The Retired Adventurer's Six Cultures of Play

[AsenRG]

Let alone grasp the concept of calling for friends meaning actually going to their house and knocking on the door. I mean, it was the Stone Age!

Well, no, in the Stone Age the door would be furs hung at the entranceof the cave!

 

[The Butcher]

The Retired Adventurer is, of course, John Bell, who used to post as Pseudoephedrine over at the ‘Site and tBP and was a notorious early ban by the Pundit.

John is crazy smart, and I take real pleasure in reading his stuff. Even the political stuff (our politics are not lined up).

Regarding the actual post, I think it’s a good categorization. Problem with gaming taxonomies is that everyone feels misrepresented because they feel they these classifications should be taxative and admit no deviation, rather than being fluid guidelines that describe elements that are not necessarily mutually exclusive (see: countless empty debates on GNS, threefold model, etc.).

But as broad descriptors of the mindsets behind published RPG content? Pretty useful.

I particularly like the trad/OSR split. Annoys a lot of people, I’m sure.

 

[Paragon]

That's where I find his distinction between 'classic' and 'traditional'--with traditional seen as (1) an attempt to make the game like a fantasy novel and (2) a reaction to 'classic' style of play--quite misleading. Speaking only for my own small group of misfits in those days, we imported elements from fantasy and sf novels from the beginning (1974). The whole point of the experience was to play a game where you were something like a character in those stories. This doesn't mean that we necessarily adopted a 'gm as auteur' model, but it does mean that we were not much interested in the domain-level play where you build fortresses and command armies, etc. Nor did we ever employ hirelings or followers all that much; we wanted to focus to be on us, the player-characters. And all of this before the formation of his 'classic' culture.

This was extremely common on in West Coast D&D fandom. I'd speculate its because a lot of it came out of SF fandom rather than wargaming (though, of course, there was plenty of overlap in a lot of places, but I think the density of one over the other mattered),

I rarely saw any big focus on domain management; a lot of higher level characters might have purchased some kind of base of operations (i had one who acquired a sailing ship) just to have something to do with all that damned gold, and you'd occasionally get a hireling or two, but they were usually to do things like manage pack mules; the idea they'd be more heavily involved never even cropped up (and probably would have failed most of the time anyway, given how early even first level player characters would be dealing with things that could chew them up like peanuts.

Yet you get a lot of talk--not only with the gentleman at hand, but by a lot of OSR proponents--like it was just a given early on.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

I particularly like the trad/OSR split. Annoys a lot of people, I’m sure.

I think the split itself is helpful, but I'm not convinced on the details and think it needs more work.

Which is my general view on the post as a whole; it's potentially a useful starting point but it needs a lot more development before it's a workable model. (Well, apart from the Nordic larp part which quite honestly I'd remove entirely. While there's some useful stuff that can be applied from larp theory to tabletop theory, the two are too distinct to do so directly).

 

[TristramEvans]

But as broad descriptors of the mindsets behind published RPG content? Pretty useful.

Well, it'd be more usefu if it was more accurate I think.

 

[Paragon]

I also think anyone born after say 1985 is going to have a skewed perspective on how fast information traveled pre internet. I mean most of us were young, got a half ass written game book and interpreted as best we could. So one group might be 3d6 in order no deviation! One my be 4d6 pick top three and arrange to suit. Another might miraculously have a lot of under 12 players and an abundance of 18's for 3d6 in order.
The world for most of us was inside the free calling range of your parents phone.

Piecing that into some coherent 80's gaming culture is lunacy.

Very much this. It assumes a coherence and consistency at the start that never really occurred. Even Gygax and Arneson were vastly different in what they focused on at the start, and that's not a pinch of how it became after it was released into the wild. You might have local gaming culture similarities in areas as people who learned the game from others adopted similar assumptions, but even that could vary considerably.

 

[Paragon]

I think the split itself is helpful, but I'm not convinced on the details and think it needs more work.

Which is my general view on the post as a whole; it's potentially a useful starting point but it needs a lot more development before it's a workable model. (Well, apart from the Nordic larp part which quite honestly I'd remove entirely. While there's some useful stuff that can be applied from larp theory to tabletop theory, the two are too distinct to do so directly).

