Friday Musing: What If It Wasn't War Games

[dragoner]

The definition of "long term" is fuzzy at best. Some people mean literal decades, while others mean a year. WotC has kind of arbitrarily decided 18 months is about right, and most people I know who played Pathfinder APs said a good AP was a 2 or 3 year commitment.

As to long wargames: that's admittedly rare, but I know people who have been playing ASL monthly and continuously for years.

You are not wrong to have your own personal definition of what is long term. Some people only really like one shots too, which is cool. It is weird that war games spawned D&D, and then died away. Running games, I have tried to included some tactical situations that in the old days, we would have been all over, except they fall flat now. The crowd is different, that is not a bad thing either. Though I think people also say that D&D's dominance is about it's rules, when instead going to GenCon and seeing all the peripheral stuff involved, I mean the rules look like nothing. Though this is also like Star Wars, like they just had a little league baseball game here and Imperial Stormtrooper cosplayers were at it, and they were mobbed. So the merchandising is recursive to the media.

 

[pemerton]

Now we are heading toward defining exactly what an RPG is.

The definition of "long term" is fuzzy at best.

I think the persistence of the character(s) across scenarios was one of the more distinctive (which is not to say, necessarily, unique) features of RPGing when it was invented.

How long that means in terms of actual play time is a different matter, as in a lot of contemporary RPGing it probably makes more sense to think of persistence in terms of the continuity of the character from scene to scene, rather than dungeon expedition to dungeon expedition.

To me, what seems to be pretty central across the variety of games that are unequivocally regarded as RPGs is (i) the role of fiction in establishing permitted moves and the adjudication of moves, and (ii) the fact that for a central class of participants ("players") their moves are defined by reference to a particular character who occupies a "protagonistic" position within that fiction.

If you ask most RPG gamers, I think "pretending to be someone else" is going to figure in somehwere

The question of whether an RPG has to have rules to support "roleplaying" is a perennial one.

By "pretending to be someone else", lot of contemporary RPGers seem to mean performing a different persona, talking in or as that character, etc.

But across the full spectrum of RPGing, especially a lot of early D&D play, it's pretty clear that playing the role meant what I have described above: making moves in the game from the position of a particular character located within the fiction. The contrast is with the "top down" or "god's eye" perspective that is more typical in a wargame or boardgame.

 

[Reynard]

I think the persistence of the character(s) across scenarios was one of the more distinctive (which is not to say, necessarily, unique) features of RPGing when it was invented.

How long that means in terms of actual play time is a different matter, as in a lot of contemporary RPGing it probably makes more sense to think of persistence in terms of the continuity of the character from scene to scene, rather than dungeon expedition to dungeon expedition.

To me, what seems to be pretty central across the variety of games that are unequivocally regarded as RPGs is (i) the role of fiction in establishing permitted moves and the adjudication of moves, and (ii) the fact that for a central class of participants ("players") their moves are defined by reference to a particular character who occupies a "protagonistic" position within that fiction.


By "pretending to be someone else", lot of contemporary RPGers seem to mean performing a different persona, talking in or as that character, etc.

But across the full spectrum of RPGing, especially a lot of early D&D play, it's pretty clear that playing the role meant what I have described above: making moves in the game from the position of a particular character located within the fiction. The contrast is with the "top down" or "god's eye" perspective that is more typical in a wargame or boardgame.

I didn't mean to imply that roleplaying required acting. I meant more what you said, but without the jargon.

 

[pemerton]

but without the jargon.

I didn't know that "persistence", "perspective", fiction", "progatonist" and (in the context of talking about playing games) "move" were jargon.

 

[overgeeked]

I didn't mean to imply that roleplaying required acting. I meant more what you said, but without the jargon.

It’s an easy mistake to make with so many of the posts in various recent threads seeming to put forth exactly that argument. To the point where, according to some, if you’re not acting you’re not actually playing an RPG.

 

[Reynard]

I didn't know that "persistence", "perspective", fiction", "progatonist" and (in the context of talking about playing games) "move" were jargon.

Move is definitely jargon, for a specific style of game in fact, in the context you used it.

 

[aramis erak]

The largest and most famous SCA event every year is Pennsic War, in which the largest events are battles of various sorts.

According to most of my friends who go, Pennsic is more about the shoppy store and bardics galore than the fighting, tho' the fighting is the official reason... I can say that the war I go to, Antir's Acorn War, has a lot of fighting, but there are also arts and sciences activities, plenty of shopping (20-ish), multiple bardic circles, a group putting on period style plays - two shows on Saturday - plus multiple courts.

