In addition to these material components, however, at the root of every TTRPG experience are stories created by the players and sonic performances that happen as a result. In tabletop role-playing games, sound and story are inseparable. The players at the TTRPG table must evoke worlds, actions, and people through description—recounting what is seen, experienced, and heard within the theater of the mind.

Thanks to the generosity of The Strong National Museum of Play, I was awarded a Valentine-Cosman Research Fellowship. With this fellowship, I was able to spend two weeks going through The Strong’s extensive collection of TTRPG artifacts and associated archival documents in the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play to support my dissertation research on music and sound within TTRPG communities. What I found during my time demonstrated how sound and music has spurred creativity, conveyed literary genre, and inspired storytelling among both TTRPG writers and players since the inception of the genre.

The vast collection of TTRPG sourcebooks at The Strong includes games that span five decades of TTRPG play and cover the gamut of literary genres, ranging from the ubiquitous Dungeons & Dragons (1974) to obscure titles such as Woof Meow (1988). These books serve as manuals on the rules of play, “how-to guides” for acting as a character, and as primers for creative writing and sonic performance. In most of the books I examined, the designers of these games emphasized the need for dramatic storytelling. In a playtest copy of Dungeons and Dragons for Beginners (1979), Gary Gygax and Eric Holmes describe “Dungeon Mastering as a Fine Art,” that laid out the needs for theatrics:

“Dramatize the adventure as much as possible, describe the scenery, if any. Non-player characters should have appropriate speech, orcs are gruff and ungrammatical, knights talk in flowery phrases and always say “thou” rather than “you.” … The dramatic talents of the Dungeon Master should be used to their fullest extent. It adds to the fun.”

In other games, the role of the game master extends beyond general descriptions and into evoking source material and genre through audio. Star Trek: Roleplaying Game (1999), from Last Unicorn Games, establishes the need for musical props and sonic “recognitional signals” like writing and performing a Star Trek-esque “Captain’s Log” in the style of the television series, or playing Alexander Courage and Gene Rodenberry’s iconic Star Trek theme song to establish mood at the beginning of a session.

Cyberpunk (1988) from R. Talsorian Games Inc. presses the need for atmosphere to evoke the game’s dark, futuristic setting and suggests an appropriate sonic environment, instructing players to:

Get out your heaviest rock tapes and play them during your run. Encourage your players to wear leather and mirror-shades. Adopt the slang and invent your own… This is the dark future here; and it can’t be accurately portrayed in a brightly lit room with milk and cookies on the table.

Additionally, Cyberpunk doubles down on the sonic atmosphere for its setting, providing the option of playing as a “Rockerboy/girl” who uses music of any genre to make political statements, as well as provide in-narrative music reviews of fictional bands and albums such as Johnny Silverhand’s A Cool Metal Fire.

TTRPG companies’ attention to sonic and musical detail also extended into providing musical material as role-playing aids, starting as early as 1984. In an official game adventure for TSR’s Advanced Dungeons & Dragons entitled Dragonlance: Dragons of Despair (1984), the author Tracy Hickman, along with members of the design staff Michael Williams and Carl Smith, composed “Song of Goldmoon,” a song specifically for use in the module. Hickman calls out this piece as vital to the adventure and instructs that one of the players read the lyrics aloud, or, if any players have “natural minstrel abilities,” to sing it with the music provided. TSR’s foray into musical material continued into the 1990s. The Strong houses one of TSRs Advanced Dungeons & Dragons audio adventures that includes a CD for use during play.

Ravenloft: A Light in The Belfry (1995) is a full campaign for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons set in D&D’s horror genre setting, Ravenloft. Along with the text, the adventure includes a CD with 87 different tracks that include narrative performances of the in-game story and atmospheric descriptions, as well as sound effects that enhance a spooky atmosphere. The CD is integral to play as the first 13 tracks tell the story of the adventure’s antagonist, Morgoroth, that players discover as a part of the game. The tracks on the CD are meant to be played as the players explore a haunted house, with each of its rooms having a dedicated narration and musical elements associated with the horror genre, such as eerie strings, bells, and synthesizers.

In addition to the musical and sonic work published by game companies, The Strong houses collections of unpublished materials from various game designers as well as materials created by TTRPG players for personal and public play. In particular, the Play Generated Map and Document Archive papers (PlaGMaDA) contain thousands of player-generated documents including character sheets, maps, GM notes, and homebrew adventures. PlaGMaDa offers insight into a lived TTRPG past and shows how players from various backgrounds interacted with sonic and musical ideas. Within the parts of PlaGMaDA that I was able to look through during my short time in the archives, I found that players experienced and engaged with music in different ways.

Many of these instances consisted of small notes of things that implied the presence of musical objects. In a collection of notes and maps for a game of Chaosium Inc.’s Call of Cthulhu, the game master detailed a short list of things in an apartment: “Liquor, Hi-Fi jazz records, promo glossies, occult books.” Despite the innocuous nature of this note, its inclusion suggests the owner of this apartment listened to “Hi-Fi Jazz,” and this in turn generates assumptions based on what the game master and the players associate with that genre of music.

Players also explored the possibilities of music within their games in another collection of character sheets dated between 2004-2007. A player drafted a song for a character they were playing in Mage: The Ascension (White Wolf Publishing, Inc., 1993). Set in the gothic-punk universe of the World of Darkness games, the song features edgy lyrics typical of a punk song.

The document shows how the player engaged with music by writing lyrics themselves, as well as implies that they were thinking critically about their writing. The crossed-out lyrics and rewritten lines imply that the player spent more than a few moments on their writing. In a sticky note attached to these lyrics the donor states: “Draft of a song [player’s name] wrote on as his MagePC [player character] Rain from the 06 game.” There is no record indicating whether this song was ever performed or what it possibly sounded like; however, its presence demonstrates how TTRPGs provide space in which creativity and musical practice can be explored through a play environment.

My time during my fellowship at The Strong has had a profound impact on my research into music and TTRPG communities. Contemporary TTRPG communities often consider the use of sound as a modern phenomenon that align with the resurgence of popularity in the genre since the mid-2010s. However, I hope my research conducted at The Strong will establish that music and sound have long been integral to TTRPGs as a creative practice.

Play, especially play through music and sound, is often ephemeral, as these moments between friends are not (usually) recorded.  I was confronted by this ephemerality while examining the William J. Hoyt Dungeon’s & Dragons Collection housed at The Strong. Hoyt was one of the first people to play Dungeons & Dragonsin the 1960s as a part of Dave Arneson’s wargaming group in the Twin Cities area. In a short 15-second sound clip from a slideshow Hoyt put together about the creation of D&D, he shows a copy of the game Dungeon! (TSR, 1975) and reminisced on these decades-ago moments that exist now only in Hoyt’s memory. Like so many gaming groups in today’s world, Hoyt describes these playful moments with fondness, and speaks to the sustained importance of music and sound in TTRPG play:

“This is my first copy of Dungeon!. We played this game over, and over, and just loved this game. We played it, and made up songs, and just had a great time playing this game.”

Written by Andrew Borecky, 2024 Valentine-Cosman Research Fellow

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To answer the former question, since 1975 many pinball companies began basing their games on films and TV shows to convey pinball’s innocence. The manufacturers’ strategies, in turn, brought pinball further into the mainstream. Recently, Stern Pinball adapted Jaws (1975) into a pinball machine of the same name (2024), as well as the John Wick quartet (2014, 2017, 2019, 2023): John Wick (Stern, 2024). During my time at The Strong National Museum of Play I was able to examine archival material for inclusion in my dissertation, such as Williams’ official proposal for Star Wars: Episode I (1999). Their document made it clear that the Star Wars movies met their targeted demographic: “male, between the ages of 15 and 35.” Williams was focused on securing the Star Wars license as they were struggling financially, and the intellectual property (IP) was sure to draw attention. The Star Wars: Episode I pinball game was the last one that they made. Although Williams ceased operations, Jersey Jack Pinball, Stern, and Spooky (among other companies) continue to consistently release popular licensed games, which displays not only their dependence on IPs, but the intersection of pinball and popular entertainment.

Beyond my investigation into Williams’ pinball department, I also examined Atari’s official documents. I was able to pinpoint one of the earliest recorded references to their interest in designing pinball machines. They showed enthusiasm for creating pinball games in 1975 once companies began making licensed games.

Atari’s video game design decisions caused the 1983 video game crash, and their strategies for their pinball machines were no better. They showed early promise with their first game, The Atarians (1976), but their next games were missteps. The last game that they produced, Hercules(1979), was a colossal failure in more ways than one. I was able to examine The Strong’s Hercules, and it was no surprise that the game did not work as it was poorly made, much like Atari’s E.T. (1983).

Atari’s memos tell a story of a thriving company that declined over time due to poor financial planning and game design. It is vital that we, as game researchers, dig through these archives to write these (his)stories. Various university presses demand deep archival investigations. Raiford Guins and Henry Lowood’s Game Histories series (MIT Press) centers on books that display intense attention to historiography. The Strong National Museum of Play is a crucial resource that aids us in our endeavors to produce rigorous research which will hopefully translate to books that reach not just an academic audience but the lay public. In some cases, the archives make our jobs possible, and this is especially true for my work.

I was lucky enough to work with Chris Bensch, David Sleasman, and Stephanie Ball who made all the documents that I wanted to examine available and accessible. I am forever grateful for my time at The Strong and I hope that my work and this post will inspire others to apply for the fellowship or seek out documents that are housed at the museum for their own research.

By Ryan Banfi, 2024 Strong Research Fellow

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It all starts with Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, the undisputed kings of TV game shows. Their success started in 1946 with programs including What’s My Line?  and their influence continues on television today. One of their shows, Match Game, enjoyed a successful run from 1962 to 1969 and returned in 1973 incorporating a newly-added bonus game, the “Super Match.”

“Super Match” earned television’s greatest mark of success—a spinoff in the form of the 1976 game show Family Feud. After testing as a single-player game and as a game for celebrity and civilian pairs, the Family Feud format evolved to feature a competition between two five-player teams comprised of family members related by blood or marriage. Where the Match Game bonus round rewarded contestants for guessing any of a recent studio audience’s top three responses to a fill-in question, Family Feud gave players the opportunity to offer responses to questions in the hope of matching any of numerous answers given by participants in a random sample of Americans. The most-popular responses garnered the highest point values for the contestants.

The most engaging element of Family Feud created the greatest production challenge. The Fast Money round posed five questions such as “Name something you take with you to the beach.” With players able to give any answer, popular or not, logical or not, there needed to be a way to instantly display any and all of their possible responses to the multiple open-ended questions. Pre-printed art cards couldn’t work for displaying responses as they had on Match Game, as there were answers to multiple questions to keep track of, and the contestants’ answers would be thoroughly unpredictable. Hand-written or typewritten notations created in real time on-set were judged to be antiquated as well as impractical, as they were unreadable from halfway across the stage. Other similar methods for visually recording responses were discarded for their lack of impact for the home audience. After research into the state-of-the-art in display and exhibition, a Canadian company was identified for a magnetic flip-dot signage system patented in 1964, and Ferranti-Packard of Ontario sold the first such display to the Montreal Stock Exchange for $700,000 (equivalent to more than $6 million today.) The unit was extraordinarily expensive because of the intricacy of the flip-dot components that required manual construction—hundreds of electromagnets which, when energized, switched the field in either the positive or negative direction. And when the direction changes, the dot flipped.

A decade later, the mechanics for flip-dot displays were being perfected and Goodson-Todman was among the early customers when they ordered one of the largest such units built to date, at a cost far in excess of any display system ever utilized on a television show. Although significantly advanced from the units marketed ten years earlier, the Family Feud board still proved to be susceptible to extremes of humidity, so care was taken on-set to maintain a constant airflow around the unit. With that accommodation, the big board operated reliably through long consecutive days of production.