Honestly, other than them both being about playing a role, nothing I've heard about the Nordic LARP scene shows any real relationship to what's commonly called the RPG hobby. Its connection is distant at best, and it makes more sense to bring in freeform and semi-freeform messageboard/chatroom roleplaying than that to me; they seem far closer kin, even though they're pretty separate too.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

Very much this. It assumes a coherence and consistency at the start that never really occurred. Even Gygax and Arneson were vastly different in what they focused on at the start, and that's not a pinch of how it became after it was released into the wild. You might have local gaming culture similarities in areas as people who learned the game from others adopted similar assumptions, but even that could vary considerably.

Definitely. This really interesting blog comment tracks the early gaming groups that influenced the British RPG scene.

It seems to me that in reality there were several different circles of gamers, who overlapped through GW, but who were pursuing their own agendas. One group was Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson; another was Bryan Ansell, Rick Priestley, Richard Halliwell and Tony Ackland; Dave Morris, Oliver Johnson, Mark Smith and Jamie Thompson were another; Joe Dever, Ian Page and Gary Chalk were one more; Graeme Morris, Jim Bambra, Phil Gallagher, Mike Brunton and Carl Sargent were a Cambridge-based circle; etc.

That looks accurate to me and I think you could do a similar lineage in the US.

Honestly, other than them both being about playing a role, nothing I've heard about the Nordic LARP scene shows any real relationship to what's commonly called the RPG hobby. Its connection is distant at best, and it makes more sense to bring in freeform and semi-freeform messageboard/chatroom roleplaying than that to me; they seem far closer kin, even though they're pretty separate too.

Mostly agree.

It's influential on LARP and would be necessary if you were looking at categorising LARP players. And Asen has made a good case for the Forgeites at least being aware of Nordic larp (although the claim in the article that storygames and Nordic larp started as the same thing and later separated seems false).

But in general, tabletop RPGs are obvious influences on LARP, but that influence is mostly one way. The only real exception is Vampire the Masquerade (where the two scenes converged a lot more) and possibly some storygames/American freeform crossover later in the day. So if you're putting LARP in at all, it's probably best just to do it as a whole, rather than a niche part of it.

 

[The Butcher]

I think the split itself is helpful, but I'm not convinced on the details and think it needs more work.

Which is my general view on the post as a whole; it's potentially a useful starting point but it needs a lot more development before it's a workable model. (Well, apart from the Nordic larp part which quite honestly I'd remove entirely. While there's some useful stuff that can be applied from larp theory to tabletop theory, the two are too distinct to do so directly).

Well, it'd be more usefu if it was more accurate I think.

QED.

Weighing it down with more elaboration would further cement the (very fluid IRL) barriers between these cultures.

 

[TristramEvans]

Weighing it down with more elaboration would further cement the (very fluid IRL) barriers between these cultures.

well, I don't think cultures are being described. I think actually there's very little consistency between what exactly the categories are describing, and they are inconsistent in and of themselves.

He skips entirely the culture of wargamers where Roleplaying was born. This I would actually describe as a culture, and is really the only one with the claim to the title Traditional, as it actually coes from...y'know...traditions. This I could see describing as a Culture.


He then describes tournament gaming, conflating this with what Gygax and TSR were promoting. The thing is, he's presenting these as chronological shifts, but here is his first big mis-step. Once RPGs reached a wider audience than the insular wargamming community, several playstyles/cultures developed simultaneously. But he approaches this entirely from a game design paradigm perspective, using (a very selective reading of) TSR gaming products as the basis for a "culture", and ignoring the various other playstyles that arose during this period.

Then he completely skips the early 80s and everything ese that is going on in game design and jumps straight to narrative playstyles, which he mislabels as Traditional, I'm assuming because he's young and mainly grew up in the 90s. If we follow the game-design paradigm instead of cultures, which he seems to be doing at this point, the Golden Age of Genre Emulation should really come next, before the advent of the railroady "games-as-stories" of Dragonlance.

Then the non-sequitor of Nordic LARP is added in, and that should just be excised entirely. He jumps ahead to Forge theory based design paradigms, completely skipping over the narrative revolution of the late 90s, and the huge role Theatrix and The Story Engine would play laying the groundwork for the shift from the 90s design paradigm established by Shadowrun and White Wolf (also not really mentioned, but lumped in with narrative playstyles, despite the fact that there was no real relation ).

