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Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

A History Of Pen & Paper RPGs 44

Posted by simoniker from the from-70's-geeks-to-00's-geeks dept.
Thanks to Skotos.net for their column discussing a brief history of tabletop role-playing games, as the author, aided by resources such as the Pen & Paper RPG database, charts the evolution of the RPG from 'character modelling' in the earliest titles ("...the purpose was to create statistics, abilities, and rules which could be used to depict a character"), through 'character development' in the original 1974 Dungeons & Dragons ("Instead of having static characters, players were offered ways for their characters to evolve and change"), right up to the 'story telling' emphasis in the '80s and beyond ("player investment in individual characters was dramatically reduced in exchange for telling better stories.")
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A History Of Pen & Paper RPGs More

A History Of Pen & Paper RPGs

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  • Rifts (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zarthrag ( 650912 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @06:29PM (#6874527)
    Rifts is the supreme pizza with extra anchovies of the RPG world, period. *anything* can happen in Rifts. And how can you not love the magic versus technology theme???

    • Re:Rifts (Score:3, Interesting)

      by shadowcabbit ( 466253 ) *
      Rifts is good-- but the massive amounts of arcane and complex rules turned me off after a while. d20 Modern's Urban Arcana is a pretty good take on the magic/technology thing as an alternative.
  • You should check out Shadowrun. http://www.shadowrunrpg.com or, check out these Shadowrun forums: http://invision.dumpshock.com/
  • I've always wondered why it was that I never got into table top RPG's. After all, I'm an enormous geek (I'm here after all); how did I resist the lure of the twenty sided dice? Then I took a stroll over to the Pen & Paper RPG database to take a look around. The Army of Darkness RPG caught my eye. Clicked the link. They wanted $35! The movie only cost me ten bucks, and it had better acting. Taking a look at how much they get for books and dice, it all makes sense. I didn't get into RPGs because

    • Re:Oh, yeah, that's why (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tommertron ( 640180 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @06:49PM (#6874685) Homepage Journal
      They wanted $35! The movie only cost me ten bucks, and it had better acting.

      Dude, $35 for a tabletop set is a pretty good deal considering most PC or console games start at around $60, and those games only last 20 hours on average. Invest in a couple of books and dice and you've got basically infinite playing time.

      • Dude, $35 for a tabletop set is a pretty good deal considering most PC or console games start at around $60, and those games only last 20 hours on average.

        Actually, new video games normally start at $50, and there are hundreds of them available for $20 or less. The average of 20 hours strikes me as extremely low, but it's the kind of stat that's pretty much impossible to know.

        Invest in a couple of books and dice and you've got basically infinite playing time.

        Quality of entertainment is much, much mor

        • Re:Oh, yeah, that's why (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Golias ( 176380 )
          Quality of entertainment is much, much more important than length of entertainment

          I agree wholeheartedly.

          That's why I'd rather own any one version of D&D than every "Baldur's Gate" computer game ever made. No computer game can compare to the infinite variety of pencil-and-paper gaming.

          Oh yea, and you can get more length of entertainment, as well as more quality of entertainment, out of any RPG than you can out of any existing computer game. Unless you are one of those people that think re-playing

  • Make your own paper and pen RPG (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @07:28PM (#6874984)
    I don't know if history will ever note or realize it, but people have been forming their own paper and pen RPGs privately and secretly for years now. A friend of mine has a DM who modified the rules of D&D to have new skills, spells and races complete with stats, rules and background information. Now if someone is willing to spend the time to do that, theres bound to be someone who wrote up an entire paper and pen game if paper and pen RPGs have been around that long.

  • Don't forget Flying Buffalo (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TerryAtWork ( 598364 ) <research@aceretail.com> on Thursday September 04, 2003 @07:35PM (#6875033)
    They were running PBM games back when computers were for the very few.

    When the net came along I thought well there goes Flying Bufflo, but no - they're still around - and on the net.