Pennsic is the largest annual SCA event; I've heard that one of the anniversary of the incorporation events was larger. Still, it's freaking huge.

It's also worth noting that several RPGs are SCA influenced... RuneQuest and Chivalry & Sorcery both are explicitly influenced... but it's also important to note that RQ and C&S are both reactions to D&D by individuals who fought in the SCA in the late 60's to early 1970s... There are others as well, but not as explicit. Tourney and Perrin both were SCA participants; Stafford was at least occasionally at SCA events. Wilf Blackhaus was a member of the Order of the Chivalry in the SCA. Most of the fans of C&S I've known were also SCAers.

The Riddle of Steel was at one point endorsed by the HEMA organization (a non-SCA historical reenactment coalition. Historical European Martial Arts), and was developed by HEMA practitioners including some who participated in the SCA as well.

I'll also note: both Diplomacy and Frei Kriegspiel are fundamentally wargames, and are the cornerstones from which the Braunstein game grew.

I think the wargame derived RPG was practically inevitable... character scale wargaming (1 fig=1man) was on the rise in the late 60's and early 70's, and sooner or later, something like the boardgame Wizards which are functionally RPG-adjacent would trigger a crossover.

Might have taken a few more years.

Edit to add - side note: in researching this answer, I discovered Avalon Hill had released some odd things, like a "Black Magic Ritual Kit" and "Witchcraft Ritual Kit"...

 

[aramis erak]

The context of the character is less important than the social context of the real-world people actually gathering.

Many vocal members of certain minorities note that the lack of representation is a major disincentive. Specifically, about positive inclusion of people like themselves in the art, archetypes, settings, and iconics.

After all, Boot Hill included Native Americans, but it wasn't a positive portrayal; it doesn't really count as inclusive.

 

[aramis erak]

Again, this is a logical fallacy. You are begging the question. You are assuming that since TTRPGs ended up with wargame like rules, the only way they would have developed is through wargames when the opposite is true.

I do think it is an interesting question as to why fantasy prevailed, as opposed to something else. TSR published Warriors of Mars at the same time as D&D and Planetary Romance could have been the basis. Was it merely because medieval fantasy and sword and sorcery were in the (nerdy) zeitgeist at the time because of Lord of the Rings and Conan reprints? Or is there something more inherently "RPGable" about fantasy?

You appear to be the one reversing the causality.

RPGs in the early days were notable for

1. campaign play
2. character scale
3. magic or supertech
4. use of dice
5. use of a GM as arbiter of rules
6. use of a GM as source for resolution of "not covered" actions.
7. advancement of character capabilities
8. damage cumulation
9. vocal mode play
10. numerical ratings

Pre 1974 wargaming had...

1. campaign play (not common, but existed)
2. character scale (mostly in minis wargaming at the time; scales dropping from 1 figure=10 to 100 men to the RPG scale of 1:1)
3. magic or supertech (rising along with the popularity of Tolkien)
4. use of dice for odds effect simulation (1950's with Tactics)
5. use of a GM as arbiter of rules (Kriegspiel 1880's)
6. use of a GM as source for resolution of "not covered" actions. (Frei Kriegspiel, 1890's)
7. advancement of ship crew quality (several naval games)
8. hull points (several naval games)
9. vocal mode play (Model UN, Braunstein)
10. Other damage systems
    1. a few games with up/down/off damage steps
    2. a few with penalty markers and on/off map.

all the elements are there... it's just that Weseley and Arneson hit #9 with #2, #4-6, in 1968, and Gygax had #1, #2-4, #7-8 in his wargames rules circa 1969... When you get both Arneson and Gygax? BAM!

RPGs simply were bringing together elements that already existed in wargaming. Which is why the magic sauce spread like wildfire.

What might have differed?

1. the literary inspirations.
   1. Ollie Legrand shows us what a Greco-fantasy might have looked like, with his Mazes and Minotaurs.
2. But we might also have seen "Up, Down, or off the table" in that early era, not just waiting to be reintroduced in Savage Worlds. It is equally as viable for RPGing, as shown by Savage Worlds.
3. Deterministic damage... on a hit, do X damage... Dragon Warriors used that
4. Methods of advancement
5. default sizes
6. attribute scaling...

It might have been the same year, it might have taken 20 more, but it's unlikely that wargaming wouldn't lead to something with the key features of early D&D.

 

[aramis erak]

Squad Leader had a blank leader chit, that you ran through scenarios to advance, I forget the whole system, I have said that was the first RPG I played.

It's also 1977, and quite likely influenced by D&D in the market.

But, yeah, it borders on RPGs...