Game design has "moved on"

[MJS]

Otherwise games would have never moved on from chess. And while chess is pretty much timeless, wouldn't that also be super boring?

only when it tries to be an RPG *ducks*

Gygax was, of course, also known for his chess variants. Here is what we have: the basic RPG, D&D, was playtested and really meant to be a mini-less game. Being designed by wargamers, who thought they had to fit into that niche, they wrote it to accomodate minis use. This we know fairly well thanks to old TSR folks.
So, the RPG, from inception, had these two poles to it: the mini-less rules light RPG and the olive branch to the wargame crowd. We now have Hybrids that cover most of this ground, and this is good. The analogy to engineering is weak IMO, I think each different game is more like what happens when you bend a branch sideways: each node *thinks* its the main one and grows accordingly.

 

[Balesir]

Here is what we have: the basic RPG, D&D, was playtested and really meant to be a mini-less game.

Do you have a source/reference for this? I can't see how it would have worked, given that the combat system for the original D&D was the original "Chainmail" wargame rules with its fantasy supplement. The wargames rules were, well, a wargame - they used figures/miniatures. Until a whole new combat system was developed, how did they play "mini-less"?

 

[Janx]

Do you have a source/reference for this? I can't see how it would have worked, given that the combat system for the original D&D was the original "Chainmail" wargame rules with its fantasy supplement. The wargames rules were, well, a wargame - they used figures/miniatures. Until a whole new combat system was developed, how did they play "mini-less"?

Indeed. I got the impression from the fact that distances in spell descriptions etc were in inches, that they were specifically referring to expected miniature use in the rules.

 

[steeldragons]

Indeed. I got the impression from the fact that distances in spell descriptions etc were in inches, that they were specifically referring to expected miniature use in the rules.

As was movement. But, I think [and this is complete conjecture from someone reading them in the early 80's] it was more a hold over from the original series...which were written with wargamers in mind...so folks picking it up would know what things meant. It was well established in the manuals that inches were meant to be 10's of feet. If you were using miniatures, you had an "inches" to work with...but it was never presented in such a way as you were expected to be using miniatures. Never once, since I began, was it ever implied that you would/should use mini's. They were, kinda, extra lil' toys that you could get and play with. I had plenty [of miniatures]...never actually used them in an rpg session. Had/got/wanted them to play with on my non-rpg time! lol.

Hey, I was, like...8-12 y.o...

Don't judge me!

 

[Janx]

As was movement. But, I think [and this is complete conjecture from someone reading them in the early 80's] it was more a hold over from the original series...which were written with wargamers in mind...so folks picking it up would know what things meant. It was well established in the manuals that inches were meant to be 10's of feet. If you were using miniatures, you had an "inches" to work with...but it was never presented in such a way as you were expected to be using miniatures. Never once, since I began, was it ever implied that you would/should use mini's. They were, kinda, extra lil' toys that you could get and play with. I had plenty [of miniatures]...never actually used them in an rpg session. Had/got/wanted them to play with on my non-rpg time! lol.

Hey, I was, like...8-12 y.o...

Don't judge me!

I won't. It's more to the point that rules talking in terms of Minis shows more intent to incorporate minis than a rules that don't talk at all in miniatures.

Given that any idiot can figure out that if my PC can move 60 feet per round, and I count one square as 5 feet, that's 12 squares I can move on the battlemat. So they didn't HAVE to talk in terms of moving on a battlemat (or equivalent). But they did. Which shows more intent to incorporate minis than to explicitly exclude them.

Sadly, Gary's dead. Can't ask him now. I doubt he intended to FORCE miniature use onto people. But it was fairly clearly part of the mindset to use them by nature of blatant accomodations to them. Heck, when I started, reading the AD&D rules and seeing stuff measured in inches was "WTF" until I realized they were talking about on a grid or battlemat or some such.

 

[Akillion]

As was movement. But, I think [and this is complete conjecture from someone reading them in the early 80's] it was more a hold over from the original series...which were written with wargamers in mind...so folks picking it up would know what things meant. It was well established in the manuals that inches were meant to be 10's of feet. If you were using miniatures, you had an "inches" to work with...but it was never presented in such a way as you were expected to be using miniatures. Never once, since I began, was it ever implied that you would/should use mini's. They were, kinda, extra lil' toys that you could get and play with. I had plenty [of miniatures]...never actually used them in an rpg session. Had/got/wanted them to play with on my non-rpg time! lol.

Hey, I was, like...8-12 y.o...

Don't judge me!

I started with the old white box, my friend's older brother had a copy, and while we owned minis we never really used them in our games.

 

[steeldragons]

I won't. It's more to the point that rules talking in terms of Minis shows more intent to incorporate minis than a rules that don't talk at all in miniatures.

Given that any idiot can figure out that if my PC can move 60 feet per round, and I count one square as 5 feet, that's 12 squares I can move on the battlemat. So they didn't HAVE to talk in terms of moving on a battlemat (or equivalent). But they did. Which shows more intent to incorporate minis than to explicitly exclude them.

Sadly, Gary's dead. Can't ask him now. I doubt he intended to FORCE miniature use onto people. But it was fairly clearly part of the mindset to use them by nature of blatant accomodations to them. Heck, when I started, reading the AD&D rules and seeing stuff measured in inches was "WTF" until I realized they were talking about on a grid or battlemat or some such.

