Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9041935" data-attributes="member: 82106">Its a genuinely interesting question. I would say that one possibility suggests itself. That is, this is an attitude which has existed in the general RPG community from day one. Certainly wargames lack any significant RP component, and 'fiction' is not their primary object. That is your typical wargame scenario begins with either an actual situation drawn as faithfully as possible from history, one extrapolated from history/current facts (IE simulating some future battle), or at least draws from 'plausible elements' (IE realistic terrain, force structures, and objectives) to some degree. There was always an element of 'fantastic wargaming' and more gamist wargaming where simulation was secondary, or shared agenda space with, some other drives. Still, overall there was always a strong element of realism/simulation in wargame culture.So, we know that RPG culture emerged from wargame culture, admixed with the RP ideas drawn from Braunsteins and maybe some other similar sources. Thus an obsession with simulation seemed to form at least a subtext within early RPG culture. D&D is based on Chainmail, rules for fighting scale minis battles that are arguably fairly realistic. It takes some of those elements, scale, phased actions, miniatures/maps, mechanics related to damage, and the idea of simulating things like the effects of terrain and situation on combat. The inclusion of AH's Survival rules clearly extends that in the direction of exploration, etc. and we can see a similar mechanization in the dungeon exploration rules, though I think a LOT of this is more gamist than simulationist. It was simply an inherently expected perspective. When the 'West Coast' people started playing D&D there was an immediate stinky uproar about how they eschewed these ideas! How heinous! However teenagers, mostly, took the core ideas of heroic fantasy RP and quickly went in a bit of a middle direction, dropping a lot of the wargamey parts of play, but building on the existing wargame legacy bits. Nobody outside of that West Coast crew, really questioned the fundamental "rules mapped onto the fantasy world" model for a LONG time, except in small places, like the Traveller rules for streetwise, or Toon's 'fourth wall' stuff. Still, it did gradually fall away. Its just taken a good long time. Ideas have a lot of sticking power, and people rarely really examine them. So even today you have a lot of older RPG people who seem unwilling to reexamine the possibilities, let alone really try anything new. A few of us did, and discovered that those West Coast people were onto something, 45 years ago.</blockquote>

Verification