One D&D

[Raleel]

I think it's a bit harsh to dismiss Gygax as an asshole without qualification. He definitely had "asshole-ish" qualities, but these diminished over time, I think (see his Q&A threads at Dragonsfoot and Enworld from 15-22 years ago). He could be quite generous with fans, and was clearly enthusiastic about the hobby. Like many people, he had positive and negative qualities.

Gygax was definitely a glory hound, but I don't think he was in any way a charlatan. He actually did the work (writing, promotion, etc.) necessary to make D&D and AD&D accessible, playable games, and worked hard on a lot of the early creative material (the classic modules, the World of Greyhawk, etc.).

How dare you insinuate a god was a mere mortal!

 

[T. Foster]

Gygax wrote or co-wrote about 30 D&D and AD&D books from 1974-85, plus a monthly column in Dragon magazine (some months 2 or 3 columns) in addition to being the President and CEO of TSR and negotiating deals with Games Workshop, Random House, the D&D cartoon show, and trying to get a D&D movie made. And after leaving TSR he wrote about 2 dozen more books and many thousands of posts on forums answering fan questions. You may not like the stuff he wrote (his novels in particular were pretty bad - but even there he produced a dozen of them) and may think he was an asshole (he certainly tended to come across that way in his Dragon editorials, increasingly so in the 80s), and it’s easy in retrospect to second-guess and snicker about his business decisions, but the accusation that he was some sort of con-man empty suit or huckster whose only talent was self-promotion and stealing other people’s ideas and claiming them as his own doesn’t hold up. He did the work, and he did it consistently for 35 years.

The reason people tended to forget about Arneson wasn’t because TSR was suppressing his story (his name remained as co-author on every copy of D&D that TSR ever sold, and he received sufficient royalties from them to make him the second-highest paid person in the adventure gaming industry but because he produced very little and none of it (other than the one thing he co-wrote with Gygax) was commercially or even critically successful. Arneson’s legacy from his separation from TSR at the end of 1976 until his death rested almost entirely on his value as a symbolic bludgeon for fans and competing publishers who resented TSR and Gygax to use against them.

I am not anti-Arneson: I own almost everything he ever wrote and met him at GenCon and have always been interested in stories of his Blackmoor campaign. But it’s not just an accident of fate or bad luck (or especially malicious conspiracy) that Gygax attained fortune and a fair degree of fame while Arneson remained in relative obscurity (but, even so, earned millions in royalties and was always able to find an audience and publisher - and eventually a job as a college professor - hardly the Bill Finger figure so many try to portray him as).

 

[TristramEvans]

the accusation that he was some sort of con-man empty suit or huckster whose only talent was self-promotion and stealing other people’s ideas and claiming them as his own doesn’t hold up.

Well no, but that wasn't the accusation.

The reason people tended to forget about Arneson wasn’t because TSR was suppressing his story (his name remained as co-author on every copy of D&D that TSR ever sold, and he received sufficient royalties from them to make him the second-highest paid person in the adventure gaming industry but because he produced very little and none of it (other than the one thing he co-wrote with Gygax) was commercially or even critically successful.

I don't personally care whether Arneson produced anything commercially successful. I don't think Gary did either after getting kicked out of TSR (granted I don't know the sales numbers for cyborg command or the fantasy one that's spelt wrong,)? But what I know is that for years Gary advertised himself as The creator of D&D, and by implication, the role-playing hobby. I'm not placing the blame for that on TSR "suppressing Arneson" (although the fact that co-author credit took a lawsuit to ensure doesn't exactly paint TSR as especially magnanimous), but solely on Gygax's personal shoulders.

Arneson’s legacy from his separation from TSR at the end of 1976 until his death rested almost entirely on his value as a symbolic bludgeon for fans and competing publishers who resented TSR and Gygax to use against them.

I disagree. Arneson's legacy is every RPG published in the last 40 years.

I don't resent TSR. I preferred them to WoTC, despite them being litigious as fuck (we used to call them "They Sue Regularly" back in the day). I am a big fan of quite a bit of their output (Marvel Super Heroes, Star Frontiers, Conan). I'm not a fan of Gygax, but I also don't think that I'm holding him to anything like an unreasonable standard. I'm saying that he was dishonest by omission and when I found out that impacted my opinion of him as a person (which was essentially "no opinion" for the first 20 years of my life, then "kinda a dick" and now, well, just some guy - not an object of reverence, but not a villain or monster (as he seems to be regarded in some corners of the hobby).

