Context

Following last night's rather snarky post about Starfleet Voyages, it occurred to me that I should make a post regarding the games I'm discussing, and context.

First, the context of time. Most of what I'm discussing here are products from 1977 - 1982. The quality of games and their design, components, layout, and artwork varied wildly during this period. The desktop publishing revolution had barely started and few companies at the time had the resources to publish product anything close to what we see today. Frankly, I find that part of the charm of all of these games. They feel more personal, blemishes and all. Typos and outright rules issues were inevitable, and there was no internet community to provide and share real-time feedback. And errata? Pfft. If it existed, you had to hope it would get published in a magazine you happened to read, or send a SASE off in the hopes of getting one. And game mechanics at the time could be, in comparison to today, fairly primitive and/or complex. Games seem much more elegant these days in some respects, but the beauty of many of these old games is how much freedom there was for players to fill in the blanks. Heck, the very nature of RPGs and what made good roleplaying was still being defined and emerging from its wargame roots.

Second, the context of Star Trek itself. We had only syndication and a fading memory of the animated series. The Motion Picture didn't come out until December 1979. For awhile, we weren't even sure there would be another movie. The Bantam original novels were still few and far between. There was no Next Generation. There was no canon. And Star Wars was kind of overshadowing Trek anyway, and in the process redefining licensing, merchandising and the concept of franchise. Again, there was a lot of freedom, and designers and publishers were taking advantage of it in ways they couldn't today.

Finally, the context of my sense of humor. If I come off as sarcastic about these games at times, it's only through the eyes of a smartass 43 year old. When I was 13 I wasn't nearly as critical, at least not about games. My friends and I just took whatever we were given, ran with it and had fun. Although I pretty much knew something was seriously wrong about THAC0. The truth is that I pretty much love every one of them, no matter how rough they might be. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing this blog.

Okay, now back to our regularly scheduled program... Space Patrol!