All of our lives have bifurcation points. Many of them. Choices in education. Choices in jobs. Choices in friends. We carefully navigate the curves but sometimes unwittingly take new roads into the future. In the instant they don’t seem particularly special since we cannot possibly predict their ramifications.
I only realized decades later the importance of my singular bifurcation – the meeting in 1980 with the UC Berkeley councilor. The meeting undoubtedly set me on the course that led to where I am today. But now thinking about it, my life has had several major and a host of minor bifurcation points. Most not earth-shattering, though it’s still interesting to think about how ruptures appear to have played out. Arguably, any decision we make will have ramifications, but similar to the influence of the flap of a butterfly’s wings, these are hard if not impossible to parse (COVID is a notable exception). Most of mine are surely lost in time, but as I rewind and replay the movie reel, a select few of then-apparently-insignificant events had in fact bombastic effects on my life.
And thus, the 1980 councilor meeting may never have happened had another bifurcation not taken place several years earlier. To the point: had the earlier event not occurred, then I may not have gone to university at all. Or perhaps, as did many of my friends, I would have gone to the local university (Cal State Northridge), but not UCLA, and therefore not to Berkeley, and therefore not be writing to you from France, or at all!
Wide Eyed
I entered Granada Hills High School in September 1975. My parents had never moved house and so most of my friends at the time dated back to elementary school. The core group actually went all the way back to kindergarten, and there was no reason to think they and the few other friends I had through elementary would not go to the same junior high school and then the same high school. But like any city, Los Angeles was partitioned into school districts that did not necessarily align with each step to a new school. Although my elementary school friends all went to the same junior high school, this was not so from junior high to high. Only a few of my longtime friends went to Granada and they were hard to find on campus of 3000+ students.
It was Day 1 at Granada and I found myself mulling about unfamiliar faces - not even those I recalled from junior high year books. For context, I was very good at remembering faces, having embedded myself for years in the collection of sports cards and memorizing stats and faces of thousands of athletes. But no luck in the high school crowd and the introvert in me was resigned to the unpleasant prospect of having to overcome my inertia and socialize with strangers. And my 10th grade courses did not particularly lend to amical interactions. I took American History, Biology, English composition, Geometry, Physical Education (PE) and Spanish. My existing friendships were made on the playground and so with the exception of lunch breaks the only course where I conceivably might make some friends was PE. But I never made a lasting friendship in PE class. If anything, quite the opposite.
The first day of school each year was special. New classes, new teachers, new challenges. At each ‘period’ as classes were generically called, students would gather outside, waiting for the teacher to arrive. So time comes to go to Biology, and I’m standing in front of Mr. Mountain’s class with the other students. Most of them are alone, some in twos or threes. I knew no one and frankly none of my few friends at Granada would have taken Biology anyway, so it looked like high school was going to be a 3-year Alan Sherman song.
As fate would have it, the teacher was late and this meant burning a few minutes before entering the classroom. Although an inveterate introvert, I’m also occasionally spontaneous, sometimes too much so for my own good. And lo and behold, I had one of these rare impulses in those minutes before Mr. Mountain’s class on Day 1. I looked around and cooked-up the nerve to walk up to two students who clearly knew one another by their eye movements, gesticulations and laughs. (I will call them Steve and Larry to protect their identities). I don’t know why I approached these two students in particular. Perhaps because they were highly animated and had smiles on their faces and this created a context for my joining. We introduced ourselves, but were soon interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Mountain.
We entered the classroom and mulled about uncomfortably since rather than find the usual grid seating, there were 8 tables arranged such that 4 students would sit at each. Mr. Mountain didn’t waste any time and announced that we were to pair up and sit with what would be our teammate for the year. There was an uncomfortable moment when everyone played a sort of stop-action musical chairs, and surely through elasticity of entering the room together, I found myself at the table with Steve and Larry. They sat next to one another and so, by default, I sat next to my team partner for the year, Duane. As it would turn out, Duane and I worked well together as a team, but the friend-chemistry just wasn’t there. I had more in common with Steve and Larry and hung out with them regularly before and after class.