His description of the Storygame movement, based on Forge theory is, ironically, incoherent. I think there's a germ of an idea here, that isn't really codified in any meaningful way. And it also places way more importance on the Forge than is due, completely skipping over the role that the advent of the internet had (prior to Edwards and through no influence from him and his theories despite how much credit he likes to claim) in the rise of the online indy RPG wave of the early aughts. This is also only spuriously any sort of culture - The Forge culd be considered a culture on its own, but the indy game movement wasn't anything close to centralized or monolithic enough to be described as such, and even "design-paradigm" doesn't seem to entirely work.

Then we have the OSR, where his presentation is a half-truth, and he doesn't seem to realize what design paradigm and Playstyle that they are trying to recapture (probably going back to expressin now knowledge of what was going on with RPGs in the 80s).

And finally we have NeoCon, which is again ascribing a Culture to a playstyle, in this case I think even more spuriously than in prior categories.

All in all, I'd say that he 1) needs to do a lot more research and 2) pick one categorization technique (design paradigm, playstyle, or gaming culture) and follow that through logically, instead of mixing and matching incomprehensibly.

 

[Jan Paparazzi]

What is the best way to classify the playstyles? I can see 4 playstyles: Classic/Trad/OSR, Narrative, LARP and Storygames. Classic is player focused, Narrative is story focused, LARP is real life with dressing up and Storygames are less rpg and more collaborative storytelling. That last one Neo-Trad leaves me confused. Could we come up with some sort of concensus on this?

 

[TristramEvans]

Could we come up with some sort of concensus on this?

 

[TristramEvans]

What is the best way to classify the playstyles? I can see 4 playstyles: Classic/Trad/OSR, Narrative, LARP and Storygames. Classic is player focused, Narrative is story focused, LARP is real life with dressing up and Storygames are less rpg and more collaborative storytelling. That last one Neo-Trad leaves me confused.

LARPing aside, I think the issue with classifying playstyles is that those are points on a spectrum, and very few people actually adhere to one of the extremes, but instead are sorta swirling around in the amorphous void between them.

 

[CRKrueger]

It’s a perfect example of a historical reconstruction and cultural categorisation from someone who wasn’t there and doesn’t belong to the cultures he’s writing about.

He has some broadly decent points, it’s when he gets down in the weeds that he shits the bed like one of Nurgle’s Own.

 

[CRKrueger]

The Retired Adventurer is, of course, John Bell, who used to post as Pseudoephedrine over at the ‘Site and tBP and was a notorious early ban by the Pundit.

John is crazy smart, and I take real pleasure in reading his stuff. Even the political stuff (our politics are not lined up).

Regarding the actual post, I think it’s a good categorization. Problem with gaming taxonomies is that everyone feels misrepresented because they feel they these classifications should be taxative and admit no deviation, rather than being fluid guidelines that describe elements that are not necessarily mutually exclusive (see: countless empty debates on GNS, threefold model, etc.).

But as broad descriptors of the mindsets behind published RPG content? Pretty useful.

I particularly like the trad/OSR split. Annoys a lot of people, I’m sure.

Heh, getting kicked from the Site was the best thing that ever happened to John Bell, he started talking about gaming again. The ban was hilarious though. He lost his shit when the Site got linked by Forbes and shitposted the hell out of the thread so people wouldn’t come back. Most blatant case of Site Disruption I’ve ever seen.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

What is the best way to classify the playstyles? I can see 4 playstyles: Classic/Trad/OSR, Narrative, LARP and Storygames. Classic is player focused, Narrative is story focused, LARP is real life with dressing up and Storygames are less rpg and more collaborative storytelling. That last one Neo-Trad leaves me confused. Could we come up with some sort of concensus on this?

Take LARP out of it entirely I think.

It's branched off enough to need looking at in its own right, especially considering how broad the LARP category is now.

If you want to look at crossover influence between LARP and tabletop that probably needs to be the sole focus of what you look at.

Obviously, LARPs are a subset of RPGs and they did start with tabletop.

But in 2021 trying to fit LARP in a tabletop analysis is much like trying to evaluate tabletop RPGs as a branch of wargames.

 

[Bunch]

80s, even 90s, culture varied dramatically over fairly short distances. I mean, my 80s experience here in Wales would seem like an alien planet to someone from Liverpool or Manchester. Which are only an hour away from here. Trying to pin down a global gaming culture when all you had to go on were magazines that the shops often didn't have is not easy.

