The past doesn’t exist; you can’t poke it with a ten foot
pole. It is a tale created from our memories
and from such media and material we are able to reference in the present. The task of a scientific investigator of the
past is daunting because facts don’t speak “truth” themselves except in the
most uninteresting, limited of ways.
What people really want to know, the why’s and the how’s, is often more
ephemeral than the data and so arguments must be crafted and stories told.
It is
exponentially more problematic when the only records are verbal, written or
otherwise, and it took a long time – well into the twentieth century - for
researchers to abandon the comforts of positivism and realize that documents
are but a tool, a guide, a starting point, and a not a whole and obvious truth
unto themselves and never the whole truth in any case. In our case, as part of the interest to
groke the roots and compass of our hobby, we’ve looked forever at how D&D
and AD&D are heavily dependant on both the mechanics and fluff found in
CHAINMAIL, which in turn is directly linked to earlier wargames, fantasy
literature, and ultimately cultural mythology.
Lots of people, myself included, have had a field day over the years of
linking CHAINMAIL to the corresponding bits of D&D. Yet the question of how CHAINMAIL, a table
top wargame, came to be gutted and remodeled as a “Role-Playing” game, remained
elusive.
Speculations about that process often involve a discussion
about what a role playing game is, but that question is, I think, both simply
answered and misleading. Rather
obviously, role playing games are games where people play roles. Cowboys and Indians is a roleplaying game, so
is any movie or play you have ever seen.
Role playing is as old as time.
“RPGs” have more to them than playing at roles, so lets be
more specific. There are really two distinguishing factors between “wargames”
and “RPGs”.
1)
Character mechanics
2)
Victory conditions
First, tabletop RPGs feature open ended character driven
gaming. Central to RPGs is the idea
that characters affect outcomes through all their individual
characteristics. Unlike wargames, where
only the material strength of the playing piece applies, RPG’s apply any of the
various aspects of the character to the game.
So a character will have some kind of intelligence score, a strength
score and so on. The character may have
a reputation or social standing: a set of skills, abilities, saving throws and
so forth, things that define the character and can be applied to any
appropriate situation that may come up, not just martial skill. These things can be scores, numbers, or
simply descriptions. But in all cases
the outcomes of challenges within the game are adjudicated with reference to both
the martial and extra-martial characteristics of the Character.
Second, the character is unbounded, both in terms of the
mapboard and in terms of agency.
Theoretically the character could travel anywhere and pursue any
activity and still be in the game.
Wargames, such as CHAINMAIL™ are bounded by their victory conditions,
which essentially entail overcoming an obstacle on the gameboard via martial
ability. Typically, that obstacle is the
enemy army, or some similar battle condition.
Victory conditions in RPGs however are determined entirely by the
player. They may follow a path of
opportunity laid out by the game master, or they may go their own way and seek
their own objectives, and still progress in the game. Geographic and career agency are significant
breaks from previous games where if a character or a playing piece were to leave
the “campaign” to found a moon cult in the Atlas mountains, or search for the
source of the Nile, it would effectively end that characters role in the game.
There are many games which some element of character comes
into play, Diplomacy and Fight in the Skies, for example, but what we call
“RPGs” were the first to tie variable, open ended victory conditions with the
requirement that any and all aspects of the singular character (skills, nature,
background) can be brought in to play.
In short, “tabletop RPGs” are character driven games, in
which multiple and varied personal characteristics matter and the characters
choose which obstacles to overcome to achieve a self defined victory goal.
This brings me back to the ephemeral aspects of history and a
concept I’ve long argued on DF and elsewhere about David Wesely. His Bruanstein was exactly this sort of
character driven game, and such play was a new revelation to his players. Wesely created individual characters with
broadly defined roles, character backgrounds and skills, and turned them loose
on the world he created for the game.
The players then decided what they wanted their characters to do,
setting personal goals, and maneuvering toward that end, within the bounds of
their personal characteristics.
This unique “Braunstein element”, the player character
driven and defined game, is precisely what distinguishes “tabletop RPGs” from
other games, including other conflict games like CHAINMAIL or Chess. Wargames have built in, externally defined,
victory goals. You win when you defeat
your enemy. RPGs have no external
victory goal assumed by the rules. The
“end game” is player character success as defined by the player. Along the way player victories may be won by achieving
a level or creating a spell, or simply stealing all the loot in the local bank
– whatever goal the player has set out to achieve with the character.
Take away the Bruanstein element and RPGs are left with
nothing. All RPGs are variant Braunsteins
in a sense, each employing their own mechanics and set design. At heart, D&D is a Braunstien; Traveller is a Braunstein; Burning Wheel is a Braunstein. The exact mechanics and window dressing don’t
change the primacy of design centered on personal characteristics and character
agency pioneered in Wesely’s game.
Conversely, add the “Braunstein element” to almost any
tabletop game and it becomes an “RPG”.
Imagine, for example, creating a Chess RPG. One could use the rules of chess, and the
names of the pieces as a basis for creating characters with various roles,
positions, skills, and powers. The
chessboard must be transformed into an open map, and each character left to chart
its own path in the great war of black verses white, or good verses evil,
perhaps. Is victory for John Q. Pawn
promotion to bishop? Or is it amassing a
huge fortune selling arms to the knights on both sides? The Player must decide how they will play
their character, make use of its’ strengths and what direction it will take in
the scheme.
That is Braunstien.
That likewise is D&D and all of its descendants.
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