This is a great supposition based from today's standards. The fact is, there was no such thing as a "grid" or a "battlemat"...There were hexes. I remember those...and the graph paper we were encouraged to map on...but I am [fairly close to 100%] sure no one, no creature, no spell effect, traps, no thing was thought of in terms of a 5' square. Nada. My understanding is that was something brought in by 4e [could be wrong, maybe it was 3e, I don't actually know]. But in BECM or 1e terms, 5' square wasn't part of the game. Wasn't part of the consciousness playing the game.

Anywho, there's that. I agree, Gary [I doubt] thought that anyone would be forced to use minis.

 

[Janx]

This is a great supposition based from today's standards. The fact is, there was no such thing as a "grid" or a "battlemat"...There were hexes. I remember those...and the graph paper we were encouraged to map on...but I am [fairly close to 100%] sure no one, no creature, no spell effect, traps, no thing was thought of in terms of a 5' square. Nada. My understanding is that was something brought in by 4e [could be wrong, maybe it was 3e, I don't actually know]. But in BECM or 1e terms, 5' square wasn't part of the game. Wasn't part of the consciousness playing the game.

Anywho, there's that. I agree, Gary [I doubt] thought that anyone would be forced to use minis.

I came in at the 2e era with a 1e PH (try figuring out D&D with a 1e PH and 2e DMG...) when I ran into the inches puzzle.

From what I experienced, the 5' square was an artifact of the all the maps being on 1/4" graph paper set to a scale of 1 square equals 5'. And that was present on pretty much all interior maps as hexes were used for exterior overland maps.

from a wargames perspective, playing a green field was likely pretty common, and measuring distance/movement in inches was likely. But I gathered a dungeon crawl was likely run off the 1/4" graph paper, with maybe buttons or small markers used to denote position (a very tiny battlemat).

Some time along the was (pre 3e) Chessex and others came out with the wet erase battlemat.

I didn't play in the 1e era, so I can't say what life was actually like back then.

It's hard to express the concept that D&D appeared to be more inclusive/accomodating/expecting some miniature usage than rejecting of it. It's not binary, and obviously groups varied in what they actually did.

It was certainly less grid oriented than 3e (which further hoped you'd buy a battlemat). But it also wasn't completely opposed to it. It wasn't designed in a way that Gary would be shocked that you used miniatures to play it.

 

[billd91]

This is a great supposition based from today's standards. The fact is, there was no such thing as a "grid" or a "battlemat"...There were hexes. I remember those...and the graph paper we were encouraged to map on...but I am [fairly close to 100%] sure no one, no creature, no spell effect, traps, no thing was thought of in terms of a 5' square. Nada. My understanding is that was something brought in by 4e [could be wrong, maybe it was 3e, I don't actually know]. But in BECM or 1e terms, 5' square wasn't part of the game. Wasn't part of the consciousness playing the game.

Anywho, there's that. I agree, Gary [I doubt] thought that anyone would be forced to use minis.

No, they weren't geared for a 5' square... they were a 3 1/3' square (so you could get 3 across in a 10' corridor). Seriously.

AD&D may have used some wargame terminology and its roots were showing, but I would submit that using those terms and maintaining compatibility with miniatures is a far cry from expecting or intending for the game to be used with them. Had they intended to do so, they'd have been mentioned on more than 3 or so pages in the DMG. By the time AD&D rolled around, I think Gygax had a pretty clear understanding that the game had liberated itself from the sand table and was probably going to be played in many more venues than would support the space needed for minis and a laid out board.

 

[Balesir]

This is a great supposition based from today's standards. The fact is, there was no such thing as a "grid" or a "battlemat"...There were hexes. I remember those...and the graph paper we were encouraged to map on...but I am [fairly close to 100%] sure no one, no creature, no spell effect, traps, no thing was thought of in terms of a 5' square. Nada. My understanding is that was something brought in by 4e [could be wrong, maybe it was 3e, I don't actually know]. But in BECM or 1e terms, 5' square wasn't part of the game. Wasn't part of the consciousness playing the game.

OD&D certainly didn't have 5' squares - they came in as a requirement with 3.5 IIRC (or maybe 3E), but they had kinda been around for a while before that in the "Dungeon Floor Plans" that started with AD&D, I think. OD&D did have 10' squares, though, on the maps - each 1/4" square on the map was generally considered to be 10 feet (or 1" in the "dungeon ground scale").

OD&D up to 3.x was certainly not expected mandatorily to be run using miniatures and a grid, but some sort of map and markers - whether miniature figurines or simply chits - have been used in most D&D games that I remember, starting with a cave with a dragon in and a huge "adventuring" party of mixed level characters fighting it on a map on a classroom desk somewhere around 1975/76 (i.e. my first ever encounter with D&D in any shape or form).

My first experience of routinely running without miniatures or markers at all came with (I think) Traveller in 1979 or 1980. After that it became increasingly common - games of Daredevils and Call of Cthulhu spring to mind, mostly because no suitable figures were (yet) available, I think.

The manner of using the figures changed, though, it has to be said. Early on, they were really used as an expression of what your character looked like, and they were used to show approximate spatial relationships - no precise grid or movement phasing system being in use. I found this to work OK, but it occasionally caused frustration and intense, blazing rows because one person's interpretation of whether a specific move was feasible or not differed drastically from another person's. With no movement phasing, whether you could move to cut off the orc from getting to the Magic User was a matter of opinion - and, if the DM didn't share yours you were SOL. I remember once being told my archer character couldn't target an enemy because he couldn't get his left (bow) arm around a wall without falling off the walkway he was stood on; I pointed out that the character was left-handed (because we had rules for that back then) and was told "well, you're left handed but taught to shoot a bow the "normal" way... Remind me what those handedness rules were for, again??