Today in History: The Secret Service vs Role Playing Games

On this day (March 1) in 1990, the U.S. Secret Service raided Steve Jackson Games and confiscated three computers and more than 300 floppy discs. (Does anyone out there remember floppy discs?) The Secret Service became interested in Steve Jackson Games as part of their investigation into the public posting of a 911-system-related document owned by Bell South. The Secret Service also found the document had been posted on a BBS operated by a man named Loyd Blankenship who also operated the BBS at Steve Jackson Games. The Secret Service used this connection to get a warrant to search and seize computers and emails at Steve Jackson Games and apparently became quite excited when they discovered an about-to-be-released role playing game called GURPS Cyberpunk.

GURPS stands for Generic Universal Role Playing—it’s a role playing system that can be used in any genre—fantasy, super heroes, swashbucklers, time travel, Camelot, the Wild West, Espionage, Space, etc. (I personally own more than 20 GURPS game books including the one that so excited the Secret Service.) Apparently, Secret Service agents in 1990 were both far too cool to actually play role playing games and far too ignorant to understand a game when they saw it. So when they discovered this book that described gaming in a near future world where much of the action revolves around hacking into computers (William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer is an excellent of Cyberpunk fiction—it created the genre.) they confused the game with reality—even though none of the equipment described in the game actually existed. They refused to even give copies of the game files back to Steve Jackson Games causing major problems with the release and helping to drive the company to the brink of bankruptcy.

Steve Jackson Games eventually got some of their equipment and files back and won a lawsuit against the Secret Service.