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"What do you do next?" Fantasy Role-Playing Games (50 yea...
4 years ago
“What do you do next?” An essay on the history of fantasy role-playing games.
Essay on Blackmoor RPG origins (Twin Cities gamers + David Wesely) 1971 (April 2021)
...Once upon a time, (so I am read) there was this ancient (1960s) gaming club that had meetings in the ancient metro area of Saint Paul & Minneapolis and local suburbs. They played many military war-games from that ancient time (the 1960s), which were entertaining and educational… except they often spent as many hours arguing over the game rules and interpretations as the hours they spent playing the games. However, thanks to some of its members researching in the hidden parts of a University library they had discovered an even-more ancient dusty tome of a book from 1880, (“Strategos” by name, and written by Charles Totten, a US army officer). The rules were interesting, but detailed & difficult, as they had been written to teach military officers how to command an 1880s army in a battle-ground.
One evening, one of the amateur gaming scholars, David Wesely, being much vexed by the amount of argument over gaming rules during the gaming sessions, remembered a small paragraph in the introduction to Totten’s ancient rule book. The small paragraph said (approximately): that for the miniatures battle to move more rapidly and smoothly, it should be supervised by an impartial Referee. The Referee would have the final say for quick resolutions of disputes. The referee could also use their judgment to evaluate the requests and initiative of the individual players attempting to take advantage of local situations and environment. (Such as interaction with local civilians or weather events.) Many unusual circumstances could be considered, and attempted, but not everything would be likely to succeed. The referee could make a quick decision, perhaps allowing dice rolls to provide an element of chance.
The military miniatures gaming club tried this around 1965. It mostly worked well. David Wesely became well regarded as a Referee for the games. Rule disputes did not interfere with much of the gaming time. Improvisations & interactions with the environment were rewarded. In the war-games, players might assume the roles of the military officers of their unit, and exchange written messages in character, in a historical style. Other club members learned how to referee for the war-game meetings.
Many of the club members were pop-culture history fans, reading and viewing entertaining fictional media about the historical battles. They might sometimes add pop-culture tropes to the games.
They were playing and experimenting with refereed miniatures war-games. In December 1968, David Wesely tried out an idea. He invited the game club to a meeting that sounded like it was a situational set-up before a Napoleonic miniatures army battle. It was in a German town (“Braunstein”) that was about to be invaded by a French army. The players were each assigned an individual character, who represented a social faction within the town. These characters all had separate goals to accomplish before the French army arrived. Many of the goals were ‘Non-Zero-Sum”--which meant that many (or even all) players could ‘win’ by the end of the game, by achieving their individual goals.
22 club members showed up; Wesely had only expected 8. He improvised characters, roles, and goals on-the-fly. Then he went into a side-room and started meeting with players one-or-two at a time to explain their individual goals and to supervise the negotiations between the role-play characters, 2-at-a time. Some time into the isolated meetings with the individual role-players he discovered that the crowd of players in the outside room had not been idle. They had been circulating among themselves and starting their own negotiations with their natural allies and opponents!
Wesely stopped the game at that point, and explained to the gamers who the factions were and what he had been trying to do. He finished the evening thinking that his experiment in role-playing was a failure. He went away to college for graduate school, and when he next returned on a vacation break, most all of the game club asked him to do another “Braunstein” game!
So they did (several times), with Wesely (during his visits from graduate school) learning what changes made this style of role-playing gaming work better. A club member, Dave Arneson, would sometimes trade-off as a “Braunstein” referee through 1969 & 1970. The club members also played more refereed historical battle games, and would often insert role-playing as part pf their play. Arneson refereed a Napoleonic international campaign, where the players would negotiate as rulers and generals before their armies and navies met & battled. Other club referees experimented: In 1970, Duane Jenkins introduced evolving player-characters and continuing stories in a Wild-West “Brownstone, Texas”.
In the club newsletter Dave Arneson announced that on 17 April 1971, he would be Refereeing (“Gamesmastering”) a Braunstein-style Medieval Fantasy Role-playing game in the village and castle of Blackmoor. Each player was playing an individual role-playing character. The setting & ‘atmosphere’ was based on pop-culture stories, movies & TV. This was probably the first Medieval Fantasy Role-playing game, 50 years ago.
“What do you do next?” David Megarry, game designer, quoting a key question asked by the Referee/ Dungeonmaster/ Garmesmaster in a fantasy role-playing game. (from the “Secrets of Blackmoor” documentary.)
There is a scholarly book, “Playing At The World” by Jon Peterson, that covers this story in much more depth. If you are interested in seeing some of the personalities & history, there is an excellent documentary movie, “Secrets of Blackmoor” that is available on Vimeo, (or perhaps soon in other media locations). The people named here are also mentioned in archives & blogs on the internet.
