Evolution of OD&D

[Finarvyn]

This may have only been posted in jest, but I thought it was interesting enough not to get lost in the middle of another thread.

redpriest said:

themattjon said:

ALL role-playing games are D&D, some are just more heavily house ruled than others

Why only go back to D&D? May as well say that all modern war games, including fantasy-based, and therefore D&D are Little Wars.

I like your thinking, but a quick counter to it might be...
1. Little Wars was historical rather than fantasy, and was totally lacking in spells
2. Little Wars was miniatures armies rather than role playing characters
3. Little Wars had a system of knocking over troops to kill them rather than a dice mechanic

My understanding is that miniatures gaming goes back to the days of chess and Kriegspiel and the like; I’ve played chess and it certainly doesn’t seem very D&D-like, and I imagine that other miniatures systems prior to Chainmail were also very similar to one another and not much like D&D. I bought a copy of Little Wars once to see if I could find any evolutionary insights but found it to be very strange.

However, your point is well taken.

If you want to back up OD&D one step clearly you could go into the realm of Chainmail, having rules for fantasy miniatures. Same authors, similar rules design elements, a clear evolutionary connection.

Not sure what would come one step before that, however. I know that Tony Bath ran a Conan/Hyboria campaign in the 1960’s, and I assume that it had some measure of magic in it because of the evil sorcerers in REH’s stories. There are quite possibly other similar games from the same general time period which incorporated magic and/or monsters into a miniatures game.

Anyone know of others?

[badger2305]

Midgard. Another British wargame campaign with role-playing elements. It was written up very briefly in White Dwarf; Hartley Patterson was one of the people involved in this.

[redpriest]

Ja, I was just funnin' about themattjon's mantra. I really know next to nothing about Little Wars, except through reputation.

admin said:

I know that Tony Bath ran a Conan/Hyboria campaign in the 1960’s,

Geez, I'd almost kill to see the army lists for that.

[Finarvyn]

I have a book, copyright 1977, called Setting up a Wargames Campaign by Tony Bath. I know it mentions the Hyborian campaign, but I don't think it has too many particulars. I'll take a peek and report back when I can....

Here's also a link to a site that has some information about his Hyborian campaign.

[redpriest]

Thanks for the link. Good stuff there, but no army lists. *sigh* It'd be a lot easier to just read the list, then buy and paint the minis. This way, I'd actually have to research the battles in the original Howard, then figure out which historical army to match to each kingdom.

Anything that I come up with, including army lists, battles and especially magic and other fantasy stuff, I'll be sure to share. Sounds like a project for the Workshop. That is, if I ever actually put the work into it.

[castiglione]

Actually, I believe Little Wars used simple combat system when soldiers fought soldiers; you basically flipped a coin.

The argument can certainly be made that wargames have a strong role-playing element to them; players tend to start to identify strongly with a certain unit or a group of units, especially if they're kicking tookah. I think Steve Jackson once made the comment that even Monopoly is a pseudo-role-playing game.

It's my belief that miniatures gaming evolved from Kriegspiels which were wargames run by various military organizations to test out strategies, etc.; they would usually have a referee to adjudicate the outcome of actions since the games were open-ended.

You can actually trace the origins of OD&D to a miniatures game played in the Napoleonic era called Braunstein.

[jjarvis]

Here's an interesting article looking at roots of RPGs.

ptgptb.org/0015/retro.html

[castiglione]

I think double-blind wargames pre-date the example he gave. Wasn't double-blind the norm in Kriegspiels?

The evolution of OD&D is pretty clear; OD&D evolved from Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign which originally was a "spin-off" of Braunstein which was set in a fictitious German town where players controlled characters with different sets of objectives and in which a referee was necessary to adjudicate the outcome of their actions. To the best of my knowledge, this game was not played double-blind and the only hidden information was probably the true motivations/goals of the PC's. The Braunstein roots of OD&D (and all RPG's) is interesting because combat wasn't the point of the game (although combat did happen); the entire game took place during a backdrop of war but it was attempt to game out stuff that goes on in such a backdrop.