I am not anti-Arneson: I own almost everything he ever wrote and met him at GenCon and have always been interested in stories of his Blackmoor campaign. But it’s not just an accident of fate or bad luck (or especially malicious conspiracy) that Gygax attained fortune and a fair degree of fame while Arneson remained in relative obscurity (but, even so, earned millions in royalties and was always able to find an audience and publisher - and eventually a job as a college professor - hardly the Bill Finger figure so many try to portray him as).

Well, there's a reason Bob Kane wasn't my go-to analogy for Gygax.

 

[Ladybird]

ch does tangentially relate to the latest OneDnD & "No Halfsies!" edict from WotC. I worry with so much digital emphasis and accomodation of the latest thing. I know dystopian novels were warnings, not instruction manuals, but I do hope WotC does not go back and edit the archived past. Let the old pdfs remain not "updated" just preserved; that road leads to piracy being the legitimate archivers of history.

Iirc they've updated them to change some legal things like copyright info, but as regards WotC being custodians, all they've done is the "product of a different era" banner on the store pages. They know the draw is the content, and changing that would kill it.

 

[TJS]

Also editing scanned content is more expensive than editing ebooks.

They're not going to do it because the cost would be non-trivial.

 

[Vile Traveller]

I'd go for Sir Ian Livingstone CBE myself, but fair choice!

Three chores for Sir Ian!

 

[Acmegamer]

Three chores for Sir Ian!

But what three tasks will you give Sir Ian to perform? Will they be Herculean in nature or just your average roundabout chores? I'll see myself out now.

TristramEvans Post 2443, great post.

 

[AsenRG]

Hobbits are distantly related to humans, but Tolkien never mentions whether they could interbreed.

It might have something to do with the fact that hobbits are often confused with human kids, you know...

Gygax isn't Stan Lee....he's Zuckerberg.

...best line in the thread, man!

OTOH, if you say that Arneson's legacy is "every RPG ever", that by extension means that he shares this legacy with Gygax and Major David Wesely. Without any of the three of them, RPGs either wouldn't exist, or - if you follow my pet theory that the time for them had simply come due to the accumulation of previous works and people familiar with those - they might not have looked anything like what we know now!

 

[TristramEvans]

OTOH, if you say that Arneson's legacy is "every RPG ever", that by extension means that he shares this legacy with Gygax and Major David Wesely. Without any of the three of them, RPGs either wouldn't exist, or - if you follow my pet theory that the time for them had simply come due to the accumulation of previous works and people familiar with those - they might not have looked anything like what we know now!

Sure, Wesley created the opportunity, Arneson created the hobby, and Gygax commercialized it. I don't think any of their contributions should be forgotten.

 

[robertsconley]

But what I know is that for years Gary advertised himself as The creator of D&D, and by implication, the role-playing hobby. I'm not placing the blame for that on TSR "suppressing Arneson" (although the fact that co-author credit took a lawsuit to ensure doesn't exactly paint TSR as especially magnanimous), but solely on Gygax's personal shoulders.

The thing is Gary Gygax is the creator of D&D. We know now that the system Dave used for Blackmoor wasn't D&D or even a precursor to D&D. It was it own thing until D&D was released and then Dave and the Blackmoor Bunch adopted D&D.

Where Dave earned his co-author status is by teaching Gary how to run a tabletop campaign and helping him with advice and commentary on the development of D&D. But it was not a relationship where Dave wrote X, Y, and Z chapters and mechanics and Gygax wrote A, B, and C chapters. It was a case where Gygax wrote the Fantasy Game after Dave's visit, and asking him a bunch of questions. Then involved Dave throughout its development in asking for comments, advice, edits, and help. But it was Gygax who did the drafting and writing of the drafts and final manuscript along with all of the early playtesting in his Greyhawk campaign.

In short, Dave invented tabletop roleplaying, taught Gary, and Gygax invented Dungeon and Dragons with input from Dave.

Where the wheels went off the rails is that Gary was very serious about making game publishing his livelihood. And he and Dave wasn't on the same page. Right or wrong this grew into resentment over having to pay Dave royalties.

I disagree. Arneson's legacy is every RPG published in the last 40 years.

As for Dave suing to get his due, despite his attitudes about business, he was the guy who put the work in to put together all the stuff that was going on to make the Blackmoor campaign happen. And figured out how to make it fun, interesting, and approachable. Then provided vital advice in helping Gygax with his roleplaying game. Without Dave, there would be no Dungeon and Dragons and no TSR. Dave deserved the settlement he got.

 

[robertsconley]

Sure, Wesley created the opportunity, Arneson created the hobby, and Gygax commercialized it. I don't think any of their contributions should be forgotten.

Well, I would add the small number of folks who we now know were running "almost" RPG campaigns during the time that Blackmoor get going. Even Blackmoor wasn't quite a tabletop roleplaying campaign until the Blackmoor Dungeons became the focus and derailed the various military and political stuff that was the initial focus of the campaign. Like Jenkin's Wild West campaign.

What we now know is that the "scene" at the time was a bunch of folks running stuff they figured was fun and always talking among themselves about how to handle various things. In large part because if they wanted to play this stuff they had to make it themselves.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

OTOH, if you say that Arneson's legacy is "every RPG ever", that by extension means that he shares this legacy with Gygax and Major David Wesely. Without any of the three of them, RPGs either wouldn't exist, or - if you follow my pet theory that the time for them had simply come due to the accumulation of previous works and people familiar with those - they might not have looked anything like what we know now!

They probably would have I think. Even if you take my radical position that the Bristol Wargamers invented RPGs, the description of RP in Western Gunfight is notably similar to what was later codified in D&D.

I simply don't see a route to RPGs that doesn't use skirmish wargames as the road.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

Well, I would add the small number of folks who we now know were running "almost" RPG campaigns during the time that Blackmoor get going. Even Blackmoor wasn't quite a tabletop roleplaying campaign until the Blackmoor Dungeons became the focus and derailed the various military and political stuff that was the initial focus of the campaign. Like Jenkin's Wild West campaign.

What we now know is that the "scene" at the time was a bunch of folks running stuff they figured was fun and always talking among themselves about how to handle various things. In large part because if they wanted to play this stuff they had to make it themselves.

I'd also add gamebooks which I think are an understated influence on RPGs in general.

 

[TristramEvans]

Well, I would add the small number of folks who we now know were running "almost" RPG campaigns during the time that Blackmoor get going. Even Blackmoor wasn't quite a tabletop roleplaying campaign until the Blackmoor Dungeons became the focus and derailed the various military and political stuff that was the initial focus of the campaign. Like Jenkin's Wild West campaign.

What we now know is that the "scene" at the time was a bunch of folks running stuff they figured was fun and always talking among themselves about how to handle various things. In large part because if they wanted to play this stuff they had to make it themselves.

Yeah, there's definitely an argument to be made that RPGs were "in the zeitgeist" and if D&D hadn't happened, something else would've. But that's just fun theoretical speculation.

 

[TristramEvans]

They probably would have I think. Even if you take my radical position that the Bristol Wargamers invented RPGs, the description of RP in Western Gunfight is notably similar to what was later codified in D&D.

I simply don't see a route to RPGs that doesn't use skirmish wargames as the road.

yeah I still insist Korns is all-but-an-RPG in it's play format

 

[robertsconley]

Yeah, there's definitely an argument to be made that RPGs were "in the zeitgeist" and if D&D hadn't happened, something else would've. But that's just fun theoretical speculation.

My money we would see a bunch of games in a category labeled with a catchy name but basically amount to "refereed multi-player wargame/simulations"

They would boom as wargame did independently throughout the 70s. Whether one of them would achieve D&D level of success it dependent on finding something that was easy to use, easy to make, and interesting as the dungeon adventure.

 

[robertsconley]

yeah I still insist Korns is all-but-an-RPG in it's play format

Except the focus was utterly on gaming out World War II battles. There was no sense of the larger life that surrounded the era that would propel it into something like tabletop roleplaying.

However it is a good example of something that was known to the folks of the time and thus formed a part of their toolkit that eventually led to Arneson and the Blackmoor campaign.

 

[robertsconley]

Yeah, there's definitely an argument to be made that RPGs were "in the zeitgeist" and if D&D hadn't happened, something else would've. But that's just fun theoretical speculation.

Speaking of speculation.


Forward to Adventure Part 1:
A Retrospective of 30 Years of Adventure Games.
Imagination #224,
September 5th, 1970

Hello fans, welcome to the 30th anniversary of the Adventure Game. It was at ChiCon I where Paul Miller and V. Wiseman introduced Travelling, Your Adventures in the Future. Surprisingly, the first edition of Travelling wasn’t a game. Sure, many of today's rules were present. World and creature creation, starship construction were present. The remaining rules were either non-existent or only presented in the sketchiest of outlines.