Modules of the display were each capable of displaying 10 alphanumeric characters utilizing 35 flip-discs for each character. The Family Feud board consisted of 24 modules in a 6 by 4 array, capable of displaying eight lines of text, each 30 characters long, for a total of 240 characters comprised of 8,400 flip discs. The technology proved to serve Family Feud’s production needs perfectly. The ability to easily program words on a QWERTY keyboard that could be revealed instantaneously, on demand, with a kinetic flourish just seconds later, in bright contrast capable of registering on television cameras with high impact, earned the massive unit a place of great prominence, center stage on every Family Feud episode between 1976 and 1995. The Ferranti-Packard display also attained iconic status over the course of decades through its subsequent use on foreign versions of the TV series in as many as 80 countries.

Now, decades later, this signature piece of technology has come to The Strong Museum through a generous donation from game show veteran Randy West. But we quickly recognized that the signature sign would have limited use if it couldn’t be brought back to operational status. What to do? Fortunately, as in so many parts of life, the solution was all in who you know. Fortunately, we were able to connect with Corey Cooper, the wizard behind game mechanics for multiple shows over the years, including Big Brother most recently. In December 2023, Corey made the trip from sunny Los Angeles to chilly Rochester and applied his insights and troubleshooting experience to the matter. As Corey explained on Facebook:

Spent a week getting this old Lady up and running again, after many years of neglect. Thanks to Randy West for donating it and Bob Boden for introducing both of us to the National Archives of Game Show History at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY.

I originally created software on an Apple] [+ computer to run this lady’s older brother in ’82 or ’83, and then I did the software to run this one on an IBM AT computer in ’88 for the “Ray Combes version.” I worked from that software to figure out the protocol again, since we had the hardware manuals but not the software manual anymore (I had the hardware manuals, and was undoubtedly the one who lost the software manual).

I was pleasantly surprised that she came to life as soon as we hooked her up and gave her power. The Museum staff had it all set up for me when I arrived, and dealt with the tedium of all the missing and not-working dots, and she is now in their excellent hands!

With some physical care and technological ingenuity from Cooper and members of the museum’s Conservation and Exhibits team, the historic Family Feud digital signboard is now back in working condition and waiting safely in the wings to return to public visibility when The Strong opens its major exhibit on game show history in 2027. Survey says, the sign’s going to be a hit!

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“What’s in it for THEM?”

Have you ever watched Password, The $100,000 Pyramid, Match Game, or any other celebrity game shows and wondered why the celebrities are there? They can’t win the car, the cash, nor the washer/dryer combo, and with the workload involved for the TV shows on which they’re already appearing regularly as cast members, being on a game show is costing them a precious day off. A few celebrities have explained the incentives for being on a game show over the years…

IT HELPS NAME RECOGNITION—Actors often find themselves disappearing into the characters they play; when they’re recognized in public, fans address them by character names, not their real names. Game shows helped establish an identity beyond their characters.

Dick Gautier (Hymie the Robot on Get Smart, among many other roles) explained in 2013, “You were visible, the host said your name…and in my case, pronounced it correctly, which was a big plus…And the audience saw you for five straight days.”

Jamie Farr, who began appearing on game shows during the height of the popularity of M*A*S*H, said, “Before I started doing game shows, if people recognized me on the street, they would say, ‘Hey, it’s Klinger! It’s Klinger!’ After I began appearing on game shows, they began saying ‘Hey, it’s Jamie Farr!’”

IT CAN LEAD TO OTHER GIGS—In a 1962 TV Guide profile of the stars who frequently appeared as game show panelists, Betsy Palmer, a regular on I’ve Got a Secret, explained what had happened in her theatrical career since she started appearing on game shows.

“Panel shows have made me what I am today…When I played Columbus (Ohio) in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes last summer, we filled the auditorium to capacity—4,000 seats every night. They shouldn’t pay us for being on Secret. We should pay them.” Random House founding publisher Bennett Cerf, who amassed a full schedule of paid speaking engagements because of his weekly appearances on What’s My Line?, told TV Guide, “I’ll deny it if you print it, but I would do [game shows] for nothing.”

Possibly the definitive example of what game shows can do for a career was Burt Reynolds, who traced his two decades of film superstardom to an appearance on a game show. Reynolds, who was playing the title role on TV’s Dan August, appeared on The Hollywood Squares to promote that show. A talent booker for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson found Reynolds witty and engaging in his Squares appearance and extended an invitation for Reynolds to appear as a guest of Carson. A casting director saw Reynold’s appearance on The Tonight Show and thought Reynolds would be perfect for a film that was about to start production; that film was Deliverance. The success of the film sent Reynolds into the stratosphere. At a time when many A-listers shied away from game shows, Reynolds famously harbored a sense of loyalty toward the genre, popping up on Match Game, Password, and even surprising the audience by modeling a new car on The Price is Right.

IT’S JUST PLAIN FUN—Charles Nelson Reilly famously said of Match Game, “This isn’t a job, it’s a social engagement.”  A six-episode taping day on that show involved catered lunch and drinks after taping the second episode, catered dinner and more drinks after the fourth episode, and a chance to swap stories and jokes with the other stars. And during all that, you were asked to play an uncomplicated game that didn’t require memorizing a script or any rehearsals. You just waltzed right in and played the game. And for all that, you’d collect a few thousand dollars for your time.

Some truly loved the games. Betty White said she thought the mental exercise involved was good for her. Chuck Conners was so addicted to Password that he offered to pay for his own travel arrangements to appear on the show.

Shelley Herman, a longtime writer for TV game shows, says, “Actress Debralee Scott told me the proudest moment of her career was when she scored 234 points and became the first celebrity who won Fast Money without her partner’s help on Richard Dawson’s version of Family Feud.”