[gsvenson]

For what it is worth, I had played in WWII games using Korn's rules before I had even met Dave Arneson (which was in 1969). Probably about a year earlier, but I don't really remember for sure. I was in high school at the time, our war gaming group (which met each week in my family's dining room) had just joined a larger/national gaming group which competed with other such groups. I met people like Mike Carr, the Snider brothers and the other members of the "Fight in the Skies" society through that group. From there I joined the Midwest Military History Association which led to meeting Dave Arneson.

[murquhart72]

redpriest said:

Ja, I was just funnin' about themattjon's mantra. I really know next to nothing about Little Wars, except through reputation.

Yep, also note that the specific reason I used the term role-playing was to separate it from earlier miniature games that it was based on

[Finarvyn]

A history of miniatures wargaming link.

Some highlights (carefully picked to note events I found interesting in the gradual evolution of miniatures gaming towards OD&D role playing)

1913
Little Wars by H. G. Wells: Considered first published wargame rules for miniature figures.

1965
Sports Illustrated publishes article on wargaming - "A Little War Can Be a Lot of Fun."

1966
Leo Cronin first to suggest in print, fantasy gaming, in particular a "mythical war game" based on the Fellowship of the Ring. In Wargamers Newsletter

1968
Gary Gygax begins the GenCon conventions

1970
NEWA display first large scale fantasy miniatures game, Middle Earth, at MFCA gaming convention. Wins Best in Show.

1971
Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren release Chainmail, rules for medieval miniatures, first with rules for a fantasy game. Gary writes in Wargamer's Newsletter that he will write rules for fantasy games with 20mm hobits and 70mm giants.

1974
Dungeons and Dragons reviewed in The Courier. Conclusion: "...concept and imagination involved is stunning. However, much more work ... is necessary before the game is managable. ... I do not suggest these to the average wargamer."

[castiglione]

You might want to include the play-through of the first Braunstein.

And then the subsequent start of Dave Arneson's port of the Braunstein game into a fantasy medieval environment - Blackmoor.

[gsvenson]

I look at "Korn's" as the first set of rules where each player was an individual soldier (at least the way we played it) and "Fight in the Skies" was the first game where we played individual pilots and kept track of their misisons, kills and other events like being shot down or captured from game session to game session.

We were playing a western gun fight game (I have no idea what rules were used, it was before "Boot Hill", but all that sticks in my head is "Western Gunfight Rules") which we called Brown Stone, where each player had his own personal objectives. As I recall, the name of Braunstein was an attempt to medievalize Brown Stone. It was very similar, except that it was set in the middle ages and included magic rules. Dave Wesley and Dave Arneson must have had play test copies of Chainmail. That isn't surprising since they were all close friends at the time. I didn't realize until now that Chainmail did not get published until 1971.

[foster1941]

gsvenson said:

Dave Wesley and Dave Arneson must have had play test copies of Chainmail. That isn't surprising since they were all close friends at the time. I didn't realize until now that Chainmail did not get published until 1971.

Chainmail was first published commercially as a stand-alone product in 1971, but a version of its rules had been published 2 years earlier in, I believe, the newsletter of the Castle & Crusade Society ("Domesday Book").

[redpriest]

admin said:

1974
Dungeons and Dragons reviewed in The Courier. Conclusion: "...concept and imagination involved is stunning. However, much more work ... is necessary before the game is managable. ... I do not suggest these to the average wargamer."

I love this quote from that review ..

"Play in person is usually impossible, since the referee can only show the adventurer the terrain he is crossing at that instant, plus whatever is in his sight. Only large battles are suitable for the tabletop. The optimum solution seems to be play by phone, or when distances are too great, play by mail."

There's some other great stuff in the review as well.

[gsvenson]

foster1941 said:

Chainmail was first published commercially as a stand-alone product in 1971, but a version of its rules had been published 2 years earlier in, I believe, the newsletter of the Castle & Crusade Society ("Domesday Book").

Oh, that makes more sense. Thanks! I had gone and found my copy of Chainmail to check the copyright date to make sure it matched (which it did) before I posted.

In that case, shouldn't the time line use the earlier publication date?