Yeah you might be able to say something about the Con culture and the adult gaming culture as they had more communication access. We had Dragon for the most part. One blast out with maybe 8 questions about what was going on world wide filtered through an editor.

 

[deflagratio]

The LARP naming is a bad choice, but the hallmarks he's calling out for that culture is a focus on producing emotional reactions/experiences for the players and less emphasis on the story and mechanics, not that those aren't also important. He's not actually talking about LARP but seemed to choose that name mostly out of familiarity with the term and new it was also occuring in tabletop games.
For Traditional, there's legitimately no good name for the "default" or most popular style of play. I think one of the big hallmarks in this cultural definition is the GM's role as the provider and creator of the experience. While there may be player input, it's on the GM to draft the story and provide the world. Story games take a lot of that power from the GM and hand it to the players or eliminate the GM entirely.

I do find it interesting the directions the different directions the discussion is going here versus The Site.

 

[Voros]

The OP's histography, as almost all writing on rpgs on the net, is often wildly off but it does avoid the barely disguised ax-grinding so common to these attempts to define things.

The Nordic Larp section is really off, blurring actual Nordic Larp, American freeform, storygames and other ttrpgs.

Refreshing to find someone actually acknowledging Larp but they don't look to have actually read extensively enough on it, which is odd as the Nordic Larp website is full of history, theory and larpscripts all there for the reading.

 

[Paragon]

Mostly agree.

It's influential on LARP and would be necessary if you were looking at categorising LARP players. And Asen has made a good case for the Forgeites at least being aware of Nordic larp (although the claim in the article that storygames and Nordic larp started as the same thing and later separated seems false).

But in general, tabletop RPGs are obvious influences on LARP, but that influence is mostly one way. The only real exception is Vampire the Masquerade (where the two scenes converged a lot more) and possibly some storygames/American freeform crossover later in the day. So if you're putting LARP in at all, it's probably best just to do it as a whole, rather than a niche part of it.

Yeah. Its hard to see how most LARPs could feed back much into TT RPGs; a lot of their evolutionary structure, from what I can tell, is based on the physical realities of how they're played, and that's pretty much radically different from any conventional RPG that I'm familiar with.

The White Wolf LARPs (which, you can argue are almost exclusively Vampire, but I've at least heard of Mage LARP on occasion) are, as you say, kind of an odd case, but from knowing a few participants, the indication is that the relationship between the LARP and TT versions are--unstable. That its unusual for people to continue participating in both for any extended period (sometimes the TT just doesn't give them what they want, sometimes the LARP is too much work and/or involves too much organizational politics (and I don't mean in-game)). But its hard to argue there's not a stronger connection than in most other areas (how much of this is that there's actives support of both TT and LARP versions of the same game I don't know).

 

[Voros]

I think there is obviously a lot of overlap between larpers and ttrpgs, both in terms of players and designers.

The Nordic larp conference theory books have some excellent essays on ttrpgs as well for instance.

The more experimental larps also seem to often feedback into the more 'experimental' rpgs.

 

[TristramEvans]

I think there is obviously a lot of overlap between larpers and ttrpgs, both in terms of players and designers.

The Nordic larp conference theory books have some excellent essays on ttrpgs as well for instance.

The more experimental larps also seem to often feedback into the more 'experimental' rpgs.

I've certainly been heavily influenced by LARPs, as they tend to focus more on the Character Immersion and Role -adoption (acting) aspects of play that I prioritize. Aspects of LARPs have definitely made their way into Phaserip.

 

[Paragon]

I think there is obviously a lot of overlap between larpers and ttrpgs, both in terms of players and designers.

The Nordic larp conference theory books have some excellent essays on ttrpgs as well for instance.

The more experimental larps also seem to often feedback into the more 'experimental' rpgs.

Is it obvious, though? In my last--30?--years, I've only known three people who were crossover between the two, and only one of them stuck with it for any length of time.

I won't speak regarding designers, but I'm not sold the overlap on the player end is all that large. Its, of course, going to be a hard question to answer with any certainty.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

Yeah. Its hard to see how most LARPs could feed back much into TT RPGs; a lot of their evolutionary structure, from what I can tell, is based on the physical realities of how they're played, and that's pretty much radically different from any conventional RPG that I'm familiar with.

The other big thing that makes a difference is that many LARPs have a lot more players than your average tabletop group. That obviously has a real impact on things like the role of the GM and how individually focused the setting is.