GOTTA PAY THE BILLS—While the general public thinks of actors as multimillionaires across the board, the truth is a great many performers in the public eye are thinking about getting their rent paid like the rest of us. David Narz, who designed the stunts for All-Star Beat the Clock, remembers, “Celebrities are like any other people—some of them are comfortable doing silly stunts. Some of them aren’t. And the ones who aren’t end up doing the show because they need a gig, they need exposure. So, we had some weeks where we already had a host who wasn’t that fond of the show, playing the game with some celebrities who didn’t want to be there.”

“I remember a taping of All-Star Beat the Clock where the celebrities were behind the curtain waiting to be introduced. One of them was an actress that I won’t identify. But she was there because her agent booked her on the show. And I remember she just looked at me and said, ‘Tell me who I need to talk to and what I have to do with him in order to get out of doing this show.’”

Bill Bixby, who found employment difficult to come by in the years between My Favorite Martian and The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, once credited his appearances on The Hollywood Squares with keeping him above water during those lean times.

Shelley Herman tells us, “While the syndicated game show Liars Club gave up-and-coming talent, including David Letterman, some of their first national television exposure, executive producer Larry Hovis, best remembered as Lieutenant Carter on the ‘60s comedy series Hogan’s Heroes had a soft spot in his heart when hiring celebrity panelists. He often got phone calls from actors, some of whom were close friends, who confided in Hovis that they needed just one more job to qualify for their health insurance benefits from the union [AFTRA, now SAG-AFTRA, paid health insurance benefits based on how much work you had done in television during the past year]. Hovis could empathize with his fellow performers.”

PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE—There’s one other union benefit to keep in mind: the pension plan. Jamie Farr explained in a 2019 interview, “AFTRA determines what kind of pension you qualify for by the amount of work you do on radio and television. I did so many appearances on game shows that it pushed me over the line, and I became eligible for a huge pension.”

Bill Cullen, as prolific a game show panelist as he was a host, was said to have “maxed out” the pension plan because of the sheer volume of his work. He and his wife Ann enjoyed a very comfortable life-after-television thanks to his thousands of game show episodes.

But our favorite answer to the question, “Why do game shows?” came from actress/comedienne Jo Anne Worley, who said this in 2019: “”I’ll tell you why I loved doing game shows so much. A week ago, a woman recognized me and she comes up to me and says ‘You don’t know me. You were my husband’s partner when he was on The $25,000 Pyramid. He paid for college with that show. Thanks for helping him.’ I got to help people by doing game shows. And they paid me a few thousand dollars per shot for doing it. And they paid for my lunch while I was in the studio. I don’t think you could ask for a better job than being on a game show.”

DO YOU REMEMBER…THESE OTHER CLASSIC GAME SHOW GUEST STARS?

NIPSEY RUSSELL—Born Julius but nicknamed “Nipsey” by his mother, Russell was a maverick stand-up comic who refused to do stereotypical comedy in his early career, insisting on wearing stylish suits and doing jokes mocking racism at a time when neither was common for black comedians. Russell’s way with rhyming phrases earned him the nickname “the poet laureate of television.”

CHARLEY WEAVER—Cliff Arquette was an accomplished actor who performed as “Charley Weaver,” an old hayseed, for a skit on Jack Paar’s Tonight Show. The skit was so popular that Arquette virtually never appeared on television as himself again. The character took on a life of its own in a manner similar to Elvira or Pee-Wee Herman in later years. Weaver was a fixture on the original Hollywood Squares from its launch in 1966 through Arquette’s death in 1974

FANNIE FLAGG—Patricia Neal of Alabama decided to pursue a career in comedy. Because there was already a famous actress by that name, she stitched together her alias from comic actress Fannie Brice, and Lily Flagg, an Alabama town named after a cow. She became a fixture on Match Game. A fan wrote her a letter observing that Fannie must be dyslexic because of the odd way that she spelled some of her answers. Flagg, who had never heard of dyslexia prior to reading the letter, got a life-changing diagnosis and ended up pursuing a new career as an author. Her best-known work was Fried Green Tomatoes.

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What is Conservation?

Conservation encompasses all the actions taken toward the long-term care of cultural heritage. Activities include examination, documentation, treatment, and preventive care, supported by research and education. Conservators are the trained professionals who execute these actions. Conservators typically help to preserve the original work, in conjunction with adding materials or making repairs as part of treatment, which are typically reversible. The age of the piece and the artist’s original intent are influential factors in treatment planning. 

What is Preservation?

Preservation is the protection of cultural property through activities that minimize chemical and physical deterioration and avoids damage to prevent loss of informational content. The primary goal of preservation is to prolong the existence of cultural property. Preservation can include activities like monitoring light levels and environments, including temperature and humidity. A popular use of this term refers to the steps taken to preserve or save historic architecture and the built environment.

What is Restoration?

Restoration is actually a type of treatment performed by a conservator, that is intended to return cultural property to a known or assumed state, often based on historical research or a specific time period of a piece that was negatively “restored” previously. The easiest way I often explain restoration to someone is that it’s the type of work that is often done to old gas pumps, gumball machines, or vintage cars. Things can be stripped down, scraped, repainted, and made to look like “as new” or “as manufactured,” which typically isn’t the goal of treatment by a conservator. Cultural property should reflect its age and history and treatment should incorporate these aspects. In recent popular culture, there have been quite a few international examples of bad restorations performed by untrained people with good intentions that wildly circulated the internet. These are always great examples to use when speaking to people about conservation, because it sets a very clear and digestible example of what can go wrong when an item isn’t cared for by a trained professional.   

To Further Complicate Things…

“Restorer” is often the term used in Europe or for European trained conservators. Restorer can also be used to designate a person who takes things to an “as new” or “as manufactured” state in the U.S. “Conservator” is often used as the preferred term in the U.S. or to refer to trained conservators in North America. U.S.-based conservators typically have far more training and experience than someone operating as a restorer in the United States. That may mean they also have a difference in their ethics and methods. When in doubt on what type of professional you may need or for more information on conservation, I always recommend folks visit the American Institute for Conservation’s (AIC) webpage, or I suggest that they find a trained conservation professional to ask advice. Or to hire a trained professional conservator for a project, it can be worth visiting  AIC’s Find a Conservator Page.  

