Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 9375087" data-attributes="member: 6796661">That is just not born out by what we know of the history of the hobby and its development. While the Midwest Military Simulation Association (MMSA) were made up (mostly?) of university students who were history buffs and wargaming enthusiast, that would certainly be drawn to a Strategos, a wargame that was one of the last pre-computer battle simulation systems developed and used by the military, it wasn't the discovery of that dusty tome in the U of MN library that got them into wargaming. They were already playing leisure war games from publishers like Avalon Hill (Arneson became interested in the hobby when his parent bought him Gettysburg by Avalon Hill. The link between battle simulation systems like Kriegspiel and Strategos to leisure strategy games like those put out by Avalon Hill, was Little Wars.* Wells and Jerome K. Jerome literally set out to make a "Kriegspiel-like" game with simplified rules that children could play. An appendix in that book, "Little Wars and Kriegspiel", provides advanced rules for older players. It was in circulation and reprinted over a long period of time from 1913 until 2004 (not sure if there were later printings, just going off of Wikipedia here). The book was hugely influence among the sci fi, fantasy, and early wargame communities.  Isaac Asimov wrote the preface to the 1974 reprint. Gary Gygax, in his preface to the 2004 reprint, credited the book with "start(ing) the hobby of military miniatures war-gaming." <a href="https://d-infinity.net/posts/sponsored/gary-gygaxs-foreword-hg-wells-little-wars" target="_blank">Gary Gygax's Foreword to 'H.G. Wells' Little Wars' — d-Infinity</a>. Gary isn't a historian but most academics who have written on the subject back up Gary's statement.** He also writes about the influence Little Wars had on him, when a friend lent it to him in 1960s. He wrote that it "influenced [his] development of both the Chainmail miniatures rules and the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game" (id.).Every serious history of TTRPGs cites the important influence of Little Wars in the birth of TTRPGs. I highly doubt that only Gary, Perren, and the Lake Geneva crowd were familiar with Little Wars. I'm too lazy to find cites, but I would be very surprised if Wesely, Arneson, and other members of the MMSA hadn't played it. But even if that were the case, the Avalon Hills games and various other leisure war games that brought them into the hobby, owe much to Little Wars for bringing wargaming to amateurs and helping create the wargame hobby. * Full name: Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books (a fun title with a cringey final phrase, though for 1913, I think it was rather progressive to think of marketing this to girls at all). ** E.g., <a href="https://content.ucpress.edu/chapters/12896.ch01.pdf" target="_blank">https://content.ucpress.edu/chapters/12896.ch01.pdf</a>, and Jon Peterson, Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons (which states that Little Wars was the primary inspiration for miniature war games and the strategy games published by Avalon Hill and SPI). Just two examples, but there are many more. Any history of the hobby would be incomplete without discussing Little Wars. </blockquote>

Verification