The 70s and 80s were the golden age of dark popular culture and Scarred for Life have chronicled the TV, comics, adverts, sweets and others of the period in a conversational but forensic style. There are two volumes available with a third on its way at the end of Summer ’22, which will feature role-playing games of the 1980s. We are joined by Stephen Brotherstone, one of the authors, and we talk about his formative years in role-playing and how this project came into being.
You can find out more about Scarred for Life by following the twitter account. The books are available print on demand, check for discount codes. They also have live shows.
We discuss Threads, Noah’s Castle, Dracula Lollies and much, much more.
Resident rules lawyer Judge Blythy joins me in the Port Street Beer House for a new segment where we do a Speed Rating of a game. This time we look at Monster of the Week – the rules highlights and our experiences of playing the game. There is a Jazz warning.
We finish off with a bit of closing time chatter about Dungeon Crawl Classics and the new Blade Runner kickstarter.
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I was actually an extra in ‘Threads’ and was standing outside the Triples gaming show on the bright Sunday morning they detonated the ‘mushroom cloud’ which had ‘interesting results’ at the time, as two young gamers ‘ducked and covered’ over a wall.
I used to travel up on the coach from Sheffield to Liverpool to go to Games, and as for GW, I lived next door but one to the manager of Liverpool, who had previously been the assistant manager of the Sheffield store previously. In fact in my book, there’s an entire chapter on my first visit to the store, which was next door to the famous ‘Soldier Of Fortune’ army surplus store.
I remember GAMES OF LIVERPOOL from the late 1970s when I was doing children’s theatre in the Merseyside region. There was not only this delightfully ramshackle shop but around the corner was an abandoned office building that the local RPGers took over each Saturday for a long day’s gaming. Doubtless all developed into actual paying usefulness years ago but having a place in my memories.
Growing up in Britain at the same time as I was growing up in Canada sounds frightening. I wonder if it was some hangover from WWII. I think you can see it in the humour as well. The British outlook at the time was darker. I grew up and still live by the world’s largest nuclear plant. I remember thinking that when Russia drop the bombs that we would be among the first to go. My friends and I always talking about taking lawn chairs to the front yard when that happened. Thanks for sharing the memories. I will have to watch Threads and the Guide to Armageddon.
I remember the labyrinthine interior of Games of Liverpool. Event gets a mention in the bizarre ‘Unicorn’ Kindle book by Alexander Ilič on Amazon.