Friday Musing: What If It Wasn't War Games

[Reynard]

[Note: I think we have had this discussion before, but I couldn't find the thread. but interesting subjects are always good to revisit.]

I am listening to Peterson's The Game Wizards right now and it struck me that role-playing took the form it did because it was wargamers who created it by way of D&D. But it did not have to be. Playing At The World and other histories note that the sci-fi fandom and historical re-enactment communities of the same time period (or even earlier) were creating role-playing experiences, and parlor games had enjoyed a small but notable resurgence.

So what if EGG had stuck to any one of the number of times that he disavowed war gaming and never created D&D with Arneson? What if sci-fi fans or SCA folks had created the first RPGs? What would TTRPG look lie? Would fantasy still be king? Would there BE an RPG industry?

Obviously, no one knows for sure, but what do you think?

 

[loverdrive]

I mean, forum games and Tumblr roleplaying after that evolved pretty much separately from D&D. They tend to have rules concerning what kind of fiction you can create, but dice, detailed combat and all other D&D-esque things are quite uncommon.

 

[Wolfram stout]

I think SCA, Ren-Faires, Fandom based LARPS would have all still developed and eventually moved into the D&D styled tabletop space. How the games would have looked I don't know. Except maybe two things:
1) It would have been more inclusive starting out.
2) The early games would have all been more targeted and specific. Generic world type games would have been 2nd gen games.

But, what do I know.

 

[Umbran]

Playing At The World and other histories note that the sci-fi fandom and historical re-enactment communities of the same time period (or even earlier) were creating role-playing experiences, and parlor games had enjoyed a small but notable resurgence.

The various historical re-enactment communities are also heavily focused on combat. The largest and most famous SCA event every year is Pennsic War, in which the largest events are battles of various sorts.

 

[Jay Murphy1]

IF ttrpg's came out of sci-fi fandom I would expect the play to be scripted. I don't see ttrpg's coming out of SCA groups because static structured play is not a priority in this group. Kinetic action and physical play are. TTRPG's coming out of SCA would be like movie criticism originating out of Sunday football. Sure there are participants who are very good at movie criticism, but on the football field there is not the right place of ideas for the person to even bring their interest and experience up.

Consider ttrpg's evolved out of a war gaming crowd because those with the desire and imagination to create such a game were there. Consider what are the qualities of the wargaming community which leads to ttrpg's as opposed to the sci-fi and SCA. Ability to evaluate play through rules combined with an unpredictable, everchanging playing field. That has attraction to a creative yet competitive person. Without getting punched in the face. If you are a fan of SCA you don't mind getting punched in the face.

What is it about these three realms that they appear "immediately" accessible to one person, but not the other? I for one never found ttrpg rule books all that difficult to understand, and, neither did my other 11 year old friends. People which didn't "get it" generally did not find the concept of ttrpg accessible like say, school sports, math competitions or jazz band.

Literary pursuits are wonderfully devoid of rules, so a more difficult sell, (structured, ruled play) to a crowd experimenting with words.

I suppose ttrpg's developed out of the wargaming crowd because it had the people in the "right place of ideas" to realized the enjoyment potential of increased personal involvement in a simulated world which has some kind of scoreboard to evaluate quality of play. Some way to evaluate "how am I doing?"

 

[Jay Murphy1]

I think SCA, Ren-Faires, Fandom based LARPS would have all still developed and eventually moved into the D&D styled tabletop space. How the games would have looked I don't know. Except maybe two things:
1) It would have been more inclusive starting out.
2) The early games would have all been more targeted and specific. Generic world type games would have been 2nd gen games.

But, what do I know.

How would it be more inclusive? Like, I'm not a ren-faire fan or have no interest in wardrobe or historical representation. How would I find myself to a ttrpg table in this situation? and wasn't the second generation of ttrpg's generic systems? The first ttrpgs were very specifically geared to genre. In fact, it was the first means of classifying ttrpg's, by genre.

 

[Reynard]

The various historical re-enactment communities are also heavily focused on combat. The largest and most famous SCA event every year is Pennsic War, in which the largest events are battles of various sorts.

Sure, but the resolution system is notably different...

 

[Reynard]

How would it be more inclusive?

More women, for sure, and the distance from the wargaming table and focus on costuming and enacting character in a historical context might have made it more welcoming to LGBTQ+ folks earlier. I have read that sci-fi fandom was also more racially diverse but I don't think I have ever seen the same claimed for SCA etc.

 

[Umbran]

Sure, but the resolution system is notably different...

The SCA resolution is not suitable for tabletop play.

 

[Reynard]

The SCA resolution is not suitable for tabletop play.

Depends on the size of your table.