Traditions (original) (raw)

Crossposted to hampshire_alumn

About fifteen years (plus or minus a few weeks), a few of us came up with a crazy idea. It was the autumn of 1991, and strahd72, spoomeister, ronelyn, myself and a few others (with asim in a sort of paternal capacity) had recently resurrected Excalibur from the ashes left when...well, everyone except asim involved in Mark1 had graduated. We had recently started making a name for ourselves by, er, co-opting rednikki's weekly showings of TNG in ASH auditorium, advertising and showing movies after Trek was over. People seemed to respond well and we were getting bigger crowds, thanks to advertising.

Of course, showing movies wasn't all that Excalibur was about. At some point in late September or early October, one of us (I can't remember who, though ultimately strahd72 took the lead) came up with an idea to push the "role playing" aspect of the club. The idea was to run a RPG tournament around Halloween, and to make sure it was simple and accessible to anyone who wanted to come. We developed a highly simplified system for play and came up with the general format: there would be several game masters running small groups. These groups would be winnowed down into a final group who would face an ultimate adversary. To help out "newbies," we made up lots of basic generic characters of the standard D&D types (fighters, thieves, magic users, clerics--remember, this was 2nd Edition); each player would have the opportunity to play three characters, receiving each one as the previous was killed. (While this was a good idea in the abstract--it allowed us to kill characters with impunity and still have new players enjoy themselves--it wasn't so hot in practice. At some points, we just couldn't kill 'em fast enough!) We set the date, strahd72 came up with the setting (Ravenloft, duh) and story, and we made flyers. We announced it after Trek. We didn't expect anyone--beyond the known campus role players--to come.

Boy, were we wrong about that last bit.

At this point, I can't remember how many people showed up, but there were sure a lot of them, from all strata of Hampshire life. More than some of us could handle, to be honest. It was my first attempt ever at running a game, and I completely lost control. strahd72 had to step in and take over for me. (To be fair, I had to deal with at least a couple of players who had arrived somewhat inebriated...) We were all--as I recall--spread out in the basement of Dakin (I think...my memory is a little hazy here. Can anyone remember who the GMs were?) and there were enough people coming and going that we had problems moving around! Everyone had a fantastic time, and almost everyone (including those who had run through all their characters) stayed around to see the final battle. It came down to (again, feel free to correct my hazy memory) strahd72 as the evil vampire lord Strahd (again, duh) vs. ronelyn, making her first appearance as the valiant Donawain. And when Donawain defeated Strahd at the last moment, everyone cheered! It was just after midnight--we had planned carefully--and everyone went home happy. Well, ok, we went home really tired, but everyone else went home really happy.

Our little idea had succeeded beyond our wildest imaginings. Flushed with our success, we made plans to have a spring tournament, a Star Wars themed one this time. Our timing wasn't quite as good and we didn't get as big a turnout, but people had fun. The following year, we decided to try Ravenloft again at Halloween and, again, were surprised (though somewhat less so) with the great response we got. In fact, we discovered that people (who weren't members of the club) expected us to run this activity for them! Excalibur and Ravenloft had arrived.

In the early '90s, Hampshire's now-former president, Greg Prince, used to talk a lot about traditions and how Hampshire needed more of them. But it seemed that, other than bell ringing, everytime someone tried to start a new "tradition," it would disappear after a few years. I believed at the time, and I believe even more strongly now, that was because it's difficult to consciously create a tradition that will stick--which is pretty much what Greg and others tried to do again and again. School traditions generally start accidently. People do something fun and other people pick up on and continue whatever it is. This year will be (for those of us here in "Excalibur West") our sixteenth annual Ravenloft. It's become more of a small, friends-only event, but it's still going on as a public event back at Hampshire College. The name has changed from "Ravenloft" to "Deathfest," but the idea is the same: a role playing game open to the Hampshire community and run by Excalibur. When we started this thing in 1991, we had no idea it would last more than the first year, but here we are. It's almost Halloween and time for another tournament. It might have been an accident, but if the autumn RPG tourney isn't a Hampshire tradition, I don't know what is!

Yeah, ok, I have insomnia and this is what happens. I apologize for the length. ;-)