    • You know... years ago, when I was young and careless, I took a look at PBeM and tought "what a bore... play a turn and wait forever for the next one". But now that I have to deal with REAL LIFE (read work) it looks like they just might fit the bill! I can't afford to play for hours in one sitting any more.

      Flying Buffalo. I'll definitely will be checking them. Anyone has more PBM or non-realtime games recommendations? Heck, I'll probably take a look at that fantasy football again.

      Those interested
    • I actually have discussed Flying Buffalo in a previous article. This one, part of a series on how to design strategy games, talks about the evolution of web games, and points toward Flying Buffalo and other PBMs as the first step: Strategic Introductions: Web Games [skotos.net]
  • All kenzerco fans unite and tell these unwashed heathens to play Hackmaster! The best roleplaying game out there. Come on gaming geeks. . .this article should be burned in the flames of one game/author/company verus another. Down with Diceless! WOTC should burn!

  • The handbooks are a good deal these days. (Score:5, Informative)

    by IM6100 ( 692796 ) <elben@mentar.org> on Thursday September 04, 2003 @08:42PM (#6875388)
    I just looked, and all the old AD&D handbooks are a good deal these days on eBay. I don't have a complete set (actually, all I have is the 2nd ed. Player's Handbook) but I think I'll put together a set. When those fine books can be had for $6-8 each, it's time to spend fifty bucks or so and have a bit of history. It's the kind of material that's at bottom right now and probably won't ever be cheaper. And I looked a bit ago at what they're asking for the new edition handbooks that (apparently) just came out. Ouch!
    • Don't always count on the advertised price being what you'll pay for the actual book. I recently picked up the 3.5 versions of the Monster Manual and Player's Handbook for just under $20 each; and I was surprised to find the Forgotten Realms 3rd edition setting book at EB for $20 (after pre-ordering FFTA, I had $9 credit left over, so I snagged it for $11-- bear in mind YMMV). Plus other outlets like Amazon et al may have discounts; or if you frequent a local hobby store (which, luckily, there is in my ar
  • About a year ago, I shoved my name into Google and was suprised to come across an entry for myself [pen-paper.net] in the Pen and Paper RPG database [pen-paper.net] from an article I wrote for Dragon Annual 5. I never bothered trying to update them with my bio or the other articles I wrote for Dragon because I figured no one ever read the thing.

    Since this posting is the first reference I ever came across for the PPRPGDB, I'm wondering if perhaps I should take a couple of minutes and update the entry. Does anyone out there actually use

  • Some interesting omissions (Score:5, Informative)

    by Allen Varney ( 449382 ) on Friday September 05, 2003 @01:33AM (#6876966) Homepage

    I worked in the adventure gaming field from 1984 until 1997, and then sporadically thereafter. I started at Steve Jackson Games, editing Space Gamer magazine under Warren Spector, and later freelanced for many paper game companies. This article does a decent job, for its length, of conveying the broad development of "core game design" mechanics. But I notice some odd oversights:

    • RuneQuest. The article's slighting of the first significant skill-based system (unless you count Ken St. Andre's Tunnels & Trolls) is a grave distortion. Steve Perrin's RQ is a landmark in RPG mechanical design, for many reasons beyond its "universal model" aspect.
    • TOON and Paranoia. From the article: "Traditionally, since their advent in 1973, RPGs had offered up the idea that the rules were the ultimate authority in a game and couldn't be spontaneously added to on the spot. Ars Magica (1988) was one of the first games to change this." Not even! Greg Costikyan's TOON, The Cartoon Roleplaying Game (developed by Warren Spector and me) and Paranoia (which Greg developed with Eric Goldberg and Ken Rolston from a setting by Dan Gelber) both appeared in 1985. They completely blew away the "rules authority" attitude in a way Ars Magica never matched. Both sold tons more copies than Ars Magica, too, at least in its first couple of editions. This installment of the article glosses over Paranoia (calling it a "storytelling game" -- really?) and ignores TOON completely.
    • Weird White Wolf views. Of all the reasons to single out Mark Rein-Hagen's breakthrough Vampire: The Masquerade as a "consistent model" pioneer, this article chooses how it "break down the artificial distinction between attribute and skill rankings." Uh, okay. I know the article focuses on "core game design," but trying to establish the state of the art in RPGs on the basis of "the exact same scale for skills, relationships, personality traits, magic, combat, and even items" is nearsighted and excessively reductionist. On that basis, the author should have discussed instead the one-table systems of the mid-'80s, such as Greg Gorden's DC Heroes and the Pacesetter line.
    • "Character Modeling Games." From the article: "[T]he first branch of the RPG tree was a style of game that lasted only a couple of years as a serious design meme, and which was eventually totally overcome by character development games. These early character modeling games placed as their goal the accurate portrayal of some character in a game environment. There was no opportunity for growth or change, simply a static existence. There's very little to say about this branch, because it so quickly dead-ended." Insofar as this distinction has merit, I could argue that, functionally, all the GDW roleplaying games (Twilight: 2000, Dark Conspiracy, etc.) amounted to this kind of design, whatever arbitrary advancement mechanics the designers tacked on as afterthoughts.
      But even if you disagree, the field has always enjoyed a tremendous ongoing current of small-press one-shot RPGs, what you might call the "short stories" of the form. Nowadays you find many such designers active on the Forge [indie-rpgs.com], the Burgess Shale of modern small-press RPG design. See, for example, the much-praised Little Fears [key20.com], Universalis [actionroll.com], The Riddle of Steel [theriddleofsteel.net], and Sorcerer [sorcerer-rpg.com], as well as curiosities like Bedlam [realms.org.uk], Courts & Corsets [harlekin-maus.com], octaNe [memento-mori.com], and Nicotine Girls [123.net]. And for a twisted mix of horror, humor, and emotion both high and low, check out Paul Czege's My Life With Maste
    • I agree, omission of RuneQuest is a big mistake. Personally, I have been a game master from 1989 (with one game spawning 13 years), and most of my games and game systems had some RuneQuest influence.
      (The one thing I consistenty hated was melee and strike rounds, they are too mechaninc and take too much time.)

      For a longer history of Role Playing Games with a different approach, see RPG History by Astinus">. I was very much surprised by the quality (and length!) of these articles! [ptgptb.org]
    • In college, I probably ran Paranoia campaigns more than any other game system. I loved it. One of my favorite elements of the rules was (Warning: Security Clearance Ultraviolet! If you ever intend to play Paranoia and have not game-mastered, reading further is treason!) the way the rule book specifically insisted that you should reward bravado. Any time somebody tries to do something suicidally stupid that just... might... work, the gamemaster was expected to throw the rules out the window, pretend to
      • I had Paranoia games that killed off the entire party

        Oh yes, Paranoia was - in a way - more a "player killing game" than a "story telling game"... No other game had me spend more time on character creation.
      • Paranoia! is still being played on the net, thanks to a nifty little Java program named (oddly enough) JParanoia [byronbarry.com].

        You can look for games/players that use JParanoia on paranoia-live.net [paranoia-live.net] or paranoia-rpg.com [paranoia-rpg.com]

        (Paranoia-Live.net being the better of the two sites.)
    • RuneQuest: I've purposefully left the question of character modeling to the second article, and you should thus see it in about a week. RQ's skill-based mechanics are definitely an issue to bring up, but as far as I can tell they weren't the innovator. Traveller did it in 1977 while RuneQuest wasn't released until 1978. Granted, RQ took a step further back from class-based modeling, but the skills were all there in Traveller. Toon: I'll definitely cop to leaving out Toon due to lack of familiarity and woul
  • After playing various forms of D&D for several years, two of my friends and I spent many, many, many months writing, play-testing, hoaning, and re-writing our own revised game system. We had a couple hundred pages of rules, tables, etc. all nicely formatted and printed off of an old TRS-80 computer on an imapct printer (weren't the 80's fun?!?) We created a system that made sense, was easy to use, yet provided for great realism and believability. We were very close to wanting to market it when Steve Jac

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