for a dice (a gem d20 I still own) and his insistence that I'd been ripped off.

At school gamers were still close to the bottom of the social pecking order and got pecked on a good deal. The words 'geek' and 'nerd' would come later.

Ben Elton, at this time, was a leading light of the alt-comedy circuit. He'd been a regular compere at the Comedy Store and had co-written both series of The Young Ones.
posted by Hogshead at 3:02 AM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


If you want more of Treasure Trap, check out the Blue Peter link (it's less piss-taking as it was the middle clash/posh kids show back in the day)

Also for old skool rpgs in general check out The Grognard Files podcast that I've been working the backlog of... it's where I found out about the South of Watford clip
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:30 AM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


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