The White Wolf LARPs (which, you can argue are almost exclusively Vampire, but I've at least heard of Mage LARP on occasion) are, as you say, kind of an odd case, but from knowing a few participants, the indication is that the relationship between the LARP and TT versions are--unstable. That its unusual for people to continue participating in both for any extended period (sometimes the TT just doesn't give them what they want, sometimes the LARP is too much work and/or involves too much organizational politics (and I don't mean in-game)). But its hard to argue there's not a stronger connection than in most other areas (how much of this is that there's actives support of both TT and LARP versions of the same game I don't know).

The big thing I can think of is the way that the LARP has affected the tabletop setting. The use of a formalised Harpy in many games is a good example; I'm pretty sure that started in LARP as a way of shifting the responsibility for adjucating status mechanics onto a player.

I've certainly been heavily influenced by LARPs, as they tend to focus more on the Character Immersion and Role -adoption (acting) aspects of play that I prioritize. Aspects of LARPs have definitely made their way into Phaserip.

Yeah, I think that for something like looking at immersion in games LARP theory can possibly be useful. And it developed in a different way than tabletop theory, that makes it both more accessible a lot of the time (and avoided some of the pitfalls of not stemming first and foremost with how LARPs were played).

I just don't think it works for a taxonomy of LARP playstyles.

Is it obvious, though? In my last--30?--years, I've only known three people who were crossover between the two, and only one of them stuck with it for any length of time.

I won't speak regarding designers, but I'm not sold the overlap on the player end is all that large. Its, of course, going to be a hard question to answer with any certainty.

It's obvious in the sense that most LARP players also do tabletop and that tabletop is by far the most frequent route into LARP. This means that LARPers at least are aware of developments in the tabletop scene.

What you're probably finding is that the opposite isn't the case; most tabletoppers aren't also LARPers and don't necessarily know that much about it. I sometimes find that tabletoppers have a view of what LARP is like that seems to be about twenty years out of date!

 

[Paragon]

The other big thing that makes a difference is that many LARPs have a lot more players than your average tabletop group. That obviously has a real impact on things like the role of the GM and how individually focused the setting is.

That was a big part of what I meant by "the physical realities", along with the ability for it to relatively easily be split off into individual subscenes in realtime.

It's obvious in the sense that most LARP players also do tabletop and that tabletop is by far the most frequent route into LARP. This means that LARPers at least are aware of developments in the tabletop scene.

I'm just not sure about the former part. At least the local big-broad-White Wolf LARP group I had peripheral contact with seemed to only have a minority that actually bothered to play the TT version (and the person I most knew in it stopped playing TT while I knew him). Ancedote and all that, but it makes me wonder how atypical this group was in that regard. (Its of course entirely possible that most of them may have played the TT version at some time and transitioned into the LARP; that's why I've suggested it seemed like the LARP gave them much more what they were looking for out of the experience. It seemed not-un-parallel to some contacts I had with people who played consent based MUSHes years ago who would have simply found much in the way of mechanics intrusive (though, again, there were some who did both).

What you're probably finding is that the opposite isn't the case; most tabletoppers aren't also LARPers and don't necessarily know that much about it. I sometimes find that tabletoppers have a view of what LARP is like that seems to be about twenty years out of date!

Well, if they don't do it, they probably only know about what they hear in the media or perhaps see at a convention once in a while. Other than the aforementioned White Wolf groups or a couple boffer-LARPs I had some contact with, I couldn't tell you what was out there myself.

 

[xanther]

I also think anyone born after say 1985 is going to have a skewed perspective on how fast information traveled pre internet. I mean most of us were young, got a half ass written game book and interpreted as best we could. So one group might be 3d6 in order no deviation! One my be 4d6 pick top three and arrange to suit. Another might miraculously have a lot of under 12 players and an abundance of 18's for 3d6 in order.
The world for most of us was inside the free calling range of your parents phone.

Piecing that into some coherent 80's gaming culture is lunacy.

Yah I was born in the 60s and despite having lived a huge part of my life not with a phone at hand, it's hard to remember how we even coordinated getting together in the 70s and 80s

No doubt, to even suggest, like the article does, that "Traditional" game play arose here or there...can say it arose everywhere to the simple extent people took all these modules and adventures and creatures and stuff and wove them into their setting, some with more or less success...it simply means making a living breathing world (something I'm pretty sure Gary did)...the only distinction being a matter of degree on how much the DM "guarantees" a certain experience or outcome.

