the origin of the term "Role Play Game"

[rossik]

reading Playing at the World book, (page 550), theres a note about how one issue of Strategic Review uses a survey about preferences, refering to "1 miniatures", "2 boardgames" "3 paper 'Role Playing' game".

then it says that the term got copied in many zines.

was that the origin of the term Role Playing Game, used to talk about what we know now as RPG?

[Deleted]

Feb 12, 2013 16:32:37 GMT -6 rossik said:

reading Playing at the World book, (page 550), theres a note about how one issue of Strategic Review uses a survey about preferences, refering to "1 miniatures", "2 boardgames" "3 paper 'Role Playing' game".

then it says that the term got copied in many zines.

was that the origin of the term Role Playing Game, used to talk about what we know now as RPG?

I don't have the book at hand, so I can't point you to specific chapters or pages, but I certainly recall that there is a lot more information in PatW about the origins of the term, coming originally from psychology if I remember correctly.

[Deleted]

In PATW Jon Peterson mentions the history of the term in psychology as a therapeutic tool. The first linkage between the terms "role-playing" and wargames he ascribes to a description by Harold Guetzkow of the "Inter-Nation Simulation" game played at Northwestern University, in a paper he wrote in Behavioral Science in 1959.

[rossik]

thanks guys

what about the first time "RPG" was called "Role Playing Game"?

[increment]

The first relevant use of "role-playing game" I found was in 1964, in reference to political wargames (sort of Diplomacy-meets-model-UN games):

"In short, we are talking about role-playing games in which we try to represent several international actors, usually governments but sometimes other factions, against a world background in which a myriad of forces and influences are at work. For role players in the JCS games, we have the unique advantage of being able to cast top officials of the US government. "

JCS there stands for "Joint Chiefs of Staff," who ran these games.

As far as I know, the first published articles that recognized that D&D was a "role-playing" game were Richard Berg's reviews in S&T and Moves, late in 1975. The Strategic Review certainly followed those earlier notices, though there are some complicated nuances here (which you can indeed read more about in PatW).

[aher]

I wanted to point out these two early RAND Corp. papers, which may be of some interest:

(1) Baselogs -- A base logistics management game (January 8, 1958). This game simulates a military/economic scenario.

(2) A public opinion game (July 25, 1960). This game simulates a social, psychological and economic scenario.

Both these papers come pretty darn close to putting the words "roleplaying" and "game" in juxtaposition, but just narrowly miss. You can find the words together in the same sentence.

Moreover, what's being discussed in these papers would be recognizable today by any of us here as an RPG--these games have all the constituent parts we think of as an RPG:

(a) A person who runs the game, called a "play director" (1) or "game director" (2).

(b) "players" who play a "role" and have a character sheet that describes such things as their simulated age, gender, economic status, occupation, religious affiliation, and other group affiliations, money, equipment and so forth.

(c) rules

(d) "playing areas/fields" or maps; and perhaps "props" or minis.

(e) players make decisions about scenarios presented by the game director, and take actions based on their social roles, money, equipment, etc. Then they get "scored."