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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8202176" data-attributes="member: 29398">I'm not sure on this, unless you're counting LARPing as RPGing (which I'm not; even though one can quite reasonably say LARPing is a form of RPGing, for these purposes I'm treating them as entirely separate branches of gaming and when I read/write "RPG" I'm assuming there's a "TT" in front of it).Braunstein as I played it is in tone and substance a far more direct link in the development of LARPing than it is in that of TTRPGing; its only real connection to TTRPGing is Dave Arneson, who somehow (!) took Braunstein's individual-character and extremely rules-light play and melded it with rules-heavy unit-based wargame play.But that's only part of it.  Both Braunstein and (most) wargames are very one-off; in each you generally play out one single scenario or battle and that's it.There's two other major developments that happened in there somewhere: one, the idea of continuing play with the same unit or group into a series of scenarios over multiple sessions (i.e. campaign play); and two, the whole aspect of exploring/delving/colonizing new and unknown places rather than operating on known ground e.g. a historical or simulated battlefield or town. I'm not sure if these two developments came from just Arneson, just Gygax, or as a shared thing from their correspondence.Of all the various spectacular leaps of logic that Arneson had to make to combine Braunstein with wargaming, the notion of hiding the map is pretty small potatoes.  It of course comes from the need for there being new unknown places to explore if the game wants its players to be exploring new ground, and someone having to design them.Without the hidden-map concept, exploration of the setting as a feature of play largely goes out the window as the map - as with Braunstein or a typical wargame - is already known to all.</blockquote>

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