The vast majority of games (and all of them where the DM was older than 13) when I was playing in late 1977 and beyond had a combo classic-traditional play style....in that the "guarantee" the DM was giving players is that of a realized, internally consistent world (why that vampire is in the dungeon does matter, or could), and fair and reasonable adjudication. So information matters, information means hack-n-slash is not the optimal or only solution; and murder-hob is not a viable strategy for PC longevity. Likewise, not every NPC is out to exploit the PCs, especially if both are of good alignment, etc. Asking why matters, parley mattes, NPCs goals and desires matter.

Never really read about these really in national publications (there really was only the Dragon in the US that had any reach, especially after TSR bought SPI), maybe a letter here or there, the Dragon had plenty of articles that let you know people played this way, hungered for it..."The ecology of" articles were very popular...of course every "official" pronouncement never addressed anything but strawmen (at best) and were clear attempts to maintain market share (i.e. only "official" D&D played the "official" way is worth one's time).

What gave "Traditional" a bad name in my view are those who decide railroading and plot protection were the way to go...a very simplistic way but not as satisfying as a well designed setting with good adjudication. It found some support, believe it or not, in the most pure "Classic" play, the tournament module where many things were railroaded and plot protected in tournament play to try to maintain some sort of level playing field.

Back to Bunch's comment, so in my direct experience, at the actual time.

Hybrid classic-traditional was the predominant play style, in my state and a few others from stories of the DMs and their play at college. Yet you would never know in what little communication there was, basically The Dragon in the US. Zines existed but were local, the "world" was your city and others within an hour drive or so, with infusions of knowledge from those returning home for college. Heck given the whole satanic panic in the US, recall tending to keep our playing to ourselves, let alone the whole negative social stereotypes at the time of the D&D player.

So relying on what was published in the late 1970s as one's evidence of how people played, is just bad investigation. It's like archeologists saying people didn't wear clothes 40,000 years ago because we haven't found many, completely ignoring that such things do not survive.

Could go on, and on, but there was a real disconnect between TSRs staff and the very original players, the majority (in my view) of the over 13 crowd of players and what seemed to be the target market of TSR 12-13 year old boys...and all the concomitant twisting they did to appease parents.

In my view D&D thrived despite all this because people craved it. It took off in no small measure in my view because of the resurgence of JRRT among 20 something's at the time (late 70s); "Frodo Lives" on the subway wall (besides being like a spoiler, come on man ) bespeaks the time and craving.

Similarly to 5e, I believe it is more a function of the time...and 20 something's I know who are into it are all about a realized setting...the "Traditional" approach and want exploration and social interactions to matter. Yet when they find the rules of 5e as written don't make this easy....they ask the same questions and start exploring the same options saw back in the '70s and '80s...we've been here before Good news is for them, many answers exist.

Can also say hack-n-slash via tabletop seems to hold no interest for 20 something's. Tabletop hack-n-slash is inherently slower than console games, more limited (they say, as they can move, block, etc. on console) and tabletop (they say) just can't compare to Skyrim...which also has social interactions, and crafting and building (scratching that minecraft bug).

 

[Bunch]

My recollection is we said we'll meet at the X at Y time and if we're not there check back in every Z minutes (10-30).

You went to X. You waited a little bit hoping your friends/family were there. If enough time passed to raced over to Store you liked for a few minutes then raced back to see if they showed up. Complete no shows required a pretty damn good excuse.

 

[xanther]

Indeed, why the arcade I think was such a hit when it arrived. You could play a few games while waiting for people to show, also you wouldn't be chased away like so many other places.

 

[Endless Flight]

I remember meeting my friend at the public library back in the mid 80s to play MSH. We sat in the back corner at a big table.

 

[Fenris-77]

Once I was old enough that my neighborhood friends weren't also my gaming group (so maybe age 12 or 13) my FLGS was the center of the universe.

 

[xanther]

Our hobby store (back when model rockets, RC cars, model airplanes, etc. dominated and RPGs shared the floor space...before the FLGS) was a bit far afield for bike riding, also kind of small. At the nearest recall the transition from the RPG stuff being in the back to moving up front and taking up more and more.
I miss those places.

We also had to go uphill both ways to get there and back...did I mention the packs of roving dire wolves, kids these days, tell 'em that and they won't believe you.