Spoiler

To understand why Travelling was written, we need to go back to the New York World Fair and the first Worldcon. Miller was one of those attending the first con. Like other fans, he was intensely interested in the new style of science fiction being written in Astounding and other magazines. He wanted to learn how to write these stories himself. It was said that he spent much of the convention cornering Campbell and other editors with questions on how to write good science fiction.

Miller left the first WorldCon very frustrated as he felt that nobody could give him a clear answer to his questions. He returned to his hometown of Chicago where two months later, he was talking to his friend Victor Wiseman. Wiseman was studying physics at the University of Chicago at the time. Inspired by his friend's troubles, he sat down and wrote up a set of tables for his friend to use to create his stories. For the next four months, Wiseman researched the available literature on planets, stars, rockets, and even a little biology. By the spring of 1940, he had over two dozen pages of tables, charts, and notes for Miller.

Miller loved what Wiseman had done and immediately used them to create his own worlds and settings, pulling material from E.E. Smith and other writers of the time. When Miller found something that wasn't clear or difficult to use, he made notes and worked with Wiseman to make the charts easier to use. One innovation that was introduced at this time was the use of dice to randomize various results.

Miller wrote in Imagination #64, "I was making the first sector of the Spinward Republic and starting to get repetitive in how my worlds were turning out. To give my head a break, I started rolling dice to randomly pick items off of the tables, modifying the more outlandish results. When I showed Wiseman what I was doing, he picked up on it right away. He knew quite a bit about statistics and probability from his work at the University. For the third revision, he reorganized the tables so you could use 1 or more dice to roll for the results."

At the end of the spring term, Miller and Wiseman had what would be the first edition of Travelling finished. With the second WorldCon coming in September, the pair decided to spend $100 and print their charts and notes as a small book and sell it at the Con. They figured that other writers had the same problems as Miller did, and Travelling would sell.

So that summer, Miller took all of Wiseman's notes and charts and typed them up. To Wiseman's star, world, creatures, and starship charts, he added chapters on characters, equipment, and milieu. At the end, he included a small subsector of his Spinward Republic setting, the classic Victoria Subsector.

When September rolled around, Miller went to the WorldCon and set up a table with 100 copies of Travelling for sale for $2. Travelling was a hit! With all 100 copies sold out by the end of the second day. Years later, Robert Heinlein wrote, "I walked by and saw Miller there with a crowd of people. I picked a copy of Travelling. Now I knew a lot of what Wiseman and Miller wrote and had the reference books, but it was nice to have it all in one place. Plus, being able to use dice helped when you are stuck trying to figure out exactly what a place looked like."

Miller left the convention with orders for two dozen more books. In addition, he used some of the cash to pay for ads in next month's issue of Astounding and other magazines. When he got back, he split the profits with Wiseman, and the two ordered 100 more books. Throughout that first year, Travelling was reprinted two more times. The third print run was 200 copies, and the fourth was 500 copies.

The next major step in Travelling's evolution was Chadwick's famous "Bottle Caps" rules. Named for the use of bottle caps to represent starships and people, this first appeared in the March 1941 issue of Astounding. John Chadwick came up with a set of rules, using dice, to resolve combat using the starships and personal weapons listed in Travelling. Miller immediately liked the "bottle caps" rules. He contacted Chadwick and was able to get permission to incorporate them into the 2nd edition of Travelling.

The 2nd edition was released in the fall of 1941 at the third WorldCon in Denver with a modified version of Chadwick's rules incorporated. The 2nd edition included chapters on characters, combat, worlds, stars, creatures, equipment, and starships. Over 1000 copies were made, and all were sold within months.

The 2nd edition was the first that could be played as a game. Although the characters and equipment lists were much cruder than subsequent editions, the second edition increased Travelling's popularity throughout World War 2.

After the 2nd Edition was released, Campbell at Astounding Magazine was inundated with submissions based on Travelling. Some were little more than lists randomly generated from the charts in Travelling. Campbell founded a new bi-monthly magazine called Imagination, Gateway to the Future and filled it with Travelling submissions. The first issue featured Miller's Spinward Republic outlining a complete sector done in the Travelling format.

Next...
Travelling and World War 2
Travelling 3rd Edition
How Pirates & Plunder almost sank Adventure Games in the 50s
Spy versus Spy and revival of Adventure Games in the 60s
The triumph of the Hobbit,
Adventure Games return to the past and fantasy The
Future of Adventure Games.

