Subplot Kudzu

Oh, I know that intellectually. He might even get paid by the click through on Slate, so the best thing would be to delete all links and let it sit there alone and unloved. It's not so much his ego or his beliefs, but that he's promulgating memes that are harmful to the hobby while asserting his own superiority and ranting about others Hurting Wrong Fun. That's what's got me so pissed.

From:

The first thing I saw right off is that the author names Steve Jackson and Greg Spafford as "contemporaries." Um, no, not really. When Gary made his game, his only real contemporary was Dave Arneson. They were out there on the leading edge, and if others came along and did it "better" later, that's like criticizing the Wright Flyer because it can't go supersonic.

From:

I believe Spafford was indeed a contemporary, publishing a fantasy boardgame the same year as the original D&D.

From:

My typo, which you repeated: it's actually Stafford. Sorry.

That said, I note that White Bear and Red Moon is also a tactical wargame about killing other beings and taking their stuff. I'll give credit to Pendragon having more enlightened subject matter, though (mostly what Victorian romance writers liked to imagine late and post-Roman Britain and France were like).

From:

I'll grant Stafford, more or less, since RuneQuest first appeared in 1978. That's still years after D&D first appeared but was at least concurrent with the AD&D Players Handbook. He's still building on Gygax & Arneson's original designs, mind you, but his work is a great example of mythology rather than wargaming as the core of the game.

Would Stafford have developed RuneQuest without D&D? Highly unlikely, as he had spent a decade working on Glorantha with no gaming intent before D&D appeared. But at least in this one the author was in the ballpark.

From:

whswhs.livejournal.com

Wasn't the mechanics of RuneQuest influenced by the Perrin Conventions? I have the impression those came out in Alarums and Excursions before the publication of RuneQuest, and that they might have been presented originally as house rules for D&D. Anyone know the history better than I do?

From:

I just raised the question with Lee Gold; hopefully she'll be able to clarify.

From:

I got an answer back from Lee:

"The Perrin Conventions were Steve Perrin's house rules modifying D&D distributed by Steve to his gaming group. A lot of us had house rules in those days.

"Steve contributed to A&E for awhile, mainly announcements about RQ. He had contributions in 12,13,14,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,25,26, 30,31,32,37,40,42,56.

"A brief dip into ancient A&Es reveals that Steve Perrin didn't do mailing comments, just writeups and house rules -- lots and lots of them. Some of these later became the Perrin Conventions which later became RQ."

Lee also wanted me to comment that anyone whose interested can get copies of the issues to which Steve contributed for a nickel a page, plus postage.

From:

John M. Ford had a spiel that I am trying to relocate, where he discusses about a half-dozen proto-RPGS that predate D&D, including Diplomacy.

From:

... I was just now, literally just now reading

demiurgent's eulogy for Mr. Ford (at the end of a particularly long and rambling wiki-wander). What the hell?

From:

Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of life-long, hardcore gamers (including myself) first heard about RPGs from a couple of articles JMF wrote in IASFM around 1978, arguably making him a figure of equal influence in the early RPG days.

From:

Am I misreading you, or are you positing that Mr. Ford had as great an influence on RPGs as Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson?

From:

Am I misreading you, or are you positing that Mr. Ford had as great an influence on RPGs as Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson?

In that he was responsible for roughly doubling the fan base within a few months at a crucial time via his articles in IASFM, yes. Per your item 4, he was the first person to present an expectation of quantitative roleplay rules to a truly national audience.

From:

All due props to Mr. Ford (of whom I remain a big fan), I am leery of analyses of precursers to seminal events. Yes, there were comedia del artes, and Diplomacy, but they were very different animals that now look similar only in hidesight. MAR Barker's Tekumel war games and Stafford's Glorantha war games existed, but none of them were Role Playing in the sense that we now understand it. Call me an old stick in the mud, but I also doubt that any of these would have made the jump to RPGs as we know it (or even something similar) without Gygax and Arenson's moment of genius. These men might have been uniquely poised to implement that genius in their existing fantasy worlds, but that still depends on the initial inspiration.

From:

on the Motie hand, Chainmail and early D&D were hardly "Role Playing in the sense that we now understand it" themselves. Remember, these were games where the players were expected to submit their actions to a Caller to minimize table chatter... I'm not quite sure how this meshes with the (colorful) characters of legend, unless all the examples of play provided in the books weren't how the founders actually did it.

From:

From the AD&D 1E DMG, in the discussion of encounters, combat and initiative (p61): "As has been detailed, hit points are not actually a measure of physical damage, by and large, as far as the characters...are concerned. Therefore, the location of hits and the type of damage caused are not germane to them... Are crippling disabilities and yet more ways to meet instant death desirable in an open ended, episodic game where participants seek to identify with lovingly detailed and developed player-character personae? Not likely!" (Emphasis added.)

Yes, the DMG did describe using callers, the example given in the DMG has the other players speaking freely to the GM and each other, while the LC (lead character) is the one who tells the DM the final version of their plans are to prevent argument. However, the magic user doesn't need to confer with the LC before wrenching the spider off her back, for example, nor does the cleric need to clear his exploration of the pool with his magically illuminated staff (and the LC has already indicated that they should call off the search). OK, none of the characters have names or personalities, but they're also all first level characters in the players first dungeon. I don't think my initial forays had much by way of those either.

From:

(I confess I tend to focus overmuch on callers, because it was and still is such a "WTF?" convention to me - none of my groups ever used them. Or weapon speed or AC modifiers ... O NOES we're DOIN IT WRONG!)

From:

My groups didn't use them either, but we also a)didn't come from a wargaming background and b) were more willing to engage in pointless "you said you did this" "No I didn't" arguments in the 5th grade. I can easily see how more adult players with a more formalized mindset would see the presence of a "first among equals" player giving the final description of actions to the GM could be a benefit.

Memory does not serve is callers are described in the Red and Blue box D&D sets, and alas I no longer have my copies.

From:

What part did EGG and Arneson supply, in your opinion?

From: