Monday, January 11, 2021

Attention All FRP Gamers

Last week, I posted about Timescape, an early live action roleplaying business located in the UK. While perusing issue #77 of Dragon (November 1983), I came across this advertisement for a similar business on the other side of the Atlantic. Quest Games of Saddle Brook, New Jersey offered "a real adventure" in which participants 
physically walk through a maze of hallways, and rooms in a specially designed castle searching for treasure, avoiding traps, and fighting real monsters.

 There's also mention of the use of electronic devices to enable one to have "working magic items and magic spells." Precisely what this meant, I have no idea, but, viewing it nearly forty years later, I am nevertheless intrigued. 

I'm quite fascinated by these early attempts to produce "real" fantasy adventures in the early to mid-1980s. I remember seeing many advertisements for places like this and Timescape, both in the USA and the UK, though, as I mentioned previously, I never visited any myself. If anyone did, I'd love to hear about it. After a certain point, though, mentions of this kind of entertainment seemingly disappear and I wonder why that is. Even now, I'm hard pressed to think of comparable businesses. I wonder if the improvement in computer technology played a role in their decline, with video games coming to sate the desire for a fantasy entertainment that was more direct than tabletop RPGs.

(Also, I smile whenever I see the abbreviation "FRP" used. It was once very commonly place but seems much less so now.)

9 comments:

  1. These days...Virtual Reality Goggles?

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    1. If so, that confirms my sense that computers now fill this niche.

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  2. Escape the Room-type experiences could be a (very) rough analogue?

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    1. True! Again, I have no experience of this myself, but the descriptions of it do have a similar vibe.

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    2. My wife and her sister are very into Escape Games and have done many, and they are seemingly very good at them. We've also taken the kids on a couple and they enjoyed themselves.

      Myself I'd rather play an FRP, but I have taken part in the Crystal Maze experience game (rather than the TV show), which involved a wee bit of role play (or suspension of belief at least).

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  3. Speaking of VR, it's worth mentioning the now departed 'Void' experience, which I did a couple of times at Disney World. It was like stepping into a Star Wars adventure and made me feel like I was immersed in a classic d6 module. You not only got the impressive visuals, but there was a tactile element to it as well. You could feel the heat coming from lava roiling below you and you reach out and really touch the R2 unit beaming out a holographic message. It wasn't a seamless, perfect experience, but I was tremendously impressed, all the same. Maybe theme parks, table-top RPGs and video games all have this type of immersive VR experience as their common destination?

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  4. The current version are the Great Wolf Lodges, which target smaller kids for family vacations. In addition to the theme park, they do Magiquest, which I hear is a series of quests the kids go on and require wands to interact with some of the content.
    This link is for the location in Texas. The main website has links to the websites for the other locations.
    https://www.greatwolf.com/grapevine/waterpark-attractions/attractions/magiquest

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  5. I can remember a time in my teen years where there was an appeal to the notion of "removing the middle man" so to speak. By that I mean finding a way to resolve actions in a direct way that didn't rely on game rules and dice. It was about making the adventure more "real." I can remember another thing that was popular for a while in my school was a game called Assassin in which players would have to try and "kill" one another throughout the normal day of classes. I think though that while these various operations (the ads referenced above I mean) were sort of aimed at the D&D crowd, they actually kind of missed the mark. I know for myself, I love the dice and maps and iconography of TTRPGs. It's all part of the appeal for me. I'd imagine that's true for a lot of players. The "VR" stuff seems to me like it might appeal more to people who don't "get" ttrpgs.

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  6. Do you have a copy of the Dream Park RPG? If I remember correctly there was a sort of appendix explaining how they were planning to actually create something aking a Theme Park where you could take part in some sort of LARP or somesuch.

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