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One such household cryptid, and perhaps the most destructive, visits for an entire month. The mischievous ones can create trouble for residents of the home, making messes, pulling pranks, and reporting on the family’s doings. Originally reported on by Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell in their 2005 book, The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition, Aebersold and Bell finally revealed to the world how Santa Claus (another cryptid) conducts surveillance in many homes. This army of small elves not only is alleged to report on the residents to the jolly good fellow up North, but it is claimed that they are imbued with their power by the very people they are spying on, the families that name and love them. Since Aebersold and Bell revealed the existence of the cryptid, households have begun to search for the elf’s hiding place each day, discovering the true antics that the elves can get into. Reports of Elves on the Shelf range widely, from naughty elves creating messes to creative elves leaving artful messages. I guess we all must hope we are being spied on by an elf with a good temperament.

While on the topic of mischievous household visitors, I would be remiss to skip over the leprechaun. This Irish fairy creature has a deep history but is most known for its treasure and mischief. Though a trapped leprechaun is seldom heard of, many modern homes claim proof of visits around St. Patrick’s Day with evidence found in cleverly devised leprechaun traps. The growing tradition of the leprechaun trap involves an inventive craft project, often exploiting the leprechaun’s love of gold in order to lure him into a trap. Successful families share that they have found evidence of the leprechaun’s visit the following morning. Such evidence includes chocolate coins, thank you notes, footprints, and green toilet water. Though no leprechaun seems to have been detained by these traps come morning, it’s hard to argue against the evidence left behind.

Perhaps one of the eeriest cryptids to visit your home is one that is most interested in your child’s discarded teeth. Is it the power hidden in the teeth of the young that draws this fairy into your home? There is a history of traditions around the world related to baby teeth. The idea of a “tooth-fee” is found in Viking texts, and multiple parts of the world have traditions of throwing baby teeth on the roof or offering them to small animals so adult teeth come in strong. This fairy is in fact willing to pay in cash for your child’s calcium-packed chompers. Is it a coincidence that this capitalist fairy was first spotted in the United States? Whatever its reasons, the Tooth Fairy is evidenced only by the money it leaves in exchange for teeth under pillows or in small boxes. This cryptid may even be part of a family. While the Tooth Fairy is often noted in places like the United States and England, other creatures like El Ratoncito Pérez (Perez the Mouse) or La Petite Souris (The Little Mouse) are alleged to make visits to homes in other parts of the world.

Speaking of mice, typically we don’t like visits from non-resident rodents but there is another that seems to be happily allowed into homes in the US and Europe. Rumors of a hare delivering painted eggs began in Germany, and it is thought that this hare hitched a ride with German immigrants to the US. Somehow this fleet of hares, rabbits, or bunnies has synchronized their household invasions to correspond with the Christian holiday of Easter. Choosing a holiday in spring, during a time of renewal, was perhaps influenced by their understanding of some of the centuries of symbolism and traditions surrounding hares, rabbits, and eggs, both in Christianity and outside of it. They may even be harkening back to their relationship to a Germanic goddess Ēostre. Some scholars propose that her symbol was the hare, and her name and festival were adapted into the Christian Easter. These days, the creatures visit and hide colored plastic eggs containing prizes or treats around houses and yards. Some families imitate these colored eggs by decorating eggs of their own. Though its motive is unclear, the so-called Easter Bunny seems to be a largely benevolent creature and even makes appearances at shopping centers in the spring to greet children.

My hope in writing this report is to caution the reader of the cryptids that may be invading their home and to argue that they are most appropriately categorized as cryptids. While it can be nerve-racking to learn of mysterious entities, I hope I have eased readers’ anxieties with examples of how these creatures have enabled playful experiences or provided rewards in return for their intrusions. In fact, many people look forward to their visits, and so I hope that the reader too can embrace their unseen guests and enjoy the traditions that have formed around them.

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While 12 gigabytes of storage was large for the time, hard drives were not the only solution for data storage. Magnetic tape storage has been around nearly since the start of computing. It comes in a variety of sizes, with varying tape widths and lengths. Modern Linear Tape-Open, or LTO, formats support 18 terabytes of uncompressed data, or up to 45 terabytes if it compresses well.

Magnetic tape had a few advantages over media like hard drives. Magnetic tapes often stored more data than other contemporary formats. For instance, Digital Data Storage 2, or DDS-2, which launched in 1993, could store 4 gigabytes of uncompressed data, a large amount of data when CD-ROM adoption had just started to take off. The tape media itself was often cheaper than other forms of storage, but the drives to read and write the media were much more expensive, costing thousands of dollars. Still, for large companies using large amounts of data, tape was the way to go.

While tape was often too slow to use as direct storage, it was a tested and reliable form of backup storage. Backups could be scheduled to run at a specific time, with automated robotic tape libraries switching out tapes, easily allowing data backups to span across multiple tapes for even larger storage pools, without human intervention. Unlike hard drives, which have comparatively fragile data platters, tape cartridges are more robust, making them a good candidate to store remotely off site for additional data security.

It should be no surprise then that many video game developers used, and continue to use, tape backup as one form of storage. But recovering data from old tape backups isn’t a sure thing. As the technology advanced, the security technology did too, with encryption stopping anyone without a key from recovering any data at all. Without that key, it would be nearly impossible to recover data.  

When no encryption was used, it can still be difficult to recover data from tape backups. The tape drives themselves, once necessary (and expensive) devices, were often used until they couldn’t function anymore, so finding hardware that can be trusted today can be difficult. Older tapes can have several condition issues, including sticky-shed syndrome, where the tape deteriorates and gets left behind on the now-precious hardware.

Even if both the hardware and storage media are in good condition, there is no guarantee that the data will be accessible. A wide range of software has been created to aid in the creation of backups, but many of these formats are largely undocumented, which leaves some formats inaccessible outside of using dated legacy software, which may require licenses and activation services that no longer are supported or even exist.

