1) The connection between the assumption of a characters personality or "role" to the formalized mechanics of action resolution in wargaming.
2) The right of the players to set their own goals and agenda independent from those of the scenario moderator.
3) The ongoing development of the assumed role character through multiple, theoretically endless sessions of play.
4) The standardization of a set of rules for such play, and the publication of same to a broad national audience. This last is just as much of a leap of inspiration as any of the above.
MAR Barker was a teacher at their school and built off their concepts. Steve Perrin designed the RuneQuest engine as his D&D house rules. Greg Stafford turned his Glorantha setting into an RPG because the war-game players wanted to use the setting for that. All of these early work sprang from not just the intiial 3 points but the collection of them in point 4. Without that, we don't have RPGs, and we might never have had them outside of a brief span at the University of Minnesota in the late 60's and early 70s.
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Date: 2008-03-11 04:39 pm (UTC)2) The right of the players to set their own goals and agenda independent from those of the scenario moderator.
3) The ongoing development of the assumed role character through multiple, theoretically endless sessions of play.
4) The standardization of a set of rules for such play, and the publication of same to a broad national audience. This last is just as much of a leap of inspiration as any of the above.
MAR Barker was a teacher at their school and built off their concepts. Steve Perrin designed the RuneQuest engine as his D&D house rules. Greg Stafford turned his Glorantha setting into an RPG because the war-game players wanted to use the setting for that. All of these early work sprang from not just the intiial 3 points but the collection of them in point 4. Without that, we don't have RPGs, and we might never have had them outside of a brief span at the University of Minnesota in the late 60's and early 70s.