Escapable
Some background is necessary here and I previously mentioned this in parts 1-3. Both of my parents were second generation Americans and grew up in working-class families. They were full-on in the 9 to 5 work ethic and although both went to university, neither used their education in their professions. As far as I could tell, the culture of higher education did not really rub-off on them. My father was a butcher (what he proudly called a “meat cutter”) and my mother a housewife and then a book keeper (“an almost-CPA” as she would say).
We never went to any cultural events to speak of. We watched TV far too much and my parents repented a bit by alternating with reading best sellers. Being moderately dyslexic, reading was a mechanical chore and I never read a book out of my own volition until I was a teenager. Our family would go for a 3-day weekend each year, either to San Diego or Palm Springs. My parents didn't have a particularly clement view on intellectualism either. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining. But this was my world and seemed to be that of most of my friends. My few friends who were exposed to a larger world-view either didn’t talk about it, or did, but whatever they said simply whizzed past me.
Steve and Larry were different. Or rather, they were just like the few cultured kids I’d encountered through the years, but now at 15, I was open to actually listening. My sheltered life and relative illiteracy meant that I was often challenged in Steve and Larry’s presence. I tried not to show it (too much). I was guarded about my personal and school life and for fear of ridicule, I dared not use the excuse that although I was an inveterate B and C student, my elementary school teachers thought I would be a late bloomer. Regardless, it was obvious I was not as poised as they were. Steve and Larry could have rejected me, but never did. Occasionally my sophomorisms got raised brows and chuckles, but thinking about it now, this was my “in” and I didn’t try (and couldn't even if I tried) to be someone I wasn't.
“You are what you eat”. Arguably true for food. Definitely true for social interactions. Hanging out with S&L and their friends influenced – and I would go as far to say – changed my life. Above all this was thanks to what, at first, seemed just a game.
Mind F
Although I played games as a kid, I never took them very seriously. If I was not on the street playing baseball, basketball or football, then I was probably sorting sports cards or playing mindless board games. Sit-down games included, obviously, Monopoly, various card games like Poker and Solitaire, but also less-known ones like Yahtzee! and my favorite, All Star Baseball. With the exception of Poker, these games used little intelligence. I grew out of these in my early teens and shifted to the then nascent video games like Pong and hanging out at pinball parlors. All these activities were about having fun. But all were pretty limited.
Enter Steve and Larry. We got on well during that year in Mr. Mountain’s Biology class and I felt welcome enough to join them at lunch breaks. I don’t recollect exactly when, but I overheard them talking about imaginary characters. Although S & L were surely well-read in science fiction, this was erring on a genre I’d never heard outside of the likes of Tolkien, Lovecraft and Poe. Fantasy! But in listening closer, S & L weren’t referring to books they had read, nor to TV or movies, which was strange since it couldn’t be anything else. PC computers were 5 to 10 years off and the Internet as we know it today, 30.
I was stumped. Even had I surmised that Steve and Larry were talking about some kind of game, I had absolutely no idea something so rich and open-ended actually existed. I wasn't alone in my ignorance – I’m sure no one at our high school (and probably few in the Los Angeles area!) outside of S & L’s tightly-knit group had ever even heard of Dungeons and Dragons in 1976. I listened attentively to two or three conversations about hobbits, hit points, thieves, mages and doppelgangers, before finally popping the question “what in the hell are you talking about?!?” Naturally, they invited me to take part in an adventure at Steve and his brother Clyde’s house.