Finding what software was used to initially create the backup can be difficult. Using Linux and the command-line program “dd,” backups of the tape can often be made, though there may not be a way to access what was saved. With any luck, the dd backup will reveal what program was used, as some programs would leave a marker at the beginning of a tape that indicated the software used.

And I’ve gotten lucky in the past, with remnants of “NT Backup,” a Windows utility, or “Backup Exec,” a popular backup program, left in the header, enough for me to properly decode the tapes using both vintage and newly-created software. In other cases, I have had to dig deeper to find the solution.

Often, there are no immediately obvious clues. But luck is a funny thing, and one email, readable through a hex editor of a dd backup, was from a systems administrator at the game developer, which not only gave me a hint to a specific person that may know more, but also contained instructions to employees telling them to exclude certain files from tape backup using a “arcagent.log.” With a quick Google search revealing just a handful of results, it was clear that “Arcserve” was the likely software used, and using some old software I’ve been able to confirm that is the case.

Because it is always a nice feeling to receive additional confirmation, digging through the files that were cataloged gave the ultimate confirmation: the tapes had a version of Arcserve 6 backed up. One of the almost-magical things about data tape recovery is that you really don’t know what might be on them! While game developers would often burn CD or other optical discs containing completed projects, tape backups can capture much of the day-to-day of a studio, with email conversations, a developer’s desktop on a given day, and in-progress ideas or concepts that only appear on these tapes, as they may never make it to or be relevant to the final project.

The lack of documentation for many of these formats can create a huge, almost insurmountable, roadblock for digital preservation professionals. Data recovery companies do exist, but I have yet to find one willing to share details about how they work, which is not surprising given it is their business! It can also be difficult to discern what their capabilities are, or the final cost of the recovery.

Data recovery is just one step of many in the preservation process. Accessing, analyzing, and storing the resulting data adds further complexity, but at the end of the day, it’s the closest thing to traveling in a time machine. So what exactly is on these tapes that I have been recovering? Stay tuned…

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On a snowy winter day in January 2024 at The Strong National Museum of Play, I read about the far-off land of Hyrule, inhabited by fiery dragons, rock-monster-people, and evil twin-sister witches. I pored over issues of Weekly Famitsu, the most popular Japanese gaming magazine, looking at their coverage of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. On page 89 of issue no. 507, I see the heading 謎の少年の正体が明らかにされる? (roughly: “Will the identity of the mysterious boy be revealed?”), with pictures of a character named Sheik. Of course, the game was released over 25 years ago, so I know the “boy” is none other than Princess Zelda herself in disguise. As a 5-year-old I was shocked when the mysterious and masculine Sheik revealed himself to be the extremely feminine Zelda near the end of the game. To this day, people are still debating what Sheik’s and Zelda’s true gender identity is.

Growing up, I played many Japanese video games that similarly messed with my expectations about gender, where I could tell something “weird” was going on but I didn’t have the words to describe it. When Cloud dressed up as a woman to enter Don Corneo’s mansion in Final Fantasy VII. When the lithe Raiden replaced the buff war hero Snake as the protagonist in Metal Gear Solid 2. Or when the “Detective Prince” Naoto Shirogane revealed she was a woman in Persona 4. Playing these games, I knew something was up, but I could never quite tell what it was. Well before I started working on my dissertation at The Strong, I experienced what Katsuhiko Suganuma calls the “contact moments” of queerness between Japan and the West, where cultural texts expose the asymmetrical political and social histories in understandings of gender, sexuality, and identity between the two nations.

I went to The Strong to engage in primary source research for my dissertation. I’m investigating how discourses about sexuality and gender identities circulate between the U.S. and Japan through the transnational flow of Japanese video games to U.S. audiences. I consider how the distinct but overlapping social, political, and linguistic histories of Japan and the U.S. impact how understandings of queerness arise within video games. In other words, I wanted to answer the question: Why did Sheik, Cloud, Raiden, and Naoto seem so weird, potentially queer, but intriguing to me as a kid?

Back at The Strong, I was looking for references to each of these characters in the Weekly Famitsu articles. I searched through dozens of issues, spanning from the late 1980s to the late 2000s, and I only had a week to get through them all. So I worked fast, with little time to translate or interpret any of the pictures I took. Although I started slow, I finished scanning the Weekly Famitsu issues by Day Five. On the last day, I tried to watch archived video game news coverage and developer conference talks. But I was drawn back to Famitsu, bothered by a common trend across the issues.

The scenes I found most interesting about these characters were completely passed over! The walkthrough of Final Fantasy VII quickly mentioned and then skipped over Cloud’s infiltration of Don Corneo’s mansion. Sheik and Naoto are referred to as men in multiple issues of Weekly Famitsu, with no conversation about their eventual gender reveals. And Raiden’s more feminine build and hairstyle are never contrasted with the buff masculinity of Snake.

As a magazine for a general audience including kids, these conversations may have been seen as inappropriate, as potential spoilers for the game, or as just something that didn’t need to be explained at all. Were Cloud’s feminine clothes seen as simply an afterthought of one scene in the game? Were Sheik and Naoto understood as just another iteration of the Japanese trope? Perhaps Raiden was meant to be just as masculine as Snake despite his contrasting stature.

I was in another contact moment, overwhelmed with trying to deduce all of these overlapping and converging understandings of gender, sexuality, social performance, and identity—all before I had even fully translated the photos I had taken!

I needed a walk, to distance myself from the complexities of my research. I headed to the Level Up exhibit that I had saved especially for the last day. Unsure of where I was going, I stumbled across a large statue of Link, displayed prominently with his sword and shield. I hoped for a stroke of genius, that somehow the main character of my favorite game series since childhood would speak to me like a deity from above. But much like his in-game counterpart, Link said nothing.