Consider this essay an advance notice that there will be a lot of reporting and media attention to Fantasy Role-playing games between now and maybe 2027. Media coverage will be appear for many ‘50-year anniversary’ events, including for the “Greyhawk” castle setting in 2022, The publication of the “Dungeons & Dragons” rule-books in 2024, and “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” in 2027, not to mention the start a host of other RPGs. Time for the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the most important new method of storytelling since the short-story. 8)
The Furry Connections:
You may know of the connections of furry-fandom with fantasy role-playing games. Some of the earlier settings and game rules include “Bunnies And Burrows” and “Toon”, with settings that had intelligent, speaking animal characters.
More basic is the idea of a personal ‘character’ for role-playing, or fantasy play, or building a story background. The templates that a furry role-player uses come from the culture of fantasy role-playing games, including abilities, learned skills, and appearance. When you ask an artist to draw your ‘character’ you likely will share this role-playing created set of memes with other furry-fans.
You may already know that much of the early on-line text-message ‘role-playing’ (back in the early internet) (1990s?) was done by furry-fans role-playing their named-individual, personal-created characters – characters most likely supplied by attributes and interaction based on the memes & tropes set by by fantasy role-playing games. It appeared that many internet-enabled furry fans really enjoyed the opportunity to communicate on the web while writing as their furry persona.
50 years later (2021?), most any fantasy & science-fiction fantasy role-playing game, table-top or computer, has the possibility of having fur-elves, fabulous talking animals, funny-animals, furrys, or anthropomorphs built into the games-masters rules. You could likely even play your personal furry character. (Depending on how flexible your dungeon-master is.) ]83
Essay on Blackmoor RPG origins (Twin Cities gamers + David Wesely) 1971 (April 2021)
...Once upon a time, (so I am read) there was this ancient (1960s) gaming club that had meetings in the ancient metro area of Saint Paul & Minneapolis and local suburbs. They played many military war-games from that ancient time (the 1960s), which were entertaining and educational… except they often spent as many hours arguing over the game rules and interpretations as the hours they spent playing the games. However, thanks to some of its members researching in the hidden parts of a University library they had discovered an even-more ancient dusty tome of a book from 1880, (“Strategos” by name, and written by Charles Totten, a US army officer). The rules were interesting, but detailed & difficult, as they had been written to teach military officers how to command an 1880s army in a battle-ground.
One evening, one of the amateur gaming scholars, David Wesely, being much vexed by the amount of argument over gaming rules during the gaming sessions, remembered a small paragraph in the introduction to Totten’s ancient rule book. The small paragraph said (approximately): that for the miniatures battle to move more rapidly and smoothly, it should be supervised by an impartial Referee. The Referee would have the final say for quick resolutions of disputes. The referee could also use their judgment to evaluate the requests and initiative of the individual players attempting to take advantage of local situations and environment. (Such as interaction with local civilians or weather events.) Many unusual circumstances could be considered, and attempted, but not everything would be likely to succeed. The referee could make a quick decision, perhaps allowing dice rolls to provide an element of chance.
The military miniatures gaming club tried this around 1965. It mostly worked well. David Wesely became well regarded as a Referee for the games. Rule disputes did not interfere with much of the gaming time. Improvisations & interactions with the environment were rewarded. In the war-games, players might assume the roles of the military officers of their unit, and exchange written messages in character, in a historical style. Other club members learned how to referee for the war-game meetings.
Many of the club members were pop-culture history fans, reading and viewing entertaining fictional media about the historical battles. They might sometimes add pop-culture tropes to the games.
They were playing and experimenting with refereed miniatures war-games. In December 1968, David Wesely tried out an idea. He invited the game club to a meeting that sounded like it was a situational set-up before a Napoleonic miniatures army battle. It was in a German town (“Braunstein”) that was about to be invaded by a French army. The players were each assigned an individual character, who represented a social faction within the town. These characters all had separate goals to accomplish before the French army arrived. Many of the goals were ‘Non-Zero-Sum”--which meant that many (or even all) players could ‘win’ by the end of the game, by achieving their individual goals.
22 club members showed up; Wesely had only expected 8. He improvised characters, roles, and goals on-the-fly. Then he went into a side-room and started meeting with players one-or-two at a time to explain their individual goals and to supervise the negotiations between the role-play characters, 2-at-a time. Some time into the isolated meetings with the individual role-players he discovered that the crowd of players in the outside room had not been idle. They had been circulating among themselves and starting their own negotiations with their natural allies and opponents!
Wesely stopped the game at that point, and explained to the gamers who the factions were and what he had been trying to do. He finished the evening thinking that his experiment in role-playing was a failure. He went away to college for graduate school, and when he next returned on a vacation break, most all of the game club asked him to do another “Braunstein” game!