I recall to, the only place that reportedly had Chainmail was this art supply store....really weird like in this simple stand-up rack they had a few D&D things. I think I got Greyhawk their, because no Chainmail. Boxed games like AH and SPI were actually sold in a book store (in a very small section, of a fairly funky store), not the hobby shop.

 

[robertsconley]

Adding to this is that in the Elusive Shift Jon Peterson clearly documents that from the onset of the publication of OD&D there were two broad "cultures" in the hobby. One with its origin in wargaming and the other in organized science fiction fandom. That the wargaming crowd was goal oriented and view a RPG campaign as challenge to overcome. That the fandom crowd was more about the story and roleplaying as one's character. There were consider overlap between the two and each had their nuances.

Peterson backs all this with documentation and traces it up to into the early 80s. I highly recommend giving it a read as it way more grounded in what actually happened than Retired Adventurer posts.

And keep mind it not that Retired Adventurer doesn't have good points. That it lacking perspective of the broad picture. It is his view of what he experienced. Peterson's books is backed by actual letters and articles written by dozens of folks throughout the 70s and early 80s. And it paints a picture that more inline what I experienced in rural NW PA than anything else I read to date.

Compared to Playing at the World I think this is possibly the more important book. While interesting the problem with the folks including Gygax behind the development of D&D they didn't have much of a communication reach at first compared to the spread of OD&D itself. Throughout 1975, people got the game and had to puzzle it out for themselves and since it spread first among sci-fi fandom and wargamers first that what established the foundation of many the attitudes within the hobby that are present today. But not all.

 

[KrakaJak]

I don't know how long ago the "Retired Adventurer" started playing RPGs, but I could totally see this being the perspective of someone who started sometime after the year 2000. Which is to say: it's an interesting take, but certainly not my take.

Also, I reject the premise: Cultures are people, not lists of games. How you go about getting RPGs played is your culture, not what games you play.

So, like, for my group, our preferences of play are based more on inertia and "the path of least resistance" than any set of games. We get along mostly with D&D (Current Edition™), FATE, and World of Darknessy stuff (In that order). There are a couple of "pushers" in the group, who try to get other games played (From OSR, to experimental Zine stuff to Palladium). No one's in charge really, but the better motivated and/or better organized GMs tend to get their games played. We are insular and non-nomadic, we don't to coventions/organized play, and people join or leave the group very infrequently.

I can imagine there are monogame RPG cultures (Ex: We play Savage Worlds and only Savage Worlds). And I know gamer nomads exist (people who play mostly through organized play or conventions) and people who are parts of pools of players who multiple groups, and people who mostly run and play short runs of experimental "zine" games.



The only game designer "personality" types I take with any seriousness are Quantic Foundry's gamer motivation profiles. There are different sets of RPGs that help satisfy different motivations from players.

 

[Lofgeornost]

Hybrid classic-traditional was the predominant play style, in my state and a few others from stories of the DMs and their play at college. Yet you would never know in what little communication there was, basically The Dragon in the US. Zines existed but were local, the "world" was your city and others within an hour drive or so, with infusions of knowledge from those returning home for college. Heck given the whole satanic panic in the US, recall tending to keep our playing to ourselves, let alone the whole negative social stereotypes at the time of the D&D player.

This very much matches my experience at the time. Gaming groups tended to be relatively small--a dozen people or fewer--and you might game with essentially the same set of folks for years. RPG-players just weren't that common, and it certainly wasn't the sort of thing you went around proudly announcing. There was cross-pollination between groups, on a small scale, but mostly among people in the same geographical area, for obvious reasons. And this could lead to very different approaches to the games at different tables.

A case in point; in my early 20s, a 'new guy' from another city joined the local gaming group. In his first game, first combat, he described in great detail the elaborate and flashy maneuvers his character engaged in--what would later be called 'stunting,' I guess. In his group-of-origin, that sort of description had normally brought a bonus on combat rolls. Our group was more prosaic; the gm made him make a couple of rolls on dexterity and strength to carry off the maneuvers, and when he failed, had his character fall flat on his face.

 

[ffilz]

Adding to this is that in the Elusive Shift Jon Peterson clearly documents that from the onset of the publication of OD&D there were two broad "cultures" in the hobby. One with its origin in wargaming and the other in organized science fiction fandom. That the wargaming crowd was goal oriented and view a RPG campaign as challenge to overcome. That the fandom crowd was more about the story and roleplaying as one's character. There were consider overlap between the two and each had their nuances.