 

[Vile Traveller]

Man, now I want to get Playing At The World off the shelf and lose myself in Prussian wargaming world...

 

[robertsconley]

Forward to Adventure Part 2
A retrospective of 30 years of Adventure Games.
Imagination #225, October 6th 1970

Travelling and World War 2.

Travelling 2nd edition became a minor hit during World War as entertainment for soldiers. Especially in 1943 when Saul Banner submitted the idea to Imagination of using a single referee to judge the scenario for a group of player working together. This article came with the classic scenario Output Alpha, which featured the famed Nostradamus Bugs.

Spoiler

Saul Banner went on to write several more classic scenarios, notably the Memory of Beta, about a sentient ship, and Gamma Twilight which took placed on the tidelocked world of Gamma in the Victoria Subsector. Gamma Twilight was written in conjunction with Miller's article on the Aryan Consulate. The Aryanites were the main villains of the scenario.

Towards the end of the war, several companies came out with their own adventure games, but most were poorly put together in rules and binding. Travelling kept its dominance.

After the 2nd Edition V. Wiseman stopped contributing to Travelling. He graduated from the University of Chicago, and went to work for the Manhattan Project.

During the war, Imagination introduced the Aryan Consulate the sworn enemy of the Spinward Republic. Also the Dogmen of Antares made their first appearance, along with the master intriguers the Ceti Octopiods.

Travelling 3rd Edition

After the end of the War, the WorldCons were resumed starting in the fall of 1946. Miller, with backing from Campbell, hired Saul Banner and formed AGW, Adventure Games Workshop. In 1947 the two released Travelling 3rd Edition. This edition completed Travelling's transformation from a writer's aide to a full fledged Adventure Game.

How Pirate & Plunder almost sank Adventures Games in the 50s

During the war, rivals of Astounding, and even comic book companies put out knocks off of Travelling. Most of them were poorly written, poorly designed, and poorly bound. Travelling wasn't that much better but Miller used what resources he had to make Travelling the best product he could.

Most of the World War 2 Era Adventure Games were space related. Amazing Planetary Adventures, TriPlanetary (later sued by E.E. Smith), Astonishing Space Adventures were some of them. The remaining half dozen expanded Adventure Games into new genres, superheroes mostly, but there was a western (Tombstone Tales), a Three Musketeers game (Legends of the Rapier), several Pirate games, a game based on the Greek Myths, and one Time Travel game from Educational Comics (Time Travel Tales or TTT)

When EC Comics founder, Max Gaines died in 1947, his son William took over. William Gaines decided to jettison the comics and focus on taking the Adventure Game market away from AGW. He hired many of the best sci-fi and genre writers from Astounding rivals and turned them loose.

The result was an explosion of titles, and magazines for the Adventure Games market. Time Travel Tales was cleaned up and the Time Patrol was created along with their arch enemy the evil Denebians. Galaxy Trek was created to go head to head with Travelling. Their most popular game was Pirates & Plunder, a game dealing with the pirate genre. With the Adventure Games expansion the company changed it name to Entertaining Games.

By 1950, Entertaining Games was still second place to AGW. In the fall of 1950, The 2nd edition of Pirates & Plunder was released. It added a chapter on the dead, pirate curses, and black magic. This caused an explosion of interest in Pirates & Plunder and for a brief time in 1951 it outsold Travelling.

During the early 1950's Entertaining Games introduced the standalone scenario. Previously scenarios were only published in one of the magazines devoted to Adventure Games. It also introduced the idea of expansions with the release of Tales from Davy Jones' Locker. Davy Jones' expanded the chapter on the dead, curses, and black magic. This was followed up in 1953 with Legends of the Ancient Mariner.

The year 1953 was the highpoint of Entertaining Games. In 1954 Seduction of Youth was published which criticizes Adventure Games and Entertaining Games in particular. Sales plummeted and with the bankruptcy of Entertaining Games' distributor in 1956, William Gaines ceased publishing everything except for a humor magazine known as Crazy.

During this Miller and Banner kept toiling away at AGW. Despite the competition from Entertaining Games, the general Adventure Game market boomed during the early 50s and AGW expanded to a dozen employees. Miller and Banner released a 4th edition of Travelling. The 4th edition was noted for the introduction by Physicist V. Wiseman, who also contributed charts and notes on Nuclear technology. Miller also began publishing standalone scenarios and supplements. Mostly repackaging earlier contributions to Imagination, updated for 4th edition.

