Reynard
aka Ian Eller
Over the weekend, I listened to the brief (3 hour) lecture series "A Short History of Role-Playing Games" by Jamin Warren, from the Great Courses and available on Audible.
In short: it is okay. It is definitely a "short history" and glosses over much of the kind of historical detail that Applecline, Peterson and Briggs do better. It also introduces some inaccuracies, though I think that is due to trimming detail rather than Warren being wrong. He weaves tabletop and computer/videogame RPGs together, which I found interesting and would love to learn more about. Lecture 5 is probably the most valuable, as it dives deep into some of the problematic concerns of the medium from its inception, such as racism and sexism inherited from the inspirational media and the wargaming community from which RPGs spawned.
Overall, if you have read Playing at the World, The Elusive Shift, The Game Wizards, Slaying the Dragon and other D&D histories, there is not a lot new here. Even so, it is not bad, per se, and would make a fine introduction, to be followed by those works.
In short: it is okay. It is definitely a "short history" and glosses over much of the kind of historical detail that Applecline, Peterson and Briggs do better. It also introduces some inaccuracies, though I think that is due to trimming detail rather than Warren being wrong. He weaves tabletop and computer/videogame RPGs together, which I found interesting and would love to learn more about. Lecture 5 is probably the most valuable, as it dives deep into some of the problematic concerns of the medium from its inception, such as racism and sexism inherited from the inspirational media and the wargaming community from which RPGs spawned.
Overall, if you have read Playing at the World, The Elusive Shift, The Game Wizards, Slaying the Dragon and other D&D histories, there is not a lot new here. Even so, it is not bad, per se, and would make a fine introduction, to be followed by those works.