So they did (several times), with Wesely (during his visits from graduate school) learning what changes made this style of role-playing gaming work better. A club member, Dave Arneson, would sometimes trade-off as a “Braunstein” referee through 1969 & 1970. The club members also played more refereed historical battle games, and would often insert role-playing as part pf their play. Arneson refereed a Napoleonic international campaign, where the players would negotiate as rulers and generals before their armies and navies met & battled. Other club referees experimented: In 1970, Duane Jenkins introduced evolving player-characters and continuing stories in a Wild-West “Brownstone, Texas”.
In the club newsletter Dave Arneson announced that on 17 April 1971, he would be Refereeing (“Gamesmastering”) a Braunstein-style Medieval Fantasy Role-playing game in the village and castle of Blackmoor. Each player was playing an individual role-playing character. The setting & ‘atmosphere’ was based on pop-culture stories, movies & TV. This was probably the first Medieval Fantasy Role-playing game, 50 years ago.
“What do you do next?” David Megarry, game designer, quoting a key question asked by the Referee/ Dungeonmaster/ Garmesmaster in a fantasy role-playing game. (from the “Secrets of Blackmoor” documentary.)
There is a scholarly book, “Playing At The World” by Jon Peterson, that covers this story in much more depth. If you are interested in seeing some of the personalities & history, there is an excellent documentary movie, “Secrets of Blackmoor” that is available on Vimeo, (or perhaps soon in other media locations). The people named here are also mentioned in archives & blogs on the internet.
Consider this essay an advance notice that there will be a lot of reporting and media attention to Fantasy Role-playing games between now and maybe 2027. Media coverage will be appear for many ‘50-year anniversary’ events, including for the “Greyhawk” castle setting in 2022, The publication of the “Dungeons & Dragons” rule-books in 2024, and “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” in 2027, not to mention the start a host of other RPGs. Time for the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the most important new method of storytelling since the short-story. 8)
The Furry Connections:
You may know of the connections of furry-fandom with fantasy role-playing games. Some of the earlier settings and game rules include “Bunnies And Burrows” and “Toon”, with settings that had intelligent, speaking animal characters.
More basic is the idea of a personal ‘character’ for role-playing, or fantasy play, or building a story background. The templates that a furry role-player uses come from the culture of fantasy role-playing games, including abilities, learned skills, and appearance. When you ask an artist to draw your ‘character’ you likely will share this role-playing created set of memes with other furry-fans.
You may already know that much of the early on-line text-message ‘role-playing’ (back in the early internet) (1990s?) was done by furry-fans role-playing their named-individual, personal-created characters – characters most likely supplied by attributes and interaction based on the memes & tropes set by by fantasy role-playing games. It appeared that many internet-enabled furry fans really enjoyed the opportunity to communicate on the web while writing as their furry persona.
50 years later (2021?), most any fantasy & science-fiction fantasy role-playing game, table-top or computer, has the possibility of having fur-elves, fabulous talking animals, funny-animals, furrys, or anthropomorphs built into the games-masters rules. You could likely even play your personal furry character. (Depending on how flexible your dungeon-master is.) ]83
V.
I have played it; it consisted six 4'x8' Masonite panels and a handful of 3'x3' or 4'x4' city-state panels. That was in the early 1970s; I have no idea if the panels are still extant. A more 'woke' administration probably had them destroyed.
No furries that I recall, though.
The book "Playing At the World" by John Peterson has a whole section about the strategic/logistic/political role-playing games that were conceived during the USA's time of the Cold War. It may even be that Dr. Babbidge's game was mentioned. Jon Peterson does mention the multiple military & political cold war games played at the Pentagon and as conceptual games in other Washington D.C. offices. The RAND Corporation was one of the think tanks that had high-level political role-playing game development as part of its job description. I recall as a teenager seeing magazine articles about this political and military role-playing. Also, besides RISK, there was the game DIPLOMACY, which had 7 or more players, and while the game involved the simplified logistics of supply & movement of armies & navies (on or near Europe), the game was more about the multiple players secretly pre-negotiating movements and even forming temporary alliances among the other players.
In the 1950s and early 60s theater & acting culture also began to include improvisation & role-play as co-operative instruction & experimentation. This also was reported in mass media.
There were a lot of influences that came together to influence a batch of sharp war-gaming fans to evolve & test the concept of fantasy role-playing games.
If being "woke" is bad, I guess "fast asleep" is preferable - that way you don't hear or see anything that might discomfort you a tiny bit.
*BTW, "Critical Race Theory" is an academic issue; in other words, something explored in colleges and think tanks - NOT EVER, NEVER taught to kids in public schools, but the Right never misses an opportunity to lie and/or distort anything to keep people in a perpetual state of outrage. There's a line in the play Wicked that sums it up quite succinctly:
"The best way to bring people together is to give them an enemy.""Anyone want to play Doom?"
Lots of details and rules can be helpful to suggest possibilities and suggest pathways for players' choices, but also, lots of rules keep the publishers prosperous by selling more rule-books.
https://www.rpg.net/columns/intervi.....rviews94.phtml