You don’t just play Dungeons and Dragons like an ordinary board game. The big differences are that there are few fixed rules and the enjoyment of the experience comes from collective imagination. Nevertheless, your play-character has to be birthed and equipped before taking part in a campaign: what is referred as “going into the dungeon”. You birth a character by first determining six abilities: I (intelligence), W (wisdom), S (strength), C (constitution), D (dexterity) and C (charisma). Each is found by the roll of 20-sided die (eliminating the 0 and 00) on a scale from 1 (low) to 18 (high). Any ability with a high number will likely contribute to your character’s role. For example, on the score sheet below (dating from 1977), “Anti” got a roll of 18 in dexterity. Since thievery requires dexterity, and Hobbits are great thieves, I decided to make Anti a Hobbit. (When an 18 is rolled, 4 additional rolls of the 20-sided die are added together to make a complementary score). The six abilities determine how a character fares in the dungeon including getting good things (treasure) and killing bad things (monsters). Key to gaining power is the accumulation of artifacts, weapons and treasure, but also surviving obstacles and killing bad things. Gaining power means getting points and going up ranks or “levels”. Higher levels mean more power and better ability to survive (tolerate the loss of ‘hit points’) and thrive in more challenging dungeons.
My fetish character was named Pensar. Pensar gained power and went up levels, but ultimately perished. I don’t remember his death at all since players could simply birth new characters. I decided to create an array of characters, only one at a time typically being allowed into a given dungeon expedition. Below are Prantex (mage), Anti (hobbit-thief), Lester (dwarf) and Rhōt (paladin). At the beginning of a campaign, the players would decide on the combination of characters who would enter the dungeon, for example: a fighter, a mage and a thief. We would each have our own character preferences: fun, power, function, and heated discussions would sometimes break out when there was too much redundancy in character function for a campaign. These brief skirmishes were very much part of the D&D experience.
These were the early days of D&D. The basic rule books, which dated from 1974, were poorly written and chucked full of unknowns and loopholes, and no too surprisingly, grammatical errors. This gave them charm and lots of room for interpretation. Some of my friends took D&D very seriously. Arguments would brake out, occasionally achieving a crescendo of limited sportsmanship, for example when Steve (as Dungeon-Master) conducted a series of solemn dice rolls to determine the fate of his brother Clyde’s main character "Squim". I don’t remember the context, but suppose that Squim tried pulling a clever trick to avoid a trap*. We heard the multiple dice rolls coming from Steve, but since dungeons and the dice activities of the Dungeon Master were hidden, it’s possible that some of the rolls were fake (which could be artifice to increase the suspense!). Steve paused for a second, had an actor’s fated facial expression – surely bracing for the fire storm he was to receive – and finally said in a factual, irrevocable way “Squim is dead”. “What!?!?!” incredulously barked Clyde. “Squim is dead” retorted Steve. Like all the enduring characters, Squim was like a member of the family. Squim went back to the group origins. Given several campaigns weekly over a few years, you can understand that his death could cause some pandemonium. What’s more, the différend was between two real-life brothers. Revenge from a previous D&D or real-life incident? Just the reality of the roll of dice? We may never know. In any event, the other adventurers sat speechless. At least speaking for myself, I was pretty indifferent.
* NB. Steve just contacted me with the following explanation: "I will say that Squim’s death was mostly caused because Drol (Larry's mage) told Squim he was covering him against an ancient red dragon and then teleported away instead while Squim tried to sneak up on the dragon and failed his roll."
D&D was a fun get-together that I always looked forward to - an anti-Bowling Alone. We would play a few times a week and take turns being Dungeon Master, but Steve's dungeons were by far the best. Gifted imagination and put in the time to create a fantastic dungeon. For this, each passage, door, room and contents (which can be a complex story with clues to a greater puzzle) need to be determined before a campaign. It can take a group several weeks to make it through a great dungeon. Below is one of my Dungeons. The numbering corresponds to a list of contents and creatures at each point (which, I’ve since lost).
Play Boys
D&D went beyond the wonderful dungeon adventures. There was the retail store in the San Fernando Valley called “La Maison de la Guerre”, which sold miniatures of the diverse character types that could populate a dungeon. There was also the growing number strategic games emerging in the late 1970s. We gradually came to play not only D&D, but also “Risk” and “Diplomacy”. In those days, information flowed mostly by word of mouth and this is how we learned of conventions and tournaments. Assemblies that invariably attracted nerds, geeks and the signature spattering of dorks.
