Sunday, May 19, 2024
The year was 1988, and my friends had convinced me to go to a comic book convention in Austin, Texas. This was back before comic book conventions became a big deal. At the time it was just a bunch of comic book dealers with folding tables in a big room. The reason my friends wanted to go was that Steve Jackson would be there to introduce some smaller Dungeons and Dragons-style playable modules. I don’t think these were official D&D releases, these were produced by Steve Jackson Games.
At the time I had no idea who Steve Jackson was or what he looked like. This guy showed up in the event room, the game module in hand, wearing a long-sleeved flannel shirt (in summer) with the sleeves rolled down and buttoned, and it looked as if the elbows had been torn out by weasels. He had thick glasses, wild eyes, and tousled hair, and was probably the best DM I had ever heard. We sat in a room while he led us through the campaign, which took about an hour to complete.
This was only two years before his BBS company was raided by the US Secret Service.
Jackson got his start selling tabletop games he invented. One of his earliest games was called “Raid on Iran,” undoubtedly inspired by the Iran hostage situation in 1979. He rented a storefront in Austin in 1980 and sold books, magazines, role playing games and materials, box games, and card games. By the time he showed up at the Austin comic book convention in 1988, he had made his first million dollars.
Back in those days, we only had dial up connections, so we used something called a BBS, which is short for bulletin board service. It was basically a server that you could access online. There were lots of BBSes with different specializations. Each BBS had various forums, online chat rooms, and downloadable files with dubious origins. It was up to the users to follow the law and only upload files that they had the rights to, but of course with no real oversight it was often a lawless situation. It was up to the people who ran the BBS to mod the boards and monitor any suspicious uploads.
Steve Jackson started the Illuminati BBS, and it was extremely active in the area. It specialized in tabletop RPG and board games. One of his most popular games was called Illuminati, which he created in 1982. Because the Illuminati BBS was getting so much traffic, Jackson had to hire some people to run it, and that’s where the trouble began.
One of the people he hired to moderate the site was Loyd Blankenship. Blankenship was a member of the Legion of Doom, a notorious group of hackers. Blankenship wasn’t a hacker, but he did have confidential documents from the Bell South 911 system, which had ended up on his own personal BBS, not Steve Jackson’s. They had been widely distributed by the Legion of Doom and ended up on his server, along with many others.
The US Secret Service was investigating a digital break-in with the Bell South 911 system, and because of their inexperience decided that the Illuminati BBS and Steve Jackson Games was involved. They seized a large amount of equipment from the offices as well as important files necessary for running the Illuminati BBS.
Most of the Illuminati BBS equipment was eventually returned, but many of the files were missing.
The raid nearly put SJGames out of business. In 1990, they finally received a copy of the Secret Service affidavit stating the reason for the raid – because Blankenship was writing about hacking, he had become a target and everything he had been involved in was suspect.
This violation of civil liberties led to the creation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights group founded to protect Internet civil rights. In 1991, Steve Jackson, SJGames, and three users of the Illuminati BBS, with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, filed a civil suit to recover damages. They were awarded more than $50,000 in damages, citing lost profits and violations of the Privacy Protection Act. Each BBS user was awarded $1,000 under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act for the seizure of their stored electronic mail.
Fortunately, Steve Jackson Games did not go out of business. Today they publish over 100 different titles, along with merchandise, plushies, magazines, t-shirts and more. Here’s just a couple of his games that I’ve played recently and really enjoyed.
Zombie Dice
This is a deceptively simple dice game. The base set comes with 13 custom dice, each representing a victim. It also comes with two expansion packs, including a School Bus, a Hero and a Hottie die. You’re the zombie. On your turn, you will draw three dice at random. Roll the dice and count the symbols. A brain means that you got your victim’s brain. Set those dice to the side. A pair of footprints means that your victim got away. A shotgun blast means that your victim fought back. Set those dice to the other side. Keep the footprint dice and draw more dice at random until you have three dice again. You can keep playing and try to get more brains or stop and end your turn. If you get three blasts, your turn is over, and you lose any brains that you collected. So, the trick in this game is to stop when you’re ahead. The probability of brains to blasts changes with the dice. Green printing means that this is an easy victim, yellow is medium difficulty, and red is difficult. Expert players look at the dice that are left and evaluate the chances of getting more brains, or more blasts, depending on the difficulty. This is a quick game that can be played with two or more people. All you need is a pencil and a piece of paper. MSRP $24.99, available in stores for as low as $18.99.
Illuminati: The Game of Conspiracy
I’ve played Illuminati: The Card Game. It’s not easy. There’s a complex set of rules including when you can play certain cards, how you take over groups, how to build power for the society you’re playing as, and much more. If you’re not an experienced player, you’ll quit in frustration. It helps to have a group of nerdy, patient friends to play it with. The SteamOS version of Illuminati takes away a lot of confusion. Much easier to understand, and if you do something wrong, helpful popups explain why you can’t actually play the card you’re trying to play.
“Join the conspiracy of global domination and dark satire in this classic from Steve Jackson Games. As one of the Illuminati, you are driven by power, money, mayhem—and more. Grow stronger as you plot to destroy your rivals. How will you take over the world?”
The Steam version gives you the option of using the original card art, or the more modern version. It’s still in Early Access, so not all the game is available. They finally got the player-to-player interface finished last month, and I’m enjoying playing that with the hubby. Illuminati, Jan 2023 on SteamOS $24.99
For those of you who want to learn more about the Secret Service raid, the name of the lawsuit is Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service, 816 F. Supp. 432 (W.D. Tex. 1993)
