Gideon over at the Awesome Lies Blog has published a most intriguing piece on the origins of tabletop role-playing games. What really caught my eye, however, was a comment he left below the post (emphasis mine):
“I see three main strands to the development of RPGs. First, gamebooks. Branching-path books began in education with the TutorText series (1957 on), but moved into entertainment with Lucky Les (1967), State of Emergency (1969) and the Tracker series (1972 on). Second, wargames. Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor dungeon campaigns began in 1971-1972, and original D&D was published in 1974. Third, computer adventure games. The first, Will Crowther’s original Colossal Cave Adventure, was written in 1975-1977.
The three stands interacted. Gamebooks acquired dice mechanics from D&D in the Fighting Fantasy series (1982 on). Crowther’s adventure game was explicitly inspired by D&D, but later computer adventures were much closer to gamebooks.
These interactions in my opinion led to different attitudes to role-playing over time. In the 1970s gamers were perhaps more likely to come to RPGs from wargames, and so tactical and competitive styles of play were more popular. By the 1980s, players were coming from gamebooks and computer adventure games, which encouraged a more narrative style.
Of course, there were endogenous changes that drove stylistic evolution, as well. Call of Cthulhu (1981) was revolutionary, but I have seen nothing to suggest it arose from anywhere other than RPGs themselves.”
I take him to mean that these three strands influenced the development of RPGs not just via game designers, but also (in fact, perhaps mostly) via players and DMs in terms of how they actually ran and played the games at their tables. Before the Internet and Actual Plays, role-playing was taught not just through reading RPG manuals and hobby magazines, but through experience, by interaction with other gamers. However, particularly in the early days of the hobby, players (and game designers) also drew on their experiences with similar games, such as gamebooks, wargames, and computer adventure games.
Obviously, they also drew on a wealth of fantasy, historical, mythological and romance literature, as well as films and TV, but here I’m primarily talking about gaming (or ‘ludological’) influences rather than cultural influences.
In fact, you could probably add a few more gaming strands as well. Alongside the “more narrative style” coming from computer adventure games like Colossal Cave Adventure (and later Zork), I would add the more crunchy / mechanical early CRPGs (from 1974 onwards). This strand (or sub-strand) began just as early as adventure games (if not earlier), and was arguably even more influential. It would include classic CRPG series like Wizardry, Might & Magic, and Ultima (not to mention Rogue).
Also of interest: the first Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) was launched in 1978 by a student at the University of Essex in the UK (though I suspect MUDs were less popular, and hence less influential, than early CRPGs).
I would throw boardgames into the mix. Diplomacy, for example, had a strong influence on Braunstein (which itself would then go on to influence Dave Arneson when he co-authored D&D). Plenty of early RPG designers were avid boardgamers. See, for example, Greg Stafford’s White Bear and Red Moon (published in 1975, but in development earlier than that). It’s true that there is a great deal of overlap between boardgames and wargames, but then there is overlap between all the various strands being discussed.
Another strand I might add would be Live-Action Roleplaying (LARP). The Society for Creative Anachronism was founded in 1966 (and included Ultima creator Richard Garriott as a member). Games like Dagorhir were being developed independently of D&D in the 1970s. In 1981, Steve Jackson (who also wrote RPGs, boardgames, and even Fighting Fantasy gamebooks) published a LARP assassination game called “Killer: The Game of Assassination” with the tagline “The live role-playing game for any number of players”.
Broadly speaking, though, all these ludological influences can be divided into three distinct mediums. Paper, physical, and digital. Personally, I’m absolutely fascinated by the liminal space where these mediums interact: paper (i.e. gamebooks, but also game manuals), physical (i.e. boardgames, LARPs, wargames with their lead miniatures, physical terrain, etc.), and digital (i.e. computer adventure games and CRPGs).
If you go back far enough, the distinction between paper, physical, and digital really breaks down. Punchcards predate computers by centuries; before monitors, output was via printed page; books of type-in computer games were once published; early CRPGs like the Dunjonquest series blended paper and digital via “detailed room descriptions (kept in a separate manual)”.
That’s the sort of space I want to explore with my own D&D campaign. I’d like to see how AI-generated content, data analysis software, paper records and hand-drawn artwork, physical and digital battle mats can all interact and support one another. In other words, I want to cross the streams between paper, physical and digital. The medium is the message, after all.
Image from Might and Magic: Book One, New World Computing, 1986
Gideon says
“I take him to mean that these three strands influenced the development of RPGs not just via game designers, but also (in fact, perhaps mostly) via players and DMs in terms of how they actually ran and played the games at their tables.” Yes, you’ve captured exactly my line of thought, though I did not express it in my original comment. To illustrate the point from personal experience, when I designed my very first D&D dungeon, I divided larger rooms and corridors into sections, each constituting a separate location, just like in a computer adventure game, because I had designed adventure games before dungeons. Also among my early gaming circles, no-one played with hirelings. We had not come from a wargaming background and found the idea of controlling more than one character odd.
I think you’ve added some great detail to the different interacting strands, though I’d suggest RPGs, gamebooks and computer adventure games were probably the most popular, and therefore most influential, of the elements. LARP, MUDs, etc seemed to be relatively niche hobbies (though I’d have to carve out a very specific exception for the enormous impact of the SCA).
Uncaring Cosmos says
@Gideon said:
Cheers, Gideon, that’s really fascinating to hear. I also think what you say is spot on. For example, a lot of early D&D rules as written only really make sense if the game is run following a certain style, and that particular style is not necessarily intuitive (certainly not if you’re used to gamebooks or computer adventure games). For example, early rules support a focus on resource management (encumbrance, turns, rations, torches, wandering monster checks) which most people can’t be bothered faffing around with, and which was slowly evolved out by later editions.
