Background: Usurper is/was a BBS "door game" that achieved some popularity back in the early 1990's along with other titles like Legend of The Red Dragon, Trade Wars, and Barren Realms Elite. These were spiritual precursors to modern MMO's that were mostly text-based, but some had nifty ASCII graphics. They were more limited in scope and community since you needed a computer and modem, as well as the phone number of the BBS (usually by word of mouth) in order to gain access.

Magic The Gathering is a popular trading card game where players take on the role of wizards (Planeswalkers?) and duel through the use of spells and summoned creatures.

I was reminiscing with a friend about our old BBS exploits this weekend, and decided it might be a fun story for this thread, which I love reading, but never felt I could contribute to.

Until now...

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The Drama:

Back in the early 1990's, amidst the dominance of AOL, and all those free Juno and NetZero services, my friends and I stumbled across a local BBS. BBS stands for Bulletin Board System, and were a localized kind of "mini Internet" that you needed a special phone number and permission from a "sysop" (system operator) to be able to access and use. BBS were used for everything from games and community events, to buying/selling, and even some more illicit stuff. This drama focuses on the game Usurper, and a particular player who I will call "Trollmaster".

Usurper was a dark, text-based RPG, where characters would kill monsters in dungeons, but could also do drugs, buy prostitutes and murder other Player Characters in their sleep. It was the type of "secret forbidden game" that teenage boys like myself spoke of in myth and legend. It surpassed anything on NES or Sega Genesis and quickly became an obsession among my group of friends. We'd stay up late and dial into this BBS, which was rumored to be running off a local military base because it had 4 (yes 4!) phone numbers, meaning four players could simultaneously be in-game. The game was also very unforgiving, and you'd regularly dial in to find you'd had your throat slit by a stranger, or ally, and all your stuff stolen.

Real "Game of Thrones" stuff.

Now, Trollmaster took things to another level. He dominated the entire game. He was untouchable, had insane equipment, and tormented the entire player population. We often thought he was either a friend of, or the sysop himself, and used "cheat codes" to beat us. It was like that dude in the South Park episode, only SP didn't exist back then. He'd always sign in right around midnight when the games internal clock refreshed, and just go on a text-driven killing spree, sell our garbage loot, and use it in the ASCII whorehouse. We regularly lamented our oppression under Trollmaster in home room at school.

After months of this, another player who I'll call "White Knight" starts posting privately outside the game that he is pissed and wants to take down Trollmaster. We're all on board, and regularly funnel gold, resources, etc over to White Knight, who banks it where it is safe from Trollmaster. Eventually, through our combined efforts, we all sign in to see White Knight has defeated Trollmaster! TM has all his best gear stripped, sold, and WK divvies us back the loot. We all poke fun at Trollmaster, posting trash talk on the game's "town board" and think highly of ourselves. Big win! Until...

Trollmaster gets scary VERY quickly. He sends threatening messages to us, White Knight, and every other player in the game. Then he posts angry threatening diatribes OUTSIDE the game. It turns out he is NOT the sysop, because we report him and the sysop swiftly bans him saying "I don't know this person, but that's scary and they are dialing in from a local phone number."

A month or so goes by and things mostly blow over. By now it is summer and we've forgotten about Trollmaster, and are doing non-computer-ish things outside. The one rainy day activity that is eating up our time though, is Magic The Gathering. It quickly became a new obsession, and there were only a few hobby shops in the area that sold cards and held tournaments.

Now, if you're a current MTG player, you need to understand this is what I have heard some refer to as "The Dark Ages". I no longer play MTG, but I understand there are more structured rules, tournaments, FNM, etc.

So we go to the basement of a local hobby store on a fateful Saturday evening for a Magic "tournament", and it's sketchy as hell. Again, this is not those family-friendly "Friday Night Magic" events or whatever. This is four teenagers in a basement with a bunch of guys in their 20's to possibly-mid-50's, and there is alcohol, cigarettes, and some light drug use in the back parking lot. Our moms would not have approved of us being there.

Things are mostly OK, except for this one dude who is really irritable. I'll call him "Bob". Bob is drinking and arguing the rules with everyone he plays. A guy next to us says to just stay away from Bob, since everyone knows he is a jerk, but he spends a ton of money at the store so the owner tolerates his crappy behavior.

Eventually we're all taking a break in the back parking lot. We're talking about random games with a dude who is smoking a cigarette. We talk about DOOM, and Warhammer, and...Usurper. One thing leads to another, and our cigarette-smoking friend turns out to be White Knight! We're reminiscing about our triumph, loudly, when Bob comes crashing across the parking lot. Screaming expletives, and tackles "White Knight" shouting "you stole all my sh*t!!!!"

Yup. Bob = Trollmaster.

At this point we're all terrified. Luckily, there are like 20 people there, and the owner and a few others pull Trollmaster off White Knight. WK tells TM he's a goddamn lunatic and it's just a game, and TM keeps ranting until the cops show up. Now the store owner is in a panic, but the whole ordeal stays outside so the police don't see anyone drinking in a place with no liquor license around underage kids. The cops ask what's going on, and more hilarity ensues.

TM drunkenly tells the cops how "that guy stole all my sh*t" and when they find out that his "sh*t" is a fictional sword, they are confused and amused. They ask WK if he's OK, and since he's basically fine and doesn't care about pressing charges, they tell everyone that game night is over and somebody has to drive Trollmaster home or call him a cab, otherwise they are going to cart him into the drunk tank for the evening. The store owner obliges and gets him a cab.

We never went back to that store for fear of seeing Bob and experiencing further retribution. Eventually we all moved on to other games, but I'll never forget my first encounter with a crazy person "from the internet" showing up in my real life.

EDIT: Thank you so much for the Gold and Silver! Glad I could create a post that the community enjoyed.