A couple anecdotes.
One. My D&D friends and I took part in a tournament of Diplomacy, hosted at nearby Cal State Northridge. Perhaps a dozen simultaneous games in Round 1, and I found myself on a board with a group of strangers. My WWI country was France (seriously). All I remember is that I capitulated, but in going down, took-out Austria-Hungary, its player who had back-stabbed me during one of the many rounds of the game. Game over, and this tall, thin, oily black haired, thick-glassed geek who played Austria-Hungary approaches me and syllabizes “I am going to kill you”. (A bit out of proportion especially because Austria-Hungary is at a disadvantage in Diplomacy, and needs to cooperate with other countries in order to win.) Despite my double-takes, the irate loser looked serious – he was picking a fight with me. As he was edging me outside, my friends saw that something was wrong and approached. Their numbers rapidly neutralized the future Nazi. True story.
Two. I’m sure there are many other D&D-related stories that now escape me, but one other stands clear. Our trip to Lake Geneva Wisconsin to attend a wargames convention. The event was memorable for many reasons, the first being a 56-hour Greyhound Bus trip from LA to Lake Geneva. With me were Steve, Larry, Clyde and another D&D regular, John. We were poorly equipped for the journey and I recall that we each brought traveler’s checks (secure and popular in those days) to buy stuff at stops along the way, notably a lifetime’s supply of Chinese fortune cookies. Uncomfortable sleeping aside, the trip was fun, with lots of jokes, laughs and anticipation. This was the chance for me to see a portion of the Western and mid-Western US for the first time. I remember the dates: it would have been August 16, 1977 plus and minus several days. Elvis died during our trip to the meeting.
We arrived and checked into our hotel, which was also the meeting venue: The Playboy Club Hotel. Needless to say, in the context of the time, this was heaven to mid-teenage boys.
The meeting gathered an impressive sample of American teenage and not-so-teenage nerds, geeks and dorks. Unfortunately, we did not have the ease of cell phones in those days, and the whereabouts of any Kodak or Polaroid photos of the event are unknown. My memory of the meeting is vague, since it was only party centered on D&D, but I do recall two things. First, D&D’s co-founder, E. Gary Gygax had an expo of miniatures at what may or may not have been his house, nearby the conference center. Although I wonder if I'm not just dreaming this up. but from the outside, the house resembled a medieval castle. We had the honor of meeting and shaking hands with Gary.
My second recollection was our quest to participate in a campaign in Dave Arneson’s dungeon. We tried to reserve this ahead of time by mail, but for some reason lost in the sands of time, we did not participate in what would have been a memorable event. Nevertheless, one of us – John – did somehow manage to be part of a campaign into the dungeon of Brian Blume as we, the remaining four dungeonless mortals, watched on. As I said, my memory of the convention is patchy. Most of the time we were just being nerds.
When I returned home after this one-week odyssey, my parents sat me down and expressed concern I may be being brainwashed either by my friends or by the makers of D&D. I blandly told them that it was a game and not to worry.
***
The intellectual environment surrounding Steve and Larry helped me be a broader and more critical thinker. Education became increasingly predominant in my life and pumped by good grades in high school I had aspirations for a top university. I was motivated, applied to UCLA and was accepted.
I continued to interact with Steve and Larry during our junior and senior years at Granada, mostly through D&D, but also working together in summer jobs. Steve and Larry both went to UCLA and may have continued playing D&D, but I had moved on. Despite the now global popularity of the game and frequent opportunities to go on D&D adventures, I never entered a dungeon again. Somehow the make-believe spirit was gone.
I’m not sure what my fate would have been had I not approached Steve and Larry on Day 1 outside Mr. Mountain’s Biology class. I likely would not have valued education as much and only had aspirations for either a junior college or perhaps a notch higher to Cal State Northridge. But it’s perfectly conceivable that I may have graduated and directly entered the job market or dropped-out altogether. The latter were real possibilities, since I was secretly leading a double-life that I hid to keep my friends.