Was D&D the first RPG?

[just__al]

Growing up my Dad played this RPG called "cowboys and indians" sometimes they played "cops and robbers"

I'm pretty sure those predate D&D but the combat rules were lacking to put it mildly....
"I shot you"
"nuh uh, you missed and I shot you first BANG"
"Ha, I have a bullet proof vest"

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Growing up my Dad played this RPG called "cowboys and indians" sometimes they played "cops and robbers"

I'm pretty sure those predate D&D but the combat rules were lacking to put it mildly....
"I shot you"
"nuh uh, you missed and I shot you first BANG"
"Ha, I have a bullet proof vest"

That's why we used BB guns.

 

[Jim Hague]

I think we do need a definition of RPG, so here goes, stealing bits and pieces from Wil and Henry:

Roleplaying Game (RPG): A system of adopting the persona of fictionalized characters in a given milieu according to a mutally-agreed upon set of formalized rules, commonly referred to as mechanics. Mechanics are typically utilized to determine the possible actions of those personae and the consequences of those actions. Some roleplaying games expand their mechanics to include influence (direct or indirect) on the direction of plot, story or some other narrative structure.

As always, YMMV.

 

[Garnfellow]

Somewhere, in one of the "Ask Gary" threads, I asked if he thought RPGs would have developed without D&D, specifically asking about Traveller. He said that Miller had told him he used D&D as a model, so who really knows?

I don't think Gary's response is at all incongruous with Mark's statement. Have you ever started a big project and then discovered, halfway in, that someone else had already successfully done something very similar -- leading you to immediately modify your approach in order to use the completed project as a template or guideline? Don't reinvent the wheel, goes the old saw.

It's easy to imagine Miller independantly working out some roleplaying concepts and then . . . BAM! . . . D&D arrives and offers him an already realized model to work from, along with an established network of users.

 

[Ranes]

I know I've raised the Marc Miller thing before. My memory's well and truly hazy on this one, because I'm paraphrasing him from an interview he gave to White Dwarf somewhere between #17 and the #30. I'm pretty sure he said he and the GDW-ers were independently working on something RPG-like with an SF theme around the time D&D bubbled up.

But there's no doubt in my mind about D&D being the original RPG. Unless you want to argue that it was The Fantasy Game.

 

[FickleGM]

Are we talking about published and sold RPGs or are we talking about RPGs in the most general sense?

If the former, then I don't have the information and have always assumed D&D.

If the latter, then I am going with "pretend", which has been around for many, many, many years. In some cases, objects like coins were used to resolve issues. No matter how loosely defined these resolutions methods may have been, I would still classify them as mechanics.

Therefore, "pretend" is the first "unofficial" RPG...

 

[The Sigil]

I need to do some digging (and my google-fu fails me) but I remember reading something in "The Winner's Guide to Board Games" (published in the late 70's) that (IIRC), there was an RPG version of "Prince Valiant" sometime in the mid-50's. The author of TWGtBG was an unabashed D&D fan, but unless my memory fails me, credited Prince Valiant with being the first true RPG - a couple of decades prior to the existence of D&D.

I've since lost my copy of the book, but perhaps someone has it... somewhere... and can check my memory (EDIT: found a copy on ebay; Author's name is Jon Freeman)?

--The Sigil

 

[WayneLigon]

The sisters used to make up adventures in this fantasy world, using toy soldiers to represent characters. Gondal was itself a breakaway from the earlier world of Angria, which had been her brother Branwell and sister Charlotte's creation. Emily never outgrew Gondal, and continued to add to it into her adult life.

I thought I remembered that. I should see what material there is on this. Do you know if there's a book or anything about it?

 

[WayneLigon]

Of course, there were what... like six printings of those three books? As I understand it, each printing is slightly different from the preceding printings, so it's possible that what your copy of M&M says, another player's version does not. Note also that the copies in the white box were published in 1977, not 1974 - the first printing books were made available in a brown (i.e., wood-colour) box with white labels affixed to it.

Oho. Mine is a brown cover to the book - the box itself has long since been lost - that says' copyright 1974. No printing version is given inside the book.

 

[WayneLigon]

Do you have more information about the Leiber game? I do vaguely remember that <b>Little Wars</b> had some rough discussion about playing a political game (with a fictional country) in addition to the military game.

Not really. I can't even remember where I read about it. I seem to remember that the playing peices were large things of cork with small weapons stuck on them.