But, following his gaze, I found my way over to the Level Up exhibit. I spent an hour or two just playing here—diving behind the boxes in the stealth room, rolling a yoga ball to guide a virtual rock down a hill, dancing to the beat. I was the only 29-year-old acting a fool in the exhibit, but it reminded me of how I felt playing Ocarina of Time all those years ago. The sense of discovery, of something new always waiting around the corner, and the wonder of immersing myself in a world that feels familiar but different.

I still haven’t figured out exactly how to describe the phenomenon I’m looking at. That’s what my dissertation is for! But I’ve learned a few things:

1. The concepts of gender, sexuality, and identity have distinct histories between Japan and the U.S., and those histories directly impact how players understand characters and narratives within video games.

2. As a dominant medium in the global marketplace, video games form a vital economic, political, and social connection between Japan and the U.S., two of the most dominant countries in the video games market from its inception.

3. Video games thus represent a significant contact moment between Japanese and U.S. developers and audiences, disturbing deeply held understandings of gender, sexuality, and other forms of identity.

4. These overlapping and contrasting understandings occur simultaneously with and inside of the ludic elements of video games, becoming the field where ideas about gender and sexuality are played out between Japan and the U.S.

5.  I could stand to approach my research with the same playfulness and sense of wonder I bring to the games I play and love.

I want to thank Christopher Bensch, David Sleasman, Lindsey Barnick, Laura Boland, Deb Mohr, and the rest of the archive team for their help and support! And a special shout out to all the staff who continue to make The Strong Museum a welcoming and lively place!

By David Peter Kocik, 2024 Strong Research Fellow

The post Contact Moments with Japanese Game Magazines at The Strong Museum appeared first on The Strong National Museum of Play.

On September 4, 1998, ITV network in the United Kingdom premiered a one-hour primetime game show called Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. It featured one contestant, sitting across from host Chris Tarrant, answering up to 15 multiple choice general knowledge questions of increasing values, from £100 to a top prize of £1 million. As long as the player answered questions correctly, they could remain in the “hot seat”, or they could walk away at any level and keep their winnings.  If they delivered a wrong answer, their winnings would often be reduced to one of several milestone amounts (£1,000 or £32,000) or to zero if the failure occurred in the first four questions.

The show, created by David Briggs with Steven Knight and Mike Whitehill, went on to become a ratings powerhouse, and it was soon adapted for U.S. audiences by an ABC executive, Michael Davies, who left his network position to executive produce the series. (Davies is now the executive producer of the U.S. version of Jeopardy!). Who Wants to Be a Millionaire premiered domestically with host Regis Philbin on August 16, 1999. At the time, summer primetime programming was almost exclusively reruns. Millionaire instantly soared to the top of U.S. ratings and has proven to be a very durable format.

There have since been numerous versions on broadcast TV, including four additional primetime series, one of which, featuring celebrity contestant pairs, currently airs on ABC with host Jimmy Kimmel (and is still executive produced by Davies); in addition, more than 3,000 half-hour episodes have been produced for syndication with hosts Meredith Vieira, Cedric the Entertainer, Terry Crews, Chris Harrison, and a variety of guest emcees. 

To date, more than a dozen players have earned $1 million (or more) in the U.S. The first was IRS agent John Carpenter. His million-dollar question: Which of these U.S. Presidents appeared on the television series “Laugh-In”?

1. Lyndon Johnson
2. Richard Nixon
3. Jimmy Carter
4. Gerald Ford

(answer below*)

What was perhaps most notable about Millionaire was its groundbreaking scenic, lighting and music design, which emphasized drama in ways that no game show had done before. In stark contrast to most of its predecessors, Millionaire featured a set in the round, with lights focused mainly on two people (a host and contestant) center stage and heart-thumping music providing a soundtrack for the entire show. These elements have radically redefined the look and feel of most contemporary prime time game shows. 

During the recording of each episode, contestants were allowed unlimited time to ponder their answers, which resulted in many drawn-out, nail-biting moments. The high-tension environment was relieved, somewhat, with “Lifelines” that provided help from the audience, a hand-picked “phone-a-friend” awaiting a call remotely and reducing the number of multiple choices; each lifeline could only be used once by each contestant.

As the show evolved, different formats, money ladders, and lifelines were introduced, but the epic “shiny floor” spectacle remained intact. A famous catch phrase, “Is that your FINAL answer?” had its origins on Millionaire. The show has won numerous accolades, including two EMMYs for outstanding Game/Audience Participation Show, one for Philbin and two for Vieira.

Before Millionaire’s debut 25 years ago this month, the presence of game shows on U.S. prime time TV was very limited, largely a result of the rigging scandals of the 1950s. The enormous overnight success of Millionaire provided numerous new opportunities for game show formats in the evening; today the airwaves are populated by many original and revived titles that have found new life and given broadcast networks an appealing alternative to more expensive and less popular products. In the fall of 2000, ABC programmed Millionaire an unprecedented four nights a week; this over-exposure ultimately led to the original version’s prime time demise.

In the mad rush after its monumental debut performance, networks fast-tracked many other prime-time attempts to create similar immersive series and capture advertiser gold, none of which approached the success of Millionaire. Among them was a FOX series simply called Greed, featuring a $2 million top prize, which went from pitch to air in 10 weeks and lasted for nine months. (I co-created the series with Dick Clark, and we both served as Executive Producer for all 44 episodes.) 

Other short-lived attempts included CBS’ Winning Lines and a new version of the notorious format that had previously been tainted by scandal, NBC’s Twenty-One.

Eventually new prime time formats would catch on and last, including The Weakest Link and Deal or No Deal, and reimagined versions of iconic legacy shows like Celebrity Family Feud, The $100,000 Pyramid, Match Game, Press Your Luck, To Tell the Truth, Card Sharks, The Price is Right at Night, Let’s Make a Deal Primetime, Celebrity Jeopardy!, Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, among many others. 

In the 25 years since Millionaire’s U.S. premiere, the series has been produced in almost 100 other territories across the globe. It was also the subject of the 2008 theatrical film Slumdog Millionaire, which garnered eight Oscars including Best Picture. 

