Friday Musing: What If It Wasn't War Games

[Jay Murphy1]

The problem as I see it is that you are assuming that the only way those questions were answered was the way that they happened to be answered, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that.

For example, you position that adventure stories would need a way to resolve interpersonal conflict is true.


Would need to resolve combat. interpersonal conflict can be resolved realistically. There isn't much of a need for rules to play out activity you can just naturally do. Combat needs detailed rules because you cannot resolve it realistically without someone getting hurt. ttrpg's have combat rules because you need them to roleplay adventure fiction games. Not so much with roleplaying a personality.

 

[JEB]

Branching story books had been around for a while, but computer adventure games grew out of tabletop RPGs and their popularity with computer science students.

Right, that's why I said "alternate model." And many early PC adventure games were more about inventory management and exploration than character statistics and detailed combat, despite their D&D roots.

 

[Jay Murphy1]

Depends what you mean by "act out". In the SCA they've been acting out hitting each other with swords since 1966... by strapping on armor and hitting each other kind of hard with sticks! Or they act out fencing by... fencing, rather in the way of sport fencing. And lots of modern larpers are acting out much the same by tapping each other with padded pvc pipe or latex weapons...

I know they hit each other. It can be assumed everyone in a SCA activity are okay with getting hit. They actually love the physical contact. It cannot be said the same exists for someone who is a fan of fantasy literature and ttrpg's. As a fantasy adventure fan I look forward to crossing blades with bad guys in a fantasy table top rpg. I also can expect I will not be asked to actually hit and be hit because the game has rules on that is handled. Violent personal conflict is thrilling and fun to pretend at, less so in real life. Well performed roleplaying shared at the table with like minded individuals is more accessible to a greater amount of people and no one really needs to be told how to flim flam an imaginary adversary. You open your mouth and try to sound convincing. No rule needed, just convincing. How well I stab someone requires some sort of mechanical resolution or some set of rules which someone could explain to me, as a matter of the real-life concerns involved in acting out combat.

 

[overgeeked]

[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.

A lot of this ground is covered in The Elusive Shift.

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?

It's important to get the history right, I think. Dave Wesley (a wargamer) pulled the idea of an impartial referee making calls on how things should be adjudicated when players come up with wild ideas from free Kriegsspiel, Prussian wargames of the 19th century. This lead to role-play-elements in their wargames. Over time more and more role-playing was added, which lead to Wesley creating Braustein...which Arneson played. Arneson took the idea into the medieval milieu and created Blackmoor. Gygax played a Blackmoor game with Arneson and got Arneson to agree to a partnership and publication. Arneson wrote up the rules and sent them to Gygax. Gygax took those rules, altered them a lot, then published it as D&D. Gygax's contribution was one of editing, alteration, and publication, not creation.

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?

D&D specifically wouldn't have been the impetus for the RPG industry starting, but Wesley's and Arneson's ideas would have still spread. Again, The Elusive Shift specifically covers a lot of this pre-history and early days of the genre. RPGs seem inevitable. But they certainly would have had a less wargame feel and start. The large play-by-mail groups that pre-date D&D might have spread. There might have been a few people trying to publish their rules. Hell, there were games that basically were RPGs without the character sheet, like Diplomacy (1959), but they required a board and pieces. I still think fantasy would be king if it hit around the same time as it did. Lord of the Rings was too much a juggernaut in the related communities for fantasy to not be the first stop for the genre.

 

[Umbran]

I know they hit each other. It can be assumed everyone in a SCA activity are okay with getting hit. They actually love the physical contact. It cannot be said the same exists for someone who is a fan of fantasy literature and ttrpg's.

Yes, I know.

What part of, "That tradition could easily have come up with ways to simulate their activities without having all the rigmarole of actually hitting people," failed to register?

 

[Reynard]

A lot of this ground is covered in The Elusive Shift.

It's important to get the history right, I think. Dave Wesley (a wargamer) pulled the idea of an impartial referee making calls on how things should be adjudicated when players come up with wild ideas from free Kriegsspiel, Prussian wargames of the 19th century. This lead to role-play-elements in their wargames. Over time more and more role-playing was added, which lead to Wesley creating Braustein...which Arneson played. Arneson took the idea into the medieval milieu and created Blackmoor. Gygax played a Blackmoor game with Arneson and got Arneson to agree to a partnership and publication. Arneson wrote up the rules and sent them to Gygax. Gygax took those rules, altered them a lot, then published it as D&D. Gygax's contribution was one of editing, alteration, and publication, not creation.

D&D specifically wouldn't have been the impetus for the RPG industry starting, but Wesley's and Arneson's ideas would have still spread. Again, The Elusive Shift specifically covers a lot of this pre-history and early days of the genre. RPGs seem inevitable. But they certainly would have had a less wargame feel and start. The large play-by-mail groups that pre-date D&D might have spread. There might have been a few people trying to publish their rules. Hell, there were games that basically were RPGs without the character sheet, like Diplomacy (1959), but they required a board and pieces. I still think fantasy would be king if it hit around the same time as it did. Lord of the Rings was too much a juggernaut in the related communities for fantasy to not be the first stop for the genre.

The Elusive Shift is my next read after I finish The Game Wizards.

 

[Jay Murphy1]

The problem as I see it is that you are assuming that the only way those questions were answered was the way that they happened to be answered, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that.

I'm more saying it makes sense ttrpg's evolved out of that scene. There you would find people interested in both games, fantasy fiction, and unique ways of modeling a shared imaginative space in a concrete way, and at the same time not excluding individual skill being able to effect outcomes. It is hard to see how other areas of interest could generate a game like a gaming community would. Like Pictionary didn't originate out of the artist community/scene, it originated out of people sitting around playing board games.

 

[Jay Murphy1]

Yes, I know.

What part of, "That tradition could easily have come up with ways to simulate their activities without having all the rigmarole of actually hitting people," failed to register?

Because actual physical hitting is what the participants are looking for. They were not interested in other ways to simulate the activity. So no, it could not have easily come up with ways to simulate their activities because in general, that is not what the scene is interested in. They actually want to see how good they are at physical combat. I'm not. I want to participate in imaginative fictional stories with combat, gun fights, fisti-cuffs, flames, explosions and hair-breadth escapes. One place do this is with wargames. In that scene it makes sense they would come up with a way to deliver this type of visceral experience in the abstract.

 

[Jay Murphy1]

RPGs seem inevitable. But they certainly would have had a less wargame feel and start. The large play-by-mail groups that pre-date D&D might have spread. There might have been a few people trying to publish their rules. Hell, there were games that basically were RPGs without the character sheet, like Diplomacy (1959), but they required a board and pieces. I still think fantasy would be king if it hit around the same time as it did. Lord of the Rings was too much a juggernaut in the related communities for fantasy to not be the first stop for the genre.

So why did these other scenes not make the connection? Why did this gaming nugget of gold, the ttrpg, not become a thing in these scenes? That is a fascinating question to me. My opinion the strong connection to actual games is why it grew out of the scene it did. Does the average SCA member consider they are playing a game? I see the competitive nature of participants having a parallel.

 

[loverdrive]

...should I mention for the third time that TTRPGs were already invented separately with no connection to D&D nor wargames?