I'm reading Playing At The World - Anyone else read it?

[saskganesh]

Every D&D gamer approached the game form the outside at one point. Anyhow, the "fire and forget" Vancian-inspired magic system was largely accepted because ... it worked well as part of a game.

 

[Alzrius]

I don't know why Gygax decided to model his magic rules on such an obscure source. I think that D&D players only accept Vancian casting because it was their 'first magic system'. Seen from the outside, one might be inclined to question it.

I suspect it's because the "fire-and-forget" system had built-in limitations on how much magic could be used in a certain period of time (while still being renewable on a short-term basis).

Most fantasy representations of wizards - certainly back around the late 60's and early 70's - had it as being a power that was fairly limitless. Outside of nebulous drawbacks like needing to pledge your soul to some sort of alien god, you could toss around as much magic as you wanted. That doesn't work very well for a game the way it does for a novel.

Now, the reagent system that Arneson used also had limitations as well, but I suspect that Gary 1) preferred a literary inspiration that would resonate with some players the way it did with him, and 2) was worried about players trying to "game the system" so as to turn out endless supplies of magical reagents.

 

[howandwhy99]

The D&D magic system wasn't always "fire and forget", which became a popular justification for what was happening in game by about 2e. It was, however, always preparation magic. Rituals are performed for taking a long time, but these led to create a kind of quick trigger to release the spell effects later. This allowed highly complex and difficult magic to be useful in fast moving situations.

Casters who don't prepare a spell slot have far more flexibility, but no quick option to use their spells.

Of course spells now take a flick of the wrist with no thought at all for big effects. But D&D begins with 1 spell per day. And that 1 spell is a major showstopper. It's not that no one else can unlock a door or hold someone or keep them silent or make a light source. It's that the Magic User can do so better than anyone else for one moment in time.

The biggest asset of a benefit of the Vancian-style D&D magic system though is tracking magic ability at any given time. This create lessens the workload for the DM.

 

[Agamon]

Excellent book. The third chapter, the history of wargaming, is both quite long and a bit of trudge, but fantastic info. The research Jon put into this book is phenomenal.

 

[Dungeoneer]

Chapter 3, Page 300. Today I learned -

Wargamers were arguing the merits of simulationism vs. gamism long before the internet. The debates were raging in wargamer newsletters back in the 1950's. And the debate really goes back to the earliest Kriegspiel, as different game creators pushed war-gaming toward either more complex, detailed rules or more accessible, easily-resolved rules. Peterson describes the decision to favor either realism or playability as 'the most fundamental in wargame design'. No kidding.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

[Dungeoneer]

Whew! Finally finished Chapter 4! I didn't find Chapter 3 to be such a drag as some suggested, in fact I enjoyed learning about early German wargames and the like. But some parts of the fourth chapter, such as the lengthy section on the 1960's LA fandom shared fictional universe of Coventry, seemed like they could have been a lot shorter, especially since they had little if any direct bearing on the development of Dungeons & Dragons.

The point that Peterson is making, in a very roundabout way, is that role-playing was 'in the air' in the sci-fi and wargaming communities of the late 60's and early 70's. It sprang up independently in 'campaigns' and 'shared stories' like Midgard, Hyboria, Coventry and Blackmoor. It also seemed to emerge spontaneously in the Diplomacy play-by-mail community. The question is, Why?

Peterson doesn't answer the question, but he suggests that it has something to do with the rise of what he calls n-player games. In the 50's and 60's most wargames were strictly two-player affairs, especially the Avalon Hill board games. But then Diplomacy came along, as did wargame 'campaigns' with many players. There were also, on the sci-fi side, fan newsletters where multiple participants published stories set in the same universe. These are the places where the idea that players would take on a specific character and behave as if they were them began to crop up over and over. I think the idea that role-playing was an emergent property of this kind of game is really interesting.

Of course when a game a shared universe got complex enough, it needed some sort of referee or moderator. Once your game has a referee, the rules get a lot more flexible. Competitive two-player games require that the rules be set in stone so that each side knows things are fair. For games with an impartial referee, this requirement becomes a lot less important. Thus, the rise of campaigns in which 'anything can be attempted'.

Dungeons & Dragons was an n-player game with a referee. Perhaps these factors would have inevitably lead to role-playing, no matter what the rules said.

 

[Dungeoneer]

Finished at last! What follows is my final review:

This book is definitely not for everyone.

For instance, despite the name this isn't really a history of games in general. It is a history of the events that lead to the development of the cultural phenomenon of Dungeons & Dragons, whose rules it also examines in exhaustive detail. If you have little interest in D&D this book will not be for you.

But this book isn't for every D&D enthusiast either. It is a dry book, heavily footnoted and thoroughly referenced. It is also massive, a real doorstop of a book. This is an academic's approach to Dungeons & Dragons.

Who is it for? Someone who loves history, roleplaying games and has a high tolerance for academic writing. Like I said, that's not everyone.

THAT said, this book is pretty impressive. The author has obviously undertaken years of research to track down every piece of documentation pertaining to the development of D&D, particularly the war-gaming hobbyist communities in the 60's and 70's. That community was sustained by small newsletters, often with circulations in the tens of people. That Peterson was able to get his hands on this material is really impressive. And these newsletters give a great deal of insight into the cross-pollination of ideas that would eventually give rise to a whole new kind of game.But Peterson doesn't stop there.

Let's be honest: a lot of nerds play D&D. This was as true in 1974 as it is now. And just as today, the nerds of the 70's had many interests. This means the history of D&D intersects with other histories, such as that of American sci-fi fandom, swords-and-sworcery fantasy novels and even computer games. True to form, Peterson gives the reader an extensive grounding in each of these. For instance, he is meticulous in tracing the various monsters and rules from the first edition of D&D back to their literary fantasy influences.

This reader found these pieces of history that are only tangentially related to D&D to be pretty interesting, for the most part. But at times their thoroughness will tax even the most patient of readers. Peterson might have served his reader better by summarizing and compressing in many cases.

The real revelation is the history of war gaming, which actually goes back centuries. War-gaming traces its origins all the way back to medieval Germany, yet Peterson shows that those games had a real and measurable influence on D&D and its kin. Its history also includes such literary lights as H.G. Wells and Robert Louis Stevenson, both of whom developed their own private rules for elaborate war games.

In many ways, the history of Dungeons and Dragons is the history of geek culture. It is inextricably bound up with sci-fi and fantasy literature, fandoms and video games. And anyone who participates in online messageboards regarding any of these topics will find the arguments and drama of the war-gaming community of fifty years ago familiar!

So this is an important work, almost a Bible of geekdom, and I have no doubt that it will be frequently cited as academia begins to mine the geek culture of the 20th century. I enjoyed it and found it illuminating.

But it is definitely not for everyone.

 

[Alzrius]

Don't forget to check out Jon Peterson's blog for even more information about the history of D&D - some of which was found after Playing at the World was released!