Very fair points, though I would say that boardgames and CRPGs were much more important than LARPs or MUDs. It’s even possible (though I’m not necessarily on firm ground saying this) that CRPGs had a bigger influence than computer adventure games. I admit that Zork was massive (bigger than Ultima, even) but Interactive Fiction / Computer Adventure Games eventually spiraled off into graphical point-and-click adventure games, which were basically completely divorced from RPGs (Hero’s Quest notwithstanding), whereas CRPGs are essentially still with us today.
Gideon says
“It’s even possible (though I’m not necessarily on firm ground saying this) that CRPGs had a bigger influence than computer adventure games.”
You might be right in the bigger picture, but in the UK in the 1980s I think CRPGs were a small niche. With the exception of a late, budget release of Rogue, none of the titles you mention were released on major British hardware platforms at the time. The market was dominated by adventure games. I’d argue that titles like The Hobbit by Melbourne House, the Level 9 adventures, The Philosopher’s Quest from Acornsoft or The Quill by Gilsoft were much more important in that market.
Uncaring Cosmos says
@Gideon said:
Good point. I would guess that might be because the UK (at the time) had its own thriving microcomputer / software market with its own quite distinct character.
Also, when I say Zork was “massive”, we’re still only talking around 100,000 units a year. It was massive at the time, but nothing compared to the tens of millions of units popular games can sell today.
So, games like Ultima, Wizardry, and Might & Magic can be super influential in the US (and, funnily enough, Japanese) market but not in the UK.
Oh, I didn’t realise Beam Software / Melbourne House released The Hobbit! This is a tangent, but I used an image from their Judge Dredd game for today’s blog post, and I saw that Beam Software co-founder Naomi Besen is now the richest woman in Melbourne. I also read that the Hobbit parser was apparently quite advanced for the time (I’ve never played it). Anyway, that’s off-topic.
Yes, you’re absolutely right about the influence of adventure games in the UK market – good point!
Shock Slogans says
I’d agree with need to separate UK and US influences in this. I’m going to concentrate on the former a lot more, because that’s what I know.
Computer Games – This is going to be the one where the US and UK markets diverged the most strongly. MUDs and IBMs, mostly American. ZX Spectrum RPGs were the big influence over here. There’s a fair bit of evidence for that one. Journey’s End, Black Crystal and Chaos were all very clearly influenced by tabletop RPGs. Along with Quill and The Hobbit, Elite is significant as a game influenced by Traveller rather than D&D. And either Sinclair User or your Sinclair (not sure which) had a monthly column specifically for RPGs.
* Notably, two of those were published by Games Workshop. As always, it’s hard to find part of UK geek culture in that period that wasn’t connected to Ian and Steve in some way.
Boardgames – I think you’re understating the links between hobby boardgames and wargames at this stage. The separation isn’t there yet. Avalon Hill are a major publisher of both. Very few wargamers won’t have played Diplomacy or Junta. Certainly, my collection in the early 80s contained Talisman alongside actual light wargames like Creature that Ate Sheboygan and I don’t remember seeing them as notably different. Hobby boardgaming doesn’t really become its own hobby until much later with Settlers of Catan and the rise of the Eurogame.
LRP – Not sure at all on the American scene. (Robert S Conley would be the first person to talk to there). I will observe that Killer was largely a codification of Steve US Jackson’s house rules for Assassin, which had been played in unis for long before that and still is (although in a post 9/11 world people don’t plant fake bombs anymore). The RP parts are there, but pretty light.
On the UK scene, the influence seems one way at the early stage. Treasure Trap is almost certainly the first (1982) and is an attempt to recreate the dungeon crawl. One of the main differences with the US is the lack of anything really resembling LRP that arrived before tabletop. (Again, it’s definitely LRP at this stage, LARP doesn’t exist in the UK as a term yet). Something like the Sealed Knot (1968) is probably the closest, and I don’t see a lot of influence coming through into tabletop from that quarter. Part of that is because White Dwarf was really sniffy about LRP. You don’t get supportive coverage until 1988, with GM Magazine which had a regular LRP section. Notably, while I’m sure there must be fanzines which covered LRP at the time, I haven’t managed to track any down, unlike tabletop and PBM.
Uncaring Cosmos says
@Shock Slogans said:
You’re probably right. I’m a bit younger (grew up in Bristol in the ’90s), so for me wargaming was by then synonymous with Games Workshop. There was no wargaming hobby that was not GW. If it wasn’t Warhammer Fantasy Battle or 40k, it was some spin-off like Blood Bowl, Gorkamorka, Necromunda, etc.
We did have an old copy of 1st edition Talisman kicking around (which we played to death), but boardgames weren’t really on my radar until the 2010s when I encountered Eurogames.
All of this to say: yes, you’re right – I’m quite ignorant of the wargaming scene in the 1980s, so my mutterings on it should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Really interesting, thank you! I do find the divergence between US and UK scenes fascinating (and I imagine local gaming culture was equally varied in France, Italy, Germany, Japan, etc.).
Ben Milton says
This was really interesting, thanks for writing it! I added it to my OSR newsletter: https://questingbeast.substack.com/p/the-glatisant-issue-15
Gideon says
On the relationship of boardgames and early RPGs, the following blog post has some interesting things to say about Dungeon! and D&D.
https://boggswood.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-dungeon-boardgame-as-foundation-of-d.html
Uncaring Cosmos says
Cheers, Gideon – very interesting stuff!
Uncaring Cosmos says
Ben said:
Wow, ta very much! That’s really cool :-D