With Seduction of Youth and the subsequent downturn, AGW was forced to let most of its employees go by 1956. Miller writes.

The summer of 1957 was pretty bleak. We were down to myself, Banner, and our secretary/office manager Lauren Smith. That fall We had a small uptick in sales from some tie ins with the International Geophysical Year. Grand Survey was the best of that year's releases. We knew that there was work being done to launch something into space.

Miller continues

By October I was working on some stuff about the early days of the Spinward Republic and thinking about how to incorporate what was going on. When Saul runs in and tells me to turn on the radio. That when I heard beeping of Sputnik and the report that the Russians launched the first satellite. I was mad and afraid along with the rest of the country. As beloved as the Spinward Republic was, this was real and the Russians were first. But inside I also knew that beep was the sound that AGW was going to be saved.

Spy versus Spy and revival of Adventure Games in the 60s.

With the launch of Sputnik, interest in Travelling and Adventure Games exploded. Even with rivals putting out their own space related Adventure Games, AGW remained the largest publisher of Adventure Games.

The closest rival to AGW was Jackson Games of Tulsa Oklahoma. John Jackson gained noticed by writing for several of AGW's rivals. His work pushed the conventions of the space adventure games in new directions. Following the strange disappearance of Arc Johnson of Small Box Games. Jackson returned to his home in Tulsa Oklahoma and founded Jackson Games. He developed Spy versus Spy in 1963. Capitalizing on cold war tensions and the popularity of spy films and shows. Spy versus Spy and its line of scenarios and supplements became the #2 game of the 60's.

The triumph of the Hobbit, Adventure Games return to the past and fantasy.

In the fall of 1955, the third volume of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic Lord of the Rings was released. With the decline of Adventure Games due to Seduction of the Innocent both AGW and Entertaining Games did not notice the release. After the launch of Sputnik, the Adventure Games Industry focused on space.

In 1963, Gary Ganon and Robert Arendt founded Fantasy Adventures, Inc in Great Britain. They loved Travelling, Adventure Games, and Tolkien. With a desire to enter Tolkein's world. Arendt created a thinly disguised version of Middle Earth called the Wilderlands and Ganon created rules for the game. The two released Fellowship, Adventures of Fantasy, at the 1964 World Con.

The game was a hit. Lord of the Rings was beginning it's rise in popularity and people wanted to use Adventure Games to play in Tolkien's world. In 1965 Tolkien wrote to Ganon and Ardent praising their work and noting that they seemed to have lost his check in the mail. Fantasy Adventures started paying Tolkein a royalty and secured an official license to continue Fellowship. Arendt then created a line of "official" Middle Earth expansions along with continuing the Wilderlands. By 1967, Fellowship and Fantasy Adventures, Inc were the #2 company behind Travelling and AGW, Jackson Games and Spy Versus Spy remains a solid #3.

During the late 60's Travelling and Adventure Games gained mainstream notice with the success of Star Travels. Gene Roddenberry, the producer and creator of Star Travels, was introduced to Adventure Games when he was writing westerns for TV in the 50's. He learned about Travelling and was inspired to combine his work on westerns with the ideas found in Travelling. Today Star Travel is in its 5th season with Jeffery Hunter playing the role of the starship Enterprise's captain James Pike. The Klingon Leonoids are a homage to Travelling's Dogmen of Antares.

The Future of Adventure Games.

Today, in 1970, Adventure Games still is a strong vital market. The recent unpopularity of the Vietnam War appears to having having an effect on sales of Travelling and Spy vs Spy. However Fellowship keeps growing in popularity every year.

Fantasy Adventures newly established line of Mines and Caverns scenarios are especially popular. It is rumored that the Third Edition of Fellowship is going to make a Mine crawl the centerpiece scenario rather than the Citadel of Dun Arthanc.

There are also rumors that Jackson Games is expanding the rules used in Spy vs Spy to the Fantasy Genre. The new system is supposedly going to be called GUAG or Generic Universal Adventure Game and involve the use of the different polyhedral dice being used in the wargames industry.

 

[TristramEvans]

Except the focus was utterly on gaming out World War II battles. There was no sense of the larger life that surrounded the era that would propel it into something like tabletop roleplaying.

Yes, but the thing is though that one can find copious examples of equally myopically-focused RPGs today.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I simply don't see a route to RPGs that doesn't use skirmish wargames as the road.

