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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 9462161" data-attributes="member: 3192">This may be counterintuitive to everything you've heard before but think about it rationally.The most rules laden tabletop game up until its time was D&D, a game published as an RPG. (Supposedly an improv story making game where tracking points is laughed at). Well, AD&D contains more rules than even any wargame of its time, all these included in multiple hardcover books. Gary himself says then RPGs are basically designed and balanced according to the same philosophy as wargames. The term game was wholly believed to mean something other than storytelling, in other words: a strategy game, an activity to test and score players in accomplishing an objective. Millions of players, young and old, were addicted to the D&D game striving to score more points so they could advance the powers of their gaming piece, the character. There were no "roleplaying" rules, personality performance rules, in D&D until 40 years later, in 5e. Balancing the game was all some DMs ever talked about. A new game element could not be added to the game (monsters, spells, gear, etc) until it was thoroughly checked and playtested. And then there are those of us who were there, who remember the difficult to swallow attitude of how a DM was never to improvise when running the game lest they invalidated the players scores.These base assumptions you won't find in OD&D's LBBs or AD&D vastly expanded tomes.The key takeaway here is: someone hid a beat-the-game strategic simulation game behind a screen and the wargamers treated it as such. This is the cardinal moment of RPG design. If you don't assume a gameboard hid behind a screen and tracking all the time and positioning, nothing else in those AD&D tomes will make sense.From the 40s to the 80s "roleplaying" meant role training. The thing all the CRPGers are doing when they are not acting out a personality. RPG players are scored for their successful gaming of their class (role) making the activity synonymous with strategic gaming in D&D.Things to avoid as non sequiturs to the 20th century RPG hobby: narrative theory, storytelling, and acting "in character".</blockquote>

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