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The games (some) people play
The dwarves and goblins of Dew's fictional world Laratoa face off in an epic battle.
On
the mystical island of Laratoa, it's 1640. In the east, the nobles deal
with the aftermath of a coup. In the west, the dwarves rebuild their
ancestral city.
In Somerville, it's Monday, Dec. 6, 2010, and Warren Dew, a 50-year-old software engineer, is spreading out his role-playing game files, index cards, and laptop as he waits for friend Kim Barrett and the Redbones delivery guy.
Since Barrett is running late with car trouble, Dew takes out the secret master map. The cities are marked in tiny print: Karsigma. Malarme. Surgul. He probably knows them as well as he knows Somerville: Dew's been playing this game since the summer after his freshman year at MIT in 1978, or as Laratoans call it, 1568.
After college, Dew left Boston but not the game: A friend kept it going while Dew started a second Laratoa campaign in D.C. When he returned north several years later, he retook the reins.
Rarely does any role-playing game last 30-plus years. Dew can't think of one from his time at MIT that's come anywhere close. They're playing the children of the original characters; dead Laratoans' index cards fill half a shoebox.
The longevity is partly due to the structure of the game. Unlike your average Dungeons & Dragons campaign, Laratoa doesn't focus on a single story. Players simply explore the island as its history unfolds. Stories end, as Bilbo Baggins knew. Worlds don't.
In Somerville, it's Monday, Dec. 6, 2010, and Warren Dew, a 50-year-old software engineer, is spreading out his role-playing game files, index cards, and laptop as he waits for friend Kim Barrett and the Redbones delivery guy.
Since Barrett is running late with car trouble, Dew takes out the secret master map. The cities are marked in tiny print: Karsigma. Malarme. Surgul. He probably knows them as well as he knows Somerville: Dew's been playing this game since the summer after his freshman year at MIT in 1978, or as Laratoans call it, 1568.
After college, Dew left Boston but not the game: A friend kept it going while Dew started a second Laratoa campaign in D.C. When he returned north several years later, he retook the reins.
Rarely does any role-playing game last 30-plus years. Dew can't think of one from his time at MIT that's come anywhere close. They're playing the children of the original characters; dead Laratoans' index cards fill half a shoebox.
The longevity is partly due to the structure of the game. Unlike your average Dungeons & Dragons campaign, Laratoa doesn't focus on a single story. Players simply explore the island as its history unfolds. Stories end, as Bilbo Baggins knew. Worlds don't.
That means not every session is something out of Tolkien. As Barrett
sets his laptop down and gets some ribs, the two decide tonight's job
is to take the telepath Athemenes out of mothballs. They need to bring
him forward through 20 years of Laratoa time, and about a decade of
their own lives. Their only other regular player hates this kind of
session, but he's out of town handling a family emergency.
(Dew's wife, who looks rather Arthurian with long blonde hair and a long skirt, brings in their younger child, Duncan, for a goodnight kiss. "You can play in Daddy's campaign as soon as you stop eating dice," she says.)
When last seen, Athemenes had just been sent to the king's castle to protect the ruler against psychic attack on court days. The men prop up their laptops. Dew could be doing Barrett's taxes. They come to the first decision point. "Let's see, how much do you know," Dew says. He pauses for 30 seconds. "That's pretty much all you know right now."
Barrett squints at his decade-old notes. This character, this telepath, new to the court … how would he handle the situation?
Dew freezes. Silence fills the dining room. Behind Dew is a glass case topped with statues he and his wife have won for ballroom dance. Barrett's glasses look just like Milo Bloom's from "Bloom County." There's a jog in the wainscoting at the corner of the room. An observer might start to feel unreal herself, might nibble a Clementine ever more slowly until it's down to one pip between the teeth at a time.
Barrett says, finally, "I don't remember. That is, the player doesn't remember."
The years pass on, and the minutes. Unfortunately for the drama quotient, Athemenes turns out to be a bit of a stodge. The king asks for his opinion on a case and he declines to weigh in. A few years later the king asks again, with the same non-result. First the queen flirts with him, then a junior telepath: Athemenes ignores it. His experience points slowly accumulate for each year he lives.
"Sorry if this is not very interesting," Dew apologizes.
And yet, in the mind's eye, a light gray stone arch frames pale blue sky. Disgruntled peasants in burlap-colored clothes throng an open court floor. You glimpse them in your peripheral vision as you turn all your focus on protecting the red-brocade-clad king.