The Bronte siblings were roleplaying without war games being involved, though I think the spark that started them did involve some toy soldiers.

This was likely in the 1820s, so I don’t think it predates kriegsspiel games, but I think it was largely independent of them. Certainly this was more isolated, but the fact that we still know about it today and that plenty of the text still exists means the possibilities were there.

 

[TristramEvans]

The Bronte siblings were roleplaying without war games being involved

Children have roleplayed probably since humanity existed, but yeah, no. I read those internet articles from 10 years ago too. Fun and interesting, but the Bronte's weren't actually playing RPGs.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Children have roleplayed probably since humanity existed, but yeah, no. I read those internet articles from 10 years ago too. Fun and interesting, but the Bronte's weren't actually playing RPGs.

Neither were the kriegsspielers.

 

[TristramEvans]

Neither were the kriegsspielers.

That's a fantastic strawman

 

[hawkeyefan]

That's a fantastic strawman

It’s not. I’m just saying there may have been other avenues for RPGs to come about. As you said, it’s just speculation… but I wasn’t claiming it as anything more than that.

One hobby or activity morphing into another.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

The Bronte siblings were roleplaying without war games being involved, though I think the spark that started them did involve some toy soldiers.

This was likely in the 1820s, so I don’t think it predates kriegsspiel games, but I think it was largely independent of them. Certainly this was more isolated, but the fact that we still know about it today and that plenty of the text still exists means the possibilities were there.

I'd argue against there being a line from the Brontes.

The lack of rules would seem to preclude it being a roleplaying game in the modern sense. It's game-as-pastime instead. Without that, it seems to be a (interesting and complex) storytelling activity, rather than a RPG. For it to be a RPG, we'd need to explain why other childhood pastimes (and here I am usof makebelieve don't also qualify and I don't think that's possible. Go down this route and you end up with the "roleplaying was invented by cavemen sitting round fires" arguments. Theoretically true, but so broad as to be pretty much useless. This entire argument seems to be based on a single Dicebreaker article which I think overstretches massively.

Neither were the kriegsspielers.

Absolutely. Professional Kriegspiel was never going to lead to RPGs. And every Kreigspiel game I've seen with RPG elements was influenced by RPGs, not vice versa.

The argument that there wasn't another path for RPGs other than through wargames is less "no other games involved roleplaying" and more the much more specific "the elements that went on to be seen as crucial to RPGs only existed in a subset of the wargaming community". Although as I touched on earlier, I would qualify that and say gamebooks were another possible route as well - there I can see a much more obvious jump to implementing task resolution mechanics and other game elements, along with a potential multiplayer approach.

Note that all of this only applies to tabletop. LARP there's a pretty clear possible path, starting with historical renenactment (which is ancient), going through model nations and the 1920s Assassin style players and popping into the SCA on the way. LARP didn't need RPGs to exist, it's just that RPGs had a massive effect on its development after they were invented. One of the reasons this argument pops up less is that pretty much everyone agrees that LARP is a case of parallel development; there is no single origin story. The debate with RPGs stems from the fact that there's a single game that's claimed as patient zero, which gives people a lot more to argue about!

 

[Jetstream]

They probably would have I think. Even if you take my radical position that the Bristol Wargamers invented RPGs, the description of RP in Western Gunfight is notably similar to what was later codified in D&D.

I simply don't see a route to RPGs that doesn't use skirmish wargames as the road.

I'm betting magic would've been super different though.

 

[TJS]

Imagine rpgs without magic as basically a standard things that has to be shoehorned in everywhere!

 

[SmallbutVicious]

Also editing scanned content is more expensive than editing ebooks.

They're not going to do it because the cost would be non-trivial.

And likely self-defeating. A "product of another era" disclaimer avoids the tricky prospect of having to decide which specific parts of the book are unsuitable for modern sensibilities. Removing or editing the parts you consider inappropriate carries the implication that you're happy to put your name to everything that remains, thus simultaneously upsetting both those who didn't want it changed and those who wanted more or different changes.

 

[zanshin]

I'd go for Sir Ian Livingstone CBE myself, but fair choice!

Definitely worth an honourable mention

Llord high Shaman Stafford and Librarian Ken St Andre for me

 

[zanshin]

If I recall, WotC introduced problems with Half-Elves back in 3E by making them the Charisma class. I think the flavor text was still about them being people who didn't fit fully in either world, but mechanically, everybody liked them. It was a confusing design.

Makes perfect sense to me - when you are a fish out of water you make extra effort to fit in.

