From: erik@askinc.ASK.COM (Erik Johnson - MIS)
Subject: ALMA MATTER
Keywords: alma, matter, erik, stoat, winnebego
Organization: ASK Computer Systems, Inc.
Date: 23 Jul 92 21:30:23 GMT

Recently I posted a question about an old High-school RPG and got
good responses. thank to all. Edward Heil sent me a good summary.
We thought you 'netters might be interested, so here it is. 

First there's an ad, and then an editorail from the
Sorcerer's Apprentice magazine.

Sorry about the crossposting, but that's where my original
inquiry was posted.



================================================================
ALMA MATER

	I felt as if I had butterflies in my stomach as I waited
apprehensively outside the principal's office.  Inside, no doubt, the
Rat was planning some deviously sadistic punishment.

	"So what!", I mused, "Yesterday, I started a food fight in the
cafeteria, blew up the chemistry lab, got caught in the locker room
with the girl's vollyball [sic] team, and smoked a joint in Mr.
Fettish's English class.  Still, did I deserve this torture?"

	Suddenly the office door opened.  "Get your tail in here,
Snake!", the Rat commanded sternly.

	Time stood still as I inched my way into the dark recesses of
the Rat's office.  "Just wait until I get my hands on that snitch,
Dewey," I thought furiously, "I could tell that the day was off to a
great start!"

*****

	Alma Mater is a role-playing game in which players may choose
to be either a JOck, Cheerleader, Tough, Brain, Criminal, Average, or
Loser.  Their challenge is to successfully live as a teenager through
four years of modern day American high school.  However, play is not
restricted to school.  The game rules cover nearly every aspect of
teenage life, including sports, social situations, fights, and hot
rods.
	In Alma Mater, you can act out your wildest fantasies and do
anything that you would normally consider exceptionally foolish,
suicidal, or down-right crazy.

	This 48-page rule booklet, illustrated by Erol Otus and Owen
Oulton, contains a description of the high school, "Central High"
including NPC teacher and student descriptions and a sample
scenario, "Starr's Party".  Maps ofr the school and Starr's home are
provided along with a 17x22" color poster of the cover painted by
Otus.

Alma Mater $9.95

Oracle Games Ltd.,
P.O. Box 1027,
Station M,
Halifax,
Nova Scotia,
Canada B3J 2X1

==================================================================
and now the editorial...