Near midnight, Barrett and Dew pack it in. They'll figure out the specifics of the telepath's ascendance to level 5 next time.
Next time ... In olden days a much bigger group of players immersed themselves in Laratoa for eight hours at a clip. But life takes people away. Dew himself can only keep going because his wife runs her own, entirely different game Tuesdays, and they swap off watching the kids.
Ending is "a real possibility at this point. We don't seem to have a way to bring in new players," Barrett says afterward. People still play role-playing games - a D&D guide came out in 2008 - but there are decades of Laratoa history to catch up on and most RPG players want to venture forth, not slowly explore. "It took me a while to get interested in the game," says Barrett, who joined in the early '80s.
Though Dew's spent so many years thinking about Laratoa, he's not terribly worried about its fate. "If we're no longer meeting again, we're no longer meeting again," he says. Not characters but kids are his focus now. There's been at least one hiatus, possibly two, 20 or so years back - he can't remember and can't check, because that era's gamesmaster died several years ago.
Besides, short of the final exit, Laratoa players don't leave for good. When Dew e-mailed a few former participants, one responded, "I don't think of myself as a former player. I think of myself as a current player who hasn't played in a while." Maybe his kids will want to join when they stop eating dice.
"A world isn't closed-ended," Dew says. Unlike Somerville, which changes every minute, Laratoa rests until its chroniclers return.
Contact Danielle at somervillescene@gmail.com.
(Dew's wife, who looks rather Arthurian with long blonde hair and a long skirt, brings in their younger child, Duncan, for a goodnight kiss. "You can play in Daddy's campaign as soon as you stop eating dice," she says.)
When last seen, Athemenes had just been sent to the king's castle to protect the ruler against psychic attack on court days. The men prop up their laptops. Dew could be doing Barrett's taxes. They come to the first decision point. "Let's see, how much do you know," Dew says. He pauses for 30 seconds. "That's pretty much all you know right now."
Barrett squints at his decade-old notes. This character, this telepath, new to the court … how would he handle the situation?
Dew freezes. Silence fills the dining room. Behind Dew is a glass case topped with statues he and his wife have won for ballroom dance. Barrett's glasses look just like Milo Bloom's from "Bloom County." There's a jog in the wainscoting at the corner of the room. An observer might start to feel unreal herself, might nibble a Clementine ever more slowly until it's down to one pip between the teeth at a time.
Barrett says, finally, "I don't remember. That is, the player doesn't remember."
The years pass on, and the minutes. Unfortunately for the drama quotient, Athemenes turns out to be a bit of a stodge. The king asks for his opinion on a case and he declines to weigh in. A few years later the king asks again, with the same non-result. First the queen flirts with him, then a junior telepath: Athemenes ignores it. His experience points slowly accumulate for each year he lives.
"Sorry if this is not very interesting," Dew apologizes.
And yet, in the mind's eye, a light gray stone arch frames pale blue sky. Disgruntled peasants in burlap-colored clothes throng an open court floor. You glimpse them in your peripheral vision as you turn all your focus on protecting the red-brocade-clad king.
Near midnight, Barrett and Dew pack it in. They'll figure out the specifics of the telepath's ascendance to level 5 next time.
Next time ... In olden days a much bigger group of players immersed themselves in Laratoa for eight hours at a clip. But life takes people away. Dew himself can only keep going because his wife runs her own, entirely different game Tuesdays, and they swap off watching the kids.
Ending is "a real possibility at this point. We don't seem to have a way to bring in new players," Barrett says afterward. People still play role-playing games - a D&D guide came out in 2008 - but there are decades of Laratoa history to catch up on and most RPG players want to venture forth, not slowly explore. "It took me a while to get interested in the game," says Barrett, who joined in the early '80s.
Though Dew's spent so many years thinking about Laratoa, he's not terribly worried about its fate. "If we're no longer meeting again, we're no longer meeting again," he says. Not characters but kids are his focus now. There's been at least one hiatus, possibly two, 20 or so years back - he can't remember and can't check, because that era's gamesmaster died several years ago.
Besides, short of the final exit, Laratoa players don't leave for good. When Dew e-mailed a few former participants, one responded, "I don't think of myself as a former player. I think of myself as a current player who hasn't played in a while." Maybe his kids will want to join when they stop eating dice.
"A world isn't closed-ended," Dew says. Unlike Somerville, which changes every minute, Laratoa rests until its chroniclers return.
Contact Danielle at somervillescene@gmail.com.
Laratoans on a hunt, with dice substituting for some of the horses.
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