Peterson backs all this with documentation and traces it up to into the early 80s. I highly recommend giving it a read as it way more grounded in what actually happened than Retired Adventurer posts.

And keep mind it not that Retired Adventurer doesn't have good points. That it lacking perspective of the broad picture. It is his view of what he experienced. Peterson's books is backed by actual letters and articles written by dozens of folks throughout the 70s and early 80s. And it paints a picture that more inline what I experienced in rural NW PA than anything else I read to date.

Compared to Playing at the World I think this is possibly the more important book. While interesting the problem with the folks including Gygax behind the development of D&D they didn't have much of a communication reach at first compared to the spread of OD&D itself. Throughout 1975, people got the game and had to puzzle it out for themselves and since it spread first among sci-fi fandom and wargamers first that what established the foundation of many the attitudes within the hobby that are present today. But not all.

Yea, Elusive Shift was a good read. What's important to highlight about it is that Peterson mined a lot of fanzines, and the big APAs (A&E and Wild Hunt) had a large following spread across the US that actually served to connect a lot of the different game communities. I'd also say there were at least 3 play style communities at MIT. There were the older gamers where most of the Boston area Wild Hunt contributors came from, the college and a bit older players, and the high school and younger players. People did move through all 3 communities (I did, Glen Blacow at least played with me, thus the younger set, as well as the older set. I'm not sure how much he interacted with the college age set). But as near as I can tell, that whole community played very differently than some of the West Coast folks.

 

[Paragon]

Yeah, I was an Alarums and Excursions contributor back in the day, and while it did lean in to the West Coast folks some, there were at least enough contributors from other parts of the country you got an idea of how play styles differed, and to some extend where regionalism was.

 

[robertsconley]

Also I don't think people thinking of taxonomy, styles, or culture are not considering the outsize impact that founder's effect has for both those experienced in the hobby and for those new to the hobby. Sure there are some broad themes as the Elusive Shift documents, the impact of gaming magazines, and the of course of the Internet. But for specific individual and groups it all filtered through "that" person(s) who taught everybody to play in the first place.

 

[Fenris-77]

Also I don't think people thinking of taxonomy, styles, or culture are not considering the outsize impact that founder's effect has for both those experienced in the hobby and for those new to the hobby. Sure there are some broad themes as the Elusive Shift documents, the impact of gaming magazines, and the of course of the Internet. But for specific individual and groups it all filtered through "that" person(s) who taught everybody to play in the first place.

GMing at the time has always reminded me a little of classical martial arts where everyone learned from a master in a pretty siloed school. I was certainly a product, initially, of the guys who ran the first handful of real games I played in. Luckily they were pretty good.

 

[Bunch]

Also I don't think people thinking of taxonomy, styles, or culture are not considering the outsize impact that founder's effect has for both those experienced in the hobby and for those new to the hobby. Sure there are some broad themes as the Elusive Shift documents, the impact of gaming magazines, and the of course of the Internet. But for specific individual and groups it all filtered through "that" person(s) who taught everybody to play in the first place.

Yeah this is much bigger than any magazine or APA pub. I don't think I heard of alarms and excursions until 2000+ and I started in the 70's. I recall thinking crap I live around the corner from Lee Gold who's apparently been doing this since almost before I was born and never heard of her.

We were all in our own little worlds and realistically you couldn't reach out to anyone and no one reached in to you.

 

[ffilz]

Yeah this is much bigger than any magazine or APA pub. I don't think I heard of alarms and excursions until 2000+ and I started in the 70's. I recall thinking crap I live around the corner from Lee Gold who's apparently been doing this since almost before I was born and never heard of her.

We were all in our own little worlds and realistically you couldn't reach out to anyone and no one reached in to you.

Interesting.

I met Glen Blacow via my FLGS. I got involved with the MIT game club via my best friend's college age friend who was gaming with me who suggested I go to one of the MIT club's conventions. The players I met there then invited me to the club. Somehow before or around then I was introduced to someone, I think Sean Cleary (whose name shows up) via my mom, I dunno if she new Sean's mom or one of my mom's friends knew Sean's mom).

I think maybe the Boston area gaming community was smaller. It probably also helped that the MIT club was open to non-students including high school (and younger) kids.

On the other hand, there probably were other gamers who had no idea any of this was going on.