TROLL TALK (p.2, Sorcer's Apprentice 15, summer 1982)
Magazine editorials are an odd sort of beastie.  Some poor fool
natters about inconsequentials, or offers scraps of information that
don't fit anywhere else -- and every now and then the editor climbs up
on a soapbox.  My turn on the soapbox.  You've been warned.
	On page 41 a Canadian enterprise, Oracle Games, advertises a
recent release, _Alma Mater_.  Briefly we considered not accepting the
ad; however, that is a form of censorship that I will not put up with.
The ad is not obscene as it stands, and to my knowledge the company is
completely legitimate.  The ad does not misrepresent the product.
These are proper reasons to refuse ads, in keeping with the unwritten
contract between reader and magazine that we'll provide you with good
material.  Magazines do owe their readership news and information:
this can be in the form of advertisments, or sometimes it's a soapbox
editorial.  I've read the rulebook of _Alma Mater_, and feel that a
dose of my opinions belongs inthe same issue as the advertisment.
	_Alma Mater_ bothers the hell out of me.  It's a roleplayng
game about geting through four years of high school, but the
schooldays depicted in _Alma Mater+ are, as a whole, vicious,
intimidating, manic.  In part, the game bothers me because it really
isn't something "distant" enough to fantasize about: we've all been
there, or still are.  While the situations in _Alma Mater_ certainly
do occur in high school (gang fights, drug-deals, 14-year old
pregnancies complicated by VD, extortion, etc.) but as the _focus_ of
a game about high school, it stinks.  In order to make _AM_
"realistic," the rules are thorough, covering such "scholarly"
subjects as dope-dealing, seduction, murder, sexist and racist
stereotyping, militarism in the classroom and chem lab, and various
psychosexual abberations, sometimes at considerable length.  The game
does reward players for doing socially "acceptable" things: getting
good grades, being popular, giving good parties, being on the winning
teams.  But the scales are set so that a "good" party probably means
free drugs and alcohol in quantities; being popular means getting good
dates who lay out (and making sure everyone knows -- no social
standing accrues unless you kiss and tell).
	To play by the letter of the rules, you could probably have an
acceptable game, assuming a level of maturity among the players and
the SchoolMaster higher than the game-setting itself.  But lest you go
astray and try to play something vaguely straight, the illustrations
will surely set you right.  Funny thing about illustrations...they set
the tone of the wordsyou print with them.  Illustrations accentuate
some things, bypass others.  Ignoring the basically neutral "yearbook
pictures," by my count over _half_ the individuals depicted in whole
or in part are doing something illegal, unethical, overtly crass, or
are graphically injured, unconscious, or dead.  People see and react
to pictures first, text second.  There's also the old saw about one
picture being worth a thousand words, and those pictures have a lot
more to say about the focus of the game than the words do.  I've been
an illustrator, editor, and publisher long enough to know the ropes on
that count, and it is a fact of publishing.  Whether the text
encourages "proper" behavior or not (and it becomes almost lip
service, at that), the illustrations graphically stress the worst,
over and over again.  Even the character record sheet (which you keep
constantly in front of you, right?) shows 17 students, of which just
one is engaged in what might be socally _neutral_ behavior: a
confused-looking nerd hiding behind a rifle-slinging militant sniper.
You really are motiated to play the nerd, right?  Sure.
	Role-playing games are a powerful boost to the imagination.  I
consider a lively imagination and active creatiity two of hte best
qualities a human can hagve.  In my experience, gamers satisfactorily
separate reality and games, but the younger the gamer, the less that's
true.  (It's simply a matter of psychology ang physiology: human
clockwork is designed that way, if you will.)  _AM_ does sport a
quickie disclaimer on the back cover that the "game deals with mature
subject matter and is not suitable for children under the age of 14" .
. . the birthday at which, one assumes, the "children" are ainstantly
indoctrinatied into the adventurous reality of acid, lecherous
teachers, VD, and mutilation.  Wow.  Sometime during the years between
entering and leaving high school, people get a good handle on the way
they'll deal with the world and how it's going to be dealing with
them, but it doesn't happen all at once -- and I've seen plenty of
people who still haven't got it down pat years later.  Federal law
assumes a person to be an adult at 18 -- four years later than
suggested by the small back cover warning.
	Even if that warning were in bold letters thrice their size,
it would hardly be enough.  Mothers everywhere will take one glance at
the game's cover and jerk away the offending publication, and even the
more sensible ones are likely to pack it off to their preacher -- as
if the extremely religious weren't having a field day on RPGs in
general.  It's difficult to explain to such people that material like
this is far, far from exemplary of the hobby.  Matter of fact, it's
usually downright impossible.
	By and large (and with notable exceptions), the role-playing
games currently on the market overtly encourage roles that have at
some time and/or place been conidered heroic, noble, desirable --
socially acceptable.
	Saints kill dragons; billy goats break up a troll's tollbridge
racket.  James bond loves 'em and leaves 'em, but the nefarious
world-ending plot is but to an end (along with most of th ebad guys).
	Unfortunately, there's nothing heroic, noble, or particularly
desireable to being a character in _Alma Mater_.  There' little to
reward teh character who is well-motivated, the one who honors the
"social contract".  In simplest terms, I find the game offensive on
several levels, and am somewhat angered that it could so easily be
used against everyone in the hobby, professional and player alike.  I
feel that role-playing games are an aexcellent elisure entertainment,
a fine pastime, and in general an encouragement to better things.  I
also feel that _Alma Mater_ is none of these, although it is a sordid
exercise in bad taste, bad judgement on the part of the publishers,
and a blot on the gaming hobby.
	To _good_ gaming . . . let's hope it survives.

	Liz Danforth



===============================================================
Edward James Heil
Internet: s83934@usurp.calvin.edu
dulce est dormire -- Erasmu


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( oo  | Erik Johnson - erik@askinc.ask.com 
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