*The answer to John Carpenter’s question is Richard Nixon, who, while campaigning for President, famously uttered the phrase “Sock it To ME?”

CAN YOU CORRECTLY ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS THAT WON PLAYERS $1 MILLION ON THE ORIGINAL U.S. VERSION OF WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE? (answers at the bottom)

The earth is approximately how many miles away from the Sun? (won by Dan Blonsky in 2000)

• 9.3 million
• 39 million
• 93 million
• 193 million

Which insect shorted out an early supercomputer and inspired the term “computer bug”? (won by Joe Trela in 2000)

• Moth
• Roach
• Fly
• Japanese beetle

Which of the following men does not have a chemical element named for him? (won by Bob House in 2000)

• Albert Einstein
• Niels Bohr
• Isaac Newton
• Enrico Fermi

Which of the following landlocked countries is entirely contained within another country? (won by Kim Hunt in 2000)

• Lesotho
• Burkina Faso
• Mongolia
• Luxembourg

In the children’s book series, where is Paddington Bear originally from? (won by David Goodman in 2000)

• India
• Peru
• Canada
• Iceland

What letter must appear at the beginning of the registration of all non-military aircraft in the U.S.? (won by Bernie Cullen in 2001)

• N
• A
• U
• L

ANSWERS:

1. C. 93 million
2. A. moth
3. A. Albert Einstein
4. A. Lesotho
5. B. Peru
6. A. N

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In SYFY WIRE’s 2019 article on “The 9 scariest, and most unforgettable monsters from Dungeons & Dragons,” Beholders ranked at number 6. These early Dungeons & Dragons monsters differ from other monsters which draw upon various mythologies in the world; beholders are an original creation of the game. According to Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: a Visual History, this one-large-eyed, ten-smaller-eye-stalked, flying spherical creature was originally drawn by Greg Bell for the 1975 Greyhawk supplement. His initial sketch labelled “Big Eye,” was turned down by Gary Gygax. Later in another drawing, Bell labeled the monster as “Sphere of Doom.” This sketch became the one we now recognize from the Greyhawk supplement’s cover.

Within the supplement, Beholders are noted to have the nicknames “Spheres of Many Eyes” or “Eye Tyrants.” Within the first description they are given, their bodies are only 3 feet in diameter and had 40 hit points (HP). The monster’s armor class, which is a term used to describe a creature’s defense, was 0. To 5th-edition (5e) players this may sound strange since the Armor Class rules are quite different now. But previously 0 was a difficult Armor Class to hit. One would need to calculate based on armor and weapons their character’s “To hit armor class zero,” commonly known as THAC0. This mechanic has seen a bit of a change since then, but the idea is similar: you need to roll a certain number to hit an enemy creature in the game. The stat blocks for beholders mostly remained the same in the 1977 Monster Manual for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but now we have a little more information about these rare creatures. They are said to be commonly found underground, and each of their 11 eyes has a different magical effect:

1. Charm person
2. Charm monster
3. Sleep
4. Telekinesis
5. Flesh-Stone ray
6. Disintegrate ray
7. Fear
8. Slow
9. “Cause serious wound”
10.  Death ray
11.  Anti-magic ray

The note about their nature states: “The beholder is hateful, aggressive, and avaricious. They will usually attack immediately. If confronted by a particularly powerful party, there is a 50% chance they will listen to negotiations… to be bribed not to attack… they can speak their own language as well as that tongue known to lawful evil creatures.” Lawful evil refers to the monster’s alignment. This is a tool in Dungeons & Dragons that helps both players and the Dungeon Master (DM) know how to have a creature react to certain situations. A lawful evil creature, simply put, is one that follows clear rules and order but is not acting in everyone’s best interest.

While the behavior of the monsters has remained the same, beholders mechanically have changed with each edition. In the 2014 Monster Manual for 5e, they have an 18-armor class. And have an average of 180 hit points. Their central eye can create a 150 foot “antimagic cone” that prevents adventurers from using magic against them when active and, while each eye stalk eye does still have its own special ability, they are slightly different from the 1977 Monster Manual’s description. Now it is:

1. Charm ray
2. Paralyzing ray
3. Fear ray
4. Slowing ray
5. Enervation ray
6. Telekinetic ray
7. Sleep ray
8. Petrification ray
9. Disintegration ray
10. Death ray

Next to the beholder’s image and stat block, in 5e, is an interesting quote: “Every beholder thinks it is the epitome of beholding, and the only thing it fears is that it might be wrong,” which is why I mentioned previously this famous creature certainly believes it is the “perfect monster.” In the 3.5 edition supplement, Lords of Madness, it notes that beholders’ very xenophobic and intolerant attitudes are present “within minutes” of birth. It is mentioned it takes beholders about 2 years to become “normal size,” in this case the normal size now is 8 feet in diameter instead of the original 3 feet!

One of the most famous beholders that players of 5e will recognize is the current Xanathar from the 2018 adventure module Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. This specific beholder is known to consider his goldfish Sylgar his most prized possession, hence Xanathar being featured in art with a little goldfish beside him, including on the cover of its own 2017 supplement: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. The traits displayed by this character in the adventure module match what is typical of a beholder, “having an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, taste for gold, and a general disdain for most living things.” According to Michael Mearls’ description in Dragon #313, “beholders style themselves as the ultimate race” but due to them believing themselves to be perfect, they believe they are better than even their follow beholders. This leads to the creatures constantly bickering among themselves and this “inherent animosity usually prevents beholders from working together in large numbers.” He goes on to explain that while they may be arrogant, beholders are actually “brilliant thinkers and cunning strategists” who use their intellect to create new weapons, armor, magic items, and tactics… which may explain why Xanathar has a guide to everything!

Due to their lengthy history in Dungeons & Dragons there are of course variations on the monster as well as their lore. This iconic creature has evolved alongside the game and remains on the covers of multiple source books for the 5th edition. So next time you roll initiative to face a beholder in Dungeons & Dragons, remember to tell them how perfect they are to get on their good side… or try to avoid that death ray, if nothing else!

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