 

[Vile Traveller]

But what three tasks will you give Sir Ian to perform?

I don't know, I've never kippled!

And if you don't get that White Dwarf reference, you have no business in a thread with Sir Ian's name in it!

 

[Baulderstone]

Makes perfect sense to me - when you are a fish out of water you make extra effort to fit in.

As someone that spent most of my childhood moving around (I once attended 3 different schools in one year), I get what you are saying. At the same time, even in that archetype is putting in more effort to connect with people, there should be something mechanical to reflect the difficulties that cause the character to put in more effort.

 

[zanshin]

As someone that spent most of my childhood moving around (I once attended 3 different schools in one year), I get what you are saying. At the same time, even in that archetype is putting in more effort to connect with people, there should be something mechanical to reflect the difficulties that cause the character to put in more effort.

Surely that's handled at a roleplay level - never quite trusted by humans or elves, but liked despite the prejudice. If you want to go with that flavour text.

 

[AsenRG]

They probably would have I think. Even if you take my radical position that the Bristol Wargamers invented RPGs, the description of RP in Western Gunfight is notably similar to what was later codified in D&D.

I simply don't see a route to RPGs that doesn't use skirmish wargames as the road.

I'd bet on the drama clubs getting there eventually. And/or superhero fans, which are always busy quantifying the abilities of superheroes...

Which would result in either a Forge-style narrativism, or possibly cross-polination from wargames, if it all started in a drama club which had wargamers as well.

...fast forward 35 years from there, and you see a Ron Edwards writing on a site promoting those new-fangled simulationist games and putting down Vampire: The Anne-Ricing for "only paying token attention to actual simulation, but not having any quantified abilities for, say, physical attributes of characters"!

I'd also add gamebooks which I think are an understated influence on RPGs in general.

Yes, starting with The Garden of Forking Paths or even before...

Yeah, there's definitely an argument to be made that RPGs were "in the zeitgeist" and if D&D hadn't happened, something else would've. But that's just fun theoretical speculation.

Most theories we can't verify are speculation.

 

[Moracai]

OK, so guide me a path were my first ever PC died in the first ever encounter which could've bee avoidable. but my player curiosity kicked in? My second character even was forced to flee because for the amount of blood rushing to his eyesl

It's pretty much like listening at a door and getting eargrubs into your brain that instantly kill your character with no roll questioned for. Your characters are always on the line, because that's what they do. If you want a loner character that doesn't work well within groups and the group has decided to pull of a heist in the Caribbean and the toad of mystery (EEKE the PC) hasn't lifted a finger from the Singapore café where's he's known from under another alias. Other player characters are in say Dallas.

You as the GM will either have to dance the players dance, or just shut off their involvement altogether, IMMV, YMMV, IMHO and all those cool abbreviations you can come up with nowadays.

 

[Gringnr]

If you wouldn't want one of these in your elfgame, I don't want to know you...

 

[Lunar Ronin]

PC Gamer of all places put up an editorial today, discussing how the upcoming WotC VTT thoroughly misunderstands tabletop RPG gaming.

Meanwhile in tabletop land, OneD&D looks confused by comparison. For the uninitiated, OneD&D is the next edition of Dungeons & Dragons, reminiscent of the current 5th edition system Baldur's Gate 3 is built upon, but with huge updates to class structure, spells, rules, and more.

It's also coming with its own bespoke virtual tabletop experience, a flashy, big budget platform with 3D miniatures, spell animations, and more. It's meant to be a new digital way to play the pen-and-paper RPG—not a video game, though you'd be forgiven if you mistook it for one. Personally I couldn't be less interested.

 

[Raleel]

PC Gamer of all places put up an editorial today, discussing how the upcoming WotC VTT thoroughly misunderstands tabletop RPG gaming.

i'm concerned about it for all the reasons he brings up. I've generally NOT been happy with VTTs outside of gaming remotely, and even then, only for a particular kind of game. Otherwise, I've done quite well with voice, dice roller (on discord even), and a virtual whiteboard. I get the idea there, but I feel sad looking at the people staring at their laptops. I get it, I've done it, but honestly, I don't think it is all that good. I HAVE enjoyed using a VTT at the table with a player instance projected on a big screen and a GM instance on a laptop, but this is an exception. I find them very fiddly and quite distracting from gaming as a whole. Honestly, if I want to play something like that, I pull out digital (or physical if I have 4x the time) gloomhaven.